Are you missing the "women digging roots" sculptures just past Belvedere on the way to Nespelem?

They have been temporarily removed due to vandalism, artist Virgil "Smoker" Marchand said this week.

One of the standalone sculptures was taken in September, and drug some distance away and left in the sagebrush.

More recently another was taken and left about 20 feet from its original place, and others had been loosened. Marchand said the sculptures have been recovered and are not damaged.

Originally there were six in all.

Marchand said he will re-install the sculptures in the spring, and pour a larger concrete base so it will be impossible to take them.

The artist said this week that he may have to build a fence around the sculptures since cows grazing in the area have been rubbing against them.

Marchand said he has heard how the sculptures are missed from a number of people.

"I have heard from a number of elders," Marchand noted.

He also reported that his Sasquatch sculpture on Disautel Pass has two bullet holes in it.