long live the carny cowboy
The cowboy who's a true PNE legend
Jack Hunter has entertained people at the Vancouver exhibition since the 1940s. Now 76, he still loves it
The Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
By Marke Andrews
With 65 years on the midway, Jack Hunter has seen a lot of fairs and sold a lot of hotdogs. Since leading ponies at the age of 11, he has hustled games players into spending their quarters and dollars, sent kids on their first thrill rides, perfected his sales pitch for slicers, dicers and other handy-dandy kitchen products, and, since the 1960s, satisfied cravings for foot-long hotdogs, corn dogs, cotton candy, candy apples and barbecued beef.
He is one of the Pacific National Exhibition oldtimers. But Hunter, 76, hasn't lost any of the passion he had back in the 1940s, when he first started spending his summers at the PNE.
"This is awesome fun," says Hunter, sporting his trademark cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and shoulder-length hair, only part of which is grey. "The day it doesn't become fun is the day I give it up."
Born in Toronto, Hunter's family moved to the Fraser Valley when he was a toddler. He came to the fair as a child, walking ponies around when it was largely an agricultural fair. He graduated to operating the rides, running games booths and becoming a product pitchman ("the old glass-cutter and knife-sharpener was the big seller"). When he married his first wife Betty Sivewright, who passed away 11 years ago, she made him stop pitching and start cooking, and he opened a concession stand. Then another. And another.
Today, he and his second wife Fatima Hunter run seven concession stands that employ between 50 and 70 workers.
Hunter doesn't just sling food at the PNE. From May to September he hits the road, taking his wares to the Calgary Stampede, Cloverdale Rodeo, Red Deer Exhibition, Medicine Hat Rodeo and Merritt Mountain Music Festival.
While some young employees come and go, others stay with him a long time. Blake Hanna, who does the ordering and servicing and dips the candy apples, has been with him for 13 years.
"He dipped 750 apples yesterday, and that won't be his record either," says Hunter.
One woman has worked for him for 33 years.
"We've watched kids grow up," says Hunter. "They bring their brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces, and we hire them to work here.
Hunter pauses to point out one of his employees.
"He's a friend of my [first] wife's family, and I changed his diapers years ago," he says proudly. "Now he's 21 years old and he's working for me.
"You make a lot of friends in this business, and they go through the good times and the hard times. You take what the good Lord gives you."
The hard times usually come with bad weather. Hunter remembers a year when it rained for 13 of the fair's 17 days, "and I never came out of here with a profit."
Hunter says the best part of the business is the people he sees -- and he always remembers an old friend.
"Some of the adults come up to me and say, 'You sold me my first cotton candy.' Then they introduce me to their son. We have generations of families who come back to see us. I love watching them grow up.
"I recognize the faces, because I'm a people person. I love people. If I didn't, I wouldn't be in this business."
Hunter has seen a lot of changes over the years. There are fewer characters in the business today than there once was. A lot of the oldtimers have retired or passed on.
As for people's tastes, Hunter says that, while there is more demand for ethnic food, people still have a yen for deep-fried midway cuisine.
"Things haven't changed that much," says Hunter. "They're still here for the greasy onions and the popcorn smell, and they still eat hotdogs. This is their 17 days of over-indulgence. They can go on a diet after Labour Day."
Neither of Hunter's two grown children from his first marriage took to the business, and neither did his current wife's son. He and Fatima have a seven-year-old daughter who spends all day and night at the fair, so the carny life may live on through her.
"Right now she's with her stepbrother and his girlfriend and they're riding the rides," he says, beaming at the image. "She'll be here until 11 at night."
-30-
How does sugar turn into cotton candy? Popular PNE treat is scientific feat
The Province
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
By Matt Carter
There are 17 cotton-candy stands at the PNE but the one run by Jessica Remedios is the busiest. Considering the fair sells about 36,000 bags of the stuff each year, that's pretty busy.
"It's hectic," says the 19-year-old. We need to be stocked constantly. You need to always be on your toes. You'll have people yelling at you sometimes, but you just do the best you can."
Remedios has been making cotton candy at the PNE for the past five years. The popularity of the product is easy for her to account for.
"The sugar. It's almost pure sugar," she says.
Which raises the question: How is plain old sugar converted into the sticky sweet fluff that's looks like the insulation in your attic?
"It's actually a simple process," says Ryan Norheim, of the Saskatchewan Science Centre, which has run a cotton-candy exhibit for the past seven years. It's one of the most popular exhibits at the centre.
As the expert explains, a cotton candy machine is a circular tub, in the middle of which sits a spinning head. The sugar granules are poured into the head and heated above 186 C, which is sugar's melting point.
The centrifugal force in the spinning head pushes the liquid sugar through a screen and out slots in the side of the head.
"As soon as it hits our air temperature, it solidifies again," Norheim says. "Because it's shooting out, it takes on that stringy form."
Most credit two Tennessee candy makers, William Morrison and John Wharton, with inventing cotton candy in 1897. They patented a machine similar to a modern-day cotton-candy maker two years later.
Morrison and Wharton launched their "Fairy Floss" at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis and sold it for 25 cents a box. "That was a pretty heavy price back then but they sold 68,000 boxes," Norheim says.
Eleven-year-old Amanda Russell, of Newton, doesn't know about all that, but she knows what she likes. She's been to the PNE twice and had cotton candy both times.
"I like cotton candy because it's sweet," she says. "It melts in your mouth."
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