Plantes Ferry Sculpture Gets Ok Artist Who Created Bloomsday Runners Plans To Commemorate Valley Pioneer

The artist who put runners in Riverfront Park and horses in the central Washington scablands plans to put a pioneer back in the Spokane Valley.

The county is paying David Govedare $30,000 to create a sculpture for Plantes Ferry Park, the site of a ferry operated by Antoine Plante in the mid-1800s. Elements of the multipiece sculpture may span the Spokane River and Centennial Trail.

The federal government requires art at Plantes Ferry to mitigate environmental losses caused by a $1.3 million road project adjacent to the park. The U.S. Department of Transportation is paying 86.5 percent of the cost to widen Upriver Drive by cutting into a cliff.

Commissioner Kate McCaslin refused to support Govedare’s contract when it was approved Tuesday by Commissioners John Roskelley and Phil Harris. McCaslin, who abstained from voting, said she admires the artist’s work but thinks the money would be better spent repairing roads.

“I wonder how many potholes $30,000 would fill,” she said.

Before approving the contract, Harris questioned the method used to select Govedare.

The county didn’t solicit ideas from a variety of artists, then pick one, as the city of Spokane often does. Instead, county engineers asked Govedare to do the work on the recommendation of advisory boards that oversee the Centennial Trail and county parks, said Ross Kelley, engineer for the road project. No other artists were contacted.

“I admit he does good work, but that doesn’t mean someone else couldn’t do it better,” Harris said.

Although his plans are not yet set - and will require approval by county officials - Govedare said he’d like to build a steel sculpture of Plante on the north bank of the Spokane River hailing a buck-skinner with horses on the south bank. One or two of the horses would appear as if they’ve just jumped the Centennial Trail, with the rest looking ready to cross the trail.

Govedare, who calls himself “a choreographer of energy,” used half-inch steel to create two of the region’s most visible pieces of art. The horses he erected on a bluff near Vantage look down on Interstate 90 and the Columbia. His pack of life-sized runners hold a prized spot in Riverfront Park, near the Bloomsday finish line.

Other Govedare works are in offices, schools and homes. Most recently, he created the 18-foot centerpiece of a fountain in Texas City, Texas.

Govedare said he may seek $30,000 to $50,000 in donations to create a more elaborate work. But, he said, the public money alone is enough for “something spectacular” to commemorate the enterprise Plante brought to the river.

The son of a French-Canadian father and Native American mother, Plante was born in present-day Montana. Fluent in French and English, he worked throughout the Northwest as a guide and trapper, and joined the California gold rush in 1849.

In 1853, Plante guided Isaac Stevens when the territorial governor was scouting a railroad route. Two years later, Stevens came to Plante’s Spokane Valley home to negotiate a treaty with area tribes.

By 1856, Plante had built a large house and established a ferry, charging $1.50 for a horse and rider or $4 for a wagon. It became an important link in the Mullan Trail, the route between Walla Walla and Fort Benton, Mont., which opened in 1860.

“The scenery about here is beautiful,” wrote one of Plante’s guests in 1860. “We are within a few hundred yards of the Spokane river. Some few Indian tipis (sic) are nearby.”

Plante lost his land to the railroad in 1878, when the local supervisor of the Bureau of Land Management ruled that “a foreign born Indian” had no claim to the land he occupied for 24 years.

Plante died on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana in 1890. Relatives guessed he was 80 years old.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Map of Plantes Ferry Park