Audio Excerpt

Welcome to Whitewood, home of the French Counts! Mmmmm saying that makes me want some Count Chocola.. Those little crunchy balls of chocolaty goodness.. Mmm so good.  Well I know what I’m having for dinner! That’s right folks, cereal for dinner.. I like to live dangerously.  

 

Anyways,  if you look to the South, just to the East of OK Tire, you’ll see a flag garden with 14 different countries flags.  These flags represent the many different nationalities that made up Whitewood in the late 1800’s! It was even called the most cosmopolitan town in the entire North-West! 

 

A few years before that, the town was actually called ‘The Paris of the New World’ as a group of French and Belgian aristocrats, dubbed ‘the French Counts’ tried to turn Canadian Prairie life into the beautiful French towns back home. 

 

They built large and impressive homes as well as initiated community projects to help beautify the town. What do you think one of their projects was?

 

The ‘French Counts’ built a cheese factory and like other optimistic business ventures like a brush manufacturing company, it was ultimately unsuccessful. By the early 1900s all the “French Counts” had left, most returning to France, leaving behind beautiful architecture…. and dreams of a wine fountain.