Suspended high above one of Victoria’s busiest intersections, The Commerce Canoe by artist Illarion Gallant commands both attention and reflection. Originally installed in Bastion Square in 2008 and later relocated to Triangle Green in 2020, this 36-foot-long public artwork bridges history, commerce, and natural beauty within the urban landscape.

The sculpture’s form — an oversized, skeletal canoe — immediately speaks to its symbolic intent. Crafted from raw, sparkling aluminum, the canoe’s structure includes exposed ribs, gunnels, and a keel, emphasizing transparency and framework over solid mass. A single cast aluminum paddle rests across the gunnels, quietly suggesting movement, purpose, and human presence.

Seven towering reeds made from powder-coated steel, rendered in vivid greens and ranging from six to eight inches in diameter, arch elegantly over the plaza, holding the canoe 20 feet in the air. Inside the canoe, red powder-coated steel seed pods are collected — a striking visual contrast that enriches the narrative depth of the piece.

Gallant’s work draws inspiration from his own experiences canoeing in Ontario’s Algonquin Park, where the gentle scraping of the canoe through reeds left a sensory imprint. More broadly, the piece references a deeper cultural history: the canoe as a vessel of commerce and survival, vital to First Nations peoples long before European contact. The red seed pods recall the traditional practice of harvesting wild rice, tapping the ripened grains into canoes — an elegant and powerful metaphor for sustenance, trade, and connection to land.