A Banana for Manitoba

Is this just a North American story or is the rest of the world equally prone to such strange ideas?

A Canadian friend came to dinner last night and told us of her recent adventures with the CBC. She, a well-known performance artist, had heard on a CBC radio news program that some citizens of the very small town of Melita, Manitoba, were contemplating a bold new step for the town, a move sure to whip up Melita’s small economic base by flooding the town with tourists. Melita is referred to (by whom I do not know) as ‘Manitoba’s Banana Belt’—a phrase that must have most of its truth in a commitment to irony, since no one in Manitoba is going to be growing bananas very soon unless global warming truly has astonishing consequences.

But nevertheless, there you have it. The champions of Melita wish to build a 30-foot statue of a talking, revolving banana as a way of encouraging the tourist industry that is, apparently, currently lacking. Our friend, who happens to have a large collection of banana objects and information as well as a banana production company , called the CBC to suggest that Melita needed more than a revolving, talking banana because surely, when the tourists poured into town, they would be looking for more information about bananas. So she offered them her banana collection on the condition that they build a Banana Museum to accompany the talking, revolving banana. Her offer was subsequently broadcast by the CBC.

So far, the town’s members have apparently not enthusiastically endorsed the actual building of either the banana or the museum, but if they go ahead, they are not alone in this line of work. One of my own particular favorites is the world’s largest artichoke, in Castroville, California, the World's Artichoke Capitol. Although I would probably not go out of my way to see either fields of artichokes or the world’s largest (30-feet or so) artichoke, I would definitely go there to eat the deep-fried artichokes that are sold inside that artichoke.

So maybe Melita ought to consider, right inside that museum door, the sale of, say, deep-fried bananas, coated in chocolate, with a little ice cream on the side. In the winter, when there are probably no tourists anyway, they could drop the ice cream.

There’s way more of this stuff than you might think. Interested in seeing the world’s largest pysanki Easter egg in Vegreville, Alberta? Or maybe several hundred other Canadian contributions to large roadside signs, photographed by an intrepid collector.

Or how about a variety of U.S. offerings, such as the world’s largest ear of corn, chest of drawers, chair, tire, talking loon, and floating loon? All available when you are next driving around with nothing else to do and plenty of $4-$6/gallon gasoline to take you there.