From Canada's MacLeans magazine - not online - "Draft and dodge controversy":
| The Welcoming Peace Sculpture, featuring a Canadian greeting U.S. draft dodgers, was commissioned by a Nelson, B.C., resident for an anti-war festival. But when some U.S. veterans threatened a tourism boycott against the town, Nelson city council said it couldn’t go on public land. Then, there were rumors that nearby Castlegar and its peace-loving Doukhobor residents were going to take it off Nelson’s hands. But now, the matter has been settled and the statue will sit in ht front yard of Ernest Hekkanen, a draft dodger from Seattle who lives in Nelson. (The final nine-foot bronze will be unveiled in July). |
The sculpture shows a man (a Canadian?) warmly greeting another man (an American draft dodger?) while a woman looks nervously behind her shoulder. This symbolic gesture of pandering to traitors was fortunately nixed by worthy Canadians and Americans.
Ernest Hekkanen can keep his garden troll, if he wishes.