Erik the Red: A statue for Halifax's most famous cat

The Halifax waterfront has a new resident, and it's a small one. The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic has installed a statue of Erik the Red, the ginger tabby who spent about 15 years as the official rodent control officer aboard the CSS Acadia. It's a lighthearted, family-friendly addition to the boardwalk's cultural trail, and it sits near the historic ship Erik once called home.

For anyone who spent time on the waterfront in the late 90s or 2000s, Erik was a familiar face. He patrolled the stretch between Purdy's Wharf and Pier 21, dropping in on nearby shops, restaurants, the Daily News offices and Tim Hortons, and he became known well beyond Nova Scotia. He also had a habit of leaving 'gifts' for shipkeeper Stephen Read in the bottom of his shoe.

How Erik ended up on the ship is a bit of a local debate. One account says Read found the malnourished stray in 1999; another that Erik followed him to the ship in 1997; a third that he followed Read home down Gottingen Street in 1998. He was named after the Viking Erik the Red, and he carried the name through a long, eventful life. He lost his left eye to melanoma, needed daily medication for other health problems, and survived three disappearances or suspected abductions that left his admirers genuinely worried. He spent several years semi-retired in Halifax's North End before officially retiring in 2015.

His retirement party, held on 20 September 2015 in the chart room of the CSS Acadia, was a proper send-off: cake, a book reading, a hotline for people to share their favourite Erik stories, and gifts that included a photograph of him dressed as a pirate. Renate Wegner was among the many who attended. Erik died after a brief illness in early August 2017 at around 20 years old. The museum noted he was the last of four rodent control officers to serve aboard, and his ashes were cast past McNabs Island, following the burial-at-sea tradition used for his predecessors.

Those predecessors had characters of their own. Nannie, a coal-black tabby, disappeared during the Atlantic Bowl College Football Championships; Bertram Q. Bilgewater, known as Bert, fought rats, gulls, mink and dogs; and Clara, a calico rescue from the Bide-a-While animal shelter, succeeded Bert but showed little interest in catching rats. Acadia is one of the few ships to keep the tradition of an official ship's cat, and Erik was the fourth to serve aboard since 1982.

The ship itself is worth the stop. Launched in 1913 as a hydrographic survey and oceanographic research vessel, it served as HMCS Acadia during both world wars and was retired in 1969 after 56 years of service. It's a National Historic Site of Canada, the only ship still afloat that served in the Royal Canadian Navy in both world wars, and the only surviving ship known to have survived the 1917 Halifax Harbour Explosion. It's been docked beside the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic since 1982.

Erik's statue fits right into the wider waterfront art scene. Nearby you'll find 'The Wave', Donna Hiebert's blue 1988 sculpture on Lower Water Street, and 'Got Drunk, Fell Down and Fountain', the 2013 installation at Bishop's Landing that depicts fallen 'Drunk Lampposts'. It's an easy addition to a walk along the Harbourwalk, the wheelchair-accessible boardwalk that runs nearly four kilometres from the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 to Casino Nova Scotia.