Many years after it was first installed, a spelling mistake has finally been discovered in Ucluelet’s carved wood welcome sign at the entrance to town.
Apparently, up until this week no local had ever bothered to actually read the sign. As for tourists, they have trouble enough just pronouncing the town’s name, never mind noticing subtle spelling mistakes.
The sharp-eyed Uclutian who spotted the error was Ellie Spanutti, a single mom and unemployed futures trader. “I was out walking with my daughter Lugnut,” Spanutti said, “and she asked how to spell ‘Ucluelet.’ We were right by the sign so we went over it letter by letter. I kinda figured at first the E and U were mixed up, but then I remembered how I’m dyslexic and then I got totally mixed up. Lugnut figured it out, though, smart kid — she read the right spelling off my Ucluelet — a quaint little drinking town with a fishing problem sweatshirt.”
Spanutti reported the screw-up at once to district staff, who went “doh!“, slapped their foreheads, and declined to issue any further comment.
The district administrator who was in place at the time of the screw-up could not be reached. He is reported to be hiding out in (rumours vary) a villa in the Turks and Caicos or a yurt in Outer Mongolia.
The man who carved the sign showed reporters the original drawings he received along with the purchase order for the sign. “I just carved what they told me to,” he said. “Of course I noticed the spelling mistake, but I thought they’d have checked that over a hundred times. I figured maybe they had discovered the correct First Nations spelling and wanted to change the name of the town, or something.”
The cock-up has reportedly led to the revival of an old movement to change the town’s name to one less confusing to tourists. “Long Beach” is a popular alternative, though extremists hope to simplify further, to just plain “Bob.”
