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Since the late ‘70s, the American white pelican has summered along the South Saskatchewan River. The Pelicans fly south in the winter and their return north is eagerly awaited. There's even a Pelican Watch contest to spot the first pelican of the season. Fort Qu'appelle, Saskatchewan recently took their pelican love one step further, making it their town's official bird. Some locals even call themselves “Fort Qu’Appelicans.” We talk to Brian Strong, the mayor of Fort Qu’Appelle about the town’s love for pelicans.
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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.
