Alice the T-Rex in all her shining glory has landed safely in Penticton.
The 17,000-pound stainless steel sculpture was so large it had to be shipped from Chilliwack to Penticton in three sections: the head and chest, the belly and hind legs, and the tail.
Alice was installed on Tuesday on private property above the KVR Trail near the entrance to Naramata and can be seen from the trail near the Vancouver Avenue entrance and Munson Mountain.
This labour of love was made by Chilliwack-based artist Kevin Stone, and according to him the installation went well.
Stone and his wife have been working on the T-Rex for nearly two years after he was commissioned by a Penticton buyer.
The man who commissioned Alice dreamed of owning a giant metal dinosaur since he was a kid, Kevin said. The buyer said it was a female T. rex, and so Kevin named her Alice after a dinosaur from a 1970s children’s TV series called ‘Land of the Lost’ that he watched when he was young.
The dinosaur is made out of mirror-polished, food-grade stainless steel. She stands over 20 feet tall.
The massive T. Rex is located on the east side of Okanagan Lake visible to anyone walking along the Kettle Valley Rail Trail. It’s less than a kilometre north of where the trail meets a residential street called Vancouver Place.
“I’m really excited and I’m really happy that it’s going to a public space in B.C.,” Stone said. “This is probably one of the largest sculpture installations in Canada. There’s only a handful of really big ones and this one’s up there.”
— with files from Jenna Hauck of the Chilliwack Progress
READ MORE: 17K pound T-Rex going from Chilliwack to Penticton