WHERE EAGLES DARE

Monumental Bronze, 18’H x 11’L x 7’D, Limited Ed. of 5 – Created 2004

(Commissioned by Cabela’s for their Wheeling, West Virginia location.)

In 2004, Cabela’s, the renowned outdoor outfitter, embarked on a quest to honor the wild spirit of the land. They envisioned a monumental sculpture that would resonate with visitors, capturing the very essence of life and survival in the wilderness. Jim and Dick Cabela turned to Vic Payne, a seasoned sculptor with an innate understanding of nature’s drama, for a unique commission: a monument featuring a bear and eagles.

And so began Vic’s artistic storytelling – a journey that would immortalize, in bronze, the gripping tale of a mama grizzly and her two cubs that had been feasting on salmon. The scene unfolds along an Alaskan river: the mama grizzly, her fur thick and weathered, fiercely defending her cubs from two descending bald eagles. These majestic birds, opportunistic and cunning, recognize the defenseless young bear cubs as potential prey. Nature’s balance is never static; it is a delicate dance of hunger and survival. As you gaze upon this monumental sculpture, you can almost feel the air crackling with tension – the grizzly mother baring her teeth, her maternal instincts aflame.

‘Where Eagles Dare’ captures this primal struggle – an epic battle sculpted in bronze, a testament to nature’s grand theater. It reminds us that life, in all its ferocity, teeters on the edge of survival. The monumental sculpture itself stands as a silent witness to the wild’s unyielding beauty and brutality – an imposing bronze sculpture standing 18 feet tall, 11 feet long, and 7 feet deep, graces Cabela’s landscape in Wheeling, West Virginia.