GLADSTONE – The shores of Little Bay de Noc gained a pair of permanent sentinels Friday morning when the city unveiled the Captain and the Kid, a bronze sculpture by local artist Andy Sacksteder.

The statue, which draws inspiration from the 1927 Norman Rockwell painting “Outward Bound,” features a salty old ship’s captain and a young boy staring off into the distance. In Sacksteder’s mind the old man is sharing the beauty of the waves with his grandson, making a lakefront community like Gladstone an ideal place for the piece.

Last year, the city was loaned the second casting of the piece and community members were asked to raise funds to buy the statue so that it could be a permanent fixture of Van Cleve Park. However, the fundraising campaign did not meet its $38,000 goal to purchase the 700 pound statue.

At the Oct. 24 Gladstone City Commission meeting, Sacksteder and his wife Chris announced that they would be donating the third casting of the statue to the city in memory of Chris’ father Jack Sepic.

Like the other two castings, Gladstone’s Captain and the Kid will face out over the waters of a Great Lake. The first statue looks out over Lake Erie from the shores of Sacksteder’s hometown of Port Clinton, Ohio. The second looks out over the waters of Lake Huron.

In addition to being a feature of multiple lakeside communities, The Captain and the Kid has had world-wide exposure through the international art competition Art Prize, held annually in Grand Rapids. Competing against the work of 1,500 artists from 56 countries the Captain and the Kid placed in the top 100 entrees in 2012.