All-Canadian, AI Santa Claus is coming to town

Santa’s on his way, but he’s not the same jolly old elf Canadians know from soft drink ads.

This year, Santa Claus got a makeover, thanks to Alberta podcaster Craig Baird and artificial intelligence.

Baird posted 13 pictures of Santa Claus — one representing each territory and province in Canada — on the social media page for his podcast, Canadian History Ehx.

“Canada isn’t uniform from coast to coast,” he said Thursday in a phone interview from his home near Edmonton.

Baird used an artificial intelligence app called Midjourney to generate images of Santa Claus, each one imagining him as if he were a resident of a different Canadian province or territory.

Nunavut’s Santa, for example, has Inuk features with a big smile poking through a thick, white beard. He’s got fur trim on the hood and cuffs of his trademark red coat.

“Because it’s a predominantly Inuit territory … I wanted to make sure he was Inuit,” Baird said.

Nunavut Santa is posed in front of a rocky snow-covered hill with a partly cloudy sky. While the backdrop is completely imaginary, there are similarities to the terrain along the Trail to Apex.

Quebec’s Père Noel is the only one not dressed in red. He’s in a distinctive blue suit instead, inspired by the colours of the province’s Fleur-de-lis flag.

He’s also taking a drag from a cigarette.

Santa Claus, wearing a distinctive blue suit to represent the colour of Quebec’s flag, is one of 13 artificial intelligence-generated images commissioned by podcaster Craig Baird. (Image courtesy of Craig Baird/Canadian History Ehx)

Yukon’s Santa is driving a dogsled team, while the Northwest Territories Santa is riding a mini-bike in a snow-covered village. In Manitoba, he’s sporting sunglasses while taking in some ice-fishing, and in Ontario he’s seated at the outdoor patio outside what look like some high-end boutiques.

Baird is a full-time podcaster who produces Canadian History Ehx, a weekly look at the country’s history that he launched about four years ago.

“I’ve always been interested in Canadian history,” he said in the interview.

His passion for history, he said, was inspired by the Heritage Minute vignettes, those short videos that branded themselves as “a part of our heritage,” as well as by reading the books of Pierre Berton.

Baird’s background is in computer science, but he worked for 15 years as a journalist in western Canada until 2019.

“I wanted to be an archeologist, but I went into computer science instead,” he said.

He said his forays into AI imagery were intended to get people talking about Canadian history.

Earlier this year, he posted AI-generated images of what Canada’s prime ministers would look like if they were professional hockey players and if they were 1980s rock musicians.

Those imaginary portraits were meant to make people more familiar with the prime ministers, some of whom aren’t exactly household names.

“It’s kind of a fun way to draw attention to the prime ministers,” Baird said.

Another series imagined what it would look like if Vikings had posed for selfies after they arrived in what’s now Newfoundland more than a thousand years ago.

Baird said he’s careful to make sure the situations are so far-fetched that no one could confuse the images he creates with a genuine historical image.

“I always make sure it’s not something that could be confused with something that’s real,” he said.

A couple of weeks ago, he created images of what Batman would like in each province or territory.

In each series, he includes one that’s not like the others, just to get his audience talking. For example, the British Columbia Batman wasn’t wearing pants, Baird said.

He redid his Nova Scotia Santa after his Facebook followers said the first version, depicting the normally jolly old elf standing beside his snow-covered classic car, looked sad.