Sask. village's Eiffel Tower attraction among 6 Canadian landmarks featured in chocolate bar campaign

A Saskatchewan village's replica of the Eiffel Tower is getting some national exposure thanks to a national campaign that highlights Canadian landmarks on the wrappers of well-known chocolate bar.

Last September, an official in the village of Montmartre was contacted by an ad agency looking for photos of the community's 10-metre-tall Eiffel Tower replica.

Nearly a year later, it's among the Canadian attractions being featured this summer on KitKat bar wrappers.

The 10-metre-tall Eiffel Tower replica in Montmartre, Sask., was built in 2009. It is one of a half-dozen Canadian attractions featured on KitKat bar wrappers as part of a Canadian campaign. (Alexander Quon/CBC)

The Nestlé chocolate bar's "road trip breaks" campaign is featuring the roadside attraction in Montmartre — which is about 90 kilometers east of Regina on Highway 48 — and five other attractions from across the country on its packaging.

The village's longtime administrator, Dale Brenner, was contacted last year by the Glenn Davis Group ad agency for photos of the tower, but didn't initially know it was part of the chocolate bar campaign.

Once he agreed to the contract, though, he had to keep it a secret until the campaign was launched.That meant he couldn't share the news with his family or even the village's mayor.

"I want to say things at times, especially when we start talking about promotion of the community, but at the same time it was just, I knew it was supposed to be kept a secret until the ad campaign started," he said.

While Brenner was excited because of the publicity it would bring to Montmartre, he was "a little apprehensive too, as … not a lot of details were given," he said.

He got an advance look when one of the bars featuring the Eiffel Tower arrived at his office — but because the campaign wouldn't be launched for another two months, he locked the wrapper away to keep the secret from getting out.

"[I] kind of shuffled them off into my vault in the office and there they stayed for two months," said Brenner.

Brenner said he was planning to be the one that revealed the surprise, but even the best laid plans can go awry.

The longtime village administrator said the secret got out once someone in British Columbia picked up a chocolate bar and sent an image of it to a friend in Montmartre.

"So it was all over the place. Of course all over Facebook," he said.

Brenner hopes the campaign will bring publicity, and tourism, to the community.

He said since the campaign began, he's noticed more people taking pictures of the landmark.

"There's been more activity near the tower," he said. "I go by there a few times a day on my way to work and back home again, and it seems like there's always a vehicle there."

A KitKat chocolate bar sits in front of a replica of the Eiffel Tower in the Village of Montmartre. (Alexander Quon/CBC)

On Monday, Cole Christensen brought his mother, wife and baby daughter to see the sites.

"I had my baby daughter a week ago and our nurse actually recommended that we come and check it out," he said.

"She told us about the KitKat bar promotion. We thought, 'man, we got to go' and my mom is here visiting us too and Paris is her favourite city in the world. So I thought, what better than Paris of the Prairies."

Elizabeth Christensen, Cole's mother, said the replica is a "close second" to the real thing.

"I grew up in part of my life in small town Saskatchewan and I think these are just some of the things that make them special and and really unique," she said.

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So why does a Saskatchewan village — with a population of about 450 — have a replica of Paris's Eiffel Tower?

Brenner says back in 1962 the Saskatchewan village and the Montmartre district in Paris became sister communities. The Saskatchewan community's slogan became "Paris of the Prairies."

In 2009, members of the Saskatchewan community came up with the idea of building the Eiffel Tower.

According to a May Radio-Canada report, the other tourist attractions featured in Nestlé's summer campaign are: