Artwork stolen in break-in at Yellowknife's Frozen Rock Studio

Galleries and the public are being asked to be on the lookout for carvings stolen from the Frozen Rock Studio in Yellowknife this week.

The person or people who stole the carvings cut through a padlocked bracket to get into the building and made away with carvings worth thousands of dollars, artwork the artists haddevotedhundreds of hours to produce.

Artist JohnSabourinsaid he got the bad news at about nine Fridaymorning.

"I was really mad when I got the call and I came down and it was stolen my carvings and I thought back to seven years ago when this place was broken into and a lot of carvings went missing including a lot of mine."

The theftcomes the same day the carvers are moving out of their studio as the property has been sold.

Artist DerraldTaylor lost a large polar bear carved out of white soapstone and another large carving of amuskox.

"It's going to set us back because we needed pieces to start another place. With no inventory to move, it's going to back us up a bit."

The artists reported the thefts to police andthey've also alerted localgalleries, in case the thief tries to sell the carvings locally.