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Six hours of sitting behind the wheel is enough to
make anyone antsy to get out for a stroll, and I'm
thinking of doing just that as we finally near town.
The forest begins to open up as we approach the small
settlement on the Trans Canada. Entering the village,
we cross a bridge spanning a wild, white-water river
then, in a clearing off to the right of the highway,
I spy a 30-foot high tomato.
Welcome to Canada. Land of the free, home of the
giant roadside attraction.
 I'm
not sure what it is that compels Canadians to erect
house-sized vegetables, lawn chairs, bowling pins
and coffee pots alongside our nation's highways. But
no other country on earth is blessed with such a dazzling
array of puzzling curbside monuments. They're found
in every province, along almost every major highway.
Some are made from wood, others from steel or aluminum,
a few from high-tech graphite and fiberglass. A couple
have their own fan clubs, and a few are internationally
famous.
Take Husky The Musky, for example. The monstrous
man-made fish sits atop a pillar in Kenora, Ontario,
occupying a prime piece of real estate in a park on
the city's waterfront. The unofficial town mascot,
Husky The Musky has become Kenora's icon, its public
face that sets it aside from dozens of other mining
towns in northwestern Ontario.
Sudbury's enormous nickel is another big roadside
attraction that has become an internationally-recognized
landmark. Ditto for Selkirk, Manitoba's famed channel
catfish, Chuck, and Aaron, the eight-foot blue heron
that supervises traffic in Barrhead, Alberta.
Many of Canada's large roadside attractions are so
much larger than life they're recognized as world
records. Just off the shoulder of a highway, you can
check out the world's largest bathtub, Coke can, wind
chimes, cookie jar, lamp, maple leaf, smoking pipe
and western boot. Elm Creek, Manitoba, is home to
the world's largest fire hydrant. Thankfully, the
world's largest dog remains three time zones away,
in Levis, Quebec.
None of this comes as any surprise to Ed Solonyka,
who in 1998 launched a web site devoted to the appreciation
of large Canadian roadside attractions (www.roadsideattractions.ca).
"I thought this would be an interesting and offbeat
topic for a web site," says Solonyka. "So I spent
a couple months of research on the internet and launched
my web site with approximately 50 photos. With considerable
help from visitors to my web site, I now have 548."
More than 4,200 people log onto Solonyka's Large Canadian
Roadside Attractions every month, in order to view
and trade photographs of these unusual andmarks.
 The
range of monuments is, well, monumental. This being
Canada, renditions of wildlife are particularly popular
- particularly moose, bears, Canada geese and beavers.
Sundials and salmon are almost everywhere, as are
mosquitoes and (oddly) lawn chairs. Some of the more
unusual things you might notice alongside the highway
would include the enormous Hershey Kiss in Niagara
Falls, Ontario, the UFO landing pad in St. Paul, Alberta,
the giant coffee pot in Davidson, Saskatchewan or
world's biggest potato in Maugerville, New Brunswick.
Can't get through the day without eyeballing the world's
biggest grasshopper (a 10-footer named Ralph)? Then
Ogema, Saskatchewan is where you want to be. Got a
craving for fiddleheads? Then drive to Plaster Rock,
New Brunswick and check out the largest on earth.
Need to see a flying saucer? Then head to - appropriately
enough - Moonbeam, Ontario.
"Most people think of these things as corny and embarrassing
and a waste of money," says David Yanciw, who operates
another web site devoted to showcasing large roadside
attractions (www.bigthings.ca). "On a trip from Saskatoon
to Edmonton a few years ago, a friend and I decided
to take a little detour in search of the world's largest
pirogue in Glendon, Alberta. I had seen a newspaper
article about it and just had to see it with my own
eyes. It actually did look really good, sitting on
this huge fork, but what was more amazing was that
we, like many others, had gone a great deal out of
our way to see it. We stopped in at the gift shop
and bought a plastic fork with a miniature pirogue
on it and that was when I came to realize what the
monument meant. It was a way for a small, out-of-the-way
town to draw people to it. While there, they might
buy gas or get a meal or buy a plastic fork and see
that this is a neat little town."
Yanciw may be right, but the reason why these large
roadside attractions exist doesn't matter for most
of us. What's fun is finding them and taking a picture
of yourself standing beside them.
Looking for something fun to try this summer? How
about a roadside attraction tour? In a country studded
with giant aluminum geese and monstrous steel fruit,
there truly is something for everyone.
(Photos courtesy Ed Solonyka) (Page
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