PROVIDENCE BAY—The 2023 Providence Bay was historic for two main reasons. One, this marked the 140th anniversary of this annual event, a milestone in itself, and for the first time in its history, a male, Ben Dewar of Providence Bay, won the Providence Bay Fair Ambassador competition.
“I’m pretty excited,” Ben Dewar told The Expositor. “It’s different, but it doesn’t matter that a guy is the ambassador. The times are changing. The main thing is I like to volunteer in the community and to help represent the fair. I have volunteered at the fair for a lot of years.”
Mr. Dewar acknowledged, “my friends were kind of making fun of me for entering the competition, but I continued to say I think I will give it a shot.”
A total of four contestants were competing for the title of fair ambassador Friday night, including Alex Carrick, Alexis McVey and Lexis Young. The latter was runner-up in the competition. The award for Miss Congeniality was won by Alex Carrick. This event was organized by Karlene Scott.
In his speech Mr. Dewar had provided a look from his perspective on the importance of agriculture and agriculture societies. “The Providence Bay Fair is a big part of our community; it strengthens us and thrives on collaboration from everyone.”
The fair as usual drew big crowds all weekend, with the event opening Friday and continuing right through to late Sunday afternoon with many traditional events but also bringing back many old favourites from the past, all with the idea of promoting the family tradition of the annual event.
Norm Morrell, master of ceremonies for the opening ceremonies Friday evening, said “I would like to welcome all of you to the 140th annual Providence Bay Agricultural Society (PBAS) Fall Fair. Again this year it will be an action-packed weekend.”
“You know. as I was driving here to this event, I was reflecting on the 140 years of the fair, as I was thinking about where I was going to park,” said Mr. Morrell. “I wonder if people had a problem finding a place to park here at the first fair in 1883? This event has a great history and we are all part of it.”
Among several dignitaries on hand was Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing MP Carol Hughes. “It is always great to be here. At 140 years, this is one of Canada’s longest running fairs,” she said, noting how much work people put into for example the many items displayed in the exhibit hall from flowers, sunflowers, baking, arts and crafts, grain, woodworking, vegetables, quilting and much more.
“All of this tells the story of how important agriculture is and how important it is in bringing people together,” said MP Hughes. She noted the tremendous effort that PBAS president Jack White and PBAS directors and volunteers put into to making the fair such a success.
“Congratulations everyone,” stated MPP Mike Mantha, in delivering his remarks at the opening.
Richard Stephens, mayor of Central Manitoulin welcomed everyone to the fair. He also praised the members of the PBAS and volunteers for their efforts. He quipped, “140 years seems like a long time, but it seems like yesterday the first one took place. Well, someone was here for it.”
Mr. White said, “Good evening, and welcome everyone to the Providence Bay Agriculture Society’s Providence Bay Fair. To celebrate this 140th birthday we are going to give you something a little sweet. We have two birthday cakes donated by Island Foodland for tonight.”
“I was in the Navy for 27 years, and what makes a commander on a ship look great is all the hard work done by everyone around them,” said Mr. White. “I am very lucky to have the great directors, members and volunteers that we have who dedicated themselves 365 days of the year to make it a success. I would like to declare the 2023 fair open.”
The Islanders provided musical entertainment in the arena, just prior to the opening ceremonies.
During the evening, several awards and prizes were announced and handed out. The award for the best haybale structure created for the fair went to the McDermid family, with second and third place going to the Noland/Mackelvie families. Third place went to the Orford family.
One of the new events held at this year’s fair was Manitoulin’s Top Chicken Contest. Dawn Dawson announced that among the 12 hens and roosters nominated for the award online voting contest, ShXthawk took first place followed by Steady and Special. Taking first place for best rooster was Bob Seger, with Rocky and Lonestar in second and third.
Angela Johnston announced this year’s junior ambassadors that included Mya Peters, Charlie Orford and Natalie French.
There were seven entrants in the Adam’s Sunflower Challenge with prizes being handed out by Penny George to Ben Dewar, Macy MacDonald and Barbara Neal.
The pie eating contest was won by Darrion Robinson, while a new event this year was the Fair Feud (a spinoff of Family Feud), which proved to be a real crowd-pleaser. Eight teams squared off in the game with the fifth and final game pitting the Paisley and Orford teams in the finals. The Orford family won the final game to take the title.
The Fair parade was one of the many highlights of the jam-packed day of activities Saturday. Among the winners in the parade were the floats, with the Verboom family taking first place followed by the McDermid and Dawson families, second and third. Steve Fisher was fourth. The general float category saw the Central Manitoulin Fire Department miniature fire truck taking top spot followed by the Pet Shuffle and Manitoulin Chrysler in second and third, respectively.
Seven teams took part in the heavy draft horse pull. In the heavy horse team category with the Preston Webkamigad team of Buck and Pal winning. In the light horse category Kevin Gilbert and his team of Brit and Paint were first.
Some of the other events held Saturday were the judging of livestock, the soap box derby, musical performances by the Sudbury and District Pipe Band and Toe Jam Tequila, MSS robotics team demonstrations and Manitoulin’s Got Talent.
Among the many events held on Sunday were a light horse show, music provided by Nettish, Naomi Bristow, the return of the Farm Olympics and the cow patty bingo.
