The Rural Voice, 1991-09, Page 29Even the youngsters get a thrill from riding a classic restored tractor, like this Oliver,
at the Reunion, even though one's feet can't quite reach the clutch pedal.
show and there were five big steam
engines on display.
Today, the show has become one
of the largest such events in Ontario.
Attendance figures are hard to pin
down since children and members
pass in and out freely, but estimates
have put crowds at up to 20,000 over
the three clays. Many of them attend
on Saturday and Sunday, when crowds
are so large that off-site parking has
been set up with buses transporting
people to the fair grounds.
Over the years camping was
introduced, and today the size of the
normal Blyth population of 950 nearly
doubles over the week of the Thresher
Reunion. Last year, there were more
than 350 motor homes and camping
trailers on the site. This year, with
expanded camping facilities and the
30th anniversary celebrations, organ-
izers are expecting more than 400 in
the temporary subdivision on the edge
of the fairgrounds.
In the last three decades, the big
steamers have had to share the spot-
light with those upstart gasoline -
powered tractors that pushed them out
of farm fields more than half a century
ago. Restoring gas tractors is a more
affordable hobby for many people
than restoring the rarer steam engines,
and now dozens of hobbyists display
hundreds of gas tractors — from such
familiar names as John Deere, Case
and Massey Harris — to rare models
like Co-op that have long since
disappeared.
Along the way, organizers realized
something was needed to widen the
appeal of the reunion to more than just
machinery exhibits and displays, so a
craft show was set up in a corner of
the arena and over the years, it has
grown until now it takes up the entire
arena. Everything from hand-knit
articles to ceramic horses can be
viewed or purchased.
Music has been part of the act-
ivities of the group since an organiza-
tional meeting in Blyth in June 1962
when a fiddler provided entertainment.
For years, Earl and Martha Heywood
provided entertainment on the grand-
stand. Today, fiddle music and step
dancing attract almost as many people
to the reunion as the steam engines do.
There are two bandstands where
people can listen to old-time orches-
tras or watch fiddle and step -dancing
competitions, while on Friday night,
there is a fiddlers' jamboree. This
year, the Barn Dance and the fiddlers'
jam session will add even more music
to the event.
One of the attractions of the
Threshers Reunion is the diversity of
entertainment. Throughout the
grounds, there are little hubs of activ-
ity: in one corner the fiddling contest,
further down a demonstration of a
lathe making axe -handles or a saw
cutting shingles; over there a giant
circular saw screaming as it slices
through logs, and down the way, a
threshing machine belching a stream
of straw into an ever-expanding pile.
Everywhere there is a feast for the
senses: the smell of beans baking over
an open fire, the sound of steam
hissing from a steam cylinder, the
bright colours of the antique tractors,
the smell of the interiors of the antique
cars, the lively sound of fiddle music
wafting across the grounds.
The Thresher Reunion is a living
museum: a look back at a lifestyle that
is no longer with us, but for many
people, a lifestyle still longed for.
Those sights and sounds and smells
are what bring back people year after
year and have made the Thresher
Reunion a tradition that has grown
stronger each year for 30 years.0
SEPTEMBER 1991 25