The new mascot for the 2019 Canada Winter Games in Red Deer was unveiled last night, with a local taking home the honour of designing the new mascot.

In the parking lot of Bower Mall last night, a BBQ, interactive games, and different corporate sponsors were set up to celebrate 500 days out of the Winter games.

Back in April, the Games Committee asked Albertans age 5-12 to submit designs for the mascot, with the winner being twelve year old Mackenzie Van Damme of Lacombe Junior High.

The kids were given a choice of 4 different native animals to the area to base their mascot design on, and Van Damme went with the classic deer.

She said her mother told her about the contest, and she went straight to work.

“I took a whole bunch of different pictures from online, and just added a whole bunch of ideas into one. I always thought my drawing was good, but I never thought that it would go on to do something like this.”

Her winning mascot, named Waskasoo, which is the original Cree name given to the Red Deer River, will now be the officially representative of the 2019 Canada Winter Games.

Chair for the 2019 Canada Winter games Host Society Lyn Radford talks about how important having the right mascot is for the games.

“The mascot is an integral part of the community portion of the games, and so we are pretty excited to have that revealed and now they can goa round a be a part of our community events, and really increase the awareness of the 2019 games coming to Red Deer.”

Mackenzie not only won a prize pack and a pizza party for her class, she will also be a torchbearer during the Games Torch Relay.

(2019 Canada Winter Games Vice Chair Hugh McPherson addresses the crowd at the Bower Place Mall parking lot on Tuesday night)