This year, the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) celebrates its 140th birthday when it returns to Exhibition Place in August. Though today it may be best known for staples like the air show, food building, thrill rides (2018 will be the 91st anniversary of the tilt-a-whirl) and midway, the iconic Toronto event does have a long history of esoteric, if not questionable, offerings.
Just ask CNE archivist Alicia Cherayil. She’s been working for The Ex since 2010. As CNE staff work to digitize some roughly half-million negatives in an effort to save them before they deteriorate, Cherayil is regularly finding out new things about the celebration. “We’re learning a lot just from scanning,” she says.
Her team is currently working through a collection spanning the late ‘40s to the early ‘80s, when the CNE commissioned photography because social media didn’t exist. “We have a good story arch per year of what happened at the fair during that time period,” says Cherayil. “We’re pretty lucky we have the kind of collection we have,” she adds. More than 1.5 million people went to The Ex last year, but here are six things most of them probably didn’t know about — including some pretty strange moments.
There was a motorized mayoral bathtub race
The CNE somehow got regional mayors to race around Lake Ontario in bathtubs with motors attached to them. There was even a prize. “We had a trophy created for it,” says Cherayil. The quirky event, dubbed the Mayors’ Bathtub Derby, was a staple at The Ex from the ‘60s all the way into the ‘80s. “That one was always a weird one to me…who thought that this was an idea, and why? Just why?” Cherayil asks. Former Scarborough Mayor Joyce Trimmer took the title in 1975, and is immortalized in one black-and-white Toronto Public Library photo edging out Muskoka’s Jim Lang, then Mayor of Bracebridge, Ontario, and Stan Makowski, who was heading the City of Buffalo.
The CNE was a first for electricity
When the Toronto Industrial Exhibition (the CNE’s name until 1912) was lit with electricity in 1882, it marked the first time a permanent fairground anywhere in the world had done so. The next year, The Ex was the public’s first introduction to electric railways. “Innovation is the historic hallmark of the CNE,” says Virginia Ludy, chief executive officer of the CNE. “Rooted as a ‘showcase to the nation,’ the CNE has always and continues to embrace new technologies,” she notes.
A strip show was entertainment—sort of
Present-day families flock to The Ex for all-ages fun. In the 1950s and early ‘60s, you could go to the fairgrounds for a risqué attraction. “We used to have a program on the Midway, believe it or not, called Striporama, which was a little bit more, adult-friendly,” says Cherayil, who can’t confirm what, exactly, the show entailed. In fact, she doesn’t think anyone knows for sure. “We just have some photos that say Striporama,” she adds. CNE staff poured over annual reports and programs from the time to try and solve the Striporama mystery with no luck. “I think it was ladies dancing but not fully stripping,” she says. “Some of the things that we did in the past were in line with what was happening in the world, from fashion to music, and then some of the things…we had something for everybody,” Cherayil jokes.
Car polo was an exhibition sport
Of all the many variants of polo — some play on horses, others compete in the water, while others ride bicycles — one that was displayed at the CNE in 1913, might just be the wildest. It certainly surprised Marlee Yule and Bretton Weir, both of whom are enrolled in the University of Toronto’s Master of Museum Studies program. The duo recently dug into the archives to find material for their forthcoming CNE retrospective photo exhibit, Snapshots of Change: The Influence of the CNE on Toronto, which runs at the new Withrow Common venue from June 21 to Sept. 29 (taking a break during The Ex). “I feel like the eclectic nature of some of the events that have been held over the years are astounding,” says Yule. “Almost anything you can think of, the CNE has done. From yo-yo competitions to auto polo when cars were just invented. They would drive them around the grand stand and hit balls with them and crash them…pretty wild stuff,” says Yule. She and Weir have spent about 160 hours each since the Fall consulting the CNE archives to prepare for their show.
Miss Wheat-Heart was a thing
One thing most people don’t realize about the CNE is that it has serious agrarian roots, suggests Cherayil. “We are, to this day, an agricultural society,” she notes. While sifting through old photos, Yule and Weir have come to discover the interesting ways in which these rural ties have been incorporated into the CNE’s programming. “There were so many beauty pageants and fashion shows. One that we really found enjoyment in was Miss Wheat-heart,” recalls Weir. Yule adds, “Obviously she (Miss Wheat-heart) had these sheaves of wheat instead of flowers.” There was also a Miss Dairy Queen competition, Yule continues. “They would have to do milking competitions as part of the pageantry, so [it was] sort of combining that pageant but also the deep agricultural roots of the CNE.”
There were live medical demonstrations
The Ex has always been a place for showcasing innovation, from the invention of the electric light bulb to today’s tech startups. Colour TVs and airplanes are some of the other inventions that have been unveiled over the years on the hallowed grounds. “One of the things that we’ve done well since the beginning is showcase to the consumer new things that will make their lives better,” Cherayil says. Some of the older programming may leave some feeling a little squeamish, though. “We used to have something called Vetescope. They would actually do veterinary work on animals and show people what that was,” says Cherayil. There was also a sister program called Mediscope, and it would demonstrate the latest developments in medicine, such as radiology. “People could see medical procedures and learn about new technology in medicine, which I think is also a little shocking because, you know, people don’t want to see those types of things — we had a lot of fainters,” she explains.
The 140th Canadian National Exhibition runs from August 17th through September 3rd. For more information, visit www.theex.com
