Sunday 9 December 2007

Larger than Life in Canada

I got this off a site called the American's Guide to Canada. Here are a few of her observations of Canada.

  1. It's really, really big.
  2. Ontario is huge. Ontario is at least two days' worth of driving on its own.
  3. Canada's terrain is varied and gorgeous. From Cape Breton Island to Prince Edward Island to the Canadian Shield (a very old mountain range that in its day was taller than the Rockies) to north of Superior to the Prairies to the Rockies to Vancouver Island and back again, it's just stunning.
  4. Canada seems to have this thing for putting very large...well, things into the middle of town. You'll see what I mean.
She's right, we do seem to like to put large things in the middle of a town. Nothing portrays this quirky behavior of Canadians better than during the first season of the show Corner Gas. The citizens of Dog River wanted to erect some large thing, as a tourist attraction, in the middle of their town. So we now have the episode of the "Big Dirty Hoe"

Here are a few of the large.....things that I have either visited, gone to the town
/city for other reasons and had no choice but to see these things (because they were so big) or driven bye them along the highway.



  1. A giant lobster in Shediac, New Brunswick
  2. A UFO landing pad in St. Paul's, Alberta...(yes you read that correctly)
  3. A giant magnet outside of Moncton, New Brunswick
  4. Vilna mushrooms in Vilna, Alberta (question is which was named first?)
  5. A giant Pryogy in Glendon, Alberta
This is just a VERY small sampling of the roadside/in town attractions that Canadians have. I encourage every one to check out these sites to see the others. Big Things and Large Canadian Roadside Attractions.

You'll get to see just how quirky we Canadians really are.

Until Next Time
Yours in Yarn,
The Fibreholic


7 comments:

TinkingBell said...

I loved Corner Gas and especially the Hoe episode - the Crack hoe! We are having problems in Australia with a large department store sacking a Santa for saying HO HO HO - can you believe it? They have the same minds... in fact our Tasmanian strict Catholic Senator wanted the Cat in the Hat movie banned because someone mentioned a dirty hoe - really these people have their moinds in the gutter - but Australians really appreciate big things too - we lived near the Big Cow and the Big Pineapple and the Big Pelican in Queensland and there used to be a big sheep in Tassie - but they kept turning it from a ram to a whether - same thing happens to the big bull in Rockhampton - keeeps becomiong a big steer!!!
Hope you're feeling better now - will have to check out more big stuff next time we get to Canada!

Georgie said...

I love it! Australia does Big Things too, as Tink pointed out - need a tourist attraction? Install a Big Thing! Big orange, big lobster, big prawn, big rocking horse, big pineapple, big banana, big ram....

But what I really want to know is....whats a pyrogy??

Nancy said...

Hey this is neat. We go to Thorold several times a year and watch the ships go through lock 7.
There is an Inn there we love to visit. I will have to watch for the large objects. Glad you are well and back blogging.

MadMad said...

I love pierogies, but I was kinda hoping that was a cherry pie... Anyway. Cool pix!

Kathy said...

Cool Big Things. Much nicer to look at than what we have in Chicago. The Big traffic jams, the big airport near the house, the big head of Mayor Daley.

I grew up in Marquette, Michigan which is just on the other side of Superior. I've seen lots of maps that show the Upper Peninsula of Michigan as belonging to Canada, so we often feel like we're dual citizens.

Lisa said...

I am still waiting for giant knitting needles and an enormous ball of yarn...oh wait - there is that giant spider sculpture outside the National Art Gallery...now if only she was spinning...


Glad you are better!

Kristen said...

Oh, how funny! Don't we have the funniest way of erecting things to draw attention! I think that is a worldwide phenomena! :) Love the pics, thanks for sharing!