Two granite bear sculptures by Cree artist Stewart Steinhauer are adding more Indigenous stories and teachings to Okanagan College campuses in Kelowna and Penticton.
A bear mother and her cubs arrived at the College's Kelowna campus this spring while a second sculpture featuring a single grizzly bear was installed this summer at the Penticton campus. The sculptures reflect stories and teachings informed by Steinhauer's decades of living in Syilx territory.
Stewart Steinhauer's son, Jubi Steinhauer (right) and Curtis Morcom, CFO and Vice President, Corporate Services, Okanagan College (left) stand next to the sculpture in front of the Trades Building at Okanagan College's Kelowna campus.
Steinhauer, who is from Saddle Lake Cree Nation in northeastern Alberta's Treaty 6 Territory, has longstanding ties to the Okanagan and a strong connection to trades and skilled work. He has been carving stone for more than 50 years, and his work appears in public and private collections around the world. In the Okanagan, his public works can be found in Lake Country, Peachland and Summerland and at the Ki-Low-Na Friendship Society and Kelowna General Hospital.
"For me, carving granite is a ceremonial practice," said Steinhauer. "The spiritual being responsible for helping us communicate, whom I call the Rock Grandmother and who lives within Mother Earth, invites me to join her in ceremony."
Steinhauer's sculpture at Okanagan College's Kelowna campus, which he calls Senklip and Ki Low Na, draws on his time living in Okanagan Indian Band.
"In this sculpture, I'm relying on my own 25 years of living at Okanagan Indian Band to create, under my Rock Grandmother's supervision, a piece of sculpture that speaks to my own relationship with the Syilx People and their territory," added Steinhauer. "As an outsider, I feel gratitude for the time I spent here, and for what I learned during my time among the Syilx People."
The sculpture depicts Ki Low Na, the bear mother, in brown granite with a grizzly body form. She watches over her three cubs one black, one white and one red, a reference to European notions of race. Hidden among them is Senklip, the coyote trickster, who is disguised as a sibling bear cub and is seen teasing the cubs.
The works are part of Steinhauer's Bear Family Series, all of which include a Bear Mother figure.
At the Penticton campus, Steinhauer's Spirit of the Mountain Grizzly depicts a member of the mountain grizzly family. Unlike many of his sculptures, which represent spiritual beings in animal form that have never experienced physical life on Earth, this grizzly is depicted as a being that had an Earth life experience and has now passed on from the physical world. The grizzly sends a beam of spiritual energy to those in our world, encouraging them to live life to the fullest.
"We are proud to share Stewart's artwork at Okanagan College," said Okanagan College Dean of Students, Dr. James Coble. "The College is a place where Indigenous stories are not separate from learning. These sculptures create an opportunity for reflection and engagement with Indigenous ways of knowing in a respectful and visible way."
Students, employees and visitors are encouraged to visit the sculptures, located in front of the Trades Building at Okanagan College's Kelowna campus and in front of the Jim Pattison Centre of Excellence at the Penticton campus.
