As roadside attractions go, the sculptures created by Stewart Steinhauer are surprising and hard to pass by.
"People say, 'I was driving by and I couldn't go further. I had to stop, turn around, I had to go back,'" the 73-year-old said, while standing next to his four granite sculptures, displayed just off a rural highway at the Saddle Lake Cree Nation in northeast Alberta.
Steinhauer, who was born and raised on the reserve about 180 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, established this public exhibition site along the edge of his property at Highway 36 and Range Road 121 to spark interest in Indigenous culture.
He set up the installation several years ago "so I could showcase my large work," he said.
For motorists driving along the two-lane highway through the rolling hills and fields dotted with hay bails, the gleaming stone sculpture seem to come out of nowhere. And they're too big to miss.
A view of the pieces currently on display at Steinhauer's roadside art installation. (Dave Bajer/CBC)
How large? The pieces on display weigh 62,000 kilograms — about the same as 10 full-grown African elephants or one very large armoured tank.
The granite sculptor says the four pieces are worth almost $1.7 million.
Steinhauer has been a stone sculptor for more than 50 years, with works prominently displayed across western Canada and into the United States.
This Steinhauer sculpture, completed in 2024, is called Turtle Island Stories. (Adrienne Lamb/CBC)
"My clients aren't wealthy individuals," he said. "My clients are collections of common people who don't have the cash to buy a $200,000 piece individually but they can raise the money as a collective" for display in community centres, parks and other public spaces like universities and airports.
He routinely loans his pieces out to communities, assuming all transportation and installation costs, risks and liabilities. In many cases, citizens grow to love the pieces in the community and will purchase them, he said.
It's a strategy the self-taught artist said he successfully employed for the past decade.
WATCH | Check out the sculptures and behind-the-scenes processes of Stewart Steinhauer: Stories from stone: How these granite sculptures are speaking Indigenous truth Duration 3:24 Three-year-old Lily-Ann Steinhauer plays on one of her grandfather's sculptures on Saddle Lake Cree Nation in northeast Alberta. The work of Stewart Steinhauser can be found across western Canada and into the United States. Here's what he's hoping for now.
"I can't win commissions, I don't have the skills to enter competitions so I have to figure out how to build large pieces, put them on display, show them to the public and over time develop a client base."
His lack of formal training makes his work all the more incredible, according to his son, Ben Steinhauer, Saddle Lake's cultural education co-ordinator.
"There's not this huge drawing process ... or trying to figure out all of these things," he said. "You just take a block, you turn it into that."
The 30-year-old said after efforts to erase everything to do with Indigenous history, culture and language, these granite pieces — made of the same stone as the Earth's crust — will stand the test of time.
"These things will last 10,000 years, they're still going to look like this. We're leaving messages in a way, for those who aren't here yet, to remember who Indigenous people were."
Ben Steinhauer, the Saddle Lake Cree Nation's cultural education co-ordinator, has been surrounded by his father's work all his life. (Adrienne Lamb/CBC)
Stewart Steinhauer said it isn't easy to get the stone to reveal its stories and said it can take a physical toll.
However, he considers himself an instrument not an artist.
"I can't draw or sketch," he says, "I'm working with the Rock Grandmother and, in my humble opinion, she's the one doing all the design work and I'm carrying out the task."
According to Steinhauer, Cree teachings say the Creator instructed the Rock Grandmother "to help fragile humanity in their attempts to communicate with one another."
Stewart Steinhauer works on a bear sculpture at his workshop on the Saddle Lake Cree Nation in northeast Alberta. (Adrienne Lamb/CBC)
"Art opens up a dialogue about current or past issues," says Jackie Bugera, director of Bearclaw Gallery in Edmonton, "and a Steinhauer sculpture does just that."
For the past 50 years, the gallery has been showcasing Canadian Indigenous artists including notables like Daphne Odjig, Alex Janvier and Jason Carter.
She considers Steinhauer's work "exceptional and impactful."
And Bugera believes the roadside invitation "to stop by, take some time and quietly explore," is a step along the journey toward reconciliation.
[SRC] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/rural-alberta-roadside-sculpture-exhibit-a-step-toward-indigenous-reconciliation-1.7645667
