MODL's Art on the Trail was started in 2017 by the municipality's Active Living Coordinator.
The vision was to have a local artist design, plan, create, and install public art on municipal trails to encourage outdoor physical activity while connecting trail users and art.
We hope that showcasing a specific art piece along the trail will create a new or renewed perspective of the trail for residents and visitors, while also promoting the trail and our local art community.
Bay to Bay Trail – (Mahone Bay to Lunenburg) hosts the Riverbank Habitat by artist Gillian Maradyn-Jowsey.
Funded by a grant from the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the environmental sculptures were inspired by the stacked wood seen throughout Lunenburg County. Created using wood from a local woodlot owner and fallen trees on the site, the sculptures were assembled over a three-week period in the fall of 2018. Small colourful discs on the end of a few logs add a spot of colour. The art is visible from the footbridge across Martins Brook, and intended to beautify and create a destination for those walking the Bay to Bay Trail in Martin’s Brook. This living public art installation will change, break down and eventually return to the earth.
Adventure Trail – (Bridgewater to Mahone Bay) hosts RISE, designed and created by Samantha Battaglia, a local artist, and landscape designer.
RISE is a living public art installation made of planted willow, natural groundcovers, and locally harvested brush. As a living sculpture, its many stalks will broaden, grow taller and develop into a vertical, woven trunk. RISE mirrors the phenomenon of ‘canopy shyness’ where the tops of trees don’t meet each other, creating a tree canopy with a network of circular gaps. The form is inspired by these round shapes and the shadows cast by branches on the forest floor.
Dynamite Trail - (Martin's River to Mahone Bay) hosts High Tide by artist Erin Philp.
High Tide is a collection of three sculptures mounted in trees along an inlet of the Narrows Basin. The sculptures are based on the classic ‘Lunenburg Dory’ design and were constructed using lofting lines from the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic. The hardy Lunenburg dory was historically used in combination with Grand Banks schooners, like the Bluenose, to fish the Atlantic Coast and is an integral part of the Maritime history and fishing traditions of the South Shore of Nova Scotia.
Gliding through the trees, the High Tide collection of dories takes this recognizable form, constructed using traditional methods and locally sourced materials like pine, hackmatack and black locust and elevates the vessels into a new and surprising relationship with their environment, highlighting and celebrating these simple, yet enchanting boats.
High Tide was imagined and constructed by Erin Philp, a local artist, woodworker, and shipwright. Much of her work revolves around playful reinterpretations of nautical vessels and themes that draw on her love of sailing and Maritime history, as well as the natural beauty of the local coastal landscape.
We also have a nature pathway located at the MARC, called Panikiskiaq (pronounced phonetically as Ban-ee-gis-gee-okh) which means "Sun Beams Through" in mi'kmawi'simk. Please click here for more information.