‘Ottawa’ Capital Facts: The Citizen’s many well-intended but Unfortunate Promo Campaigns
In celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday, the Citizen is rolling out one fact each day for 150 days until July 1, highlighting the odd, the fascinating and the important bits of Ottawa history you might not know about.
The Citizen used to love promotional campaigns, not all of which ended well. For a 1981 campaign to highlight the need for a direct Ottawa-to-New York City flight, the paper chartered a plane and invited civic leaders to fly to the Big Apple and back on the same day. A flat tire delayed the return flight by a day, and a foggy Ottawa airport diverted the unhappy passengers to Montreal. They were bussed back home.
Undeterred, the paper launched a second campaign that year: The Gold Rush contest. The paper hid $5,000 in gold in a tree near Conroy Road, and published daily hints. Feverish readers dug up the Dow’s Lake boardwalk, pulled insulation from air conditioners at the Ottawa Police station, and tried to break in to search the grounds of the regional detention centre. The police urged an end to the campaign and the paper’s managers ordered the clues to be made less obscure. The gold was discovered after nine days.
— Andrew Duffy