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Buildings, we seldom see them as statements; of course not, they are things to be used, worked in. Still, look at City Hall. To me it's a statement about the 'pulp mill era' in Rupert; say the time from 1950 to 1980.
Take the totem poles. Read tourist attraction. Copies of poles "saved" from villages on the Queen Charlotte Islands. Their fading paint job owing to the sensibilities of their duplicator, William Jeffrey, in the early sixties. Totem poles: cedar, salmon based cultures of a romantic, but distant and irrelevant past.
Then there is the Hays statue: a totem of a different sort. Head of the Grand Trunk Railroad he is
the "founder" of Prince Rupert. The city would surely
have grown and prospered if he just hadn't perished
on the Titanic, or so the story goes. Note the materials:
the statue is cast with a technology learned while
perfecting cannons. Hays is the embodiment of the
Iron and Steam era that ended with WWI.
On the other side of City Hall is the Italian community fountain. Not wood, nor metal, but stone. Heirs of Roman civilization whose edifices still dot Europe. The rock walls accepts the role immigrants have played in the economy, though inside city hall it is still the old Stock that dominates.
City Hall is still really Peter Lester's house. Mayor for over three decades his presence is only now waning.
Behind City Hall is the Federal Building with memories that Liberal patronage from the Laurier era till the recent past has been crucial for this transcontinental terminus.
Farther back is The Mall. The epitome of the pulp mill era's aspirations. Suburbs with expensive homes, lawns, and cars.A factory, consumer, car orientated world view.
That is one axis of Rupert: city hall to mall; the other is along 3rd Avenue. This is the older main street. Shops that have been in the family for generations. Still mom and pop franchises. Trying to cope in the nineties.
So there you have it -- a snap shot of Prince Rupert.