Wawa set to welcome Goose III
WAWA, Ont. — The giant Canada goose in Wawa that has quietly greeted countless travellers for more than five decades is set to fly its concrete roost ahead of the formal arrival of a replacement on Canada Day.
Hundreds of townsfolk and dignitaries are expected to be on hand for the lifting of a parachute shroud that will mark the unveiling of fowl’s latest incarnation.
“It’s our identity, so it’s been important for us,” said Chris Wray, Wawa’s chief administrative officer.
Even though everyone already knows what Goose III will look like, excitement is mounting in the town, which plans an array of festivities to mark the occasion, including drummers and a performance by Fred Eaglesmith, the alternative country singer-songwriter known for his songs about the quirky folk of rural Canada.
The new bird — essentially a clone of its immediate predecessor — was made of stainless steel in Trenton, Ont., based on detailed drawings of the older one for about $300,000. It’s about 8.5 metres tall with a wingspan of about six metres and comes in pieces that are to be assembled on site on a refurbished plinth.
“We’re hoping that they’re going to be able to put most of it together under the parachute so that we don’t ruin the big reveal,” Wray said.
The popular goose, visited by about 50,000 people a year, has appeared on a Canada Post stamp, inspired the song “Little Wawa,” appeared in the Hollywood movie “Snowcake,” and has been photographed countless times. It was the brainchild of local businessman Al Turcott, the prime mover behind “Operation Michipicoten” in the early 1950s.
That scheme involved recruiting four young men to trek through the bush to Montreal River — pretending to get lost along the way — to press home to governments the need to fill in a missing stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway. However, when the highway was completed almost a decade later, Turcott realized passing motorists would need a reason to make the turn into the town, whose name in Ojibwe means “wild goose.”
Townsfolk, skeptical of his notion, were pretty sure Turcott would end up with egg on his face. History shows he didn’t.
Made of plaster-and-mesh, Goose I was erected in time for the opening of the nearby highway on Sept. 17, 1960. But within a couple of years, it was in such poor condition, the story goes, residents awoke one morning to finds parts scattered around. Much fuss and feathers ensued. The search for a sturdier replacement began.
But Goose I wasn’t about to fade away without a squawk. Turcott moved it to an attraction he had out of town on the Michipicoten River called Fort Friendship. After he died and the property sold, vandals swooped down upon the hapless bird. “The goose was, like, in terrible shape, bullet holes, everything, it was horrible,” Anita Young, 69, owner of Young’s General Store, recalls.
Goose I, badly in need of a spruce in the form of paint, now perches quietly beside Young’s general store, a little more than a kilometre from where Goose II, more rusty than rustic, is counting down the last days of its 50-plus years of welcoming visitors.
One lingering question is why, in the 1980s, Goose II seemed to cross the road — although the answer appears to be “to get to the airport.” Puzzled locals remember finding huge goose footprints one morning leading from the statue, across the parking lot, and down the highway to the airport. An old newspaper report says crews from Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., were called out for the cleanup.
Young’s son Allan Young said last week the prints were the handiwork of his late father Bill Young and buddy Fern Provost.
“They never admitted to it,” Allan Young told The Canadian Press. “But we still have the stencil they used.”