Here we are in amherstburg, ontario!
[cheering & applauding]
Just about as southwest as southwestern ontario gets,
On the shores of the detroit river,
Where the us border is- pay attention now-
Either a half-hour drive north,
Or a 15-minute swim west.
[laughing]
A geographical setting that made it ideal as
A garrison during the war of 1812.
-Fire! -[bang]
And later, this place became a destination for
Enslaved people seeking freedom.
Thousands made a perilous and secretive journey
From the southern states, up through the ohio valley.
And finally, across the detroit river, to amherstburg.
This became a famous terminus for the underground railroad.
Terminus being the keyword.
You've got to stop when you get here.
You're coming this far north, it's the only place where if
You keep going, you're gonna end up back in the states.
[laughing]
Out of 9,000 kilometres of border,
This is the only place that's gonna happen.
[laughing]
When you grow up in a small town in newfoundland,
You see that people have a sense of humour
About hard times.
Check, check.
I turned that into a career and hit the road.
[mc] mr. Jonny harris!
Now I'm on a mission to find the funny
In the places you'd least expect it,
Canada's struggling small towns...
Towns that are against the ropes, but hanging in there,
Still laughing in the face of adversity.
This is amherstburg, ontario.
♪
[cheering & applauding]
Amherstburg is one of the few places that was taken by the
Americans during the war of 1812.
Of course, we pretty much immediately took it back.
British and indigenous forces teamed up together,
Brock and tecumseh.
And they not only took back amherstburg,
They then took detroit!
And then, in a brilliant strategy...
Gave detroit back.
[laughing]
We weren't gonna use it. We weren't gonna use it.
[laughing]
♪
[inaudible conversation]
Eventually, this town's claim to fame was
Something else altogether.
It was the boblo island amusement park.
[cheering & applauding]
A theme park that employed hundreds and
Entertained hundreds of thousands every year from
Both sides of the borders.
Ferries from amherstburg. The boblo boats from detroit.
For nearly 100 years, revellers rode rides,
Like the roller, the screamer, the sky streak.
You could fill your stomach with cotton candy,
Get on a ride and streak it across the sky.
[laughing]
To give me the blow-by-blow account of amherstburg's
Famous amusement park, I talked to a woman
Who was born and raised here.
She had her first job on boblo island.
I spoke with schoolteacher, sarah gibb.
[cheering & applauding]
At its peak, up to 20,000 people made their way to
Boblo island on a busy day.
Sarah said that most of her family had jobs there.
My mother worked up boblo, my sister, my brother,
My grandmothers worked at boblo, my aunts.
I think my great grandmother even worked there
In the cafeteria.
And of course, her and all her friends had jobs there.
Everybody worked at boblo.
It was almost a rite of passage.
If you grew up in amherstburg,
You worked up boblo at some point.
Amazing.
Her first job was as ride operator at the age of 15.
Yeah, same age, I did my first high school play.
In fact, I think we both struggled with long lines.
[laughing]
But before she knew it, she'd been promoted to
Ride manager, signing off on ride reports.
So, I ended up in a position where I was managing people
That were actually older than myself.
Sometimes their work schedule had to be adjusted
Because it overlapped with their school schedule,
Which made for a little bit of confusion.
You know, "sarah, you are the ride manager.
You haven't handed in the ferris wheel ride report."
"I know, 'cause it's in my book bag,
Which is in my locker, and then,
Rodney me put his lock on my locker,
Thinking it was funny, but he's an idiot."
[laughing]
It was a fun place to work,
Especially when you're on rides, you know,
With a few friends or that kind of thing, yeah,
The days went by quickly.
While she has great memories of working on boblo island,
One thing nobody ever wanted to deal with,
The worst thing you could hear coming over your
Walkie talkie was a code green.
Code green means somebody-
[retching]
[laughing]
Somebody "vom'd".
So, as a manager, I would get paged,
And it would just say, "code green."
Then, basically, you'd have to-
They would have to, once I was the manager,
I was like, "you have to do that."
Yeah, delegate the code green.
Right?
So, they would swish the vomit off into the grass.
You had to go get a bucket filled with water,
Maybe from the log flume, and then
You got to go and find where the person was sick,
And you sort of, like, slosh it away, right?
Nobody liked having to do that.
It's like, "oh, man,
This, I can't believe I got to do this.
This is garbage."
And it was worse if you had the wrong bucket.
If you took the bucket from the pony ride stall.
[laughing]
"ah, can't believe I gotta do this.
This... This is horse shit."
[laughing]
♪
Eventually it became hard for the island to
Compete with big name amusement parks.
And, in '93, it closed.
Suddenly, boblo was no more.
It was almost open for 100 years.
And it was heartbreaking.
People were really upset. Some people, you know,
They missed the rides so much,
They would go over and try to ride the wrecking ball
Like miley cyrus.
[laughing]
There's some signs that it was once an amusement park.
Obviously, the dancehall is still there.
The dock is still there.
You know, I'm sure the paint is peeling,
But it's still there.
I think people miss the energy.
She was talking about, you know, the lights,
The music, the sounds, the bumper cars.
Although, they say amherstburg is
The only town in canada where drivers will
Rear end each other for a sense of nostalgia.
[laughing]
[cheering & applauding]
♪
I met a man who told me how this community's role in
The underground railroad puts it on
The right side of history- and the border-
President of amherstburg freedom museum, monty logan.
[cheering & applauding]
I met monty over at the nazarene church,
Which is now part of the museum,
A church that was built by freedom seekers
Who escaped here to canada.
From about 1800 to 1865, there were about
50,000 men, women, and children...
Who left the united states and
Made their way into canada.
And at the height of it,
It was about 30 people a day.
There are people in this community who are
Direct descendants of those who came on the
Underground railroad, including monty, himself.
He is a descendant of a man named john freeman walls.
John freeman walls, he was actually enslaved.
And, he befriended his owner, befriends daniel.
Daniel dies, and on his deathbed, he freed john.
And then, asked john to take care of daniel's wife.
Daniel got very sick,
And on his deathbed granted john his freedom,
And said, "I want you to be with and
Take care of my wife."
So, like, relationship status is complicated.
[laughing]
And then over time, they actually, you know...
Fell in love, decided to leave the united states and
Settle in canada.
John and this woman fled for amherstburg-
He posed as her slave until they got across the border.
And eventually, they were married.
It's an amazing story. Like, so long as like, like...
They're in love, do you know what I mean?
To grant somebody their freedom, and then right away,
Tell him to take care of your wife.
[laughing]
This would be excellent movie script, or a play,
But for now, I'll act out both parts.
[laughing]
Daniel's like, "john, I'm sick, I'm gonna die."
"ah, oh... Well, daniel, what can I do?"
"you have to get your deed, it's in my father's office,
We have to destroy it. You're a free man."
"yes, of course, I will."
"and then I want you to go, flee,
Go to amherstburg and be free."
"daniel, I will."
"take helen?"
[laughing]
[applauding]
Buddy was free for about five minutes.
[laughing]
Monty told me that, you know, the main function
Of the museum is for education...
About teaching, you know, what he says is
Not black history, is canadian history.
As a descendant of the underground railroad,
When we got to school, we never seen
Any of our stories portrayed.
Right, so there is none of our history.
There's no one in the history books that looked like me.
And he said, you know, "growing up,
When I opened the history books,
I didn't see anybody who looked like me." and, I mean,
I could say the same because of my mullet,
But I know there's a difference.
[laughing]
He said he wants to tell the story,
Not only of how people got here,
But also some of the contributions that
They've made after they did.
You know, once they left bondage,
It didn't mean that their journey was over.
They just started a new phase, right?
Because it's the rest of the story.
And if you visit this museum,
You'll find out about "the real mccoy".
What do we mean when we say that, "the real mccoy"?
That means you're looking for the real deal,
The genuine article.
Well, many have laid claim to it.
But the real mccoy is elijah mccoy.
Well, elijah mccoy, whose parents came
To amherstburg on the underground railroad,
He eventually- he trained as an engineer.
And he came up with all kinds of different inventions.
But one thing he invented was an
Automatic lubricator for steam engines.
If you go back to the industrial age, right,
One of the things that was really important
Was to make sure that you avoided friction,
So you had to continually lubricate,
Right, the machinery.
Like, if you've ever manually lubricated
A steam engine, right?
-[laughing] -yeah, takes forever.
-Right? -[laughing]
This thing revolutionized steam engines
To the point that a lot of other companies
Started making copy products, but none of them
Ever really worked as well as elijah's.
So, the engineers, right, really would
Always ask for "the real mccoy".
150 years later, the real mccoy,
We still use that idiom.
And that comes from elijah mccoy's invention.
And in my book, that makes him the genuine article...
Ah, the real mccoy!
[laughing & applauding]
♪
If you ask anyone, not just from amherstburg,
But from windsor, from detroit,
To list their favourite foods,
Pizza "toppings" that list every time.
[laughing]
I had a deep dish with your international award-winning
"professor zaaa", dean litster.
[cheering & applauding]
Well, I've been making pizzas for over 20 years.
It was the first job I ever had.
I decided this is what I'm gonna do.
I was like, well, if I'm gonna do this,
I'm just gonna go all in.
You wear it on your sleeve.
I wear it on my sleeve. Got it in my sideburn now.
He's got the pizza tattoos on his arm and,
He's got one on his face.
His mom wasn't happy about that.
[laughing]
Oh, yeah, mom was upset. Oh, of course.
Why wouldn't your mom be upset
When you get a face tattoo?
My mom got mad at me one time because
I had pizza on my face for three days.
[laughing]
In 2019, dean took first place at the
Canadian pizza summit,
And he has had several top-five finishes at the
International pizza expo in las vegas.
[cheering & applauding]
The international pizza expo, ironically,
Is not the greasiest thing you could do in vegas.
[laughing]
I've placed third, fourth, fifth.
Just never won.
That's the only goal left, we got to win.
-But several top fives? -Yes.
-In the world? -In the world.
He is a master of both local styles of pizza,
Both the detroit style and windsor style pizza.
And the difference is- I know you guys know,
But for people at home-
Detroit is a deep, rectangular dish,
High stacked cheese to the edge pizza.
Windsor-style pizza probably the most important thing,
The pepperoni is...
[audience] shredded! [jonny] shredded.
The mushrooms are...
[audience] canned. [jonny] canned.
And the cheese is...
[audience] galati! [jonny] galati.
You guys got it.
[cheering & applauding]
People grow up on this stuff, and they are addicted to it.
They love it.
People from this area who move away,
Will go to great lengths to have the pizza that
They grew up with.
If you're from this area, you really have this like
Love for this style of pizza,
Which is not really replicated outside of this region.
Dean told me that he has shipped cooked pizzas...
As far away as los angeles and the yukon.
Are you serious?
I'll be like, "if you're comfortable paying $200
For shipping, then I will ship you pizzas."
And people will pay 200 bucks?
They will pay $200 for shipping.
People are happy to pay not just for dipping sauce,
But shipping costs.
[laughing]
His pizzas fly so frequently,
They get better treatment than me.
Like, last time I tried to cross the border
With mushrooms on me...?
[laughing]
[cheering & applauding]
[ship horn]
♪
I spoke to the daughter of two entomologists.
You might say her career is one that
Her parents "bugged" her into...
[laughing]
Meshal mustafa.
[cheering & applauding]
Her parents founded growliv.
They provide greenhouse growers and farmers
With a chemical-free solution to pests.
Essentially, we breed beneficial insects,
Which are good bugs that eat
The bad bugs for farmers.
The goal is simple:
You introduce a predator species to get them...
To eat the insects that eat our food
Before we have a chance to.
Fight bugs with bugs.
I'm telling you this idea, it's got legs.
[laughing]
Farmers, they didn't really understand
What is a good bug, what is a bad bug.
They just saw bugs, spray it. Everything's dead.
They're getting beautiful crops, there's no issue.
But now, these pests, they're developing
Resistance towards these formulations.
So, they're coming up with new formulations,
But these formulations might be harmful
For the water, the birds, us.
So, pesticides and chemicals is in the soil,
And it's getting into the food and...
No, no, send in the bugs.
Send in the bug!
These are bugs that are engineered for warfare.
Okay? In fact, if we ever get into another skirmish
With the americans like the war of 1812,
I say we send over the bugs.
[laughing]
Detroit took a lot of damage from bugs back in the 60s.
Now, you could blame volkswagen for that.
[laughing]
It's very cute. Look at it.
Look at his eyes. [laughing]
Michelle is especially fond of a beetle that
She says is cute.
[laughing]
You want to see it close up?
Yeah.
I meant to bring mine from home,
But I'll just use these ones for now.
It's a crypto lamis.
-Crypto lamis? -Yes.
It is called crypto lamis.
I had a buddy who- we'd go to parties,
And he'd corner people and tell them about bitcoin.
We called him crypto lamis.
[laughing]
Crypto lamis is a little beetle that
Feasts on mealy bugs.
The wine industry hates mealy bugs.
Mealy bugs will get into a vineyard and ingest
As much as they can,
And destroy the place, a bit like my aunt pam.
[laughing]
Who was the mastermind here?
Who decided to start this company?
My mom was the one that is more in the...
The breeding side.
Her dad sort of oversees the applications of these insects,
And her mom sort of oversees the procreation.
She has to make sure they have enough stock
To send off to people.
So, you got to create a conducive environment
For these insects to procreate.
We just dim the lights, play some
Romantic music and, you know, they get to it.
They do their thing.
And I said, "meshal, you know what that's called, right,
When bugs get busy?"
"insex."
[audience] aw! [laughing]
It started off with just our home, and in the garage.
And now, we're actually the youngest...
And the biggest supplier of biocontrol in north america.
The company is not even 10 years old.
They're already the largest biocontrol company
On the continent,
And they ship these bugs all over north america.
When she first told me that I was like, my god,
Between the bugs and the pizza, like...
[laughing]
Is this where ups sends people who behave badly?
[laughing]
You know, "you better shape up, kid.
You're gonna find yourself shipping ants and anchovies
Out of amherstburg."
[laughing] [cheering & applauding]
♪ [bagpipes & drums]
I met a couple of guys who shared a pipe dream,
And are now marching to the bleat of their own drummers
And bagpipers, parade innovators,
Stu smith and kyle mcdonald.
[cheering & applauding]
I met up with these guys on the grounds of the historic
Fort malden, where their parade kicks off
Before it makes its way into the downtown.
We started off, we wanted to do something that
Celebrated our town and the uniqueness of amherstburg,
Really with the idea of getting everybody
Literally together.
They wanted to do something to bring some
Attention to amherstburg.
And they were inspired when they had seen
Other parades with bagpipers.
But as a mcdonald and a smith,
We took the full opportunity of including bagpipes
Because when you hear 'em, they just bellow,
They're so cool.
As we got talking, we said,
"can we get the soldiers involved somehow?"
Then they thought, "what about,
There's soldier reenactors from fort malden."
It checked all the boxes for us because
We wanted to have an event people will be proud of.
Hopefully, it goes viral, like, they can talk about...
You know, every Saturday night
There's a bagpipe parade.
The whole community shows up.
You know, this was a tourism town when boblo was there.
And now, the tourism is more towards
The history of the town.
And one thing people from amherstburg are proud of
Is the history of amherstburg.
It was awesome, I got to be a part of it.
I got dressed up as one of the soldiers.
I put on this sharp red coat uniform,
And I had the musket and everything and..
We marched on amherstburg.
[laughing]
And the pipers, they were amazing.
They played like clearly windsor style.
They shredded.
Ah! [laughing]
♪
I couldn't believe the numbers,
Hundreds of people had come out to watch.
It's not just a parade that goes by you.
When they go by, you fall in behind,
You become a part of the parade.
Everybody sort of joins in at the back.
And they've got everybody in town involved,
From schools, seniors' groups,
Everybody from the chamber of commerce to the karate club,
Miracle league baseball teams, the fire brigade.
As kyle said, you know, they managed to
Bring together groups in the community
That normally wouldn't necessarily interact
Or talk together.
And finally, they're coming together.
Can they hear themselves over the bagpipes?
-It's not the point! -[laughing]
It's not the point.
[laughing]
The point is you don't just watch the parade-
Join in at the back and follow the pipers' route.
Amherstburg's the real mccoy,
Accept no substitute.
When people's plants are picked at by pests
You send in crypto lamis,
While windsor-style pizza travels by air and
Picks up awards in las vegas.
This town is the place that thousands embraced as the
Place where they first found their freedom.
Bloodlines tell stories from the struggle to the glory,
But I can also recommend a museum.
No ticket sales in decades, boblo is closed.
But now there's a rally, there's a mission.
The people of amherstburg will tell the whole world,
This town's still worth the price of admission.
Thanks for coming out, everybody.
You've been great! Thank you!
[cheering & applauding]
Thanks so much. We love ya!
I loved when he talked about the windsor style pizza
'cause it's a thing. It's definitely a thing here.
The shredded pepperoni is like, yeah, that's it.
My dad even knows. [laughing]
I'll try one one. I got a weirdly large head, but...
[laughing]
Wove the comedy in, with the history, with the people.
I knew about the pizza. Did not know about the bugs.
♪
[mimicking blowing bag pips, sputtering]
[laughing] what?!
Yeah, that's not bad!
Not quite a constable cap, but...
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Gotta ask you about the 'stache.
Tell me about the 'stache.
I've won a few moustache competitions.
-Really? -Yeah.
It's a whole thing, like, it's a whole, big community.
I love it.
"first place natural moustache."
Jonny shredded it. [laughing]