Wolastoq Park

English: , Wolastoq Park , The Name , Wolastoq means "the Beautiful River" in the language of the Maliseet people who lived beside it. Today, we know it as the beautiful St. John River. For many centuries before Europeans arrived Wolastoq with its tributaries, lands and forests provided an abundance of food, materials and medicines to the Maliseet people known then as the Wolastoqiyik, people of the Beautiful River. It gave them a transportation route for hunting, trade and travel. The river allowed them to develop and sustain themselves as a separate and unique Nation., With the arrival of the French and the British, the river linked the new communities along its banks and provided a travel and commerce route farther north to Maine, Quebec and the St. Lawrence River. Its beauty has always been admired. It inspired map-maker Champlain and so many others who over more than three centuries have built the community that is Saint John. The statues in this park tell the stories of some of those people., The Sculptor , Albert Deveau of Edmundston has been a sculptor of large figures for almost 30 years. His training and experience as an engineer proved useful as he tried sculpting three 25 ft. statues from oversized logs for his own yard in 1976. "I began with sculptor's tools but it was so slow. I was too eager to pull out the 3-dimensional image I could see in the log. So I picked up my old Partner chainsaw. My first sculpture was finished 16 hours later.", Since then Albert Deveau has produced thousands of pieces for communities across Eastern Canada, the Eastern United States and at big festivals in Ottawa, Quebec City and France. His material may be wood, concrete, fiberglass, snow or ice but each work is realistic, and very recognizable by a child of 3 or an adult of 93. The sculptures here are wood, coated with a protective stain. ,