Work is now well underway to immortalize Turk, the famous wandering turkey, in a $20,000 bronze statue on Scotsman’s Hill, overlooking the city that fell in love with him..Turk gained fame in 2019 as he wandered through neighbourhoods like Inglewood and Ramsey after escaping from an agriculture fair on the Stampede grounds in Calgary. Facebook pages with thousands of followers were dedicated to his daily wanderings. Police officers on patrol tweeted his current whereabouts..Sadly, Turk met an untimely demise – likely at the hands of a coyote – in July 2020. Some feathers were all that remained of the big fella..Virgin Radio announcer Andrew Uyeno decided it was time to immortalize the fowl hero and set up a petition to garner support. So far more than 1,500 signatures have been collected..Uyeno has now been working on getting city approval, while fellow Turk loyalist Liz Blake has been in searching for artist. Blake looked for artists as far away as Germany and China. The search ended with Tom Hjorleifson, in Canmore.“It just happened that he far superseded anything that I could find online,” Blake told CBC..Hjorleifson told the CBC the sculpture would take several months and would be an “involved, expensive procedure”, costing about $20,000.. Mossleigh pub briefly opens before authorities move in .“The colours of a turkey are really incredible and some of them I could get with a traditional bronze patina,” Hjorleifson told CBC..“They’re quite fascinating birds and they’re quite beautiful.”.Fundraising ideas are now being talked about..Dave Naylor is the News Editor of the Western Standard.dnaylor@westernstandardonline.com.TWITTER: Twitter.com/nobby7694
