Hunting Down the World’s Largest Easter Egg (A Trip to Vegreville on the eve of Happy Easter, 2011)

Five of us: Carey, Alma, Alisdair, Janko and myself are heading towards the location of the World’s Biggest Easter Egg in Vegreville. 13-years-old Alisdair is our navigator, his Dad is a pilot. GPS voice is guiding us so gently and carefully that in no time we arrived to Red Deer town. On the photos one can see the five in Red Deer, all the other pictures are taken in Vegreville, one photo which is included, depicts the Easter eggs craft in Slovakia. Below the photo expose is shown from Vegreville too.

The Easter egg or Ukrainian “Pysanka” was constructed in 1975 to commemorate early Ukrainian settlements in an area east of Edmonton.

The unique nature  and complicated geometry of the egg shape made the design of the Pysanka a highly complex undertaking. Professor Ronald Resch, a computer scientist at the University of Utah, agreed to take on the design project.

Professor Resch was responsible for the entire Pysanka concept which required the development of new computer programs. The Pysanka is really an immense jig-saw puzzle containing 524 star patterns, 2,206 equilateral triangles, 3,512 visible facets, 6,978 nuts and bolts, and 177 internal struts.

As a result of Professor Resch’s work and leadership, the Pysanka is recognized around the world as not only a unique artistic masterpiece but also an achievement of nine mathematical, archtectural and engineering firsts. The design represents the first computer modeling of an egg.

Thousands of tourists from around the world visit Vegreville annually and marvel at the Pysanka. It measures 25,7 feet long, 18,3 feet wide, and stands 31,6 feet high. It is one of the premier tourist attractions on the Trans Canada Yellowhead Highway.

The Pysanka put us in an Easter mood. So we dropped by the couple of Churches. In the Ukrainian Сatholic Church we even watched the old Slavic tradition of blessing the food baskets by the Priest. On return we stopped at “Tim Hortons” to have a nice cup of coffee or a fruit smoothy where on windows we saw: ” Христос Воскрес!”

Watch photo expose “In Vegreville”:

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To finish the article I would like to represent a humoros Happy Easter sending to all of you:

“This is a very touching story, very hard to read, about two brothers who were separated at birth. It’s a story of life-death, and the cruel twist of fate.

It’s certain to stir your heart and touch your soul.

The picture reads: “Shit! Pete, is that you??”