It’s 1967.
An artist is finalizing his design for the new city flag of Lethbridge.
A fellow designer approaches.
“Is this it, Marty?”
He closes Microsoft Excel, then his laptop.
“Yeah, it’s done.”
A puzzled look finds its way across the face of the designer.
“Marty, what is that machine?”
Marty clutches his laptop and sprints outside.
He hops in his DeLorean, hits 88 MPH and suddenly he’s back in the year 2019.
Marty opens his laptop again.
He googles: “City of Lethbridge Flag.”
And there it is:
“That was a close one. Hey Doc?”
This is a slightly editorialized look at how Lethbridge’s city flag came to be — or at least the only way I can wrap my head around it.
A ne’er-do-well time-travelling flag designer works with a crazy scientist to impart a hideous banner upon our city — probably to save the world somehow.
Alas, Marty McFly has saved the world yet again and it’s time we look at our options.
The City of Lethbridge’s flag is a familiar source of material on Reddit’s subreddit for vexillology — the study of flags.
The flag has been posted 25 separate times over the past six years.
Our flag has been described in the following ways:
Optical abomination. – u/Thunder_child0
Absolutely hideous. – u/Autumnland
It looks like something a broken printer would spit out. – u/Ahaigh9877
By FAR, the worst flag I’ve ever seen in my life. It makes me feel physically ill looking at it. – u/_Mical
Lethbridge: “Can I copy your homework?”
USA: “Yeah just change it up a bit, so it doesn’t look obvious you copied.”
Lethbridge: “Okay.” – u/aquamanleftmetodrown
U/SciviasKnows has redesigned it as a QR Code that cleverly leads to the city’s website.
U/siyamnaput-siyam99 remade it in Microsoft Excel, all but proving the truth of the narrative at the beginning of this column.
Our city has been the mockery of this group of Internet flag nerds for too long.
It’s time for a change. However, Canadian history buffs may shudder at the idea.
Lethbridge’s flag is based on the flag that flew at Fort Whoop-Up.
Fort Whoop-up was founded by a group of Americans as a whisky trading post in the late 19th century. The flag they flew was intentionally meant to look like the American flag from far away, but different enough that it wouldn’t cause any legal repercussions involving annexation — which is essentially what they were trying to do.
Eventually, the Canadian government got involved, establishing what was then known as the North West Mounted Police, to relegate the area. In 1920, the NWMP merged with the east’s Dominion Police to become the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that we are familiar with today.
You can read more about Fort Whoop-Up’s history at fortwhoopup.com and I would strongly suggest it. It’s a fascinating backstory of how our city came to be.
The historical significance of Fort Whoop-Up to the City of Lethbridge — and Canada as a whole — can’t be understated. It’s an integral part of our history.
But there must be a better way to represent our substantial past.
I implore Lethbridge City Council to visit the idea of a rebranding of sorts — something that gets us out of the scope of web surfing flag critics. Buy a copy of this; you’re going to need it.
I ask of you, readers, to share this column and tag the City of Lethbridge and its representatives to tell them we’ve had enough.
Our city deserves better than a printing error as a flag.
