‘Mother’ of Mac the Moose will be missed

When we next name some local city streets, Marge Gudmundson should be at the top of the list. Marge died on July 30 in Calgary. Marge had visions of a Moose Jaw tourist industry when virtually everybody in this city thought tourists only visited places like Banff, Jasper, Ottawa, maybe Waskesiu.

A proud resident and forever booster of Moose Jaw, Marge was absolutely certain people would visit Moose Jaw, if they only knew what we had to offer. Remember this was in the 1970s when Moose Jaw had a severe 70-year-old inferiority complex and no tunnels, no spa, no casino, no WDM.

A diminutive person physically, Marge made up for that, with her never-take-no-for-answer charm and her infectious laugh. She used both to convince the staid skeptical chamber of commerce types to assist her with an unusual tourist promotion.

Her job was some help. She worked at the winery (yes we used to have a winery here). Marge had some control of free wine and used it to promote Moose Jaw, whether for tourism or dance and music festivals.

(On another note, she promoted the Band City slogan and created the band city majorette hats that were for years presented to visitors).

She persuaded the chamber to help with a promotion called Moose Burger Night. Once a week, the local RCMP went out on the highway and “arrested” an unsuspecting tourist family, brought them to the chamber where they were fed alleged moose burgers, presented with Band City hats and told about the neat things to see and do in Moose Jaw.

The program’s unique aspects generated media publicity across Canada. Moose Burger barbecues, maybe with real moose burgers, would still be a summer promotion but for one little glitch.

On one of their “arrests”, the Mounties found a family in possession of illegal drugs. They made two family arrests that Monday — one for possessions of drugs and one for Moose Burger night.

The judge ruled the Mounties had no “probable cause” for stopping the car with drugs and threw out the case. Thus ended a successful promotion that was copied elsewhere and still runs in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Little roadblocks like that did not faze her. Her hard work and persuasive skills, along with half a dozen other follower/leaders, brought the city’s ‘big thing’ here.

Playing on the city’s name, Marge and the Moose Jaw Tourist Board built the city’s mascot ‘Mac the Moose’ as a tourist eye-stopper, raising money to build Mac. She convinced the McCaig family of Trimac Transportation, formerly of Moose Jaw, to build a tourist information centre next to Mac in Grayson Business Park.

The centre served Moose Jaw tourists until the federal government provided funds (in lieu of military base job cuts) for the current information centre in 1998. Mac was rebuilt and moved to the new centre.

The McCaig tourist information centre building was later moved to the Moose Jaw Exhibition grounds, where it is used as the Burrowing Owl Centre headquarters.

Marge and her husband Jack moved to Calgary in 1986 when his CPR job required.

She found a role in Calgary tourism becoming presenter of those famous white Stetson hats to over 18,000 celebrities and visitors from prime ministers to Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev and country artist Garth Brooks.

Today’s local multi-million dollar tourism industry, attracting 300,000 visitors a year, owes a lot to this remarkable and sweet woman.

Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net