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To Cut or Not To Cut

Number on Map

15

Artist

John Beachli

Material

Local Granite

Installation Date

August 1, 2006

Haliburton County has a long history of men working in the forest, in logging camps—such those run by Mossom Boyd—or cutting timber on their own land and also a history of sons learning skills from their fathers as they helped them with their work. This sculpture, carved out of local stone recovered from rock blasted from the Pre-Cambrian shield at a nearby building site, tells the story of a man and his son having a conversation over the stump of a tree that has just been felled. “To Cut or Not to Cut” is about the conversations that occur when a son is working with his father. It is also a representation of the never-ending push and pull of our relationship with the forest. We need the timber for building shelter, for heat, for a thousand different reasons; we also need the forests to conserve our environment, to protect our water, to provide habitat and to purify the air. How do you decide what to cut and what not to cut? 

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Land Acknowledgment

We would like to acknowledge that we are located on ancestral lands, the traditional territory of the Mississauga Anishinaabe covered by the Williams Treaties. This area, known to the Anishinaabe as “Gidaaki”, has been inhabited for thousands of years – as territories for hunting, fishing, gathering and growing food.


For thousands of years Indigenous people have been the stewards of this place. The intent and spirit of the treaties that form the legal basis of Canada bind us to share the land “for as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the rivers flow”.

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To find out more about all of the extraordinary things to see and do in the Haliburton Highlands in every season click here!

Location:

297 College Drive
Haliburton, ON K0M 1S0
Tel:

(705) 457-3555

Email:

info@haliburtonsculptureforest.ca

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© 2023 Haliburton Sculpture Forest

Images © 2021 Kristy L. Bourgeois | Youkie Stagg | Angus Sullivan | Noelle Dupret Smith | Teodora Vukosavljevic | Nadia Pagliaro

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