April 18, 2001

You Need a Kelvinator

Canada now has the structure in place to put tourists in contact with natural resources in a relatively seamless way. Landowners like Jim Bill Anderson and Steve Rader have begun spring tours to prairie chicken booming grounds on their property. Gene Howe Wildlife Management Area has an informed and personable interface in the form of Bob Rodgers, and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, headed by superstar Remelle Farrar, provides detailed information about and tour packaging for seasonal nature tourism opportunities in Canada.

Not content with simply succeeding, however, Canada is intent on putting together a truly seamless package. In a word, Canada has the Kelvinator. This device was made in Columbus, Ohio, by the EBCO Corporation. If the name rings a bell, it’s because of all those times in elementary school that you drank from the water fountain–remember the name on the little plastic lever? It was probably EBCO. And if elementary school for you happened back in the 40’s, the brand name bolted onto the front of the fountain may well have been the brand name "Kelvinator," as in "the water’s so cold you have to use the Kelvin scale."

This antique water cooler, along with a vintage soda fountain from the 40’s, a popcorn machine made 60 years ago and still churning out the butterpop, as well as a host of other period items make up the Palace Movie Theater and the neighboring drugstore. It cost over a million dollars for local investor Salem Abraham and theater owner Rob Talley to restore the theater’s original décor, and the drugstore was able to obtain its vintage soda fountain only by purchasing the entire building in which it was installed from neighboring Wheeler County. Yet these two investments, as well as a restaurant that offers veggie platters alongside the mesquite-broiled steaks, have added a degree of seamlessness to the Canadian nature tourism experience that few communities of a similar size can match.

The fact is that unique, high-quality visitor services are integral to the nature tourism business. Some of the most critical services are not necessarily tied to the natural resource. Nature tourists often travel in mixed flocks, with the passenger consisting of a spouse who’s more of a bird-noticer than a birdwatcher, or a backseat filled with offspring whose attentiveness to Pectoral Sandpipers nosing through the mud of a sewage pond is short-lived at best. This mixed flock phenomenon, or "multiplicity of interests," requires that a venue offer some degree of ancillary services in order to keep the birders in town spending money. What better way than a milkshake like they just don’t make anymore–except in Canada. What better way than a historic movie theater like you just can’t sit down in anymore–except in Canada.

This idea, that a whole set of visitor services disjunct from the nature tourism resource can enhance the tourist’s experience, is integral to the sustainability of the programs that Fermata advocates. It’s a concept that virtually any community can buy into, and one through which investment can be done gradually. If the thought of a displaying Lesser Prairie-Chicken excites you–feet stamping out an urgent tattoo, nape feathers raised erect like the ears of a jackrabbit, air sacs on its throat inflated into giant red balloons, tail feathers snapping open and shut with thunderous pops, and the entire booming ground filled with the resonating cries of amorous spring fever–then imagine how much more perfect the experience will be, topped off back in town with the milkshake of a lifetime.

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