Navan Fair: miniature horses, the oldest Spider-Man and the Baking Queen

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When Dominique Deschamps was about 12 and a member of the 4-H Club, she baked a loaf of bread and entered it in the baked goods competition at the Navan Fair. When it won first prize, her mother, Rita Dessaint, recalls, some of the more jealous entrants wondered, and perhaps not quite to themselves, whether she really baked it herself, or if she had help. But she did it on her own, Dessaint insists.

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On Saturday, Deschamps, now in her mid-40s, wore a crown as she rode in a convertible in the Navan Fair’s parade, waving to onlookers while proudly displaying a blue sash honouring her as this year’s Navan Baking Queen.

Meanwhile, in the fair’s culinary display, much of Deschamps’s kitchen savvy was on display: fourth-best banana bread, best banana muffins, third-best maple-walnut muffins, best tequila sunrise cake, best president pie crumble-top apple, fourth-best two-layer chocolate cake, fourth-best pumpkin pie, best salsa, best apple jelly, best apple pie. There may have been more.

Meanwhile, the names of Samuel, Martin and Vincent Deschamps, Dominique’s sons, were almost as equally represented among the foodstuffs. According to Dessaint (whose own handiwork was displayed this weekend in the quilting, sewing and needlecraft categories), Vincent fell just one point shy of being named Navan’s Baking Prince.

According to Dessaint, it’s the agricultural components and juried food and craft entries like her daughter’s that are the backbone of such rural fairs as Navan’s, which opened on Thursday and continues through Sunday.

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“This is the sort of thing that’s passed down from generation to generation,” she said. “It’s important to the community.”

That and a whole lot more, judging by the turnout on Saturday morning, as hundreds of people lined Colonial Road outside the fairgrounds to watch and wave as the fair parade passed by.

There was even a play-by-play commentator for the procession, which, apart from the Baking Queen, included at least three pipe-and-drum bands; firetrucks accompanied by Sparky, the fire department mascot; a 35-strong Orléans Bengals cheerleading squad; miniature-, medium- and full-size horses; unicyclists; a large yellow inflated duck; an unmarked councillor (Orléans South-Navan’s Catherine Kitts); Shriners doing donuts in miniature biplanes and triplanes; and perhaps the oldest Spider-Man in existence.

In other words, something for (just about) everyone. Al and Thérèse Nadeau, and their son and daughter-in-law, Rick and Samara Nadeau, set up lawn chairs to watch Rick and Samara’s 15-year-old daughter, Anastasia, dance in the parade with her Cumbrae School of Dancing cohort. But there was more that they wanted to see: Al was looking forward to looking at the antique tractors he used to drive as a young man growing up in Edmunston, N.B., while Samara had a hankering for cotton candy.

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Inside the grounds, Monique Hurtubise could barely keep up as her nine- and 11-year-old grandchildren squabbled and raced ahead of her to get on the Avalanche ride. Asked what she likes most about the fair, she replied, “It’s not what I like or don’t like. I love to see the kids’ excitement.”

Nine-year-old Nate Flynn beat out a dozen opponents on the water-gun game, winning the prize of his choice (a blue alien). “The teddies,” he said, were his favourite part of the fair. His aunt, Judy Flynn, claimed the blue ribbon for the best rhubarb pie at the 1996 Navan Fair. “That was good enough for me,” she said of her more than 20 years attending the fair.

And it turns out that Nate’s first cousin, Bridget Plumadore, who was also at the fair on Saturday, was Navan’s Baking Queen in 2014, when, like Deschamps this year, entered in just about every category she could. “It’s a healthy competition,” she said, then took out her phone to show a photo of her three-year-old daughter. “Best youth entry in this year’s floriculture category,” she said.

Get ready to make room in the parade, Dominique. There may be a new queen on the rise.

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