Adventure with Eloise at the Animal Land sculpture and nature park

I recently went on a drive to Sussex, New Brunswick with my best friend Cheyenne and Eloise. We were driving past Animaland sculpture and nature park and decided to stop and check it out. As a kid I always wished we could stop and see the park but it was closed. It's an abandoned park off the old highway now that the Trans Canada highway was rerouted back in the 1990's, it closed shortly after. I as a child never got to go but my mother has pics of her as a kid enjoying it, my mom, my aunt and Nana would go every summer.  After spending the afternoon in Sussex and it was still nice, we decided to stop by on way back. Our idea was to just take pics from the side of the fence on the highway. Well that did not last long. There was a trail beside the abandoned park, that is open to public, when eloise darted off under the fence. She wanted to see all the animals. Cheyenne and I decided why not jump the fence and enjoy this old park and take some photos. It was a very nice warm sunny day that we had no plans for the rest of the day so we took our time walking through and even took a few turns going down the slides that are sculptures one is a huge lobster and the other is octopus we did not go to far in or close to the buildings so we did not get to see the whole park or what is left of it but what we did see we enjoyed and got pictures of. I know what your thinking you took your two year old to break rules and trespass  but what is life without breaking some rules and having fun. Eloise very much enjoyed walking around seeing the sculptures and the slides she loved them had to do them more then once. Do not worry Cheyenne and I looked the slide over and tried them before we let eloise on or near them. This was an afternoon that I will remember, it was nice to see some of New Brunswick history. Who knows how long it will be around for, it could be torn down by next summer for all we know. I am very grateful to have been able to experience seeing and walking through this park, even if it is run down and abandoned.  Here are our pictures we took while exploring.

This is the sign well what is left of it.

 These two pictures taken from the other side of the fence it is what you see when driving past.

This next picture is the elephant you can see from the street when driving by and this big mushroom is hidden you can not see it from the street as there is a huge tree in front of it.

                                  

                    The octopus slide that Ellie enjoyed. You have to climb up in the middle of the structure their are holes to place your feet to climb up inside this cylinder to come out where the hole of the face is to be able to slide down. This slide worked well, if someone had the money to buy this place it could be fixed up and I bet people would go there eloise loved this slide she kept saying again and trying to climb up.

This is the lobster slide which was higher and harder to climb to get to the top to go down the slide and the slide was way steeper but it was so much fun eloise enjoyed climbing to get to the top.

This picture above is eloise sitting on top of  Blowhard ( the broken down race horse) this is the sculpture that is by the Animaland sign to attract guest. made in 1967 

Here is some info on the late Winston Bronnum was a prolific artist who created some of the more impressive community monuments in Canada.  His studio was called Animaland and was located near the Timberline Motor Inn and Restaurant in Sussex, NB. The Statue Blowhard  stood at the entrance of Animaland. He was largely self-taught and in his younger years worked on bridges and  hydro dams  the self taught apprentice advanced from little models of natural that progressed to life size reinforced in steel re-bar and wire meshed concrete, which this  allowed him to create his large community monuments. 

Winston passed away on September 10, 1991, in Sussex, NB. He was born and raised in New Denmark, NB. Winston in his early years would whittle horses and art into his wooden desk tops before leaving school in Grade 3 and returning to his family farm and the woods. He then upgraded his pen and knife to quality treasured wood carving chisels, in which he carved many different things.

So far, six have been identified. here are pictures taken off the internet of 5 of the  identified sculptures he made. besides blowhard who's picture is above with eloise sitting on him. I did not take these  last 5 pictures I found them on-line on a few different sites. Now we hope to visit some of these other monuments.

Potato

Maugerville, NB 1969

                                                                       Horse
                                                           St. John, NB 1967

Lobster

Shediac, NB 1991

Jumbo

St. Thomas, ON 1985

                                                                     Moose

                                                             Cow Bay, NS 1959