The current moose crossing sign on the left, Chloë Chapdelaine's new design on the right. (Photo Courtesy Transportation Association of Canada)

By Chris Brown

Making the moose out of life

How a former Hatter designed Canada’s new moose crossing sign

Dec 7, 2021 | 4:47 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – A former Hatter is making her mark on roads across the country and as she herself says, making the “moose” out of life.

Chloë Chapdelaine was working in Foremost in the summer of 2017 as a lifeguard and with the Family and Community Support Centre. She lived outside of the town, didn’t have a TV or Wi-Fi and was always looking for things to do to stay entertained.

Each day on her way into the town she would see a moose crossing sign, “one of the only roadside attractions” on the route, she says.

“That doesn’t really look like a moose to me or how I would imagine designing a moose for a moose crossing sign,” she recalls thinking at the time.

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Back then she was a visual communications student at Medicine Hat College with an eye toward becoming a graphic designer. She got to work.

She changed the antlers, made the snout more proud and regal, gave the moose longer legs, shortened the tail, flattened the chest and changed the dewlap.

Screengrab from TikTok / Chloë.Chapdelaine

“I drew out my new design literally in Sharpie and then I typed out this little essay that basically had outlined all of the changes I made to the moose crossing sign and why the moose deserves a strong portrayal in Canada and why it can contribute to road safety to have an accurate representation of a moose,” Chapdelaine says. It was a fun lighthearted essay and she meant no disrespect to the designer of the original designer.

She also did a visual diagram that showed the changes made and sent it all off to as many transportation departments and governments as she could.

She didn’t hear back from any of them and had pretty much forgotten about the exercise until this summer.

The Transportation Association of Canada emailed to tell her that her design would be the new standard for moose crossing signs.

The signs have begun to be placed across Canada and Chapdelaine is excited to finally see one herself.

“First of all, it’s the most Canadian thing I’ve ever done; what a crazy Canadian accomplishment. I just think it’s a really cool legacy to have to be able to say ‘hey, I did that,’ you know,” she says.

The notoriety of the sign grew when she posted about it on social media this summer.

“I posted a TikTok about it a couple of months ago and I received awesome feedback, like overnight it got millions of views,” she says. “I had tons of people, thousands of people commenting and it was almost all positive. So that was really cool to see this overwhelming response of positivity and people just like supporting the change.”

She wanted to keep that positive response going forward and created a line of “moose merch.”

She is selling t-shirts, crewnecks and long sleeves adorned with the phrase “making the moose out of life.” A portion of the proceeds from the sales is going to the Alberta Birds of Prey Foundation for wildlife rehabilitation.

A link to the “moose merch” can be found in Chapdelaine’s Instagram bio.