The Dude's QSL card and some groovy 1970s swap-club stamps

This QSL card for "The Dude" is from the disco- and 'fro-soaked 1970s. The Dude in question was not Jeff Bridges, but George Chatterton, a ham-radio enthusiast from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

While the front of the card has a nice Starsky and Hutch vibe going, it's the back of this card, which is dated March 11, 1978, that piqued my interest.

Featured are the stamps of four QSL swap clubs and something called Space Patrol. Let's take a closer look at each of them.

Idaho Potato Patch QSL Swap Club
The internet has nothing on this group, so clearly I am doing a great service to history by being a provider of this illustration, for posterity.

Snowy Owls QSL Swap Club of Saskatchewan
The Snowy Owls are also mentioned on this Iron Man-themed QSL card that is posted on Tumblr.

Canadian Goose QSL Swap Club of Winnipeg
Coincidentally, this club is also connected to the aforementioned Iron Man card. I also found a small news item concerning the Canadian Goose QSL Swap Club in the July 12, 1977, issue of the Manitoba Free Press.¹

Hillbilly QSL Club, Ripley, West Virginia
According to the Postcard Department of Judnick.com, the president of this QSL club at one point was a man named John Rice. Note that the radio operator in the stamp is barefoot and has a suspicious-looking jug behind him. Ripley is a small city in western West Virginia and, in 1897, was the site of the state's last public hanging.

Space Patrol
I'm not sure if "Space Patrol" was a swap club, or what. One nitpick: If the aliens are underneath a transparent dome in their spaceship, how can their antennae be sticking out like that? That is the kind of question we ask here on Papergreat in the quest for important knowledge.

Footnote
1. The news item, in its entirety, states:

"CANADIAN GOOSE Q.S.L. SWAP Club of Wpg, Incorporated, would like to announce the winners of a raffle draw in St. Vital Park on July 10, 1977: 1st prize, Midland 13-976 23 ch. S.S.B. C.B. radio - Mr. Herb Semler, Box 173, Moosehorn, Man. 2nd prize - Astatic D104 microphone - Mr. G. Lee, 488 Ferry Rd., Wpg. 3rd - Specialists M-400 Starduster Antenna - Rudy Wiebe, 723 Boyd Ave., Wpg. 4th prize - T-shirt, T.F. Matheson, 87 Morningside Dr., Wpg. 5th prize - T-shirt, H. Sinclair, 317 Melbourne Ave. Tickets were drawn by E.H. Janz, 1065 Spruce, Wpg., Man."