What’s the big deal about large roadside attractions? There’s a lot to love [Video]

The May long weekend marks the official start of summer road trip season and Kyler Zeleny — a fourth-generation sausage-maker in rural Alberta — expects to see a whole lot more tourists rolling up to see a giant Ukrainian kielbasa.

The massive meat monument in the town of Mundare, 80 kilometres east of Edmonton, was the brainchild of Zeleny’s grandfather, Edward Stawnichy.

“The thinking was if we’re making sausage and we’ve got a bunch of Ukrainians here, let’s erect a Ukrainian sausage — a kielbasa,” says Zeleny, now the assistant manager at Stawnichy’s Mundare Sausage.

The kielbasa, which went up in April 2001, is 12.8 metres — about 42 feet — tall. 

The family’s charitable foundation is said to have paid $120,000 for the red fibreglass structure that stands in a park not far from the meat processing plant.