True Patriot Love - TPL On The Road： Magnetic Hill

00:00:00.320 oh wow look at this it is going oh my god it's going back we're not hitting the break it's

00:00:07.280 going pretty it's actually uh 20 kilometers it's driving us backwards no gas oh my goodness

00:00:17.920 well we made it to moncton and quite frankly we're so excited because last night we got here

00:00:23.280 we were we met the uzva people we had a great uh tour with them and today we're lucky enough

00:00:29.440 jenna can uh from magnetic hill is here today and we were selena greeted us this morning thank you

00:00:36.480 and uh we're so happy because we we tried out magnetic hill of course because i wanted to show

00:00:42.720 shara um what it was all about tell us tell us a little bit about magnetic hill because i remember

00:00:48.160 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

00:00:55.600 was a truck driver owned a trucking company and we used to travel all around canada together so

00:01:02.080 he he one day said to me we're going east so we started hauling east with different loads and

00:01:08.000 different products coming east through montreal and then we made it down to new brunswick and

00:01:12.480 my dad always took time when i was with him working in the summer to bring me different

00:01:16.720 places so we came into new brunswick and we came to see magnetic kill you know we went to

00:01:21.600 this Bay of Fundy, we went all over the place.

00:01:25.760 So it was a really great tour.

00:01:26.940 And I remember Magnetic Hill, truth to you,

00:01:28.980 I remember this, but it wasn't this.

00:01:30.600 No.

00:01:31.440 So give me a little bit of what happened.

00:01:33.420 You know, unfortunately, well, fortunately I'm 60, right?

00:01:37.100 So I've been around a while and that would have been

00:01:41.000 like 50 years ago.

00:01:42.060 So give me sort of the progression of what's going on

00:01:46.320 and what it's, cause this is beautiful.

00:01:48.020 And I, when I drove in, I was like, wow,

00:01:50.240 This is a lot different than I remember.

00:01:51.900 That's it, yeah.

00:01:52.380 Well, it used to be all farmland.

00:01:53.780 Yeah.

00:01:54.320 And the hill was discovered in the 40s by Muriel Lutz.

00:01:58.160 And so since that point of time, the rest of the park slowly developed.

00:02:02.360 So the big boom really happened in the 80s.

00:02:04.560 So the zoo was already slowly developing.

00:02:08.380 And then this Moorff Village was built in 1987. 0.86

00:02:11.680 Okay.

00:02:11.960 And same with Magic Mountain around the same time, the big water park that's a partner in the park as well.

00:02:16.300 Yeah.

00:02:16.500 And so it was all developed in around the 1987 age, and then it's grown from there.

00:02:21.680 So it's about 40 years old now.

00:02:23.200 Wow.

00:02:23.440 Wow.

00:02:24.060 Muriel Lutz. 0.93

00:02:24.760 So that was the lady who set up the stand on Magnetic Hill.

00:02:28.920 Yes.

00:02:29.260 Okay, I remember that.

00:02:30.080 That's how it all started.

00:02:30.900 Yeah. 0.90

00:02:31.520 And did she stay with it for like...

00:02:33.880 From my knowledge, she was there for quite a few years, and then there was a gift shop

00:02:36.940 actually built up on that area right by the Magnetic Hill before all of this was developed.

00:02:42.340 All right.

00:02:42.780 And who owns all of this?

00:02:44.160 So the land itself is owned by the city of Moncton.

00:02:46.940 The city runs the hill and they run the zoo.

00:02:49.640 And then we are privately owned on city land and Magic Mountain as well.

00:02:54.020 So we're all partners.

00:02:54.980 We all work well together.

00:02:56.280 And we make the most of the Venetic Hill area.

00:02:58.580 And, you know, since that time, you know, and I remember, quite frankly, the Pope.

00:03:05.060 Yes, there's a Pope site next door.

00:03:06.600 Yeah, the Pope's been here.

00:03:07.700 Yes.

00:03:08.480 The Rolling Stones have been here.

00:03:10.460 ACDC's been here.

00:03:11.620 tell me a little bit about because the concert center holds like 80 000 people or something yes

00:03:17.140 so that's an exceptional site uh selena be able to speak more on that for sure but and that was a

00:03:22.020 little bit before my era so i've been the owner here for nine years okay so in those nine years

00:03:26.580 they've had uh luke bryan he was on the hill and that was an awesome concert it was a really great

00:03:31.220 time that was back in 2019 okay um and so since then there haven't been a concert but but you

00:03:36.980 never know what's in the future yeah but the whole park and the whole area is really accustomed to

00:03:42.420 local support as well as tourism so you have amazing partners like uzva and the winery and

00:03:47.860 obviously all of us in the park and then having a concert site and having a lot of other additional

00:03:52.500 businesses up and around it's just nothing but great great things in my opinion yeah it was

00:03:56.420 amazing no no you know what because we came in like i mentioned yesterday and i had memories of

00:04:02.580 Moncton you know I've been here on business a couple times since yeah as I

00:04:06.420 got older I came in and did tried to do business did business even bid on a

00:04:11.040 couple projects here on the construction side so I've been in and out of Moncton

00:04:15.000 but I don't remember Moncton being this developed yeah and there's so much new

00:04:20.280 so many new things happening in Moncton right now including this and so when you

00:04:24.660 say ownership so you own this part I do oh good so this business fell it was

00:04:30.180 actually a condemned property for about five years and my husband and I bought

00:04:33.660 it back in 2017 well and it took us eight months to renovate so we had to

00:04:38.400 renovate all the buildings like windows doors roofing the deck took four months

00:04:42.960 to fix we had to learn how to run retail and treats and food and all the things

00:04:47.460 that my background is in marketing my husband worked at the zoo for 13 years

00:04:50.940 as a zookeeper oh we came in a little bit blind in terms of how to run it but

00:04:55.200 we had amazing local businesses that came behind us and cheered us on and

00:04:58.920 taught us a lot of stuff and here we are almost a decade later well you're very humble that's nice

00:05:05.400 no no you're giving back yourself on the back right yeah thank you so and you know it's interesting

00:05:09.880 because i i own a number of business we own a number of businesses and quite frankly when i

00:05:14.280 came in today um i'm always amazed that like people and like i can uh being a business owner

00:05:20.760 the ecosystem that you build right so the reason so like you know i come in and i look at the gift

00:05:25.880 shop and i look at the different buildings and i think to myself okay someone's thought through

00:05:30.440 the ecosystem of what this is and how people are going to move through it and tell me a little bit

00:05:35.880 like when you and your husband were doing that the good thing is probably he was working at the

00:05:40.040 zoo exactly so he knew kind of who was coming yeah and so was that the plan to kind of figure out okay

00:05:46.040 how do i you know provide them gifts provide them food provide them lobster well we were both born

00:05:51.400 and raised here in the area so we remember it when it was in its prime in the 90s we used to come here

00:05:56.120 as children obviously we're huge fans of the zoo and the match mountain water park so we knew we

00:06:01.000 came in knowing what it once was in its prime yeah and so when we purchased it although you know it

00:06:06.280 looked not what it was in the 90s we had already envisioned so i was blessed my brother owns a

00:06:11.720 painting company so we were able to kind of like again you use your community very pretty they

00:06:16.040 bless you and you kind of so he was able to kind of help us pick that out our family really helped

00:06:21.240 us with vision they had ideas from their experiences my dad my mom that kind of stuff so we

00:06:25.640 kind of learned from other people's experiences from travel around the world of like okay what

00:06:29.240 would be really good here and really good there so we learned from the past and then we brought

00:06:33.400 our own ideas with it and we just every year is different every year we kind of morph and change

00:06:38.200 you know we had a little blip of history there in 2020 to 2022 that we really kind of had to pause

00:06:43.160 those big big ideas but now we're back at it and yeah it's great yeah yeah yeah no and it looks

00:06:48.200 beautiful thank you so when when you build it yeah so this is the always the interesting thing so

00:06:54.040 you come in and you look at it and you have the vision yes so that's the toughest part right

00:06:58.120 because you know it's a vision at that point do you do the design of it like do you said because

00:07:03.240 it's here the building some of the buildings are here right and then so when you guys sat down and

00:07:07.400 master planned it you and your husband are you kind of we yeah we designed it all so we basically

00:07:12.920 uh the building the structures were already here we didn't build anything so the buildings were

00:07:17.400 here we just had to renovate them all three make sure that they were insurable and safe

00:07:23.000 the deck was our biggest project because um all the buildings are actually on independent

00:07:27.160 foundations so they built them exceptionally well back in 87 they've not not one building has

00:07:31.960 shifted um it was the deck that was in really bad shape but we were able to restore a lot of the

00:07:37.000 wood we were able to you know we had a great engineering team that came in here and helped

00:07:41.160 does make sure it was safe and it was great and but in terms of the actual

00:07:44.700 design of the stores and design of our marketing that all came from our hard

00:07:49.020 work and thoughts yeah your marketing background yeah exactly oh yeah what a

00:07:52.220 great combination you know and that's it's interesting because different you

00:07:55.500 know it sounds like you and your husband have different skill sets we do yeah

00:07:58.480 yeah that's probably why you get along so well just like frankly if you had the

00:08:01.920 same you know you'd be tug and pull you know and it's funny because I know that

00:08:06.100 because Char and I have different skill sets right I'm a builder you know she

00:08:09.480 as a design background so that's how we function but it's so great yeah what's the future so talk

00:08:15.560 to me a little bit about sort of what's next you know what are you thinking if you know for magnetic

00:08:21.000 hill the wharf what are you thinking next in your plans what's your big kind of next five year well

00:08:27.320 next year is our big year 10 and it's a 40 year anniversary of the wharf village so next year

00:08:32.280 we're looking at a big celebratory summer um that's our plan right now we also launched our

00:08:37.560 Christmas last year. We opened, if they're winterized, they're not winterized. So we've

00:08:41.860 never really done Christmas, but last year we launched Christmas. So we opened for five weeks

00:08:45.400 at Christmas. So that's definitely in our long-term plan to try to get more of a community outreach

00:08:50.460 throughout our season, our year season. But yeah, just doing the same learning, focusing on locals

00:08:56.880 is a big piece of our business now. We learned that through COVID obviously, making sure that

00:09:01.080 locals know that we're here and that we service them as well as tourism. And yeah, just learning

00:09:06.580 and getting better and better as we go oh good yeah that's great well and for everyone you know

00:09:11.300 please like it was we we put this a lot of our listeners it's interesting so we started up about

00:09:16.180 a year ago okay tpl media yeah true patriot love and we have listeners from all over so like uh

00:09:23.140 you know the majority of our listeners quite frankly are coming out of the west coast right

00:09:27.060 now okay so which is because we've done more tours to the west coast so we're starting to do more

00:09:31.940 tours to the east coast to get build up of listeners to come on to our channel and subscribe

00:09:38.100 but uh you know please if you know i know a lot of people aren't traveling to the u.s right now

00:09:43.300 uh this is a great place i was i was astounded when i came in how developed the cities become

00:09:48.500 over time yeah it's grown a ton like wow the fastest growing cities i think in all of canada

00:09:53.860 yeah yeah well you know it's interesting so and we toured from we came in from montreal so okay

00:10:00.100 Yeah, we had a fashion.

True Patriot Love - July 18, 2026

TPL On The Road： Magnetic Hill

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