Landmarks S1 EP 2 Mr.PG
foreign [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] Prince George is the gateway to Northern British Columbia a rail hub for Freight coming from Asia to the USA and a key Crossroads of the East-West Yellowhead and north-south 97 highways anyone who passes through this intersection gets a wave from Mr PG the location where he is at Now is really our busiest intersection Highway 16 and Highway 97 and he welcomes everybody that comes into the City and he thanks everybody who are leaving the city and whether it be people working or on vacation he's there when I was little we used to get in the car we lived about two hours away and when we saw Mr PG we knew we were here we knew we were in the big city it was very exciting as a little kid David Kopp and Kyle Cardin will trim trees for the Prince George Parks division once a month Kyle and David tend to Mr PG the statue that looks like wood but is made of metal all right there you go buddy today Mr PG is getting a new flag we probably get up to 50 requests annually for our beloved Mr PG to hold various Flags in recognition of different things he's a very charitable guy after more than six decades on the job Mr PG has his own museum display Mr PG is a really important symbol of Prince George and really represents the community so we figured we should have a permanent installation in Exploration Place to represent Mr PG and Prince George this is more of a classic Mr Prince George 1960s version I think we're going to install him in the same case probably on the right hand side I like this one because he represents the charitable side of Mr PG he was done by Mrs denicola I have always been very craft oriented I do endless crafts and so I thought well why can't I make Mr PG and so all I needed was a bandsaw and a drill press next maybe we'll go with one of the classics in the left corner there you can still get these guys at the Chamber of Commerce in the date when I stopped making him I had made 243 dozen with just a fair number if you do your multiplication properly residents were awarded Mr PG models for their civic service and you knew you were a VIP if you received one of these as a gift they used him as citizen of the Year Awards and they had them always on the store shelves you can still find Mr PG souvenirs for sale in downtown Prince George we carry carry all kinds of Mr P Ure Peak and stuff like this which are cool and we have our little nip Mr PG which one of our seniors made I just like promoting him I think he's a great mascot for our town he got to go to every corner of the world because tourists would get off the plane and standing around the airport and they'd see them and they'd snap one up and take it home when Mr PG was first dreamed up in the 1950s Prince George was a logging town with a tough reputation you had to be very careful where you went and who you talked to and I always carried with me a rock in the end of a nylon stocking Doreen was wary of loggers who came out of the Bush to blow off steam I think how stupid we were to think that these men were dangerous in the late 1950s a 10-foot tall wooden Mr PG statue stood outside the downtown Simon Fraser hotel where Lumber Barons met for coffee Mr PG became a kind of a mascot to the lumber Barons in this city the bus stop at the Greyhound bus stop was what I did and then I came off the bus was one of the first things that I saw in his mid-20s John Brink came from Holland to make his fortune in the BC forest I had 25 dollars and 47 cents in a dream it's good fall down the normal conversation would be when did you get here and when are you leaving wild there was a sawmill behind every stump they used to say and everybody was working so much of Prince George identity for our citizens here is tied up in the forest industry and that's why Mr PG is the perfect mascot for this city Mr PG shows how much our livelihoods but also our Recreation revolves around the forest and the extraction of Timber bring Forest Products is one of the last independent lumber companies in Prince George consolidation has continued bear about four or five companies control at least 75 of all the timber that is allowed to be cut into products and so the independent saw Millis of becoming rarer and rarer Mr PG became famous across Canada when a taller Statue was attached to a crane arm on a traveling parade float so they made him so that he was hinged at the waist he'd bow to the people as he came to a set of wires and say good morning I'm Mr PG from Prince George in the early 60s he had the opportunity to participate in the Kelowna Regatta he went down and participated in the Pacific National exhibition in Vancouver he was even in the gray Cup Parade in 1963. that's phenomenal well they started off writing out p as p-e-e-g-e-e I don't know why they did that I don't know why they stopped doing it but I love seeing it after the parades today's Mr PG statue was installed next to the tourism office at the Yellowhead and Highway 97 Junction at over eight meters tall today's Mr PG is painted to look like tree trunks but he's actually made of metal and fiberglass some say his body was a septic tank While others consider this a vicious rumor no new scoot news during the covid pandemic a club dubbed the PG grannies knit a huge scarf for Mr PG we thought that he could do it a nice scarf during the cold winter months and besides of Rosie's birthday and I think it was part of a birthday present for him every Knitter made two panels in isolation that were later stitched together it was the heaviest bit of knitting I've done in a long time and it just about killed me oh it's a bit of a feeling of accomplishment thank you very much classine she's the one who who put it all together I got the wall everybody got two balls and light and a colored one everybody knitted two pieces because it was a big Mr Fiji you need two big scarf that year he was 65 and so he's a senior too now and seniors are called so we figured him in the mix guys right what does the future hold for Mr PG these ladies think the city should find him a better home he sort of isolated to where the public can't get right up to him what would be nice to go visit him you know because she's been such an icon there's a lot of construction taking place around him as the city grows I think it's difficult right now to snap a great picture with the beautiful scenery and natural sort of beauty that Prince George holds so I think it'd be great if he moved across the road to where you could capture more of that so I would love to see him move more to a public spot a place that is could also be a destination for people that represents our Northern community and it's a great photo op and every time I look at them I think this is the guy that really depicts what Prince George was and where it's come from and where we are today [Music] Doreen just hopes old Mr PG's loyalty is rewarded it's a strange thing to think that he's survived as long as he has whether he's going to stay there or not I still don't know people want to go see Mr PG and as a citizen who lives here I want to go see Mr PG seems like he just doesn't have his natural of a setting as he once did he's still the man that I think about when we talk about the forest sector so we're thinking about where would Mr PG like to move to as much as Prince George changes the idea of Mr PG stays the same I think that's a reassuring piece of our life that we can depend on Mr PG a landmark statue in the history of Prince George who today finds his own future at a Crossroads foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] so this machine I'm standing in front of is called a steam donkey and why was it called a steam donkey because it replaced donkeys most of the forest industry really is just machines trying to get trees from point A to point B and that's what this machine would do you would use wood and whatever excess material you had to create a fire in the bottom here and it would heat up water that was in the boiler and that steam that was produced would create pressure which in turn would turn these gears which powered this winch mechanism which had a cable on it and the cable would wrap up and pull trees from way in the distance into a central location so the biggest biggest problem in the forest industry what I would say took up more than 90 percent of their time and technological development is just moving trees from point A to point B in the forest as you can imagine there's no roads there's so much underbrush there's so many challenges to moving trees and so mechanisms like a steam donkey would help workers do that with more technology instead of having to do it all by hand and through the power of animals quite often the steam donkey was so heavy and difficult to transport they would actually abandon them in the bush so you can find these abandoned in the bush all along the west coast so much of Prince George identity for our citizens here is tied up in the forest industry and that's why Mr PG is the perfect mascot for this city because Mr PG shows how much our livelihoods but also our Recreation revolves around the forest and the extraction of Timber I've been familiar with Mr PG my whole life Mr PG used to feel like he was in the middle of nowhere at the intersection of Highway 97 and 16 and now he's surrounded by buildings and the playhouse and it seems like he just doesn't have as natural of a setting as he once did I think Mr PG could be showcased in Prince George a lot better I think that he is a tourism draw people want to go see Mr PG and as a citizen who lives here I want to go see Mr PG and right now it is difficult you can't park anywhere close to him you can't take a good picture with him and he also seems to be detached from what he represents I think Mr PG really embodies a spirit that Prince George has I think we're all ready to get down to business it shows who we are and how we connect to our resources in nature here but it also shows that we're a bit fun and that we um we can have a laugh the city owns the brand of Mr PG and there's so it's really tightly controlled um and so we really aren't allowed to to play with him he's kitschy and fun and engaging and people really love them um and so I would just love to see the community be able to embrace him even more and if we can encourage artists locally to start to use him in some of the work that they do and have that on offer I think that it just helps build the community engagement with him as a brand for our city foreign for me when I was five years old we would get in the car and I would know how close we were by where Mr PG was so we would come into town and visit my aunt so for me Mr PG was up um on the corner of Highway 97 and when I saw him I was just so we were just so excited so it was kind of like he's an icon he is just someone in my time has always been around really foreign symbol of Prince George and really represents the community so we figured we should have a permanent installation in Exploration Place to represent Mr PG and Prince George in the 1950s Prince George was solely dominated the economy by the forest industry and at the time the mayor Harold Moffett really thought that we needed some sort of mascot that was going to represent Prince George and the forest economy he came up with Mr PG he approached a local a local rotarian and together they created the first Mr PG so he's really grown in popularity since then Although our economy isn't solely based on the logging industry Mr Prince George has grown along with that there have been numerous debates on whether Mr PG is still relevant whether he should continue to represent the community whether he's even relevant these days when we don't solely focus on Lumber anymore and the background that's taken place here but with those Community debates it's come out that Mr Prince George is a beloved figure of Prince George and has represented numerous Charities and causes in town that have created an importance in the community around Mr PG Mr PG now greets everyone to Prince George he's at the intersection of Highway 16 and 97 and he's there to welcome you as you drive into town no matter which direction you're going I think it's difficult right now just to snap a great picture with the beautiful scenery and natural sort of beauty that Prince George holds so I think it'd be great if he moved across the road to where you can capture more of that Mr PG dresses up in different costumes and holds different flags and basically just shows that we're supporting different causes around town so that may be a sports event that may be a charity whatever is important in the world Mr PG likes to take part and show Community Pride one of the first things I did when I moved to Prince George was driving my car to Mr PG get out and take a picture and let people know that I moved here and I was happy to be a resident on Prince George so I think he does stir emotions and people reminds them of their past reminds them of where we're going and so I really do think that he's become an iconic figure of Prince George foreign 93 years of age I've been blessed to have much longer than I ever dreamed I would have I came from a very small town in Manitoba a farming Community where there was no work for um my five brothers and a sister unless you wanted to work on a farm for the rest of your life it was quite a shock coming from Manitoba from one of the prettiest little Prairie towns in Manitoba where I'm proud to say um we we were blessed with natural treed areas which was rare in Manitoba because we were close to the Assiniboine belly and to come from that up here to what was really known as a rough and rugged area you had to be very careful where you went and who you talked to has always been in within view I came here in 1955 and he was well and truly established on the corner of George and First Avenue he became very popular through the 40s and 50s as an ambassador to Prince George a four Prince George to the rest of the province because he represented the lumber industry and of course it's the lumber industry that built Prince George it was very gratifying to be able to accomplish keeping him alive as a representative of this area our history is solely on the lumber industry we were once known as the white spruce capital of the world it's a Stickman uh well what do they expect every tree is a stick and it built this city I do hope that people are becoming more aware that we have to recognize our past
2023-01-02 05:13
