Did you know there were pelicans in Saskatchewan?

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sale on the drop by GNC. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is

the current podcast. There is a particular squawk that signals spring in some

parts of Saskatchewan. That squawk is the call of the American white pelican, a bird

that perhaps does not spring immediately to mind when you think of that

province. Natalia Slipack works at a wildlife rehabilitation and education

center in Regina. When I see pelicans, it's the feeling of, okay, we're we're done.

We're done with winter here with pelis and I am always happy to see them. I love

them. I love them very much. Since the late 70s, the American white pelican has

suffered along the south Saskatchewan River. The pelicans fly south in the

winter and then return north and that return is eagerly as we heard awaited.

There's even a pelican watch contest to spot the first pelican of the season.

Fort Capellas Saskatchewan recently took their pelican love to another level,

making it their town's official bird. Some locals even call themselves Fort

Capellacans. Brian Strong is the mayor of Fort Capellas in our studio in Regina.

Brian, good morning. Good morning, Matt. How are you today? Well, I'm well. You

call the pelican an obvious choice to be your town's official bird. This is the

perennial question. Why the pelican? Well, the white pelican, as you you mentioned,

migrated from the Gulf of Mexico to open waters in Saskatchewan, including our

Capell lakes. We're a south Saskatchewan River, Gardiner Dam, deep and Baker, and

visits quite often the Beceta Point, which is just outside of Fort Capell.

And with its nine-foot wingspan, pelicans, they're sociable, like most Fort

Capellacans, as you mentioned. They pair up. They form colonies to raise their

offspring. They hunt together. They help each other and share their food. So

they're a very welcome bird in our community. Were there other birds in the

running to be the official bird of Fort Capell? Yeah, there was numerous birds.

I'll name a few of them, but one comes to mind that I've really got a

mansion. There was magpies, robins, blue jays, falcons. But I got, I have to make

this honorable mansion, and it must go out to the submission for the Fort

Capellacan miniature yellow-throated snowcock. Thank that submitter for

playing along with such great humor and taking the time to send us a picture of

this very rare bird in its natural habitat. And if anyone happens to see it,

please call me because I don't think it exists. Sounds good, though. How did the

vote come about? What led up to? There are a lot of other issues perhaps

pressing in town, but this is a big one. It seemed to be, if I have got to turn

the clock back to around June of 2025, and we've got a group that looks after

beautifying the town, Fort Capell, called the community in bloom. And these

ladies went out to promote the pelican as the town unofficial bird, I should

say. They had a steel sculpture and two familiar birds in graceful flight

mounted at the tourist information booth. And in addition, 18 smaller little

pelicans that we put up on our lambs standards along the Main Street, Broadway

Street. The two ladies that coordinated this were Carol Glowa and Lynn Simmons.

And as a result, I said that we should possibly consider making the pelican the

town's official bird. And that's where we started off with. You can't just

declare such a thing. You need to turn to the town's people to figure out what

their what their choice is. Exactly. So coming into 2026, we put out the

nominations for the town bird. And like you mentioned, it was a landslide.

The pelican was definitely the one that was chosen. Perhaps no surprise given the

Fort Capellican river race. What is the Fort Capellican river race?

Okay, that's put on each year by the Lions Club. So what they do is they take a

little, if you remember, the little rubber duckies that you might have in your

bathtub when you were a youngster, they put the numbers on them. They sell

tickets, put them in this big cage, drop the cage, open the cage, and down the

river system, it goes. And when it comes to the bridge on the highway, the first

one there is picked out. And that's the winner. So that's a fundraiser that the

Lions Club put on annually. And it's been well taken. These are majestic birds.

They're enormous. As you said, a huge wingspan. But they are really just

beautiful to watch as well. What do they mean? Do you think to the people of your

town? Well, we had a lady that did two portraits, painted portraits, and her

name was Joanne Lauder. She was an artist who lived in what we call the castle

or the McDonald's house on Bay Avenue. It's 144 year old house. She spent a lot

of time observing the birds on the bank of the Capell river outside her window.

And she was fascinated with them and used the call, say, that they were flying

dinosaurs. So it's been around for ages, the pelicans, and what they mean to the

town. And it's a sign of spring as well as we heard when you see the first ones

that mean something, right? Absolutely. Yeah, spring is in there. That's for sure.

Has it been a long winter for you? It hasn't been not bad. I'm some may argue

we've got some fairly heavy snow. Some may argue. I mean, it's typical

Saskatchewan winter colds. The cold snaps weren't too bad, but we did have

quite a considerable amount of snow. Warm weather to above freezing and times in

January, which you would have never saw, but we did this year. And so when they

arrive, I mean, that's the sign that as we heard, you're done with winter, you've

broken the back of that terrible season. Some people love it, some people hate it,

but often goes and now we're in just spring. When when when it's pelican season,

what is it like in your town? It's it's busy. The town is surrounded by four

different lakes. And like I mentioned, the pelicans do gather on this sort of

point or peninsula out on on echo lake at Pasada. It's a busy. The town probably

grows by at least 10,000. I would say people in the summertime due to the lakes,

the fishing, etc. And the bird watching presumably as well. And the bird watching,

yeah. What do you love about these birds? Well, like I mentioned, they're they're

sociable. You can sit there. They've got a huge nine-foot wingspan. Their beaks, I

think, hold about 13 liters of water, which is huge. They're just nice to watch. And so there's

a contest that people can kind of guess when the the first pelicans will arrive to show the

beginning of spring that that hasn't started yet, right? The birds have yet to arrive. No,

no birds have yet to arrive as a matter of fact, coming in from Fort Copeland to Regina this

morning. I got up and it snowed again. So we haven't seen any of the white birds coming yet,

but we sure look forward to them. I am glad to hear about the vote that the vote

these things went you never know, but they went smoothly. Everybody seems to agree. And now you

have your official bread. You put it on a mug, you put it on a t-shirt, you put it on the town sign,

what do you do? We've had quite a quite a few people ask for for the steel pelicans to put in their

yards. Good idea. It's smaller ones that you can hang on your walls. They're powder coated. We're

going to sell them at the town office, tours, booths, and several different other businesses in

the community. And it's been well taken and we look forward to getting them out to whoever

wants them. Brian, good to talk to you, but thank you very much. Thank you. Brian Strong is the

Mayor of Fort Capel in Saskatchewan. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.