Let the games begin

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/01/2024 (966 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg fosters wonderfully peculiar competitions.

It’s the cradle of spongee, murderball, crokicurl, underwater football. It celebrates contests for best snow fort, snowman, and snow sculpture — plus for longest bottle gourd. It’s a really gourd time!

Discover canoe and dragon boat racing on ice, and the Forks’ Warming Huts Architecture Competition. Hey: when does the warming part kick in?

Moreover, lesser-known curious contests beckon beyond Winnipeg.

• Groceries clutter New Bothwell’s outdoor rink for Winter Carnival’s Ice Scramble. Adults excitedly slip and slide for cans, pasta, cheese. Teens pursue coins — that stick. They scramble, and scratch. Last February, snow helped. A grin-covered boy exclaimed, “$35 bucks!” Children scramble for sweets. Darn age limits.

 

• At Gimli Ice Festival’s outdoor Frozen T-Shirt Competition, the MC announced, “Get your minds out of the gutter. It’s not what you think.” Participants race to vigorously stomp on and pry apart a frozen bunched-up t-shirt to stretch over winter gear.

At the Festival’s weird Frozen Fish Toss, I asked, “What are the rules?” The reply: “They’re flexible. But kiss your fish for double points.”

 

• Falcon Ridge Ski Slopes’ famous Snowdance Festival includes a re-imagined turkey shoot. Contestants slide a frozen turkey to a target on ice. There’s fowl play. The prize: the turkey.

• The Pas’ Trappers Festival features contests for hairiest legs, best bedroom eyes, and a big achievement: best beer belly. Its King Trapper competition includes flour packing where contestants bear crushing flour bags. The Queen Trapper competition includes nail driving and log throwing — the usual. But the 2021 Sasquatch Calling Contest got no sasquatch response. A Facebook post forewarned, “Since when is there sasquatches in The Pas?”

• Like Snow Lake’s Winter Whoot Festival, folks intently scavenge for, yes, ice worms. Such invertebrates exist, but The Pas hides handcrafted worms. Snow Lake hides worm lures.

• Thompson’s National King Miner Contest highlights jack leg and stoper drilling, crib building, and hand mucking. I’m unfamiliar with those skills but I could maybe do the muck thing.

• Kinosota’s Muktuk Annie Festival this September features funniest joke and best liar contests. Plus, exquisite males in drag get judged on poise, ticket sales, and contest participation. The big spectator draw: water-hauling in high heels. The coveted prize: getting called Muktuk Annie.

• Norway House Cree Nation’s World Championship York Boat Races accompany the funniest jigger contest, slip-and-slide tug-of-war on soapy tarps, plus car cram, where teams of 10 adults race into a small car. As rec director, Sonny Albert says, “Laughter is medicine.”

• Along the Manitoba Riviera, Churchill’s November Polar Bear Marathon requires escorts for its frost-coated marathoners given weather, wolves, plus wandering hungry bears. The latter would hasten even my pace.

 

• Humans race against horses with riders at the Souris Bend Endurance Ride and Run near Wawanesa. Runners won in 2022 thanks to steep hills. Yay, homo sapiens!

• Communities host lawnmower racing. Leave push mowers at home. And Austin’s Threshermen’s Reunion includes its slow race. The winner operates the slowest steam tractor without stopping, the test of highly-tuned machinery. Where were slow races in school? I’d have trophies.

Mackenzie Burnett drove a vintage Reeves & Co. tractor. The strategy: “Watch the gears slow, feel the engine about to stall, then give ‘er enough for more crawl.” I yelled, “Slower!” She came first. I mean last.

• At St-Labre, registrants get 24 hours to build a go-kart from 46 parts, then race. And rubber boot toss contestants try kicking their wellies farthest off a swing. I told Margie, “Wear your steel-toed papermill rubbers!”

She replied, “Those’d place me last!”

I insisted, “The steel will propel them!”

Margie argued, “You need light boots. How you win is in the ankle.”

Saying “Aha!,” I relented to physics, physiology, or marriage.

• At Gimli’s Icelandic Festival and Ste. Agathe’s Summer Fest, teams knock beer bottles from poles with frisbees playing Manitoba-born Fris-Nok — a frisbee, ahem, spin-off.

• Oak Hammock Marsh challenges folks to predict when spring’s first goose arrives and, in summer, for how long contestants toe-dip in a frigid artesian spring. The prize: Freezies.

• Langruth’s Harvest Festival offers haybales that children race on — and cow patty bingo. If the celebrity cow, Dancer, poops on the square you bid highest for, you win over $400. MOOla!

Just before the auction for squares marked A to P, Dancer delivered a steam pile — a Parklands pancake, Manitoba shoeshine. I asked her owner, “How often does Dancer plop?” Bobbie replied, “You think I wait around for a cow to poo?” Margie and I do.

Margie advised, “Don’t pick squares near people. When I worked on a farm, cows shied from folks.” I won a $40 bid and, with Margie’s unexpected expertise, chose B at the back. Margie enthused, “B: for BS!” Dancer eventually chose C. It’s a crap shoot.

 

• St-Pierre-Jolys hosts Canada’s bizarre National Frog Jumping Championships. For youth, the announcer calls names and the frog’s chosen name. I heard Turd, T-Rex, Sheila, and one I knew: Kermit.

The frog leaping farthest in three jumps wins. Contestants cheer for their frog, blow on it, tap it, and clap. I glimpsed a send-off kiss. A dad wiped a frog’s feet. None of this works. Boing-Boing triumphantly bounded eight feet. It’s in the name. Or the ankle.

Successful contestants feel wholly responsible for their frog’s talent. Others feel bewildered — but everyone wins when embracing mirthful Manitoba.

 

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