Fall Fairs Bring Back Memories & Chance to Make New Ones

Honouring traditions, belonging, and the unique charm of our local Fall Fairs

4-H members show their dairy calves at the Arran-Tara Fall Fair. Image credit: Jen Shaw

COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTION

Fall fair season is upon us. The Durham, Desboro, Meaford, Owen Sound, Chesley, Paisley, Arran-Tara, and Chatsworth Fall Fairs will all take place during the first two weeks of September.  

Many long-time Owen Sound residents may already know about our little Tara fair. It’s held on a Tuesday night and Wednesday and was featured occasionally in the Sun Times’ late editor, Jim Merriam’s, column.

In its heyday, the Arran-Tara Fall Fair was home to chuckwagon races, which drew people from all over. I took this for granted as a child, not realizing how special they were (or risky) until I saw chuckwagon races again a decade later at the Calgary Stampede.

Once the horse races and midway were vacated for insurance reasons, the big draw in Tara became the lawn mower races. 

That’s right, lawn mower races. There is no “place to be” more happening on the second Tuesday of September than at the Arran-Tara fairgrounds for this modified mini-tractor show. 

It’s almost as unique as it is to host a midweek fair. Every year, our Council in Arran-Elderslie declares a half-day holiday. The school kids march to the fairgrounds, and businesses close for the afternoon. And while it can be a challenge to manage for volunteers and parents, I think it’s important to keep this tradition alive and maintain this connection to the agriculture community. 

Fall fairs were originally started to demonstrate the latest technology and practices in raising crops and animals. They evolved into important social events and even helped women achieve greater equality in rural communities, a phenomenon examined by Jodey Nurse in her book Cultivating Community: Women and Agricultural Fairs in Ontario.

At a time when so few people have a connection to a farm, it would be a shame to lose this opportunity for our youth to be this close to chickens and cows and experience this form of community. 

Lawn mower races on Tuesday evening of the Arran-Tara Fall Fair; ATES school kids arrive at the fairground in the Arran-Tara Fall Fair parade. Images: Jen Shaw

Fairs are also a thing of core memory-making. Every summer towards the end of August, I took our family fairbook and circled everything I could possibly do in the kids’ section.

There were always a lot of shoebox dioramas and roadside flower bouquets (I still enjoy those, but in the adult category) in our home. I remember proudly decorating my bike for the parade and eagerly running to the exhibit hall to show off my artwork. 

Mostly, fall fair nostalgia for me is about my 4-H calf. I spent a decade at half a dozen regional fairs to show a different dairy calf each year. The unmistakable combined smell of straw, manure, Ivory soap, and cow hair – an indescribable scent you have to know to understand – will forever bring back fair memories. 

My memories are of early mornings washing my calf while the dew was still cold on the grass and loading the trailer with hay and our box of tools. Sitting on a straw bale under a warm fall sun while eating french fries, trying not to spill ketchup on my white pants (the mandatory and incredibly impractical uniform for showing dairy cows). And finally, me in those same white pants, now dirty and speckled with manure, a brown envelope of prize money stuffed in my pocket, riding on the “Scrambler” with a boy I liked. 

As a self-conscious teen, I would’ve been embarrassed to set foot in my high school dressed like this or have my mom pick me up after basketball practice in her barn clothes. But I strutted confidently around fairs; cowboy boots, “whites,” smelling like a cow, and all. 

Durham, Mount Forest, Owen Sound, Tara, Chesley, Ripley and eventually Paisley; these were the fall fairs of my youth.

Last year, I revisited my youth by showing my niece’s calf in the Paisley Fall Fair adult showmanship class. I relished the smell on my hands again and thought briefly, maybe I’ll get back into this show-cow thing. 

But then again, maybe I won’t. I enjoy the simple satisfaction of reliving the memories ringside. And besides, growing flowers to further my grandma’s legacy in the fair flower show seems to be more my pace now.   

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