In October, NAIT became home to nine animals that might be considered rescues.
Making up the menagerie is a grizzly bear, cougar, black bear, yak, owl, hawk, deer, moose and a wolf. Currently, they coexist in a room in the basement of Main Campus, peacefully and quietly because, well, they're not alive. They haven't been for years.
The taxidermy is a gift from Goldeye Centre. For 65 years, the facility has hosted summer camps and offered outdoor activities and education in the Rockies near the town of Nordegg. Since the early '80s it's also been the base for field training for Conservation Biology students.
But in December 2022, Goldeye temporarily shut its doors to address infrastructure issues such as shallow sewer lines and asbestos abatement. But the closure also gave its live-in operators, Lanny Anderson and Cyrena Quinn (with their two young daughters), the chance to return the facility to its origins as an authentic nature retreat, a status that had been eroded by a focus on events.
In the process, they realized that the stuffed animals, perhaps ironically, no longer had a place at Goldeye, where they gathered dust as dining room decorations.
"They were seen more as interior design furnishings to create a cabin-y, rustic experience rather than what they were intended to be," says Anderson, "which is an educational piece."
This story was originally featured in techlifetoday, click here to read the full article.
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11762-106 Street N.W.
Edmonton Alberta
Canada T5G 2R1
www.nait.ca
