Project Leaders: Elder Vern Harper and Sculptor/Psychotherapist, Michael C. Irving, Ph.D.
The site design/arrangement and conceptual composition of the art works were conceived in a series of vision experiences in 1999 by Michael C. Irving, Ph.D., of Choctaw, Cherokee, Scottish, Irish and Norwegian ancestry. Biographies: Elder Vern Harper; Michael C. Irving, Ph.D.

The designation, development and implementation of ceremonies and healing circles are being coordinated by Canadian Urban Elder, Vern Harper of Cree and Scottish heritage.

Though they carry main responsibility for the project's actualization, Irving and Harper, freely seek consultive and participatory collaboration of other artists, Elders and Aboriginal community members.

Both Dr. Irving and Elder Harper endured great suffering in their lives and had to overcome much of the tragic legacy of early hardship before taking roles as community leaders.

A Collaborative Effort of Artists and Communities
This cultural site would involve the work of more than one hundred Aboriginal Peoples sculptors and carvers from across North America.

Each of the bronze works would be a large undertaking. Many of the carvers and sculptors would be working with assistant sculptors and technicians creating teams of three to ten artists. The team members would add more than three hundred Aboriginal artists to this collaborative undertaking.

Another two hundred youth/artists and Elder/artists would participate in workshops to create the sculpted quilt squares for shawls of the Legends for Children figures.

Through a campaign called "Sharing the Circles", Native children and communities would be asked to make medicine wheel drawings and messages on a piece of paper for inclusion inside the bronze Legends for Children Figures. The medicine wheel drawings and messages would allow tens of thousands of Native children to be part of the monument site.

Several dozen artists would be commissioned to create ceremonial objects and regalia. Hundreds of other Aboriginal people would be involved through gifts of medicine bundles for placement inside the Legends for Children and precious objects and writings for placement in the Potlatch Totem.

This project would truly be a collaborative effort involving people from a wide number of diverse regions.