"I've got it - we'll build a bear."
So one day he gathered the class together and took them on a little field trip. But he didn't take them to
Build a Bear. No. He took them to a
Junk Yard. There, they scrounged the surroundings and loaded the truck with various bits and pieces of iron and steel and hauled the whole back to the school workshop then set to work.
Breaking out the torches, welders and hacksaws, they ultimately created what today proudly stands in front of Cranbrook's Mount Baker Secondary School - the Junk Yard Bear.
Our bear consists of leaf springs, coil springs, U-Joint knuckles, a couple of crankshafts and myriad pieces of steel cut and shaped as necessary to create the image of a seven to eight foot tall bear.
John McKinnon is an artist of 38 odd years experience who also teaches art, having taught at various schools and institutions since the 1980s.
And why a bear, instead of a horse or a giraffe? A bear just happens to be the school's mascot.