Binder Twine Festival
The festival featured the Binder Twine Parade, the Binder Twine Queen contest and a Quilt Raffle, along with craft sales and musical entertainment. The McMichael Canadian Art Collection sponsored art activities at the festival. It included an arts and craft show, pioneer skills demonstration, and "old-fashioned" entertainment. In 1979, a few months after the federal election which resulted in Joe Clark becoming Prime Minister of Canada, festival organizers announced a Joe Clark look-alike contest, requesting entries from individuals with "an oversized head, large ears and hardly much of a chin". The Binder Twine Queen contest required contestants to demonstrate their abilities in a set of activities such as cow milking, hog calling, and log sawing. Each year, one activity was kept secret until the day of the festival so contestants could practice for it. Contestants wore costumes and often had props, including live animals, and "shamelessly spoof the traditional beauty contest". It had sometimes been judged by well-known personalities, including Knowlton Nash and Ben Wicks. Berton wrote an article in the Toronto Star in 1992 comparing the Binder Twine Queen contest with beauty pageants, stating that "while other queen contests are fading away under the disapproving frowns of feminists, the Binder Twine Queen contest has never been healthier or more popular".
Activities
The Binder Twine Festival, or usually Binder Twine, was an annual festival held the first Saturday after Labour Day in Kleinburg, Ontario, Canada.