DUNNVILLE — Those who make the drive along Highway 3 toward Dunnville on the regular should be prepared for a shock next time they pass by the town’s iconic Muddy the Mudcat statue.
Thanks to the combined efforts of the local Dunnville Lions Club and Rotary Club of Dunnville, Muddy has been fully restored to his original glory, with a restored structure and a new, regionally accurate paint job to boot.
“It was more of a Louisiana colour mudcat; we’ve changed it now to a Dunnville type, what you would catch in the lake or rivers around Dunnville,” said restoration project manager Archie Merigold on the new colours. “I think it’s a little self-effacing, funny, and correct if you will, to use Muddy as our mascot.”
Muddy was first installed in 2010.
“Mike Walker built it,” said Merigold, remembering how Walker caught a mudcat out of the lake, put it in his freezer, and then bent it into the shape that would become the model for Muddy. “How he ever came up with Muddy looking the way he does out of a little fish, it blows my mind, but he did that, did a beautiful job.”
The structure, made of fibreglass and wood, stands on five bearing points. Merigold credited his friend Vic Powell, who initially helped lift Muddy and place him on his bearings back in 2010.
“That was a work of art in itself, almost a Leonardo Da Vinci move,” said Merigold.
The first restoration work on Muddy took place in 2019.
“It needed some help,” said Merigold. Like the original project, restoration was a joint Lions/Rotary Club effort. “John Upshall and I stepped up to the plate to do something with it, and Hank Kerkdyk from the Lions Club.”
Merigold recalled those updates: “It’s like having a patient on the table where you need to get them stabilized, and that’s what we did. We had problems with children ripping the whiskers; they tore them off, so John and I went out and did a little restoration project on the whiskers and on the mouth a little bit because kids were climbing into the mouth.”
Then, in 2024, more work was completed, including significant repairs to Muddy’s fibreglass structure and placing a new rock base underneath.
“Last year, we did a major overhaul. It took us three weeks every day working on Muddy, a lot of dedicated time from John Upshall, from Larry Brodie, Brent O’Connor, myself, and Steve Allen and Hank Kerkdyke from the Lions Club. Darren Keyes also helped; he was our marine biologist,” said Merigold.
With a 35% contribution from Haldimand County, the Rotary Club paid out the remaining balance of the $16,000 bill, devoted entirely to material costs, with all involved working on the project for free. Other local residents have pitched in to the effort as well.
This includes used heavy equipment salesman George Lunshof and his wife Ann, who donated a manlift as needed to the team working on the restoration, and John McIntyre, who donated supplies used to help clean Muddy.
The last step in the process, now complete, was to paint Muddy.
“First thing we did was turn it into an albino, to give it a base coat, then we started applying the paint,” said Merigold. “Hank Kerkdyke and Darren Peas had the biggest hand, and myself, to get the colours right the way we wanted him.”
Looking at the final project, Merigold enthused, “I’m impressed myself. It takes a lot to impress me.”
The iconic landmark stands as a testament to what can be accomplished when a group of like-minded people come together to help keep the community they call home beautiful, vibrant, and unique – just like Muddy.
