It's 6:30 in the morning. Daniel Michaud, 17, boards the bus near his Legal home to go to school, groggy as usual. Ernest Chauvet, his uncle and bus driver, spots him and starts bombarding him with his vision of a Legal covered with historic murals.
Michaud ignores him. The rest is history.
That talk was the start of Michaud's involvement with the Legal mural project. In just 14 years, this tiny bilingual town north of Morinville has amassed some 35 wall-sized illustrations dedicated to local heroes and history, making it a tourist attraction and a serious contender for the title of per capita mural capital of the world.
It's fascinating how such a small community could rally together to support a project like this, says Michaud, now 31. "It's inspiring to see how the vision of a few really progressed and took a town by storm."
Bilingual beginnings
Michaud puts the finishing touches on his 10th work for the Legal mural project — a three-by-four-metre painting dedicated to the 4-H group. It's meant to look like a quilt, he says, and depicts a few of the many activities for which the group is known.
The biggest challenge so far has been the mosquitoes, he says. "I think I've lost like a litre of blood."
Michaud and his brother Marc were the first people Ernest Chauvet turned to when he started the mural project back in 1997.
Chauvet, now 60, gives the Gazette a personal tour of the town's murals one sunny afternoon. Names, dates and places tumble from his lips as he proudly explains every square inch of them, strolling through decades of history with the ease of a veteran storyteller.
Take the Town of Legal mural by the fire hall, for example. The left side has a miner and a water tower, both references to the coalmines that once stood near the town. You'll see a church on the right, illustrating the importance of religion in the town, plus the Canadian and Alberta flags.
As for the little dreamcatcher in the middle, he says, that's got nothing to do with the town. The Michaud brothers added that after a local Métis man brought them some beer while they were at work. "It's a thank you for good beer on a hot day!"
The mural project came out of the Association canadienne-française de l'Alberta (ACFA) around 1997, says Chauvet, who was the group's president at the time.
French used to be the main language of Legal, he says, but that changed over time due to demographics. The group had created a francophone school to reverse this trend, only to trigger a wave of anti-French hostility in response. "People thought having a francophone school was like a fanatical gesture."
Seeking to mend fences and preserve Legal's French heritage, the group started brainstorming ways to promote local history. Eventually, member Benoit Gauthier hit upon the idea of painting some historic murals like those in Chemainus, B.C.
The group approached businessman Roland Tieulié to fund a mural based on the Gelot and Ménard families — the founding families of Legal and Tieulié ancestors. They didn't know too many artists, so Chauvet asked his artistic nephews, the Michauds, to paint the work.
Michaud says he blew off the idea when his uncle first raised it with him on the bus, but his brother, fresh out of art school, jumped on it. The two of them set to work and the mural was erected on the roof of what is now the Bon Appetit restaurant.
They both thought it was awful, he laughs. "We were both more concerned with partying than painting." (They repainted it years later.)
Chauvet and his associates kept lobbying local families, encouraging them to fund murals of their own. Eventually, the idea of honouring one's ancestors caught fire with the townsfolk.
They thought they'd be lucky to get 10 murals at the time, Chauvet says. By this time next year, they'll have about 42 — roughly one for every 28 residents.
"It's been successful beyond our expectations," he says. "We can't imagine anyone who could outdo what we've got."
History in pictures
About 12 artists have now contributed to the Legal mural project, according to the Centralta Tourism Society, many of which are from Legal.
The Michaud brothers have been the most prolific, with 10 under their belts. They are now professional muralists and have a nearly telepathic relationship when they work, Michaud says. "For the most part, we can be nearly silent while we paint."
Resident Karen Blanchet has painted four and is working on a fifth dedicated to the Knights of Columbus. "I had never done anything that big before," she recalls, so she thought it might be an interesting challenge. She's since painted massive murals of the Grey Nuns and Bishop Legal and is now experimenting with mixed media. "It's been a real growth experience."
Most projects start after a group approaches the ACFA with an idea for a mural, Michaud says. After some rough sketches and friendly brawls over the details, he and Marc make a maquette as a guide and start painting. "It's almost mindless [at that point.]"
Preserving the murals has been challenging — while some are in perfect condition, others are crumbling and in need of repair. The Chauvet family mural had to be redone after a year because its big brown horses turned green, Michaud says.
Each one costs about $6,500 Chauvet says, and is funded through grants and the client. While the earlier works focused on local families, later ones examined national events with local hooks like the Lavoie Case (which dealt with French language rights).
One of Chauvet's favourites is the Oblates mural. "The Oblates were an order that focused on living amongst the poor and the people," he says, so the mural shows them dancing at a hoedown. It also features the old St. Albert bridge over the Sturgeon River and portraits of Bishop Vital Grandin and Father Albert Lacombe.
The bridge and the eyes of the Oblates are painted so that they follow you, he notes. "We say those are your mother's eyes or your teacher's eyes and you can't get away from them."
Michaud's favourite is also the largest in town. Called the Community Mural, it takes up a side of a building by the town's lake and features about 160 portraits of local residents.
"It's a moment in time that's been kind of frozen," he notes — some of those residents are now dead, and at least one was not born at the time of the painting. That one was done from an ultrasound, he explains.
Viewed from about a kilometre away, the images blur together to reveal a giant eye, symbolizing the artist's view of the community. "I think it'll age nicely."
A town on the map
The town's murals now draw visitors from across the world, says Jacques Martel, Legal resident and painter of seven of the murals, including at least one Scottish baron. That draws more people to downtown businesses and helps promote local artists. "It's like a permanent gallery for me."
There's also a much greater sense of pride and history in the community, Blanchet says. "It's been a real opportunity to mend the bridges."
Expect about seven more murals to appear by next summer, Chauvet says, on subjects such as Irish immigration and Louis Riel. After those, the group plans to shift focus to integrating the murals into the school curriculum.
Canada's history is a history of co-operation, Chauvet says, and it's a history he hopes to pass on to others through education. We might have separatists in the east and French-haters in the west, but we all still share common roots. "How do you respond to that?" he asks. "This is our way."
