The Dionne quintuplets attract renewed tourist interest after a wartime lull. The five girls are fifteen and have not been on public display for nine years, yet tourists return in large numbers. The quintuplets live behind an eight-foot fence topped with three strands of barbed wire, with large signs forbidding admittance and parking. Government road signs and local businesses still point visitors to the Dafoe hospital and the quintuplets' home. Local vendors sell souvenirs and display the original birth basket. The highway between North Bay and Callander still shows clear commercial development tied to the quintuplets' fame.
But now, although the quints are fifteen, and have not been on public display for nine years, the tourists are back. Those who try to see them may not get the reception they expect. Not only are the girls not on show but they live behind an eight-foot fence which is topped with three strands of barbed wire. Large signs warn the visitor that there is no admittance and no parking permitted at the gates.
Yet around Callander, there is little to warn the tourists that the quints are no longer riding their tricycles for the public. Just outside Callander, and in excellent repair, are government road signs pointing to the Dafoe hospital and the home of the quintuplets. In Callander itself, Madame Legros, a midwife at the birth of the girls, still sells souvenirs and, without much prompting, will show strangers the basket in which the babies were placed on the night of their birth.
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