The Grain Miller's Harvest Showdown always brings out a wide variety of entertainment for audiences, and this year brought the Knights of Valour Full Metal Jousting demonstration.
The event brought history back to life, with knight games leading up to the main event, full contact jousting.
Shane Adams with the Knights of Valour admits that it can look crazy at first, but this is a long-lived sport, and has been a spectator sport for generations. The host of Full Metal Jousting, Adams, has been doing it for 20 years professionally, though he says that he was interested in the sport since childhood in Ontario. He says that he's done everything he could for jousting, a sport that he loves.
"It's the original extreme equestrian sport, full contact jousting. Take two men, dress them up in 130 to 150 lbs. of armor, put them on top of their 2,000 lb. war horses, headlong, all in the attempt to unhorse their opponent... It's a demolition derby on horseback."
Adams says that one of the things professional knights love about the sport is the bond between themselves and their horse, as man and animal need to trust each other when going into the joust.
"You can feel that connection between yourself and that horse, and it's like any other equestrian sport because this is battle."
Part of the program was doing special demonstrations for local schools, and Adams says the response from the kids in Yorkton has been one of the most rewarding parts of the weekend.
"To see the response from the kids brings me back to when I first dreamt of being a knight. For me it's a rewarding thing, of course I do it as a career, but to see the smiles on the kids faces and hear those cheers, it's pretty amazing."
Adams says that the knights run a large educational curriculum in Ontario, and the goal is to continue that program further west, with the Harvest Showdown being the first step in that plan. The show itself went through the techniques and training that knights would go through, providing entertainment and history together. The full history program is much broader, and he says the program at the fair is only a portion of what they teach, but gives a glimpse into the past.
"It's like bringing a history book to life. You can only teach a child so much by looking at a page, but by having that page of history come true right in front of their eyes. To see the magnificent 2,000 lb. war horses, in a book you would never know how big that actually is. To see a knight fully clad head to toe in steel and hear the clanking, that you can't get from a history book. To see it live, that will stay with them for the rest of their lives."
