The Dawson Creek Art Gallery, the South Peace Art Society, and the City of Dawson Creek have been sponsoring a annual mural project in the business center of Dawson Creek since 2000. Each of the murals represents some aspect of the Building of the Alaska Highway and the community’s history relating to that important event. The murals are designed to enhance the alleyways of the downtown core and to provide an interesting experience for visitors to the community.
The first mural, depicting an historical street scene of Dawson Creek during the building of the highway, was designed by local artist Inez Demuynck and coordinated by the Art Gallery in 2000.
In 2001 the second mural was completed. This mural was designed by artist Calvin Kruk, featuring images of significant people and representational groups in the community’s history.
In 2002, Monica Da Ros and Terri LeGear completed a landscape mural on the north wall of Tiger Stationers. This work was a salute to the important farming economy of our region.
Two murals were completed in 2003. In the spring, a brightly colouredwork, designed by Yellowknife artist Dawn Oman, was installed on 102nd Ave. Dawn Oman worked with teacher Lorraine Beggs and the students from the Visual Arts program at South Peace Senior Secondary to create this wonderful image of the north.
Throughout the summer, Shannon Tilley and Terri LeGear completed three panels depicting scenes of the Building of Alaska Highway in 1942. Included in the project is a historical map of the route from Dawson Creek to Fairbanks Alaska, as well as images of the challenging terrain that met the men and machines that built the highway.
In the summer of 2004, an idea to beautify an empty lot downtown, a park was created by an anonymous workforce called the Guerilla Gardeners. Two murals were painted on the adjacent buildings. On the right side of the park, the wall has a mess tent with soldiers seated at a table eating rations, a map and a north arrow accompany it. On the left side of the park, a glimpse of the memorabilia of a soldiers life. A poem commemorating the Alaska Highway is also painted for all to see. The poem was written by a local artist, Shirley Ravelli. The murals were painted by Terri LeGear, Christina Qestreich, Shannon Tilley and Courtney McCracken.
In 2005 Shelly Mowat and Holly squires painted scenes from Old Town Dawson Creek.
People of the Community mural is a showcase of a cross section of ordinary people who developed this area. These folks and their claim to fame were chosen completely at random by the artists. There were many more characters in our history.
