Corner Brook erects sign to draw people downtown
Letters feature images of significance to the city
CORNER BROOK — Glenda Simms travelled to over 80 countries before moving back home to Corner Brook and taking on the role of the city’s tourism co-ordinator.
In those travels she’s seen a lot of signs that are used as tourist attractions, a place for taking pictures and creating memories.
It was something she noticed was lacking in Corner Brook, and over the past year she has been working on a project to create a Corner Brook sign.
The finished product was unveiled on the White House Lawn on West Street on Tuesday morning, during Tourism Awareness Month.
The sign features colourful five-foot-high letters sitting on top of a 42-footlong concrete base. The approximately $55,000 cost was shared between the city and the provincial and the federal governments.
Each letter features a different design, and Simms said in working on it with Speedpro Signs the idea was to present things relevant to the city, such as a salmon, the paper mill, a train, Indigenous culture and sports.
“So, I wanted to make sure that we had a sign that represented our past and our present, the history or our area. And was inviting for tourists to come and take some selfies and see our beautiful city.”
Simms says it’s about the stories the sign tells.
Her 90-year-old grandfather worked at the paper mill and could come and tell stories of when he worked, she said, and if her brothers came home from Alberta they could share stories with their children of what it was like to live in Corner Brook.
It’s also about creating new stories.
“Visitors can come and start their own stories, write a page in their own story that they can bring home and share with their family and friends,” Simms said.
She said it’s also a way to encourage people to share pictures on social media of what they experienced in the city and along the south and north shore of the Bay of Islands and Humber Valley area.
“We’ve really tried to make a splash when it comes to placemaking, especially in our downtown,” Mayor Jim Parsons said after the big reveal.
He said in the last few years the city has been working on ways to attract people to the downtown and improve the city’s tourism product for visitors.
“This really just signals to everyone, including our own businesses and individuals, that we’re in the tourism business and in a serious way. We have a thriving tourism industry, but I think it could expand tenfold,” Parsons said.
He said many cities have locations with a specific feature that can be a place for people to take pictures.
“So, this sign is really a way to get people to come here, take a snap, share it on social media and create a memory,” said Parsons.
“There’s something here for everyone.”
As for his favourite letter, Parsons said he was partial to the K, which features an image of Craig Kennedy, a former superintendent of public works who died in 2018. The image is of his days as a player with the Corner Brook Royals.