Merchants looking to brand downtown as ‘Great Canadian Main Street’

Downtown business owners trying to get a sign designating downtown Fort Frances as “The Great Canadian Main Street” are expecting to find out next week if they’ll get funding for it.
Connie Cuthbertson of Northwoods Gallery & Gifts, who along with Doug Anderson of Betty’s spearheaded the initiative to get the sign, rally support for it, and pursue funding, said yesterday they’ll likely heard from the Rainy River Future Develop Corp. next Wednesday as to whether they can get $5,000 from the federal government for the project.
“It ties in with ‘The Great Canadian Experience.’ That’s why the funding is there because it’s ‘The Great Canadian Main Street,’” noted Cuthbertson. “It’s an easy kind of fit.
“I came up with the design for the sign,” she added. “It has an inukshuk theme on it, with the words ‘The Great Canadian Main Street’ on it.
“The [2010] Olympics [in Vancouver] are coming up and [the inukshuk is] the insignia they’re using on signage. So I thought that’s an easy thing for people coming through to recognize,” Cuthbertson reasoned.
“Then we’re hoping in the future to add flags and more signs that have inukshuks, to sort of make it a destination point with that sort of a theme,” remarked Cuthbertson, adding this motif potentially could be used on everything from shopping bags to letterhead.
The sign will be made by the same artist who designed the colourful Northwoods Gallery & Gifts sign outside Cuthbertson’s store.
“It would be nice quality for sure,” she noted.
If everything goes as planned, the signage will be installed in mid- to late-June, prior to Canada Day.
Cuthbertson said this sign possibly will be a large, single- or double-sided one or even two smaller ones, depending on how far the funding can go.
The location also still has to be determined. It was discussed at a Business Improvement Association meeting yesterday, and the board planned to do a walkabout today to look at possible sites and determine whether or not one or two signs would be better.
Cuthbertson clarified having a sign saying “The Great Canadian Main Street” does not mean Scott Street will be renamed, as such.
“Although that could be a cool idea. Myself, I’d love to be able to say, ‘Northwoods Gallery & Gifts, 273 The Great Canadian Main Street, Fort Frances.’
“But at this stage of the game, they thought that if we did try to go that direction, it would take too long to implement and we would end up another year without a sign,” she noted.
“We just thought we’d get it going at least this far and see what happens,” she added. “But I think down the road it would be kind of neat.”
The whole “Great Canadian Main Street” initiative came out of the Downtown Core Committee, of which Cuthbertson and Anderson are members.
The RRFDC informed them that the money was available for signage, and all that was needed was a design, an appropriate theme, and signatures of support from other downtown merchants.
So the pair spent a couple of hours going door-to-door getting signatures of support and found the response to be overwhelmingly positive.
While not conceived by the BIA, Cuthbertson said she’d like to use this sign as a starting point for a greater marketing campaign, and possibly have the BIA adopt the idea and try to keep the theme cohesive among downtown businesses.
“I really like the idea of the downtown being considered to be a real destination area,” said Cuthbertson.
“By coming up with a theme and branding, if you want to use that word, it will, I believe, make a significant change,” she stressed.