Silly Little Country

The Boy Cow or the Girl Cow?

Over the last many years, I re-developed a taste for agricultural fairs. My initial exposures, lo those many years ago, were at the Ottawa and Toronto Exhibitions and my focus as a then child were clearly on the rides and not the exhibits.
A few years ago I found myself adrift in mid-July in Yorkshire, England, while my wife was busy at a conference and I discovered the Great Yorkshire Fair. And I fell in love with agricultural fairs - and this was a true one, located in farm country in the middle of nowhere, with no midway, no rides (other than some rappelling at the UK military booth), and lots of animals. It went through some trouble during the hoof and mouth crisis, but I assume persists.
With time on my hands, I had begun to wonder how enjoyable the local logical equivalents are. Now they DO have midways and rides and the like, but they also have animal exhibits.
I started out thinking I would go to the Canadian National Exhibition this year, if I found interesting animal exhibits. But then I discovered the entrance fee is $15.
So last week I was in Ottawa, and they have an Exhibition too, once called the Central Canada Exhibition, now called the SuperEX, and they have a FREE Seniors' Day and I qualified. I checked things out and decided free was the right price and headed up.
Part of my motivation came from this beautiful ad:

I once encountered a student who was baffled by a test question I had set asking to calculate the volume of a silo - an urbanite, she had no notion of what a silo was.
So in any case I set off a week ago for the SuperEX.
The statue on top of a pillar in the grounds suggested this was a good place to be - a wheeled winged cow!

Now there were a few shows I wanted to see, assuming they would not match the Yorkshire version. The Canadian Raptor Conservancy put on a birds of prey show, no match for the Yorkshire version, but that was largely since this one was indoors; in the end, it focused on local birds, and immediately improved my bird identification skills! So thanks!


The sheep shearing exhibition here lacked some of the humor and confidence of the Yorkshire version (done by a New Zealander) but (sorry, no pictures) I learned a LOT about the local wool business.
And finally, the SuperEX had an endangered species show that got me focused on reptiles and amphibians. Great stuff.
Totally worth the cost of admission.
I did walk the midway, which is pretty cheesy. There was one ride that fascinated me.
People get lifted up to a significant altitude and then drop rapidly, with elevator brakes stopping the fall just before the end. There was a lot of screaming so perhaps my bafflement is ill-justified.

The distinction between an agricultural fair and a circus can blur. I do not think this was a horse.

There was also a petting zoo, living proof of the skill of a variety of animals in training human children to get their parents to get them animal feed to hand to the various poultry and small animals (though as large as llamas).
One thing I did NOT expect was a Fashion Show! (Parade de Mode, not the Defile de Mode phrase I once learned.) Turned out it was only back-to-school fashions from Giant Tiger (a key sponsor).

Overall, a great afternoon! Thanks, Ottawa. And you kestrels can assume I won't so easily mistake you for mourning doves again!

posted by Alan Adamson @ 4:30 PM