Hartland — Life in Carleton County is about to get a lot sweeter, as the town council of Hartland has finalized a deal with St. Stephen-based chocolatiers Ganong Bros., Ltd., to completely coat the Hartland Covered Bridge in milk chocolate.
“Our covered bridge is one of the most famous New Brunswick landmarks, the longest bridge of its type in the world at 1,281 feet,” said Hartland Mayor Craig Melanson Thursday at a press junket held at the Hartland Golf & Country Club’s dining lounge. “But we’re competing with landmarks all around the province for recognition — it’s tough to garner visits when the world’s biggest axe is only a short drive away in Nackawic. So we’re proud to turn this piece of our town’s history into the world’s biggest chocolate bar.
“Or ‘candy bar’ to any American visitors,” Melanson continued, smiling and taking an emphatic bite from a Ganong Pal-o-Mine bar. “Hopefully lots of those.”
Under the terms of the arrangement, Ganong will supply approximately 365,000 gallons of liquefied chocolate each year for the next 3 years, to be dropped on the bridge by helicopters normally used for aerial firefighting. The chocolate, which will be reconstituted from the filling of unsold Chicken Bones cinnamon-chocolate sticks, will run off the bridge during the summer months and flow into the St. John River.
“The environmental impact should be negligible,” said New Brunswick Minister of the Environment Serge Rousselle as he picked the orange-flavoured slices out of a bag of Ganong Fruitfull jujubes. “Harmless, really. Does anyone want these? I don’t really like the orange ones.”
“Yeah,” said Premier Brian Gallant, also in attendance, reaching across the microphones on the conference table. “Give it. I’ll totally trade you some [licorice] babies.”
The Ganong/Hartland partnership is the latest in a series of food-related augmentations to New Brunswick tourism destinations, following the recent addition of maple syrup to the water in Reversing Falls, the construction of a St-Hubert restaurant next to the ostrich exhibit at the Magnetic Hill Zoo and the complete replacement of the Hopewell Rocks with 80-foot-high tater tots supplied by McCain Foods.
The run-off better not cause them to relabel the St John River as the Chocolate River. That’s already used here in Moncton for the Petitcodiac.
Hmm.. One would think it would make more sense to cover the bridge with French fries or how about Covered Bridge Chips!! 🙂
Would covering thé bridge of chocolat coud add weight that thé bridge can hold. What will happen in the hot summer mounts mêle thé chocolat? Or is this a joke . They could créât a candy bar Shape like the bridge I think this could be a more exemple to promote this land mark