The mayor of a Saskatchewan city has upped the ante in a rivalry with a Norwegian town over which has the largest moose sculpture.
Despite reports of a moose truce, Mayor of Moose Jaw Fraser Tolmie has pledged to restore the title of world’s largest moose statue on Mac the Moose, an honour it claimed for 34 years.
Standing more than 32 feet tall, Mac was the world’s largest until he was knocked off his perch in 2015 by a polished stainless steel statue, just 30 centimetres taller, called Storelgen in the town of Stor-Elvdal, Norway.
Tolmie’s campaign to restore Mac’s title has raised more than $37,000 of its $50,000 target so far.
“I’ve told the people of Norway you don’t want to get into this race because you will bankrupt your nation,” Tolmie told CTV’s Your Morning.
“They’ve put out a bit of an olive branch to create a moose truce in the last couple of days, they had the opportunity to do this when they built their moose, but they purposely built their moose to be taller than ours.”
It’s a personal quest for Tolmie who explained that Mac was named after his wife’s great uncle and local alderman Les McKenzie.
“The moose truly represents the character of the Canadian people,” he said
“It’s very majestic, very stoic, I would even say it’s stately. The people of Canada have united for this cause.”
Ideas to boost Mac’s height include skates for his hoofs, a Mountie hat or a new set of antlers.
“Truly we are going to look at regaining this crown,” Tolmie said.
“Right now it looks like we’re going to be putting antlers on him, but there might be some other add-ons that we will do. We will restore the national pride of Canada.”
Mac was built of steel and concrete and placed at a tourist information centre at the edge of the city in 1984.
During the construction of Storelgen, artist Linda Bakke said her statue "will be much nicer than Mac.”
Stor-Elvdal’s deputy mayor Linda Otnes Henriksen has been following the Canadian campaign and is set to visit Moose Jaw.
“We’re going to be having some conversations,” Tolmie said.
“I can’t promise any peace accords at this time.”
Tolmie has previously referred to the Norwegian statue as a giant hood ornament.
Otnes Henriksen said Stor-Elvdal doesn't have the kind of money to keep building bigger sculptures to compete with Moose Jaw.
She suggests the Saskatchewan city raises Mac's height to be equal to the Norwegian moose.
"Maybe, you know, we could get out of this by making the moose the same height," she told The Canadian Press in an interview on Sunday.
Last week Moosehead Breweries donated $25,000 to the Mac GoFundMe campaign.
--- With files from The Canadian Press
