On a rainy Thursday night on the eve of Halloween, eight of the Shawville 4-H Club’s senior square dancers were hard at work in the Lions Hall above the arena working through the final kinks in the dances they are planning for their upcoming trip to the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto. 

This cohort of the club’s dancers has never performed at the Royal, which for many 4-H members is the crown jewel of fairs. While many of the club’s members have been lucky enough to travel to the Toronto event to show animals over the years, its square dancers have not made the trip in a long time. 

This year, though, coaches Tyler McCann and Gillian MacDougall decided to pitch it to their senior dancers. 

“Other 4-H square dancers in Quebec have [gone], but it’s not something we’ve ever been involved with so we’re quite excited about this,” McCann told THE EQUITY, noting he has never been to the Royal as a square dancer either.  

Shawville 4-H president Amy Sheppard has been dancing with the club since she was nine
years old. Now a member of the senior dancing team and coming to the end of her time with the club, she said she welcomed McCann’s pitch that the team give the Royal a shot. 

“For me to be able to experience this at the age I am and with the team I’m with after doing so well this year, I’m so excited,” Sheppard said. 

She said her team, and the club at large, has had a successful season, with each team winning first place at least once at the various smaller fairs in which the club has participated. It was this momentum that inspired them to take on this next-level challenge. 

“This year there was a different kind of connection with our senior members,” Sheppard said. “At the three competitions we went to this year, the judges complimented us on having complex dances, and so when we were doing well, Tyler suggested we give it a shot.” 

For the past month, dancers Laura Graham, Rosie McCann, Andie Heatlie-McLaughlin, Ben Judd, Kathleen Kelly, Grace Kelly, Sheppard and Charlotte Graham, along with caller Eloise Thompson have been doing what they can to prepare for what they are expecting at the Royal. 

While Shawville members have developed their own flair to the classic dances, in large part thanks to McCann and MacDougall’s preferred approach, they know that the Royal’s standards are often more traditional. 

“Judges are different down there. They’re maybe not as lenient with some of the moves, so there could be point deductions for not doing old-time moves,” Sheppard said. 

“We like to put a twist on our moves, which is courtesy of Tyler. He likes to modernize them a bit. So we might go down there and be surprised of what they think of what we’re doing, and we’re ready for that because we just want to go and give it our best and see what’s going to happen.” 

McCann said while he doesn’t know exact numbers, he believes the Shawville contingent will be up against about a dozen other teams, including some university teams. 

“It will be a bit harder for us because we dance a bit differently than they do. I think the way that the kids dance is a bit more fun, but we’re curious to see how big of a difference that will actually be at the end of the day,” he said. 

“One of the things members get judged on is how they look when they dance. Do they look like they’re having fun and enjoying it.
[ . . . ] I really hope that they enjoy it, that it’s something they continue to want to do as they get older.” 

The square dancers, who will be competing at the Royal on Nov. 16, are only some of the Shawville 4-H members heading down to Toronto this year. 

For beef, Amy Sheppard and Tyson Childs will be making the trip. For dairy, first-time Royal participants Myanna Sally and Morgan Tracy will be joining now-veteran Payton St-Pierre. 

This past Sunday afternoon, Tracy and Sally made use of the relatively warm and sunny weather to do some last grooming of their respective dairy heifers before heading down. 

With their heifers tucked into the shade at Tracy’s family’s Double G dairy farm in Clarendon, they spent a couple of hours shampooing coats, scrubbing feet, and combing tails, all in preparation for the big show. 

Tracy explained they have been giving the animals this spa routine all summer long, as it helps their coats stay soft and encourages the hair to grow out so it is primed for clipping just before show day. 

She first joined 4-H when she was eight years-old and, the daughter of dairy farmers, started showing dairy cows right off the bat. The Royal first landed on her radar as something she wanted to do last year, but she wasn’t quite old enough. But this year she makes the cut, and she did well enough in the regular season of showing to qualify for her dream fair. 

“Through 4-H in Quebec you have to go to our provincial rally, and you have to do a minimum of [qualifying] shows including rally, and then it’s through a point system and how well you do.” 

Tracy said she discovered she’d qualified for the Royal after school one day, near the end of September. 

“I was so excited, immediately I said yes to going.” 

Tracy said she dreams about winning at the Royal, so much so that she’s included a visual of what it might look like in her vision board at school. 

“But I’m not going to the Royal to win, I’m going for the experience. Last year I used to get really nervous at shows. This year I found calming down and not being so afraid is actually a lot more enjoyable. In the end it’s just a show, it’s just for fun.”