Snow Canada! Family creates Olympic billboard on a winter wall

The Canadian Olympic team has inspired a hot – or is it cool? – new tourist attraction in the Ontario snowbelt.

A family near Paisley, in rural Bruce County, created an impromptu “Go Canada!” billboard across the road from their farm.

Their canvas? An 11-foot-high wall of snow.

“It’s Canada and we have snow – lots of it,” Sarah Slater said. “And we’re living with this snowbank. If we can actually paint on it, let’s paint on it.”

The elementary school principal came up with the idea after realizing that the tall wall, created by plows clearing Bruce County Road 1 just south of Paisley, was a perfect graffiti spot to celebrate the start of the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

“It’s so exciting to be able to watch all of these sports that we never get to see,” she said. “So whatever is on, I’m watching it.”

Slater enlisted the help of her three children, Liam and Rachel and Moira Robertson, to do the job with a can of spray paint. It didn’t take long to draw some flags and a slogan, with Moira also tagging the wall with her name.

It was just for fun, even if Slater and the snow wall had already gone viral due to the wall’s height, measured by someone at 11 feet. This was just about celebrating Canada and the Olympics.

But, almost immediately, passersby began stopping to admire the family’s creation. They snapped pictures which also quickly went viral and caused more people to want to see it for themselves.

Now they’re showing up at all hours of the day and night to actually hang out at the site, even climbing the wall and jumping off.

Slater’s husband, Grant Robertson, said there have been days when someone has been there at every moment he has been outside. He’s overheard local visitors asking for directions to the spot.

Bruce Road 1 is a popular rural thoroughfare that already presents a challenge in wintertime simply because the lanes have been narrowed by snow accumulation. Parked vehicles are now adding to the difficulties. And yet people continue to arrive in spite of everything, including weather conditions.

“We have no idea how many pictures have been taken. It’s very busy out there, constantly,” Slater said. “It’s just been a constant stream of people.”

“People are having fun with it,” Robertson added. “They’ve been stopping to paint things along there, adding more stuff in support of the Olympic team.

“And it’s exciting to see how well the team is doing already.”

Robertson says that, on an intellectual level, his family fully understands the power of social media.

“But to actually see people driving up to take a picture of a snowbank, it’s a little surprising.”

For all of its popularity, the continuing existence of the Olympic homage is tenuous. It’s in danger of being covered up by fresh snow that falls and is plowed off the road and into the wall.

The wall also has a growing overhang that’s bound to collapse and likewise be scooped up and pushed over top of the design.

The family is optimistic, though, because that may well mean a fresh canvas for them to play with.

“We’ve still got some more spray paint left,” Slater said, laughing.