As an artist,
Pete Clarkson, living in Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island butting up against the Pacific Ocean, considers himself solely to be what he calls an intertidal artist in only using marine debris washed up onto the beach to create his art. His pieces are generally whimsical in nature. While staying true to the intertidal aspect of his work, he decided to take a different tact when he began to discover more and more debris washing up onto his local beach that traveled all the way across the ocean, items solely the result of the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami. As such, he is using that specific debris to create a memorial piece in the Tofino Botanical Garden to commemorate the 2011 disaster.
—Huggo