The results from the City of Whitehorse's branding survey overwhelmingly favour the sternwheeler remaining the official logo, and the city will bow to the majority's wishes.

As well, "The Wilderness City” will be the official tagline.

The city received nearly 2,500 official responses.

"This survey represents one of the biggest public turnouts to a city initiative in quite some time,” Mayor Bev Buckway said in a statement.

"I'd like to thank everyone who participated in the survey for making your voice heard.”

There were 2,340 responses to the survey. Sixty-six per cent of the respondents favoured using the sternwheeler as the city's logo, while 34 per cent chose the proposed stylized horse.

Meanwhile, 55 per cent of respondents chose "The Wilderness City”, 29 per cent selected "Above All Expectations” and 16 per cent favoured using "Striving for Excellence” as the tagline.

The survey comes after a significant public outcry at an earlier branding proposal. A petition signed by 845 residents asked the city not to adopt a stylized horse logo proposed by Waterloo, Ont. consultants eSolutions.

eSolutions was paid $48,000 for their efforts, which will now be ignored.

eSolutions proposed three taglines and logos, including the image of a white horse and the tagline "Above All Expectations”.

The complicated horse logo depicted a horse's mane forming the shape of a ‘W'.

It incorporated a variety of colours, including different shades of blue, gray and green. Some felt the design would be too difficult to implement, while others felt it didn't adequately represent the city.

The territory put $50,000 toward the branding efforts while the city contributed $10,000, along with managing the project. The initiative was part of an economic charette held last year.

Coun. Ranj Pillai said today he is thrilled with the results

"The community has spoken out, and we've listened,” he said. "I'm happy that this process encompassed the public, and so many people decided to participate.”

Many who spoke with him expressed feelings that the proposed logo didn't represent Whitehorse, and that the tagline felt "canned”.

"People have a strong connection to the current image and how it reflects our community,” said Pillai.

Matthew Grant, the city's public relations manager, said work will begin right away to tweak the appearance and font of the current logo and tagline.

He anticipates that once council has approved them to move forward, possibly by the end of this month, city staff can continue work on creating a "unified brand”.

When asked about the dated quality of the logo, Grant expressed hope that the logo will eventually look "a little more modern.”

Minor changes include changing the font underneath the logo and removing the circle which surrounds the image of the sternwheeler.

Grant said this project has been completed under-budget.

"Next steps include the adoption of the official logo and tagline by bylaw and the creation of a comprehensive branding package that will be available to local residents,” he said.

"The city will now be able to move from using eight logos to one primary logo giving us one visual identity to use in our branding efforts,” he said.

More than 700 people who began the online survey didn't complete it, said Grant. The survey required people to enter their name and an identifying characteristic, and many were unwilling to do so.

But even without these 700 respondents, the enthusiastic response was unprecedented, said Grant.

One concern raised during the survey was the lack of youth engagement, and Grant said the city is looking for ways to expand their web and social media presence to reach youth via less traditional means.

"We're looking at how we can reach the younger age groups,” he said.

Now that the branding process is nearing completion, Pillai said, the city can move on with various projects, including updating its website.