Every year, tens of thousands of tiny sandpipers arrive in the Bay of Fundy mudflats at Johnsons Mills after having left their breeding grounds in the Arctic. When they arrive they weigh about as much as a strawberry, and proceed to feast in the Fundy mudflats until they’ve doubled their weight and can make the rest of their journey down to South America.

But there’s one sandpiper that doesn’t make the trip; or at least there was. For about 20 years, a wooden statue of "Shep the Sandpiper"—the world’s biggest, they say—stood in Dorchester Village square, an homage to the natural wonder the birds create, and an attraction to passersby. But in recent years, Shep has been missing, having fallen victim to wood rot and been taken down for repair.

A group of residents from the village are determined to bring Shep back to Dorchester, and they presented to Tantramar Council on Tuesday to make their case.

“As the undisputed world’s largest Sandpiper, Shep has always received a lot of attention,” Kara Becker told council, noting that Shep is still featured on the Tourism New Brunswick website and tripadvisor.com. “Unfortunately, this has turned to disappointment when visitors go to see her,” said Becker, quoting from a Trip Advisor review that rated the attraction just one out of five. “Shep the Sandpiper is missing,” reads the review. “We got there on May 19, 2022, and Shep was not there, only the stand and rocks.”

While the Village of Dorchester managed to get a new platform for Step built in 2021, it remains empty, as the project to repair the wooden bird has been beleaguered with setbacks.

The original Shep in his spot in Dorchester village square about four years ago. Photo: Susan McDonald.

The original artist who carved Shep more than 20 years ago had taken on the repair work for the statue by 2021, but the conditions of the wood were worse than originally suspected. Then in October 2021, someone broke into Monty MacMillan’s workshop in Maugerville and cleaned out all his tools. It was enough to get the 80-year-old MacMillan to throw in the towel.

More than six months later (coincidentally, a few days before the disappointed tourist from the Trip Advisor review) Dorchester village councillors got the bad news that MacMillan couldn’t complete the work. According to village council minutes, new options would have to be explored that would take the project into 2023, and into a newly amalgamated municipality.

One of those options appears to have been Robin Hanson, a painter, sculptor, and owner of the Hanson Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden outside Oromocto. Hanson made a local social media splash recently when he posted pictures of a completed Shep in fiberglass and epoxy finish, designed to survive a few decades in the village square. That post has since been taken down, but CHMA called up Hanson to find out about his experience building a new Shep, after being approached by former Dorchester mayor Debbie Wiggins-Colwell.

Hansen says it was Monty MacMillan who referred Wiggins-Colwell to him.

“She was on the mission to see if she could get Shep replaced with a new Shep,” recalls Hanson. “[MacMillan] had just decided that he’s not going to do [carving] anymore, and so he recommended that Debbie talk to me, and so she did. She came out, and she brought the legs out, and the beak.”

Wiggins-Colwell told CHMA she was originally part of a community effort to revive the statue, but has stepped away because of her position as Tantramar councillor.

Hanson says the cost of his version of Shep costs $9300 before taxes, and paying for it is what brought Kara Becker, Mike Gillespie, and Maxc MacNichol to council on Tuesday. The trio are asking that the town of Tantramar chip in to help get the new Shep created by Hanson installed in the village square in time for this year’s Sandpiper Festival, some time around late July or August, when the birds come to feed.

Artist Robin Hanson stands beside his recreation of Shep the Sandpiper. Photo: contributed.

“We understand that during the transition, the budget allocated by the previous council to bring back Shep may have been cut,” said Becker. “This means a further delay in completing this project that has already been invested in by taxpayers.”

According to Dorchester Village minutes, up to $15,000 was allotted for the construction of the new viewing platform, which was completed in 2021. Though Dorchester village originally budgeted between $2000 and $2500 towards the Shep replacement, there is no money specifically for Shep allotted in the Tantramar budget this year. Tantramar and former Dorchester CAO Jennifer Borne says that a budget request for $60,000 was submitted by the village council to the provincial consultant who created Tantramar’s budget, but the item didn’t make it in.

But Borne has also talked about the flexibility inherent in this year’s Tantramar budget thanks to a lack of detail coming from the province, so it will be up to the new Tantramar council to determine how much support the town can provide to help Shep the Sandpiper makes her return migration to Dorchester this year. Becker says the group will help raise funds to cover any budget shortfall if necessary.

“There is certainly a curious void at the village centre,” said Becker. “The goal is that we work together and finally bring back Shep.”

For Robin Hanson’s part, Shep is ready to go.

“She could be in Dorchester this afternoon,” said Hanson on Wednesday. The artist is also enthusiastic about helping with fundraising for the project, and even more so about a trip to Dorchester. “I just can’t wait to see the migration come,” said Hanson. “It’s very exciting. [We are] very, very fortunate to have such a migration go right through New Brunswick.”

Listen to the CHMA story below: