What's the big deal about large roadside attractions? There's a lot to love

Adrienne Lamb · CBC News

· Posted: May 17, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 8 minutes ago

The May agelong play marks the authoritative commencement of summertime roadworthy travel play and Kyler Zeleny — a fourth-generation sausage-maker successful agrarian Alberta — expects to spot a full batch much tourists rolling up to spot a elephantine Ukrainian kielbasa.

The monolithic nutrient monument successful the municipality of Mundare, 80 kilometres eastbound of Edmonton, was the brainchild of Zeleny's grandfather, Edward Stawnichy.

"The reasoning was if we're making sausage and we've got a clump of Ukrainians here, let's erect a Ukrainian sausage — a kielbasa," says Zeleny, present the adjunct manager astatine Stawnichy's Mundare Sausage.

The kielbasa, which went up successful April 2001, is 12.8 metres — astir 42 feet — tall. 

The family's charitable instauration is said to person paid $120,000 for the reddish fibreglass operation that stands successful a parkland not acold from the nutrient processing plant. 

Zeleny says the larger-than-life nexus (pun intended) to the 66-year-old household concern has helped the institution grow. It present has 80 products successful much than 300 stores.

He's arrogant of the sausage sculpture. 

"There's conscionable thing astir tiny towns getting down creating truly kitsch ideas arsenic a mode to thrust radical into towns," says Zeleny.

WATCH | Dive into the backstory of this substantial sausage sculpture successful Alberta: 

Craig Glenday, editor-in-chief of Guinness World Records, circles the globe weighing and measuring large things.

Glenday said Alberta has astir 40 claims of the world's largest things, according to the website Large Canadian Roadside Attractions. The rest of the state is dotted with giant structures that see a fiddle, a canoe paddle, a nickel, an axe, a full clump of animals and elephantine food.

"It's a truly fascinating collection," said the London-based Glenday.

IN PHOTOS: Some of Canada's super-sized spectacles:

He says roadside attractions grew up alongside North America's car civilization and uncovering these off-the-beaten-path destinations is fractional the fun.

"It's a weird thrill, isn't it, erstwhile you're driving and you spot thing disconnected successful the region and think, 'What is that?'" says Glenday. "It's intriguing and it gets the adrenaline rushing, it's rather exciting." 

Glenday said Guinness World Records precocious certified the world's largest imagination catcher. It hangs from a monolithic woody framework astatine the powwow grounds connected Rama First Nation, not acold from Orillia, Ont.

A imagination project

Its creator, 61-year-old Bob Williams, spent much than a twelvemonth readying and crafting the structure, which weighs 900 kilograms (1,985 pounds) and is astir 13 metres (42-ish feet) in diameter.

Williams has been gathering imagination catchers for fractional his life, but ne'er thing connected this scale.

To beryllium a accepted imagination catcher of the Chippewa territory, nary metallic could beryllium used, said Williams. So it's made of 2,100 metres of rope, 1,500 metres of sinew and flexible trees collected from the bush adjacent his house. 

"I take those woods for a reason, due to the fact that they person a batch of meaning for our civilization — ash and willow, we enactment with them a lot," said Williams.

Hoisting the instauration into spot was a spot similar handling "a large large anaconda," helium said. 

"It was scary, I archer you. I didn't recognize however flexible the imagination catcher was. Lifting it disconnected the crushed took, like, 300 people," says Williams.

The grounds for the largest imagination catcher was antecedently held by Lithuania astatine 10 metres successful diameter.

But due to the fact that imagination catchers were created successful North America by the Ojibwe people, Williams wanted the world's largest to beryllium located successful Canada.

"I wanted to marque that hap successful Rama."

Darryl Lem hasn't seen the imagination catcher yet, but the caller retiree and motorcyclist enthusiast has seen much than a fewer elephantine landmarks portion travelling the highways. 

"There's the blessed stone successful Gladstone, Man., a large large Viking successful Winnipeg Beach and the Wawa goose," said the 59-year-old, who's been taking successful the large sights implicit astir 7 years of touring.

"We did Route 66 past twelvemonth and saw everything from the large muffler antheral and each sorts of attractions," said Lem.

He considers it a bucket database benignant of thing.

"Who doesn't privation to thrust a mates 1000 kilometres to spot the biggest shot of yarn and get an crystal cream?"