Everyone, it seems, has a Fair tradition.
People across the district begin to look forward in earnest to the Emo Fair once the calendars turn to August. No longer just “something that happens in the summer,” the month turning makes the Fair feel so much more real and imminent. As minds turn to the Fair, there’s inevitably that one particular facet that garners the most attention for each individual. For children, it might be colourful rides and lots of candy. Teens may eagerly anticipate fair games and independent time with friends. Adults can take in some of the vendor stalls at the market, and watch an evening of racing at the Speedway. Seniors sit down to dinner at the arena and share stories of fairs past with their compatriots, or appreciate the work put into raising a 4-H steer.
The Emo Fair is the stuff of fond memories for plenty of residents in the District. But what could bind all of these different ages and interests together, what unifying force could there be that could be as significant to a child as to a senior, and everyone in between?
Consider, if you will, the humble beet
Since taking my job at the Fort Frances Times, each year I look forward to the Emo Fair not only to take in the sights and sounds of the fair, to wander through the horse and cattle and small animal barns, to grab a bite to eat from the 4-H and other food booths, but also to make my way to the Exhibition Hall to take a photo of that year’s First Place Prize Winning Beet. I have filed such a photo for nearly five years, one per Emo Fair I have been able to attend, save for interruptions caused by global pandemics. Inevitably, at some point during my time at the Fairgrounds, I head to the Exhibition Hall, find the produce table, and snap a shot of the prize winning beet.
I like beets – beetroot for our friends across the pond. The beet is a taproot, similar in nature to a carrot, parsnip, turnip or radish. They boast their signature, finger-staining purple-red hue. They’re delicious sweet or savoury, roasted or boiled or pickled. They’re considered a superfood, containing a significant amount of nutritionally beneficial vitamins and minerals. They can even help to lower blood pressure. What’s not to like?
But it isn’t about the beets. Not exactly. As much as I enjoy checking out the beets, my journeys to the exhibition hall are really more about people and the hard work that is represented in each and every item that has been submitted for consideration. Those who have never visited the hall for fear of it being “boring” compared to the rides or cars or animals are missing out on the sheer force of human endeavour on display each year.
There is something for everyone to appreciate in the Exhibition Hall, from youth to elder. Consider the items that can be submitted for consideration: there are Lego sets built by young, budding engineers and designers, there are pieces of artwork painstakingly hand-drawn, the quilts are always awe-inspiring and vibrant. Vegetables don’t grow to be prize-winners by accident, and a honeybee cannot jar and submit its own honey.
Every single piece of anything in that hall is the result of work done by human hands. No single item in that hall is there by accident, or even likely on a whim. Sure, a photograph may not have been taken with submission to the Fair in mind, but no less effort and consideration and skill went into it for that fact. That impressive bunch of carrots could have started out as an intended side for dinner before its size determined it could be a contender, but that doesn’t make the time and sweat put into growing a garden any less notable.
There is something so inherently, invaluably human about the Exhibition Hall. It is a fulsome display of the part of our human nature that wants to share in our triumphs. We create something beautiful or wonderful or silly or joyful or well-proportioned or just plain neat, and we want to share it with others so that they can appreciate it as we do. It is an acknowledgement of life in our district, born from that agricultural age from which some of us have moved away, but I’d say not all of us have moved beyond. It is, like the Fair itself, the celebration following the harvest, the time of joy and togetherness that has followed the hard, heavy labour of the field. That we have added the apiary and the brush and the camera and the Lego set to it only reveals how much the desire to grow, to create, to nurture resonates through so many of us, albeit in different ways.
I do not envy the judges for the Exhibition Hall at the Emo Fair. Each time I find the beets, I pay as much attention to the runners-up as I do the grand prize winner. Did the winner take the prize simply because it was the largest? Was it because it seems also to have been the roundest? But what about if it was the most vibrant? How can we know if it was the sweetest? And who can determine the level of love and care and toil that went into growing it?
And they have to do this so many times, with so many different categories, with so many different aspects to each! A quilt can’t and shouldn’t be judged like a beet, nor should a jar of honey be compared to a piece of crochet work. Each piece needs to be judged on its own merits and then as part of the whole category, and there is only so much time to do it between submissions and the final showcase. If you know an Exhibition Hall judge, be sure to thank them for their time and effort and care. Then buy them a little treat, they deserve it.
I don’t mean to sound like I’m questioning the judge’s process or results here. They very clearly know what they are doing where I do not. I don’t know if I could put one beet above another, to say nothing of some of the artworks and crafts and builds I’ve seen over the years. But I do wonder nonetheless. I wonder if they get lost staring into a photograph. I wonder if their hands hurt in sympathy when they look at those intricately crafted quilts. I wonder if they ponder on how much imagination went into building that Lego.
I wonder if they consider the humble beet.
