In 1998, Lise Cormier, head of the Gardens and Green Spaces Department and the Botanical Garden in Montreal, came up with the idea for an international mosaiculture competition. According to Wikipedia, mosaiculture is the horticultural art of creating giant topiary-like sculptures using thousands of annual bedding plants growing on steel supporting frames.
As part of Canada’s 150th anniversary celebrations in 2017, a large exhibition of mosaiculture was held at Jacques Cartier Park in Gatineau, Quebec. It featured sculptures representing Canada’s 10 provinces and 3 territories, as well as indigenous peoples.
Credit: City of Yellowknife/Samantha Adrianne Photography
In 2018, many of the sculptures were relocated to their home province. One of them, a representation of a muskox, was transported to Yellowknife, a city in Canada’s Northwest Territories. The muskox is native to that area as well as Alaska and Greenland.
When the horticultural muskox — which has hair made of grass and a face of moss — arrived in November. The city held a contest to select a name for it. It got more than 240 suggestions and a total of 1,509 votes. At CleanTechnica, our motto is, “All the Tesla news that fits, we print.” And so, we are pleased to report the winner, with 123 votes, was — wait for it — Elon Muskox. Other suggestions included our personal favorite, Musky McMuskoxface.
Rebecca Alty, the mayor of Yellowknife, tells the National Post Elon Muskox will require regular grooming since the grass and moss will grow over time. “It’s a giant … chia pet,” Alty says. “We will see how it grows. That’s what happened when it lived down south for two years, and so we’ll see how it grows here in Yellowknife next summer. His face will get more and more mossy as he ages.” A member of the city staff has already been trained on how to keep Elon Muskox properly groomed.
Mayor Alty says her administration has reached out to Elon Musk for a comment but has gotten no response so far. “Here’s to hoping we do,” she says. So, if you read this, Elon, please give her a call or at least tweet about this signal honor. It’s not every day someone gets a giant chia pet named after himself.
I don't like paywalls. You don't like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a limited paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong — and it was always tough to decide what we should put behind there. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then fewer people read it! We just don't like paywalls, and so we've decided to ditch ours. Unfortunately, the media business is still a tough, cut-throat business with tiny margins. It's a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay above water or even perhaps — gasp — grow. So ...
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