The iconic Smithers Alpine Man statue is in need of refurbishment.
A report to council this week from the Director of Works Roger Smith states that the fibreglass shell on the statue has deteriorated enough to allow moisture in “which subsequently froze in the winter, expanded and caused cracks to form in the fibreglass shell.”
As a result, Mayor Taylor Bachrach says Alpine Al will be coming down in the fall.
“We want to leave him up through the summer because of the of the tourist season, once that’s over our staff are going to remove the Alpinehorn Man in the fall and take him into the shop and dry him out and patch up the fibreglass”
However Bachrach noted this is just a temporary fix.
“The life span on this statue is not very long and at some point we are going to have to look at replacing it. So we had a brief discussion as council about what the options might be and whether we might be going back to a wood statue as opposed to a fibreglass one.”
“Obviously there are a lot of people who cherish the Alpinehorn Man and we are going to fix him up for now but longer term we are going to have to look at our options.”
Bachrach joked that people can go “wish him luck on his surgery” this summer. The statue will be back up in place in time for summer 2017.