Once again, it’s time for Shawville Fair, the biggest event on the Pontiac calendar, now in its 168th year!
It is a place where families and friends reunite each year, where old acquaintances are renewed and new friendships are struck up.
A place of sights, sounds and smells of which memories are made.
The fragrances of popcorn and candy floss. The tastes of all kinds of food.
Face-painted children feeding pellets to goats and llamas and lined up for some of the best ice-cream cones around.
Barkers beckoning you to try your luck on carnival games. Rock and country music booming from the beer tent and the main stage.
The clatter of midway rides spinning, soaring and plummeting. Children screaming.
The jangle of harness on teams of heavy horses. The concentration on the faces of drivers, their hands full of reins as they navigate a dozen tons of horsepower around a crowded ring, the announcer imploring spectators to back away from the low barricade that separates them from the passing behemoths.
Arenas full of freshly-scrubbed Holsteins, Ayrshires, Jerseys and Guernseys, Herefords, Angus, Charolais and Simmentals. Kids all in white hanging onto rambunctious calves for dear life.
Every kind of flower and vegetable, every kind of chicken and sheep, all carefully nurtured to perfection.
Physics-defying pumpkins, bigger every year.
Homecrafts from hooked rugs and paintings to cakes, cookies, pies and pickles, photographs, short stories and poems.
Old cars painstakingly-restored, new cars unabashedly smashed.
In this age of fake this and virtual that, Shawville Fair is a celebration of things that are real, of what is and has long been authentic about Pontiac life, and of what we hope will endure.
There are many vivid memories embedded in this place. Not least in a museum literally filled to the rafters with historic artifacts, housed in what was previously Shawville’s train station, the cornerstone of commerce and communication with the outside world in its day.
For some, memories include the white main gate that evoked a sense of grandeur, of occasion, an octagonal wooden agricultural hall, a roof-covered grand stand, a half-mile race track.
And if you sit with someone who’s been around a while, and listen very carefully, you just might hear the announcer’s voice bellowing through the crackling speakers to clear the track, the race horses are coming. Or encouraging the participants in the high-speed roadster class to ‘drive on gentlemen’ as carriages spin around corners sending sand onto spectators.
If you are one of the thousands of lucky ones, you will be among the Labour Day throng this weekend at Shawville Fair. For everyone else, we’ll be doing our best to capture the sights, sounds and smells for your memory-making pleasure here in next week’s issue of THE EQUITY.
Truly a phenomenon, Shawville Fair is an annual living testament to what the collaborative efforts of volunteers from one end of the county to the other can achieve together.
Bravo Fair Board and all who help make it happen.
