(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)

I took a lot of pictures at the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village; I’ve included a few more here (including the picture above) that weren’t in my original post on that fascinating site.  There are many other things to see east of Edmonton, however.

Near Vegreville and its giant Pysanka, there is another rural community with a huge monument.  Mundare is neither as large nor as famous as Vegreville but it honours its roots with…a giant sausage!   It sounds a little peculiar but the biggest business in town is indeed Stawnichy’s Meat Processing, right on the main street of Mundare.  There was a substantial Polish and Ukrainian population in the area so Woytko Stawnichy established a small grocery store here in 1959 with one small sausage smoker.

Over time, the sausage business prospered and became the focus of the Stawnichy family business.  To better service its loyal customers who now live and work in the big city,  there is even a Mundare Sausage House (and the associated Uncle Ed’s Restaurant) in the provincial capital of Edmonton.  However, the manufacturing facility and the heart of the business remains in tiny Mundare.  We didn’t go deep into the facility but were given some “Stawnichy’s Sausage” pins as souvenirs.  A tip and/or a warning, depending on how you feel about such aromas:  even the reception area smells strongly of sausage.

I would have loved to see more of the giant “monuments” in Alberta., such as the world’s largest pierogi in Glendon, the world’s largest badminton racquet in St. Albert, the world’s largest bee in Falher, the world’s largest beaver in Beaverlodge, or the world’s largest golf tee in Trochu.   Seeing all of Western Canada’s strange structures could easily form the basis of a bizarre road trip.  As we needed to return to our home base in Camrose that evening, we reluctantly started to head back via the town of Viking,

Most Canadian hockey fans will recognize Viking as the home of the Sutter brothers.  Incredibly, six brothers from the Sutter family all went on to play professional hockey in the National Hockey League.   While Viking recognizes its claim to fame, the town is extremely quiet and otherwise typical of many other farming communities in this part of the province.  The name “Viking” comes from the large number of Scandinavian immigrants who settled here.   There is even a “Viking Troll Park”, pictured above.

In our ongoing mission to support independent restaurants, we found ourselves at the “Viking Burger Queen” for dinner.   It was by no means fancy but we quite enjoyed chowing down on some substantial pizzas after a long day on the road.

As I’ve mentioned in some of my previous posts, we are about to head out on another adventure.   We are visiting one of the extremities of Canada but will also be visiting another country during the trip.  Notwithstanding the very rough sailing experience described in one of my recent blogs, we will be braving the open seas once again to make this an international trip.  It just might be the strangest international trip you can make by boat from Canada.

Intrigued?  I expect to be posting a little more frequently over the next couple of weeks, although that will naturally depend on the availability of Internet access.   Stay tuned!