Bringing the Carousel Back To Life

Q: How do you restore a 106-year old Carousel to its original condition?

A: Simple: you bring together the best heritage experts with the best local artisans and add a big dash of community support. That’s what’s been happening with the Chippewa Park Carousel.

The Friends of Chippewa Park was established in 2001, and one of the things it did was create a Carousel Restoration Committee to oversee the project. This Committee is comprised of residents who are passionate about preserving the carousel for the enjoyment of future generations.

To ensure the highest standards were being met, a Heritage Standards and Records committee was created to oversee the technical aspects of the restoration process. Chaired by the curator of the Thunder Bay Historical Museum, it includes representatives from the City’s Heritage Advisory Committee, an archeologist, artistic advisors, and City personnel. If the work was going to be done, it had to be done well.

 The team consulted with Lisa Parr from Illinois, the top carousel restoration expert in North America, to determine what could be restored and what needed to be replaced. The most intricate task would be the restoration of the 28 horses.

Pierre Blais Enterprises was selected to strip the paint. Following Parr’s directions,  attachments such as horseshoes, stirrups, jewels, eyes, bits, etc. were removed and stored, with the number of each horse noted. Over weeks, the paint was slowly and carefully stripped away and the locations of hidden jewels exposed. Thus, the horses’ original colours and adornments were painstakingly revealed.

Once the horses were stripped, a team lead by Vic Germaniuk at Woodcraft Design began the restoration process itself. A plan for each horse was developed, guided by Parr’s restoration and conservation manual.

The wooden horses are hollow and due to age and external humidity, the wood had warped in many places. As there was no way to squeeze the horse back to the correct shape, the gaps required filling. The instructions from Parr were clear: any filler used had to exactly match the original construct. It was a very labour-intensive process.

Portions of the attachments on some horses had become loose. To stabilize them, wooden dowels were inserted. In other cases, parts had broken off or been damaged. These had to carve anew and attached once again to the horses. Sometimes it took as many as 35 hours to carve a single section of a horse’s mane.

Sanding and painting came next. A number of primer coats were applied with sanding after each application, followed by clear coats of varathane. The re-insertion of the jewels along the sides of the horse’s bodies is the final step that will be done this year.  This will mark the complete restoration of all 28 horses.

But it hasn’t been just the horses that needed attention: every piece of the carousel, from the 16 carved mirror frames, 32 carved dragons, 16 sets of branches and 16 flowers were all beyond restoration and had to be recreated. So too were the floorboards, the centre column, the original engine, the organ, and all the painted panels.

The Chippewa Park Carousel is only one of three of its kind left in the world. The successful restoration of the Carousel will enable residents to know and appreciate the benefits of this age-old craftsmanship for generations to come.

Next week: The Community Steps Up