Majken Haugedal, Miss October, 1968

Canada's Erstwhile image this side of the border as a land of few surprises--a notion once and for all contradicted by the success of its swinging Expo and the panache of its new prime minister--should be put to rest by Montreal Bunny Majken Haugedal a transplanted Danish beauty whose current life epitomizes the international Sixties style. Mike--"It's so much less confusing than Majken"--immigrated with her family to an exurb of Montreal when she was 13, and a year ago last summer, after modeling school and a stint as a cosmetics demonstrator in a Montreal department store, began the busy routine that has made her one of the Quebec capital's most popular Bunnies and most sought-after mannequins. "Except for the fact that my days seem about five hours too short," Mike says, "the two careers have been wonderfully compatible. The sort of outgoing personality you have to develop to be a really good Bunny has helped me project myself in ads, too," Montreal lensmen have been concentrating on Mike's face, which in at least one case has proved almost too picture perfect to be true: "The art director for Avon here," Mike recalls, "sent my agent a photo of a green-eyed. blonde, sweet-and-innocent type, saying that she had the look he wanted. it was uncanny how much she looked like me; my agent said it was the easiest request she ever filled." As the modeling jobs have become more frequent, Miss October has cut back to just two or three nights of Bunnying a week. "I'd be too tired to be my best self at the Club if I worked more than that," Mike says. "It's not so much the photo sessions themselves that make modeling so hectic, but all the preparations, like test shots and hair appointments." Headquarters for Mike's two careers--and for her dinner-and-dancing social life--is a slice-of-pie apartment in a cylindrical Montreal high-rise. When not plying guests there with a favorite fondue or sm?rrebr?d, she's apt to be found of off-evenings at the ballet in Montreal's gleaming new Place des Arts or dancing herself in an out-of-the-way discothèque. "I think it's part of the city's Frenchness." says Mike, "that our discos are tinier and much more intimate than those in New York or Chicago. Even on a night when you know no one but your date, it seems like a private party." Miss October plans to satisfy her admitted penchant for things Parisian with a leisurely European trip this winter. She'll start with a visit to relatives in Denmark, fly south--"probably to Greece"--for a rest and then alight in the City of Light. where she hopes to keep in posing practice. "I've never seriously considered trying my luck in New York, where the girls are all tall-tall." says our 5'5" Miss October, "but I think there's a chance I'll have good luck in Paris." Chances are it's the Parisians who'll consider themselves lucky.

Montreal Bunny and model Majken ("Mike") Haugedal starts her day with a midmorning visit, below, to her parents' nearby apartment for an hour of play with her five-year-old brother, Lars. "First, Lars had to try out his new toy stethoscope; we wound up having a good old-fashioned rib-tickling session," she recalls. "It was all supposed to be a plot to get him in a good mood for a haircut, but he still had enough spunk to put up a struggle at the door of the shop."

"Once he got in the chair and had a few reassuring words from the barber, Lars was more like the good-natured kid he usually is," Mike continues. "So after the haircut, I rewarded him--and myself--with a French pastry from a little grocery store around the corner." After dropping Lars off at home, Mike calls on her modeling agent, Constance Brown, to display some additions to her portfolio and to consider possible assignments.

Another of Miss October's typical stops--even on a day without any assignments-is at the salon of Montreal beauty consultant Corrado Di Genova. "I think the best thing about my current life." says Mike, in a voice engagingly accented with both her native Danish and Montreal's second language, French, "is the incredible variety of roles I'm asked to play. As a Bunny, I'm pretty much myself-a girl everyone but my very closest friends considers a real kook--but as a model. I have to be everything from the sweetest teenager to a sultry sexpot. It's a lot of fun as long as you keep it in perspective." After Corrado rearranges Mike's own hair, she tries on three new wigs: "Like most models, I'm a natural ham at heart; give me a wig and I just have to mug. That hamminess makes me wonder if I could make it in films--but I don't want to jinx it by talking about it!" During the afternoon, still another appointment finds Mike dashing through Montreal's skyscraper-crowded downtown.

The first home-grown Bunny to earn a place in the gallery of color transparencies adorning the wall behind the Montreal Club's Playmate Bar. Mike--who started as a Gift Shop and Door Bunny--now works most often in the Club's Living Room (below). Dressing for work one evening following few days off. she discovers tangible evidence that she's no Twiggy when the club's wardrobe mistress tries to help her into one of her older costumes ("Too many of those French pastries, I guess!" Mike laments.) But then she tries on a new psychedelic costume that fits her, obviously, just fine.