It is the most well-known face greeting all who enter the gates at Golden Ears Provincial Park, and now the mountain goat is undergoing restoration to give it a new lease on life.
The goat, along with the sign it sits upon, was transported to High Country Enterprises outside of 100 Mile House, in May, where they will be restored to their original condition.
According to the Ministry of Environment and Parks, wooden components of the structure were last restored in the 1990s.
So, when Tom Hughes got to work in May, he discovered that much of the wood was rotten. He could restore the goat and the sign, but other parts of the structure needed replacing.
Hughes, 58, was one of three bidders for the contract, and was awarded the project in March.
As someone who always enjoyed the challenge of repairing, fixing, and replacing park furniture, he felt this project would take him back to his roots when he started with BC Parks at the age of 17 in 1986 until his retirement a few years ago.
Hughes took apart the structure on the Victoria Day long weekend, and said it was a challenging job to transport the pieces of the structure to his workplace, which he owns and operates with his wife.
Hughes needed a crane truck to lift the goat, which is about nine feet or almost three metres tall, and weighs about 1,000 pounds, onto a trailer, where they boxed it in to keep it safe and transported it standing upright, along with the sign, which is around 14 feet long or a little more than four metres, and six feet tall, around two metres.
This, he said was the most stressful part of the job so far – removing the goat and the hand-carved sign without damaging them.
“Originally when it was first installed – and that goat hasn’t been off in a long time – these are bolts that were in there for 50 some odd years, rusted on, and we weren’t quite sure how well they were going to come off,” he explained.
“Luckily with a little bit of WD40 and such, we let it sit for a while and they loosened off not bad,” he said. “And the goat came off without any damage at all.”
Hughes is now planning to sit the sign and the goat on top of a solid concrete base, which he will hide with cedar, to make it look like a solid cedar sign again. The cedar was purchased before even knowing if he won the contract, because, Hughes said, the wood needed time to “season and age”, otherwise it would crack.
And, he said, the new concrete base will properly support the goat and sign.
Hughes noted due to the rotting structure, the goat was unsafe to leave it the way it was.
“It was hazardous,” he said.
Hughes intends to restore the goat and the sign with their original colours.
“So, the goat will go up looking exactly the same,” he said, noting he will also be restoring the rock work underneath the sign.
He will be putting the structure back together in a way that will allow components to come off easily for future repairs.
Hughes said the old design had each component stacked on top of one another and bolted down. So, in order to work on anything, the goat had to come off.
“Now you can take off any of the wood components at any time and refinish them, without having to worry about anything. It’s a much simpler process,” he said.
He also said the original structure was not shedding water, which was getting trapped within the components for decades.
Hughes’ new design will contain air gaps behind each component so that if water does get into the structure, it has a way to get out and won’t rot the wood.
“That will make the sign last much longer,” he said.
Hughes is hoping to have the goat welcoming guests again to the park in August.
But, currently his family has been put on a wildfire evacuation alert, which means he has put down his woodworking tools and is now focussed on moving his livestock to a safer area, as his family prepares to flee if the fire moves their way.
He was never firm on a timeline, anyway, wanting to make sure everything is perfect before it is standing again at the front gate to the park.
“I don’t like to rush these things. I want to finish them just right,” he said.