I was on the phone with my friend Sarah from the South Shore of Nova Scotia this past Friday, trying to explain the chuckwagon races, when she interrupted and asked, “But when do they start cooking?”
Confused, I said, “What do you mean? They don't cook, they race.”
“But they have stoves, right? Isn't that what chuckwagons do?”
For a moment, I drew a blank, unable to comprehend how someone could be so tragically misinformed. High off two days of chuckwagon experience, I casually neglected to remember that I had spent the previous three weeks asking everyone at the office questions like: “But why do they throw a stove in the back of the wagon? What are they trying to prove? Why not just race without a stove?” and “Are the barrels really necessary? Really?” and “What's with the guys on horses riding amuck in the mud? Don't they just get in the way?”
My theory is my dear friend confused chuckwagons with chipwagons, a legendary vehicle that is a staple out east and in some other places in the country that parks along the side of the road on hot summer days or shows up to special events, selling greasy food out of small windows to hungry passers-by. For a price, pedestrians can enjoy some of the greasiest French fries around and, if you're lucky, delicious, delicious poutine. They aren't pulled by horses, they don't use their stoves for props to be tossed around by cowboys – in fact, there are very few cowboys, if any, involved at all.
I haven't seen any chipwagons around Alberta, where they seem to have been replaced by the ever-elusive mini-donut sellers.
When I cracked up on the phone, Sarah interrupted with an indignant, “We can't all live in Alberta, you know.”
And sure, maybe I know next to nothing on the mechanics of a lobster trap, how to read the tide charts, how to pilot a boat through rocky narrows, or the proper pronunciation of those nifty yellow rain hats with the unfortunate apostrophe in the title – Sou'wester.
But now, thanks to the tragically shortened World Professional Chuckwagon races in Bonnyville, I know the stove isn't actually a stove at all, but a barrel that apparently represents one, the actual chucking of the stove takes a fraction of a second and isn't actually the main event at all, and if you stand too close to the rails as the horses and wagons pound by, you get showered with mud and rocks and probably nastier things.
Also, this week, I randomly discovered a link that brought me to a live streaming video of a lobster chillin' in a lobster trap in the Halifax Harbour. So maybe I get the best of both worlds.
