Kluane National Park art installation startles camper

An art installation in Kluane National Park and Reserve is taking hikers and campers by surprise and being hailed as a "perfect symbolism of the Yukon irony."

In an old miner's cabin near the Tachä̀l Dhäl (Sheep Mountain) Visitor Centre, a mannequin dressed as an elder is propped in front of a computer. On the computer, a Windows message reads "Error: Cultural identity not found."

The elder can either "accept changes" or "try again."

Murray Lundberg recently stumbled across the artwork while camping.

"All of a sudden I saw this woman, in shadow, half-hidden by the trees. It's quite startling because you're there by yourself," he says.

Lundberg peered closer and saw the computer. He says he appreciates the artist's message.

"I find it intriguing," he says.

"I posted the picture on Facebook and one of the comments was that it's the perfect symbolism of the Yukon irony. The traditional and the modern. I think it's brilliant." 

Yukon artist Kelly Wroot is behind the installation.

"I've always been a fan of street art and wanted to have something to do with street art," he says.

"I happened to come across the ingredients for this installation."

He says the plaster-and-rebar mannequin was originally commissioned for the Kluane Museum of Natural History in the 1980s. All faces were cast from community members.

They were taken down in the late 1990s since they had become damaged by weather.

"I was thinking a lot about the struggle of the native community to integrate culture into technology and vice-versa," Wroot says.  

"It kind of happened that she ended up in the park, which I thought was fitting. There's the same struggle to integrate culture into the park and integrate the park into the First Nation lifestyle and do that with technology." ​

​Wroot says he's got five of the old museum mannequins at his home. 

"There are others and they might pop up," he says.