Decommisioning our Viper

We didn’t just retire our viper, we burned it on funeral pyre!

Members of The 13th Colony built a 10 foot long viper last summer and christened it the Mark XIII.  It was originally designed to be part of our Canada Day parade entry, but the weather ruined our plans.  Cardboard and spray paint would not have stood up to what the clouds were dishing out that day.  Instead, our viper made its debut at the annual club barbeque later in the summer and appeared again for our Halloween party.

We tried to put her out of service in January when we headed out to Centennial Beach to shoot one of our 13th Colony Video Files, but again the weather foiled our plans.  In the end, we finally accomplished the deed on June 27, 2011, turning our Mark XIII Viper to ashes.

Centennial Beach in Tsawwassen was the place we choose for the ritual, since that was where Starbuck’s viper crashed, and where she burned her own remains on a spectacular funeral pyre.  Alas, it is also one of the only places in the Greater Vancouver area where you can have an open fire. In the summer, the spot is almost unrecognizable as the same place where “Sometimes a Great Notion” was shot.  Just look at the pictures below of the tree where Kara found her crashed viper.  We had fourteen members of the 13th Colony in attendance, and though we were missing a few key members of the build team, we’re satisfied we gave her a good sendoff on their behalf. We’ve got more pictures up at our Meetup site.