On the Trail of Big, Tacky Monuments

One man’s decision to make a side trip to see a giant replica of a dumpling on a fork has led to a quest to record all big and tacky monuments across Canada that can be found only in towns too tiny to bear notice.

“It’s a hobby,” David Yanciw, 33, said Tuesday, explaining how two years ago he felt compelled on a car trip to stop and see the Glendon piroshki--an oversize monument to Ukraine’s national dish.

“It’s one of those things you have to see in real life to believe it--a giant piroshki on a fork,” Yanciw said.

The piroshki was erected by Ukrainian-Canadians, one of the groups to settle the prairies, who have also contributed a giant Easter egg and a giant mosquito and have announced plans for a giant kielbasa sausage for Mundare, in Alberta.

Yanciw said his initial mission, to start a Web page recording the big roadside attractions on the western Prairie provinces, has expanded to include the whole country.

He estimated that there are 220 such monuments in Canada, most of them on the prairies and many of them the height of bad taste.

“Often they’re out-of-the-way communities that draw visitors to them this way,” Yanciw said.

Yanciw has paid homage to giant deer antlers, a giant turtle, a giant mushroom, giant wheat sheaves, a giant space ship like “Star Trek’s” Enterprise at a town called Vulcan, and the giant Happy Rock--a slab of rock with a happy face painted on it.

“Some of it is very kitschy. It’s an embarrassment to some of the communities, but at the same time it attracts attention,” he said, professing distaste for the all-too-common giant Canada geese, moose and deer.

Yanciw’s favorite was Gilbert the Golf Ball--who inexplicably wields a hockey stick--at Gilbert Plains, in Manitoba.

Enthusiastic Canadians have been contributing photos and descriptions to the Web site, but Yanciw said he has been careful to avoid saying whether any of the monuments are the “biggest” in the world--as they often claim to be.

“I don’t want to get into a fight with anyone,” he said. “Half the towns on the prairies are the sunniest or the friendliest. I get a kick out of their mottoes.”

He added that some of the attractions are feats of engineering, such as the giant painting of sunflowers, a la Van Gogh, at Altona, in Manitoba, which rests on an easel nearly 80 feet high.

“The reason I find it amazing is I know what a prairie wind is like,” he said.