Photo: Contributed Click here to view gallery Photo: Contributed Photo: Contributed Photo: Contributed Photo: Contributed Photo: Contributed Jean-Pierre Thimot could see the memorial sculpture “glistening in the distance” when he landed at the Kamloops Airport — his first time visiting the place his daughter lost her life four years ago. The City of Kamloops hosted a meet-and-greet Thursday marking the completion of Fulton Field Park. The new park has as its centrepiece public art paying tribute to Royal Canadian Air Force Capt.
Jennifer Casey, who was killed when the Snowbird jet she was inside crashed following a bird strike shortly after takeoff on May 17, 2020. Thimot, 60, told Castanet Kamloops it’s hard to put his feelings about the sculpture into words. “It’s absolutely spectacular,” Thimot said.
“It exceeded all my expectations.” The sculpture is a mosaic of maple leaves held together by branches and built full scale to depict a Royal Canadian Air Force CT-114 Tutor Snowbird — the plane Casey was in when it crashed. Thimot said being in the place where his daughter died has been a “cathartic” experience.
“My only vision of Kamloops prior to this was the flags on the fence,” said Thimot, referencing the makeshift memorial that grew on the chain link fence lining the airport in the days after Casey’s death. “The flags and the signs — nothing makes it feel better, but it gave you a sense of how much support there was for her.” The Buffalo, N.
Y., resident said it was great to see the community, and he thanked the City of Kamloops for inviting him to the event. He said the loss of his daughter “never gets easier,” adding that he and Casey’s brother and sister deal with her death “as a family.
” “We remember every day. She was a beautiful person, and an important part of our family,” Thimot said. “Everything she did, she did it full on — she never did anything halfway.
She was very charismatic, fun loving, she's a beautiful person professionally and personally.” Casey, a former journalist and public affairs officer for the Snowbirds, was 35 when she died. Thimot said he will remember his daughter as an inspiration to him.
“This is her legacy,” he said. Artist honoured and terrified Sarah Holliday, the artist behind the sculpture, said the serious subject matter was intimidating, but it was an honour to create. “To be able to create something like this, a lot of prayer went into it, because it took a lot of courage to just step out there.
I had never done anything like this before,” Holliday said. “There was a lot of points where I was really terrified.” Holliday is a landscape concept artist, who also designed the park surrounding the memorial.
But she has never designed a piece of public art like this before. She said she’s received a lot of positive feedback on the sculpture, and knowing her idea worked out has been rewarding. She said the inspiration for the sculpture came from the memorial along that airport fence that grew in the days after Casey’s death — the same one Thimot pictured every time he thought of Kamloops.
“I didn't want it to be too abstract. I wanted the design be something very tangible and relatable, so I chose a Snowbird, of course,” Holliday told the crowd gathered for Thursday’s event. “Then I wanted to have it almost be like a tree, with multiple trunks just supporting it, because it is all about the community coming to support this project.
” She then reached out to Raw Elements Design fabricators to help bring her idea to life. The maple leaves represent the collective grief felt after the crash, while the branches represent Canadians joining together to lift up Casey’s memory. The three supporting columns represent Kamloops, Casey’s hometown of Halifax and the Canadian Armed Forces — the three communities most impacted by the incident.
Memorial will inspire for generations Coun. Bill Sarai said he remembers where he was the day of the Snowbird crash — doing yard work outside his Brocklehurst home. His phone began “lighting up,” and he saw black smoke billowing in the distance.
A member of the city’s airport authority board, Sarai said he drove to the crash site and saw the plane’s fuselage still on fire. “It was one of those this-does-not-look-good [moments],” Sarai said. Sarai said he feels the park and memorial sculpture is one of the best things the city could have done to remember Casey, noting the outpouring of support seen in Kamloops in the days after the accident.
He noted the Snowbirds and Casey were in town back in 2020 to lift people’s spirits amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. “Having this monument here is the continuation of that inspiration message for generations to come,” Sarai said..
