“And here they are, ladies and gentlemen! Let’s have a big round of applause as your St John Woodchucks waddle onto the field.”
St John is a town of 320 people, just south of the Canadian border. Just south of the town is the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation. Both town and reservation date back to 1882.
Not too surprisingly, the high school is 97% Native American. With only 127 students, they somehow manage to field 8 teams over 6 sports, including a football team (9-man, of course)!
Whence the woodchuck? Well, previously, the team was known as the Zephyrs. Seeing as a “zephyr” is a “soft, blowing breeze,” it seems like they were pretty ripe for a mascot redo.
Like a tiger, or a bulldog, or an eagle … Anything other than a woodchuck.
Nevertheless, the mascot was the winner in a student vote organized way back in 1948. The school claims that the woodchuck is “a unique animal with a fighting spirit that was a good representation of the Turtle Mountains area.”
Sure it is.
The real mascot actually looks like this: