From Saskatchewan to Port Phillip Bay

The wapiti trophy looks over the SGTs’ Mess at RAAF Base Williams. It was presented to the Mess in 1921.

HIGH in the pecking order of trophies held by the RAAF Base Williams Sergeants’ Mess is the mounted head of a wapiti.

This is the correct name given by the North American Shawnee tribe to the deer known by Europeans as an elk.

The bull wapiti is the world’s second largest deer. It stands about 165-170cm at the shoulder and often has an antler spread of the same width. The antlers frequently grow to 12 points.

In 1917, a former AFC officer, J. Stanley Lowe shot the wapiti on the Saskatchewan River in Canada. He had trained at Point Cook and in 1921 he presented the mounted head to the Mess there.

Subsequently, the Point Cook sergeants’ mess adopted the wapiti as its logo. Since then the head has been examined by experts and is found to have antlers with 16 points.

It has been judged by them as one of the finest heads of its type in existence.
It is now displayed over the dining room entrance of the mess.

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