THUNDER BAY – Repairs to many of the hand-carved horses of the century-old carousel at Chippewa Park will be more significant than initially expected, though there is optimism the 14 that had been slated to be restored this winter will be back in place for June.
The horses have been stripped to their foundations to provide a clearer picture of the scope of work required to restore the horses as close as possible to their original condition.
Iain Angus, a Thunder Bay city councillor and the project manager for the carousel restoration, said critters had been found to be inhabiting the inside of one or two of the hollow horses, while many others had more advanced delamination and had been affected by previous, short-term repairs.
“The condition of the horses is much more severe than any of us thought,” Angus said on Tuesday at city hall, where one of the horses was brought to demonstrate the extent of the required fix.
“All of those things have combined to deal with the reality that these horses need a lot of work to bring them back to factory condition and more importantly to bring them back to a condition where they will last for another 100 years.”
Lisa Parr, a carousel restoration expert based in the United States, said each horse would have likely been built in a couple of days but attempting to restore them to their old glory could take weeks.
“You can’t just take it apart and put it back together. You have to take it apart, replace the pieces that are missing and then put it back together the way it was,” Parr said.
“That’s what takes the time. Rather than throw the piece away, you need to save what’s already there because that’s what it makes it original. You don’t just put it all back together and glue them. You put one on and glue that, then you put the next one on and glue that.”
The carousel, which was built between 1918 and 1920, was acquired by the former town of Fort William in 1934 when a travelling carnival that had been in the community went bankrupt.
Thunder Bay city council designated the carousel as a heritage property in 1991.
The cost of the refurbishment has been pegged at $650,000, part of a total $1.5 million price tag for a project that includes a structure to protect the carousel from the elements.
This year's city budget includes $100,000, with another $100,000 forecasted over the coming years. As well, the federal government pitched in $100,000 through FedNor.
“It costs money, no question about it,” Angus said. “It would be really cheap to just carve a bunch of new horses but it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t be the horse that I rode on as a five-year-old or others rode on in the (1930s) or (1940s).”
The merry-go-round is one of only three C.W. Parker original carousels still operational in North America.
Parr said when she encounters a horse of this age, it's typically dismantled in a box.
“This is a small miracle. It’s because the staff at the park did such a good job all this time keeping these animals together it’s able to be restored at all," Parr said.
