TPL On The Road： Magnetic Hill
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Summary
In this episode, we visit Magnetic Hill in Moncton, N.B. Canada. We talk about the history of the park and the people that make it what it is today. We also talk about some of our favourite things about Magnetic Hill.
Transcript
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oh wow look at this it is going oh my god it's going back we're not hitting the break it's
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going pretty it's actually uh 20 kilometers it's driving us backwards no gas oh my goodness
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well we made it to moncton and quite frankly we're so excited because last night we got here
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we were we met the uzva people we had a great uh tour with them and today we're lucky enough
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jenna can uh from magnetic hill is here today and we were selena greeted us this morning thank you
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and uh we're so happy because we we tried out magnetic hill of course because i wanted to show
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shara um what it was all about tell us tell us a little bit about magnetic hill because i remember
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this as a kid so my so uh quick story and then we'll get into it i'd love to hear it um my dad
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was a truck driver owned a trucking company and we used to travel all around canada together so
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he he one day said to me we're going east so we started hauling east with different loads and
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different products coming east through montreal and then we made it down to new brunswick and
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my dad always took time when i was with him working in the summer to bring me different
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places so we came into new brunswick and we came to see magnetic kill you know we went to
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You know, unfortunately, well, fortunately I'm 60, right?
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So I've been around a while and that would have been
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So give me sort of the progression of what's going on
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And the hill was discovered in the 40s by Muriel Lutz.
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And so since that point of time, the rest of the park slowly developed.
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And then this Moorff Village was built in 1987.
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And same with Magic Mountain around the same time, the big water park that's a partner in the park as well.
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And so it was all developed in around the 1987 age, and then it's grown from there.
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So that was the lady who set up the stand on Magnetic Hill.
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From my knowledge, she was there for quite a few years, and then there was a gift shop
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actually built up on that area right by the Magnetic Hill before all of this was developed.
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So the land itself is owned by the city of Moncton.
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And then we are privately owned on city land and Magic Mountain as well.
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And, you know, since that time, you know, and I remember, quite frankly, the Pope.
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tell me a little bit about because the concert center holds like 80 000 people or something yes
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so that's an exceptional site uh selena be able to speak more on that for sure but and that was a
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little bit before my era so i've been the owner here for nine years okay so in those nine years
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they've had uh luke bryan he was on the hill and that was an awesome concert it was a really great
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time that was back in 2019 okay um and so since then there haven't been a concert but but you
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never know what's in the future yeah but the whole park and the whole area is really accustomed to
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local support as well as tourism so you have amazing partners like uzva and the winery and
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obviously all of us in the park and then having a concert site and having a lot of other additional
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businesses up and around it's just nothing but great great things in my opinion yeah it was
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amazing no no you know what because we came in like i mentioned yesterday and i had memories of
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Moncton you know I've been here on business a couple times since yeah as I
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got older I came in and did tried to do business did business even bid on a
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couple projects here on the construction side so I've been in and out of Moncton
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but I don't remember Moncton being this developed yeah and there's so much new
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so many new things happening in Moncton right now including this and so when you
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say ownership so you own this part I do oh good so this business fell it was
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actually a condemned property for about five years and my husband and I bought
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it back in 2017 well and it took us eight months to renovate so we had to
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renovate all the buildings like windows doors roofing the deck took four months
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to fix we had to learn how to run retail and treats and food and all the things
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that my background is in marketing my husband worked at the zoo for 13 years
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as a zookeeper oh we came in a little bit blind in terms of how to run it but
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we had amazing local businesses that came behind us and cheered us on and
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taught us a lot of stuff and here we are almost a decade later well you're very humble that's nice
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no no you're giving back yourself on the back right yeah thank you so and you know it's interesting
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because i i own a number of business we own a number of businesses and quite frankly when i
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came in today um i'm always amazed that like people and like i can uh being a business owner
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the ecosystem that you build right so the reason so like you know i come in and i look at the gift
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shop and i look at the different buildings and i think to myself okay someone's thought through
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the ecosystem of what this is and how people are going to move through it and tell me a little bit
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like when you and your husband were doing that the good thing is probably he was working at the
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zoo exactly so he knew kind of who was coming yeah and so was that the plan to kind of figure out okay
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how do i you know provide them gifts provide them food provide them lobster well we were both born
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and raised here in the area so we remember it when it was in its prime in the 90s we used to come here
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as children obviously we're huge fans of the zoo and the match mountain water park so we knew we
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came in knowing what it once was in its prime yeah and so when we purchased it although you know it
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looked not what it was in the 90s we had already envisioned so i was blessed my brother owns a
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painting company so we were able to kind of like again you use your community very pretty they
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bless you and you kind of so he was able to kind of help us pick that out our family really helped
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us with vision they had ideas from their experiences my dad my mom that kind of stuff so we
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kind of learned from other people's experiences from travel around the world of like okay what
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would be really good here and really good there so we learned from the past and then we brought
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our own ideas with it and we just every year is different every year we kind of morph and change
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you know we had a little blip of history there in 2020 to 2022 that we really kind of had to pause
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those big big ideas but now we're back at it and yeah it's great yeah yeah yeah no and it looks
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beautiful thank you so when when you build it yeah so this is the always the interesting thing so
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you come in and you look at it and you have the vision yes so that's the toughest part right
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because you know it's a vision at that point do you do the design of it like do you said because
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it's here the building some of the buildings are here right and then so when you guys sat down and
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master planned it you and your husband are you kind of we yeah we designed it all so we basically
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uh the building the structures were already here we didn't build anything so the buildings were
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here we just had to renovate them all three make sure that they were insurable and safe
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the deck was our biggest project because um all the buildings are actually on independent
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foundations so they built them exceptionally well back in 87 they've not not one building has
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shifted um it was the deck that was in really bad shape but we were able to restore a lot of the
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wood we were able to you know we had a great engineering team that came in here and helped
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does make sure it was safe and it was great and but in terms of the actual
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design of the stores and design of our marketing that all came from our hard
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work and thoughts yeah your marketing background yeah exactly oh yeah what a
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great combination you know and that's it's interesting because different you
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know it sounds like you and your husband have different skill sets we do yeah
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yeah that's probably why you get along so well just like frankly if you had the
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same you know you'd be tug and pull you know and it's funny because I know that
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because Char and I have different skill sets right I'm a builder you know she
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as a design background so that's how we function but it's so great yeah what's the future so talk
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to me a little bit about sort of what's next you know what are you thinking if you know for magnetic
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hill the wharf what are you thinking next in your plans what's your big kind of next five year well
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next year is our big year 10 and it's a 40 year anniversary of the wharf village so next year
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we're looking at a big celebratory summer um that's our plan right now we also launched our
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Christmas last year. We opened, if they're winterized, they're not winterized. So we've
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never really done Christmas, but last year we launched Christmas. So we opened for five weeks
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at Christmas. So that's definitely in our long-term plan to try to get more of a community outreach
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throughout our season, our year season. But yeah, just doing the same learning, focusing on locals
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is a big piece of our business now. We learned that through COVID obviously, making sure that
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locals know that we're here and that we service them as well as tourism. And yeah, just learning
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and getting better and better as we go oh good yeah that's great well and for everyone you know
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please like it was we we put this a lot of our listeners it's interesting so we started up about
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a year ago okay tpl media yeah true patriot love and we have listeners from all over so like uh
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you know the majority of our listeners quite frankly are coming out of the west coast right
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now okay so which is because we've done more tours to the west coast so we're starting to do more
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tours to the east coast to get build up of listeners to come on to our channel and subscribe
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but uh you know please if you know i know a lot of people aren't traveling to the u.s right now
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uh this is a great place i was i was astounded when i came in how developed the cities become
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over time yeah it's grown a ton like wow the fastest growing cities i think in all of canada
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yeah yeah well you know it's interesting so and we toured from we came in from montreal so okay