PWAC Victoria: Rosemary Neering, Writing Sample

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Cows, Quilts and Corn Dogs:
Going to the Armstrong Fair

by Rosemary Neering © 2000

A whimsical look at that most central of rural experiences: the country fair. Published in The Traveller, Beautiful British Columbia, Summer 2000, with photographs by the author.

Not to be reprinted or reused
in any way without permission.

It all depends on how much I trust horse people. If a Cariboo cowboy suggested I ride the ranch stallion, I would wonder why he wanted to see me dead. And down at the Armstrong Agriplex, I just watched a miniature stallion unleash some mightily bad-tempered kicks.

But Ivan Bourelle, courtly in Peruvian white pants, white shirt and blue poncho, seems like a nice enough chap, and his wife Judie, arranging the silver-studded tack on the horse, would surely hesitate to put the pride of their barn at risk.

Still, it's with some apprehension that I place my foot into the tooled leather stirrup and swing up onto Valor de Amigo's back, taking the Bourelles up on their offer to see just how marvellous Peruvian paso horses are.

Yes, they are. Though he'd rather pace back to Ivan than respond to my hesitant commands, there's no bucking, no teeth-bared grin to tell me I'm in for a rocky ride. Pleasant disposition aside, the unique gait of the paso horse ensnares me: no back- or bone-jarring, almost a lilting and comfortable roll. I wonder if they'd get really upset if I trotted Valor de Amigo off into the wilderness, on the road like some latter-day Pizarro.

But no: the dream dissolves in the shrieks from the midway rides, the sweet smell of cotton candy, the sound of country-and-western twanging in the distance. Valor de Amigo goes back to the exhibitors' stalls, and I continue my exploration of the Interior Provincial Exhibition, the second-biggest fall fair in British Columbia and the pride of Armstrong in the north Okanagan. Early every September, some 70,000 to 80,000 people crowd through the gates here, to see the exhibits in half a dozen arenas and barns on the fair site, check out the midway, eat fair food and watch the grandstand show and rodeo.

The fair began in 1899, with displays of fruits and vegetables grown by new settlers in the north Okanagan. It's to those competitions I go now, eager to see just how poor a farmer I am, with my straggling row of peas, undersized carrots and anemic coastal tomatoes. I am overwhelmed by the 431-pound prize-winning pumpkin, a regular John Candy of a pumpkin, so pale and out of shape you want to send it to a health farm. Beyond it, row follows row of gleaming vegetables and fruit, beets and broccoli, peas and parsnips, but there's no doubt in my mind about the real winner: in the junior section, large zucchini class, an Enderby boy has created Jabba the Hutt's sail barge from Return of the Jedi--the best use I have ever seen for a large zucchini.

On this Saturday morning, the fourth day of the fair, the barkers at the commercial booths are just warming up their tonsils--helped by portable microphones--for a day of shouting the wonders of their slices-dices-grinds-and-grates machines. An Aussie who touts a made-in-Germany cleaning cloth--shines your eyeglasses, cleans your car--has drawn a crowd, as has anyone who sells machines guaranteed to reduce your food to smithereens. No one even pauses at the psychic's tent--why didn't he know that in advance, and stay home this morning? Waterless cookery and fitted bedrooms are out, trace-your-ancestry is in, and left-handed tape measures and relieve-your-foot-pain have attracted serious listeners.

But the real excitement of the morning isn't on the grounds at all; it's in the streets of Armstrong, along the two-kilometre route of the parade. Most of the 5,000-strong area population has staked out viewing spots along the sunny streets or by the railway tracks that arrow through the town. The square dancers stop every few blocks for do-si-do and join-our-club. Youth for Jesus with their tambourines march ahead of the cars that carry DJs from the local radio stations and giant sound systems blasting golden oldies. Mayors and members of parliament wave, a high school jazz band sends a lively rhythm out from a truck flatbed, and middle-aged Shriners in fancy dress zip through complex patterns in their shiny kiddie cars.

The parade over, we all crowd into the fairgrounds, where half line up for hot dogs, the other half for washrooms. The barkers' chatter rises a level, vying with the come-ons from carnies running games of chance and rides.

Over in the barns, though, things are more serious: a judge silently motions 4-H club members to lead and turn and hold their dairy calves. The smallest girl wins the biggest prize and I haven't a clue why. Judge Peter Bongers enlightens me: you don't want dairy cattle to look like beef cattle, he notes, no extra meat on their shoulders, clean bones, backs straight as an arrow. Enlightened, I unerringly misjudge the next class.

Lunch time comes, and I am out of my depth. Hamburgers, hot dogs, corn and cotton candy, slushies, french fries: there's no way I can test it all. I need expert help, and get it from 11-year-old Jennifer and 12-year-old Jessie, exhibitors and veterans at the fair's food booths.

"Don't even think about hamburgers," says Jessie, knowledgeably. "They're soo-o-o greasy." I suggest haystacks, a much-mentioned taco salad, but we can't get one today: that booth is run by Seventh Day Adventists and closed from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. "Good," says Jessie, "they have too many olives and onions and stuff that kids don't like."

Instead, we warm up with a horse blanket, flat, deep-fried dough dusted with icing sugar. Then my companions lead me to the best French fries, "not soggy at all." Indeed, the fries are nicely crisp, and the girls dress them with just the right amount of ketchup, vinegar and salt. Then, "Souvlaki," they nod. "That's the best thing at the fair." So we share a lamb souvlaki and wander on, tzatziki dripping down our chins. And we must finish with snow cones, chipped ice with flavoured syrup poured on top. Conservative, I opt for a lime green cone, while Jennifer and Jessie experiment with two-tone, blue and red combinations. "Awesome."

They know their stuff, so we head for the midway. The Gotcha game is best, they explain; Jessie has already won three small prizes manipulating the catching claws, and plans to trade them in on a medium-sized one. A teenaged girl walks away, her arms full of small stuffed animals. "That must have cost her like a thousand quarters," says Jessie; the girl has been playing for at least three hours.

Full stomachs notwithstanding, the girls are ready for The Zipper. And I am ready to watch them. "When you're like ten years old," says Jessie, "it's hard, because you're too old for the kiddie rides, but the others are still too scary." But when you're 11 or 12, you're ready for anything. "Except the Orbiter: it goes about 250 miles an hour. And the Gravitron: it goes three times as fast." The Orbiter whirls you around at high speed, pinning you to the cage through centrifugal force. The Gravitron whirls you around at higher speed, mashing you to the cage. The Zipper whirls you at high speed, and you can rock the small cages you are in, to make them whip and turn as the ride whirls. The scream quotient per passenger suggests the girls have chosen well. "It's the best," they say as they emerge, "the really best."

I take their word for it, and go to sit down at the Grandstand Show. The emcee-comedian warms up the crowd (Brian Mulroney and Quebec jokes play well), then Ray and trick horse Reno perform. Reno does the hula, stands on his hind legs, crowds all four feet onto a small stool, and bows. I save my applause in case Ray will now gallop on all fours around the arena, but no such luck. The juggler is a little off, flaming torches spilling everywhere, but the singing Neilson family gets the crowd going with sixties tunes and C&W favourites.

Then it's time in the judging barn for the jackpot steer competition. The beasts look handsome: no owner takes his cattle into the ring without cosmetic touches, wielding the Scotch comb or rice-root brush. "You want to make them look nice, make the muscle look a little fuller," says Kelly Peacock, an exhibitor from Vanderhoof who does the rounds of PNE in Vancouver, IPE, a fair in Washington State next week. He applies shaving cream to his bovine charge and shaves off a few errant hairs, then backcombs the tail and solidifies it with tail adhesive, a cross between super-hold hair spray and glue.

Inside the barn, the choice comes down to an Angus-Limousin cross and a Charolais. Ponoka Kidd, the crossbreed, wins the $5,000 grand champion prize, then--sic transit gloria--is auctioned for beef, fetching 94 cents for every one of his 1,190 pounds. The Charolais attains some measure of revenge: he goes for 95 cents a pound.

I may not know from horse blankets and snow cones, but one thing I know: for a good small-town supper, head for the church tent. The Anglicans' roast turkey wins out over the United roast beef and, minutes later, I'm sitting at a long trestle table on a meeting-hall chair, with a plate full of turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, beans, carrots and gravy, and a smirk on my face at the lineup that now stretches out the door.

"Turkey's dry," announces my cross-table neighbour. "Must be when they killed it." Oh? "Yup. Sometimes your meat's good and sometimes it just shrinks down to nothing. That's because of the phase of the moon when they butchered it." I take a bite of my lemon pie and consider whether this theory could be stretched a little: maybe if I bake at the new moon, my lemon pie will taste like this.

I abandon the fair to the teenagers who come out with the dark, and return to my bed-and-breakfast, with its view over the farm-rich Spallumcheen Valley.

Sunday morning is quiet time at the fair, participants red-eyed and weary from four days of dawn-to-dark exhibiting. Camper/exhibitors sit in the sun by their tents and trucks, drinking coffee and ungluing their eyelids: late-night midway shrieks and early-morning going-to-water-and-muck-out-the-horses noises aren't conducive to a good night's sleep. I skip the Christian cowboy service, and head for the crafts and baking displays.

Bev Keith won the red ribbon in Class 125, mixed techniques quilt. "I've always loved sewing, but I gave up all my other crafts for quilting. It's addicting. There's that sense of making something for someone you care about. I enter something in the fair every year. You feel part of the community; you enter so someone else can see and appreciate the time and the amount of work that went into your entry."

The IPE has just two paid employees; much of the work is done by volunteers, many of whom take the week off from paid work to do the myriad of jobs required, fuelled by community spirit and the sense of pride that a community of 5,000 can run a fair this large.

Moyreen Tucker has been volunteering for many years; now she supervises the big exhibit halls. "Some exhibitors have been coming to compete for 50 years," she notes as we circle the chocolate cakes, breads, cookies. "It's the pride in your craft, the pride in what you do. The money is immaterial"--average first prize is $5 in each of the hundreds of classes--"it's the ribbon and the fact that 70,000 people see your entry."

Time for me to make a fool of myself again. It's my only chance to win a ribbon--albeit one that says, "I milked a goat at the IPE," and that is flaunted mainly by people under the age of eight. "Close off the teat with one hand," says goat breeder Lynda Dyde, "and squeeze with the other. It's not like milking a cow," as if she were talking to someone who had ever milked a cow. I produce a trickle, then catch an audience member in the eye with a second squirt. This could be fun.

Down on the midway, a barker yells at me, "Hey sexy. Give the game a try. Everybody wins." But a man who will lie about one thing will lie about another, so I pass on by.

Besides, I have another challenge to complete. "What?" said the 30-year-old daughter of the house at my bed-and-breakfast. "You didn't try a corn dog? Ever since we were kids, that's why we went to the fair. You have to have a corn dog."

Bravely, I seek one out and bite into this hot dog on a stick, dipped in batter and deep-fried. The dog is firm and rubbery, the batter crisp (though perhaps a little greasy on the inside), the mustard squeezes neatly from the package onto the dog, not down my shirt. But I have meals to go before I sleep; I consign half the dog to the bin, and continue to the Seventh Day Adventist booth and the Haystack. This I consume while listening to a fiddle band and drinking punch in Day-Glo colours.

Some seek out the chicken and the pigeons; some love to watch the dogs perform. But for me, it's the heavy horses, those Clydesdales, Percherons and Belgians that give true meaning to the word "horsepower." At the grandstand, these animals, most of whom normally work in the forests, on the farm, or hauling where motorized vehicles cannot go, drag sleds loaded with ever-increasing slabs of salt.

They strain, they pull, they succeed. Though the announcer repeatedly begs the audience not to cheer until the horses are unhooked and the teamsters safe, they cannot resist, bursting into spontaneous applause until the winning team has hauled close to 6,000 pounds over its team weight.

The sky is darkening, the air cooling. The rodeo trucks arrive and the grandstand fills. The bucking broncs are the first to burst from the chutes, then the calf-ropers, the ladies' barrel racers, the steer wrestlers, the bareback riders and that breed apart, the bull riders. I climb down from the bleachers and wander back along the midway as a brilliant sunset declares the end of this year's IPE. One last meal at the last booth open. Chomping schnitzel on a bun, sauerkraut dripping, hot pickles burning, I walk back past the barns where exhibitors are loading their livestock for the trip home, and begin to plan ahead. The fair will turn 100 years old in 1999: I have two years to prepare for eating a whole, entire corn dog.

. . .

IF YOU GO: The Interior Provincial Exhibition is held around the first weekend in September, Wednesday through Sunday. Most 4-H competitions are on the first two days; rodeo dates are usually Thursday, Friday and Sunday. The grandstand show and various agricultural competitions take place every day. The midway, exhibit halls, and food booths are open throughout the fair.

Armstrong is in the Spallumcheen Valley, at the north end of the Okanagan Valley, half an hour from Vernon. There are several motels in town and many more in Vernon; half a dozen bed-and-breakfasts offer Spallumcheen Valley accommodation. My favourite is Turningpoint Farm, with a fine view, nice rooms, excellent breakfasts, and a swimming pool for falling into after a hot day at the fair.

Also in the neighbourhood are the O'Keefe Pioneer Ranch, the Armstrong cheese factory, Caravan Theatre, and the town itself, a pleasant walk-through with restaurants, small-town businesses and second-hand stores.

Rosemary Neering
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Last updated: April 23, 2002 http://www.islandnet.com/pwacvic/neergr01.html

Cows, Quilts and Corn Dogs:Going to the Armstrong Fair

Cows, Quilts and Corn Dogs:
Going to the Armstrong Fair