Moose Mail™🗺️ Big Things, Small Towns
Canada builds them big and parks them by the highway. A slow tour of the giant roadside wonders, one town at a time.
Tap a stop on the map and that giant pops up in its own little window. Tap More in the window to visit its own page, or keep scrolling for the full tour, west to east, British Columbia to Newfoundland.
The World's Largest Hockey Stick
62 metres of Douglas fir leaning on the community centre, built for Expo 86 and certified the world's largest in 2008. Forty times life size. Somewhere out there is a goalie having a very bad day.
Tyra, the World's Largest Dinosaur
An 86-foot T. rex watching over the Badlands. Climb the 106 stairs inside her and the view from her mouth is the best in town. Visit while you can: Tyra is set to retire in 2029, and then the valley goes back to regular-sized scary.
Mac the Moose
The world's largest moose, 34 feet tall and ten tons of civic pride. Norway built a taller moose in 2015 and stole his title, so in 2019 Mac got a bigger set of antlers and took it back. We consider him a close personal friend of the brand.
The World's Largest Coke Can
An 85-foot soda can that is secretly a 1905 water tower in a costume. The Coca-Cola company had nothing to do with it. The town just decided, and honestly, respect.
The Wawa Goose
The famous goose at the highway junction. When the Trans-Canada link was finished in 1960 it bypassed downtown, so local merchant Al Turcott helped hatch a plan: build a goose nobody could drive past. It worked, and the current goose is the third one to stand guard.
The Big Nickel
Nine metres of pocket change, standing since 1964. The most valuable coin you will never spend.
The Snow Countess
A five-ton statue honouring Springbank Snow Countess, the hometown Holstein who out-produced every cow on Earth and held the world record for two decades. Technically life-size. Spiritually enormous. (Full disclosure: this is Moose Mail's hometown entry. The cow insisted.)
The Giant Toonie
A 27-foot two-dollar coin honouring hometown artist Brent Townsend, who drew the polar bear on the real toonie. The flip side is dated 1996, the year the coin launched. Campbellford takes its change seriously.
The Big Orange
A three-storey orange, 40 feet across, that happens to be a restaurant. The Gibeau Orange Julep has served its famous creamy orange drink from inside a giant fruit since 1932, and the current orange, built in 1966, is a full Montreal landmark.
The Giant Lobster
Eleven metres of lobster in the Lobster Capital of the World. You can climb it. Everyone does.
The Giant Potato
A 14-foot fibreglass potato standing guard at the Canadian Potato Museum. Not the biggest giant on this page, but pound for pound the most committed to its theme.
The Big Fiddle
A 60-foot steel fiddle standing on the waterfront, greeting every cruise ship that docks. Cape Breton's ceilidh tradition, scaled up until you can hear about it from the harbour.
The Giant Squid
A life-size statue of the real 55-foot giant squid that washed ashore here in 1878, still the largest ever recorded. The statue weighs four tons. The original was famously cut up for dog food, because Newfoundland wastes nothing.