YORKTON - The chuckwagons ran in Yorkton on the weekend, which had me at the grandstand camera in-hand taking photos for Yorkton This Week.
That is not particularly interesting as an isolated assignment – one of many spanning more than three decades now – but the locale for the event is of significance for this writer.
The Yorkton Exhibition grounds not surprisingly have been a rather significant part of covering events through the years for Yorkton This Week but my memories go farther back than my time as a journalist.
I grew up attending summer fairs around the province showing stock. It was my summer camp I suppose, and I loved it.
By this time in June I’d be counting the days to the first event of the summer, a day that would have only been matched in terms of expectation by the annual flight of Santa himself.
So, as I watched the first chuckwagons cutting the barrels a thought or three of memories popped into my mind.
It was also a case of looking at the filled seats in the grandstand and appreciating how people were out being together after two years of COVID-19 cancelling events and keeping people at home. As a kid I’m not sure how I would have reacted – OK so I would have sulked in my room – had dad had to tell me there would be no summer fairs because of some ‘bug’ I doubt I would have fully understood on my earliest years.
That in a pre-Internet world I would not have fully understood what a pandemic was is not so startling when you consider in a world of free-flowing information in an instant people still balked at the threat in spite of the death of many, and complained about undertaking even the simplest of precautions such as wearing a mask.
Still, there is no denying there seems a pent up desire to get out with other people.
And, for kids – for example those in 4-H – the expectation of regional shows or summer camps has to have many marking the days of June off their calendars in heady expectation.
That was all part of just standing at the track fence and observing, and yes I found myself longing to again be only weeks from a summer attending fairs showing livestock, riding bumper cars and occasionally eating candy floss. Alas, those days are long gone, as much as I might wish for a return to Connaught Fair, or Shand, or Golburn, but the memories remain and I envy those still making them driving chuckwagons or showing 4-H steers.
