Some weird gatherings from around Canada
Festival: The Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous Festival
Location: Whitehorse, Yukon
Details: The Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous Festival is not only the coldest festival in Canada, but one of the oddest. It’s been held every February since 1962, though it began in 1945 as Yukon Carnival Week. The following year saw merchants encouraged to decorate their establishments in the style of 1898—old-timey décor being one hallmark of the Festival—while things began to get weird in 1947 with the beard-growing contest (which was, in fact, mandatory for all male residents). Today, the Beard Growing Contest still continues, complemented by the Moustache Growing Contest and the Hairy Leg Contest for women, as well as weird dancing and athletic contests.
Festival: World Championship Bathtub Race
Location: Nanaimo, B.C.
Details: The 36-mile World Championship Bathtub Race has been held by the Loyal Nanaimo Bathtub Society in the last weekend of July every year since 1967, and is part of Nanaimo, BC’s Marine Festival. A competitive bathtub must be built around a facsimile of an old-fashioned roll-top bathtub, and is limited to an 8-horsepower engine and a minimum weight of 350 pounds.
Festival: Windsor Pumpkin Regatta
Location: Windsor, Nova Scotia
Details: Another weird water race, the Great Pumpkin Race sees competitors growing their own boats. As the self-proclaimed “pumpkin capital of the world,” Windsor commemorates every October with a pumpkin race on Lake Pesaquid. About 50 or 60 boats compete in three classes: motor, experimental, and paddling. The boats can be made of nothing but pumpkin. Some start out with 450-kilogram (1,000-pound) specimens from the gourd family. Once hollowed out, the half-ton orange behemoths float—as long as you sit in the right place. The race was founded in 1999 by Danny Dill, son of Howard Dill, the breeder who developed the Atlantic Giant Pumpkin.
In Newfoundland, they pour coady (a sauce of molasses and butter) over their boiled pudding.
In the 1970s, Howard Dill put Windsor on the map when he engineered mammoth pumpkins and created the seed for Dill’s Atlantic Giant. Dill was recognized four times by Guinness World Records for growing big pumpkins. The town wanted to find a way to capitalize on its history as the birthplace of giant pumpkin growing. Howard’s son Danny suggested that they hold the giant pumpkin races—with people actually inside the pumpkins.
Despite skepticism from some townspeople, the Great Pumpkin Regatta was launched in 1999. Five people entered and about 2,000 watched the event that first year. But nowadays more than 10,000 people flock to the town and entries range between 50 and 60. Contestants go to great lengths to hollow out and decorate their pumpkin ships. Before the race, paddlers march in a parade with their PVCs (personal vegetable crafts). While Windsor was first to hold a pumpkin race, other towns, including Cooperstown, New York, and Elk Grove, California, also hold races. Windsor also has another claim to fame in the world of sports: It is the birthplace of hockey.
Festival: Islendingadagurinn
Location: Gimli, Manitoba
Details: Dating back to 1890, the Icelandic Festival is the second oldest continually-held ethnic festival in North America (after an Irish festival in Montreal). Participants dress in both historically accurate and fanciful Norse dress and play games such as Islendingadunk, where contestants try to knock each other off a soapy pole suspended over the harbor. Other events include demonstrations of Viking life, Viking warfare and tactics, and Viking beach volleyball.
Festival: Poutine Festival
Location: Drummondville, Quebec
Details: If deep-fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches aren’t to your taste, how about the Quebecois delicacy of French fries, gravy, and cheese curds? The Poutine Festival in Drummondville features all the poutine you can eat, plus bands so you can dance off the calories.
Digby chicken is no bird—it’s smoked and salted herring in Nova Scotia.