In many ways, carnivals are little more than illusions, brightly lit dreams bathed in summer sun. The trucks roll into town on a Thursday and are gone by Sunday. The rides, the games, the petting zoo - a weekend delight, captivating until they're packed up and shipped away, bound for the next town on the schedule.
For most of us, carnivals are a fun distraction, a place to forget about the rest of our lives. The bright lights, the smell of popcorn and the chance to win an oversized stuffed animal draw us in, but only for a night or two. In our excitement to jump on that ride or win that prize, we often overlook the people who work at the carnival. In many cases, their stories are more interesting than the rides.
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Ben Lund leans against a fence, reading an Archie comic. It's almost closing time on Friday night and the torrent of kids waiting to hop on the "Harbour Island Ducks" has slowed to a trickle. Lund has only been with West Coast Amusements, the carnival's operator, for two months, but working in the business stretches back decades in his family.
"My dad operated a Ferris wheel in '58," Lund says with a quick laugh. "He said it was fun, so I thought I'd try it." Lund is skinny, with a black mustache and a lower jaw that protrudes out when he talks. He wears dark sunglasses and a red hat emblazoned with the letters WCA. He says he loves the travel, but could do without sleeping in the back of a truck at night. "It's getting tough," he says as he takes a sip from a battered and stained coffee mug.
The carnival season for Lund started in March and won't finish until September. Beginning in Burnaby and ending in Kelowna, it's an endless cycle of putting everything up and then tearing it all down 48 hours later. It's a routine that can break down even the most seasoned carnies.
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Brian Wellz has been working at carnivals for 16 years now. He's tired, and says this will be his last season. On this night Wellz is enticing passersby to take their chances with "Shoot Out the Star", a game in which the player must shoot out a small red star on a piece of paper with a rifle. There is some subjectivity to this game; the carnie can decide whether or not the star has been completely destroyed. Leaving a tiny trace of red on the paper can be the difference between winning and losing.
"You can win, if you take your time," Wellz says with a shrug. "Hey, you ready?" he calls to a group of girls as they walk by. The salesman in him never stops.
Compared to Lund, Wellz lives a life of luxury on the road. He drives his own car from town to town and stays in hotels at night. Every year he travels through Canada and the United States, usually wrapping up the season in November.
It's a tough life, but Wellz seems no worse for it. He laughs often, a childlike burst that shows his spaced and yellowing teeth. He's short, no more than 5'5". He says he's been to Humboldt before, as a visiting hockey player some 25 years ago. "Yeah, I remember this sh**hole of a town," he says matter-of-factly. "Hockey team's still pretty good, huh?"
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Terrible Terry, as he calls himself, ran away from home in Oshawa, Ont., when he was just 14. He found a job with a carnival and, some 35 years later, he's still doing it. Talk to Terry for more than a few minutes and it becomes obvious: he cares deeply about his job. "I'm only one of a few hopscotchers left," Terry says. "That means you can put me on anything at this carnival - rides, games, whatever - and I can do it."
"I'm just here as a favour for a friend," he continues, "normally I'm on the big carnivals."
Terry's responsibility tonight is "Tubs of Fun," one of those carnival games that seems simple but proves almost impossible. Players stand about five feet from a row of four red buckets, tilted toward them. They are given three baseballs. If they can land any of those baseballs into one of the four oh-so-close buckets, they win. It's these kinds of games that give rise to the common perception that some carnival games are rigged. Terry is quick to dispel that notion.
"You don't want them to get ripped off," he says as a group of teenage boys try their luck. In his demonstration to them, Terry softly dropped one of the baseballs into a bucket. It seemed so easy, but the boys can't seem to get it. Their balls crash into the buckets and inevitably spring out as they throw their arms up in despair. They walk away, but not before Terry reminds them to come back and try again later.
For the most part, Terry is unfailingly positive about the life of a carnie. He talks about the joys of having winters off on Vancouver Island, where he lives. He says he makes good money ("not six figures, but my rent's paid, I got money in the bank") and loves the traveling. Then, without warning, he starts to talk about a darker side of the carnie lifestyle. "You can develop bad habits here," he says as he waves a wad of cash out of the pack around his waist. "You know what bad habits make? Thieves!"
He went on: "I tell people when they're hired; smoke your grass, drink your beer, get your girlies, OK. But bring cocaine, heroin, your f**king pills, that'll get you a black eye. But I'm old school." He wipes mud off a baseball as he says this, as earnest as when he was showing the boys how to play the game. There seems to be no bravado here, just a statement of fact.
Like Wellz, Terry says he's getting too old for this lifestyle. "But here I am," he says with a smile, the sounds of the carnival crashing around him, "here I am."
