Thursday, June 08, 2006

For Charity: Spirit Bears in the City

British Columbia towns and cities are exhibiting 'Spirit Bears In The City', fiber-glass bears that have been decorated by artists. Modeled after other successful community art projects, such as Chicago's 'Cows on Parade', Toronto's 'Moose in the City' and Tucson's 'Painted Ponies', the BC project benefits the BC Lions Society's Easter Seal Operations and the Canucks for Kids Fund.

There are many bears situated around Vancouver. We first learned about the project when we passed by Darth Bear.








Two bears are placed next to the Fountain Plaza by our hotel. We could see them from our hotel window.








Several bears have First Nation native themes.








9 comments:

Kay Cooke said...

Aren't they great?

Cyn Bagley said...

These were great. Actually we have a real black bear that shows up at the capitol grounds about every few weeks. Last time, he was caught in a tree right outside the capital buildings. Every time they catch him, he gets grumpier.

Carson City has 55,000 people, so sometimes I wonder how he slips through the city... but he does.

Mary said...

Wonderful. London did a similar thing a few years ago with cows ....

I prefer bears!

kerrdelune said...

Gotta love 'em. There was an ardent campaign here in Canada to create and maintain a conservancy/protectorate for the spirit bears of Princess Royal Island, and I was absolutely jubilant when we won. They are amazing creatures and to see them sculpted and painted as part of the exhibits - well that IS a rare treat.

sonia a. mascaro said...

Amazing!

tai haku said...

they had Lions in the city when I was in Singapore - disappointing lack of star wars themed entries there though.

Cyn Bagley said...

I forgot to mention that I think it was 2002.. Kaiserslautern Germany had painted fish all over the city. The name Kaiserslautern means Kaiser's purity... or in otherwords... Kaiser's favorite fishing hole. :-)

Taradharma said...

I love the bears! Our town had painted ponies as well.


Enjoying the photos of your hotel, view from the hotel, the city, everything. It's fun to come along via the magic of cyber space!

Jeff said...

Nice pictures, and good work on spreading awareness.

I'm doing my part with a photo series at: http://spiritbears.jeffrose.ca - I've got a lot of them, with the benefit of living here for easy updates.

I also did the same with the orcas a couple of years ago http://orcas.jeffrose.ca