Widow looking for answers after Quebec man dies in Texas Ironman competition
The widow of a Quebec man who died competing in an Ironman competition is looking for answers.
Four years after creating and proposing a new, more accurate-looking moose crossing sign, Canadian transportation authorities are poised to start using an Alberta woman's design across the country.
Chloe Chapdelaine was an 18-year-old graphic design student living in a trailer outside of Foremost, Alta., when she was hit with artistic inspiration.
The moose crossing sign she passed every day going to work didn't seem right. So, she asked around.
"I brought it up to my co-workers and I said, 'Hey, have you guys noticed the sign on the highway? What do you guys think?'" she told CTV National News. "They were all, like, 'Oh my gosh. Is it even a moose? Does it look like a moose to you?'"
The "sad, sloppy" moose silhouette sign with a "droopy" nose has been a staple on highways across the country for years.
It had a number of anatomical faults, Chapdelaine says, which got her to break out a sharpie and draw up a new one. She gave the moose a shorter tail, less protruding chest, longer legs and a more "proud" and "majestic" snout.
She also wrote a light-hearted criticism of the sign at the time and an essay about why the moose is an iconic Canadian animal, which she mailed along with her drawing to several different transportation departments and agencies.
"I did not expect to hear back at all,” she said. “Honestly, I'd even forgotten that I sent it off in the first place because it was such a spur-of-the-moment random thing."
It took nearly four years, but one of Chapdelaine's letters finally caught the eye of the Transportation Association of Canada.
She received a reply earlier this year asking for the rights to use the image she created on new signs and in the agency's manual. Chapdelaine wasn't offered financial compensation for the design, but she couldn't deny the request.
"It's such a Canadian awesome legacy to have," she said. "I feel like I'll never do anything more Canadian than this."
The new signs are already being rolled out across the country, replacing their oddly shaped predecessors as needed.
With files from CTV News Calgary's Bill Macfarlane
The widow of a Quebec man who died competing in an Ironman competition is looking for answers.
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
As some family doctors are retiring and others are moving away from family medicine, there are fewer medical students to take their place.
A Winnipeg man said a single date gone wrong led to years of criminal harassment, false arrests, stress and depression.
United States authorities who have been searching for a pair of missing kayakers from British Columbia since the weekend have recovered two bodies in the nearby San Juan Islands of Washington state.
Individuals being barred from entering Ontario’s legislature while wearing a keffiyeh say the garment is part of their cultural identity— and the only ones making it political are the politicians banning it.
The proposed merger of agricultural giants Viterra and Bunge is raising competition concerns from the federal government.
A Douglas C-54 Skymaster airplane crashed into the Tanana River near Fairbanks on Tuesday, Alaska State Troopers said.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a Grade 4 student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.