A change of pace from thoughts of blizzards and nor’easters. Today while organizing photos for my upcoming lecture programs, I came across this funny random photo never posted. Read more about Nathan Wilson’s Great Auk sculpture and the extinct bird that inspired the installation at the Paint Factory this past summer here.
THE GREAT AUK BY MOONLIGHT
Posted on by Kimsmithdesigns
Published by Kimsmithdesigns
Documentary filmmaker, photographer, landscape designer, author, and illustrator. "Beauty on the Wing: Life Story of the Monarch Butterfly" currently airing on PBS. Current film projects include Piping Plovers, Gloucester's Feast of St. Joseph, and Saint Peter's Fiesta. Visit my websites for more information about film and design projects at kimsmithdesigns.com, monarchbutterflyfilm.com, and pipingploverproject.org. Author/illustrator "Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities! Notes from a Gloucester Garden." View all posts by Kimsmithdesigns
Good Morning Gloucester 
Love this. Charles Olson bemoaned the loss of the auk too. He had a copy of the 1890 Smithsonian publication, Expedition to Funk Island, which described the quest to find the skeletal remains of the birds and the remnants of odd fishermen/bird hunter stone huts. A letter writer in the Gloucester Telegraph (Aug. 21, 1839) described the cruel method by which the auk endured a slow death. He warned that we needed government regulation to prevent the disappearance of mackerel or it would be doomed to the fate of the “penguin.” He kept a stuffed “relic” to make his point to the younger generation. Olson also had a copy of Townsend’s Birds of Essex County. Townsend said the auk had an “awkward, forlorn dignity,” others marveled at the way it tumbled and rolled as it walked, captive, on shipboard. Though gone by 1850, one was said to have been caught in 1870 in New Bedford.
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Thank you Lise for writing about Charles Olson, so interesting to know– a great tragedy especially as so many knew at the time that the Great Auk was headed for extinction; measures taken were simply too little too late.
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Moonlight and upright – came a long way on this project standing tall still! 🙂 Dave & Kim 🙂
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I don’t think the Great Auk is still there Dave, the photo was taken last fall.
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