The big day has arrived, the Totem Pole is making it's way from it's current home at the official residence of the Ambassador from Canada, to the Benaki Museum where it will be restored in front of a public audience. The tensions were a little bit high this morning, because we wanted everything to go perfectly.
The movers arrived and assessed the situation, the first priority was to make sure the pole was in no danger of being damaged, so a layer of padding was added. This layer was added to make sure that all of the hands needed to move this very large and very heavy piece of art would not scuff or scratch the delicate surface.
As soon as it was wrapped up tight, the nerve wracking moment started. Slowly the Pole was lowered to the ground where it could be wrapped with even more padding, and eventually moved to a crate waiting near the moving truck. The piece could not be crated on site because the crate was too large to move onto the property.
The move across the property was smooth, slow and calculated.
Fortunately the Totem Pole made it safely where it was gentle placed in its crate ready for the ride to the Benaki Museum.
The ride to the Benaki museum went very smoothly and the Totem seems to be in fine condition in the crate, however a new problem has arisen...
It appears that the Totem Pole has become the home for a colony of ants. With the infestation the Totem Pole cannot be brought into the final room at the Benaki Museum where the repairs are to be done. Instead the Totem Pole will have to be stored in a storage room for a little while and fumigated to get rid of the ants.
This delay should not affect the repairs and restoration of the Totem Pole since they where not scheduled to start until early October. We'll post more details about the fumigation as it happens.
Here's a bonus YouTube video showing a time-lapse of the Totem Pole takedown.
The Totem Pole in Attica project is an interactive look at the restoration of a piece of Canadian aboriginal art now located in Athens Greece. This blog, along with our Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube sites will allow anybody a glimpse at the history, present, and future of this piece of art that now plays the role of Ambassador for Canada in Greece.
In the coming months this site will tell you more about this beautiful totem pole originally carved by Chief Tony Hunt more than 30 years ago. We will keep you up to date on the current restoration project designed to return this pole to it's original glory. There are going to be many opportunities for anybody visiting Greece to see this pole and the restoration work in progress first hand, and we will keep you up to date on where and how you can do this.
