Fall fairs -- a great tradition

The CNE, the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto, the Capital EX (formerly known as the Edmonton Exhibition) and the PNE, our own local Pacific National Exhibition are some of the bigger ones.

These summer into fall fairs are part of a long and great tradition. Originally based on the agricultural calendar, they served to celebrate the season of harvest home.

At the PNE, baking, preserving and quilting competitions have taken a back seat to massive sales of an impossibly wide range of stuff, from gimcracks to treasures. But no matter how many big shows, dance competitions and scary new Playland rides are added, and no matter which weird new foods (like deep fried Mars bars) are sold each year, the farm animals remain central.

For city people, the barns provide the rare opportunity to get close and personal with large farm animals that have been trucked in from all over the Fraser valley. It's a treat to see the teams of muscular draft horses, the prize calves, the sheep and lambs and piglets. And it's an eduction to watch the owners, often quite young, who take such great care of them.

Recently a friend told me her twelve-year-old daughter thought milk came from Safeway. Where before that? She didn't know. At the PNE, kids can watch milk cows in action, see baby chickens and ducks hatch and even watch bees in a visible hive producing honey.

In today's golden fall sunshine, I remembered my first experience of the Bulkley Valley Fall Fair in Smithers. It was a few hours' drive from our town, and my brother and I went with our neighbours. I was fourteen, and it was a spectacular adventure.

I'll never forget the thrill of that first evening, watching nervous horses being cajoled down the wooden ramps from their trailers, the whites of their eyes showing as the loud echo of their own hooves on the boards spooked them into tossing their heads and whinnying.

Now this year's harvest fairs are long over, and the PNE has been transformed by Fright Nights. The Thanksgiving weekend is past. Fall is definitely here.