Bear carving leaves Sunset Park

A landmark at New Dawn at Sunset Park Playground was given a new home Monday night. The tree trunk into which two bear outlines were carved in 2001 was sold by the Washington Parks Department at an auction in Washington for $70. Washington Park Board member Don Pfeiffer said the tree trunk had to be cut from its base earlier this year because its roots were rotten.

The trunk now belongs to Steve and Brenda Adrian of rural Washington. Steve said he hadn?t yet told his wife he acquired it as of Tuesday morning.

?I may have to sleep outside with it tonight,? he said jokingly. ?I?m happy to have it and get it preserved for people to see and enjoy. The park means a lot to us. It?s a really good place. Our kids were in 4-H and they helped out at the park. New Dawn was one of their projects.?

The trunk is about 9 feet tall and features a bear carved into one side and the words ?New Dawn? carved into the other side. The trunk once stood 16 feet tall and featured another, smaller bear, carved into the wood above the big bear. That was when the trunk was attached to its roots near New Dawn Playground. Parks employees had to cut off the little bear because the wood had begun to rot, and this past summer they cut the trunk from its roots.

The idea to carve two bears into the trunk of this tree came shortly after the tree lost its canopy in the tornado of 1998.

?That tornado came just one year after the New Dawn Playground was built,? Pfeiffer said. ?The tornado came right over Sunset Park to the east of the log cabin, and all those large trees in that area were flattened. As it got closer to New Dawn, the tornado started lifting and just took the top off this hard maple tree.?

Pfeiffer said the Izaak Walton League replanted 100 trees that fall.

?There used to be 100-foot tall trees that provided all kinds of shade,? he said.

Before New Dawn was built in 1997, the land it sits on was simply another picnic area. Pfeiffer said that ground was ideal for a playground.

?People can see it from the highway and it attracts people from all over the United States,? he said. ?When they come to Sunset Park, they visit New Dawn. There is hardly a day that goes by without someone playing on that playground.?

Pfeiffer wanted something to come of the large maple tree that had lost its canopy.

?It was a big tree,? he said. ?It was two feet in diameter. You couldn?t reach your arms around the whole the thing.?

He suggested that someone should carve something into the wood, but he didn?t want to use park board money to fund the project.

?We sought donations starting in 2000,? he said. ?By the next spring, we had raised $500 and gotten an estimate of what it would cost to carve something into the trunk.?

Tracy Swift was hired to carve the two bear figures into the trunk, which he did with a chainsaw. Pfeiffer said the carving was a great addition to the park.

?It was as if the bear was guarding the playground,? he said. ?A lot of kids like to go up to touch the bear, and the parents admire it, too.?

Pfeiffer said the park board has put preservative on the trunk every year to prevent moisture from degrading it. However, after a few years, the rain seeped through the top of the trunk and the little bear began to deteriorate.

?We had to dispose of the little bear because it was hollow and there were carpenter ants in it,? he said. ?The wood was so rotten you could pull it apart with your hands. In hindsight, we should have put a little cover over the top.?

A few years ago, Pfeiffer noticed that the base of the trunk was beginning to rot, too. He said the trunk was cut off at the bottom and was going to be moved to a cement base, where it wouldn?t absorb as much moisture.

?We were going to pour a cement slab to the east of it and put it in a metal cradle,? he said. ?When we found out that was going to cost $700 to $800, we thought we should take another look at it.?

Pfeiffer said that the money raised at the trunk?s auction will go toward improvements in city parks. In particular, he said the money might go toward a paved wheelchair path from the cul de sac south of the log cabin in Sunset Park to the shelter house north of it.