Here we are in Acton, Ontario!
It’s a beautiful southern Ontario town with
a brilliant location, just northwest of
the greater Toronto area.
But, Acton will always have that smalltown charm.
While Toronto is growing just over there,
Acton is protected from urban sprawl
by a major Ontario conservation area.
In fact, due to my achievements in taekwondo,
Acton can say the same thing that my family
and loved ones can...
They are protected by a Green Belt.
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.
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 Acton, Ontario.
For over 100 years,
Acton was home to the Beardmore Tannery,
which began making leather in 1865.
At its peak, the tannery was over
a million square feet in size.
It was the biggest leather tannery in the British Empire.
And Acton became known as "Leathertown."
Although, another town lays claim to that nickname now,
Boca Raton, Florida...
For different reasons.
Although, if you think about it,
excessive tanning is still part of it.
To learn the legend of Leathertown, I managed to...
"per-suede" a former Acton mayor to tell me
tales of the tannery.
I had a chat with Rick Bonnette.
Rick told me the Beardmore Tannery was so big,
in its heyday, it employed something like 2,000 people.
Rick: It did a lot of good in the town.
Fed a lot of families.
And later on, when I was growing up as a boy,
it put a lot of people through college
and university.
Jonny: Rick told me the cow hides arrived by train
in nasty condition.
Rick: They used to bring in the hides...
and they would be raw.
It would give an awful smell sometimes.
Jonny: Rick told me it was the smell of guts and blood.
Rick: You know, they’d come as far as Argentina.
It would be pretty rancid, just imagine.
Jonny: They were salted for transport,
but they were still covered in fat and tendons
and blood and hair...
Which surprised me, I thought,
especially the ones coming from Argentina,
they could have stopped at Brazil to get
their hair removed, surely.
Eventually, however, the heyday ended
and the Beardmore Tannery closed down.
Rick: The tannery shut down in ’86,
and that just sent shockwaves through the community.
Jonny: There’s a lot of reasons,
including an economic recession in the 1980s.
Families had to trim the fat and tighten their belts,
which usually in this town is a good thing, but...
And even leather manufacturers were trying to
use less leather, and sometimes they would
cut back by cutting backsides.
And of course, this led to the advent and
popularity of assless chaps.
Rick: A couple business people that were also
in the leather industry bought this building.
Businessmen bought the old tannery building
that the tannery used to store
the old hides.
And they called it, The Olde Hide House.
Rick: They ended up selling retail clothes.
You name it, leather items, coats, purses, shoes,
bomber jackets, everything.
Plus they had a restaurant, Jack Tanner’s,
because they wanted to make it a destination.
Jonny: Right.
They also came up with an ad campaign
that is known all over Ontario and beyond.
I’m sure you know it. It goes...
Crowd: It’s worth the drive to Acton!
Jonny: "It’s worth the drive to Acton."
"It’s the worth the drive to Acton," is right up there
with some of the classics like the old Wendy’s,
"Where’s the beef?"
Which ironically you might ask if you saw a cow hide.
Not only was it catchy, it worked.
Rick: They would get 300,000 visitors a year.
Jonny: Rick said when The Olde Hide House
had a big sale, the streets were jammed.
Rick: People couldn’t get out of their,
they couldn’t get out their driveways.
Jonny: People from Acton had to consider
where they were going, and think,
is it worth the walk from Acton?
But The Olde Hide House also suffered economic woes.
Free trade made leather cheaper.
Rick: The fake leathers, and they come in at
a cheaper price, and you know,
things like that.
Alternative leathers were even cheaper.
Not that they were nearly as good quality.
Remember pleather? Terrible stuff.
Remember the mouth zipper would just rip out?
Did you ever have one of those-
The only thing pleather is good for is a safe word.
Rick: Ended up getting new ownership and...
they didn’t advertise like they used to.
Jonny: By the time The Olde Hide House closed down,
just in January of 2025,
you could tell by the few ads they did run
that things weren’t going as well.
I think at first they changed it to,
"It’s worth the drive to Acton, not counting gas."
And then I think the very last one was,
"Leather: if it’s all you got, you can eat it."
Jonny: But Acton is far from eating its boots.
There’s been a series of
small business successes here,
and I met with an Acton entrepreneur who knows
a thing or two about freezing her assets.
From 70 Below Treats, Courtney Stanley.
For someone who has no idea about it, just like,
what is freeze drying?
Courtney: So it uses a scientific freezer to remove
all the water content from the food.
Jonny: Now, the store’s called 70 below because
that’s the temperature you need to freeze dry food at.
Freeze drying removes the moisture,
and it can intensify the flavour.
Then I got to taste all this stuff.
We had bananas, and strawberries,
and cheesecake.
I gotta try the ice cream.
Courtney: It just does not melt, yeah.
Jonny: Ice cream sandwiches that of course don’t melt
at room temperature.
That’s delicious!
Courtney: In the proper packaging,
these foods can last 25 years.
Jonny: Now, I have to take her word for it ’cause
I bought a few bags while I was there
and they didn’t make it to the hotel.
Courtney: My husband and I, we moved in here in 2020.
During the uncertainty of the pandemic
when a lot of people thought we were crazy.
Jonny: However, the pandemic was also a time of
eating candy and watching TikTok.
Courtney: A big thing on TikTok is the ASMR videos,
the people making sounds, and the food’s very crunchy.
Jonny: This is gonna be my homemade ASMR video.
Mm, the crunchiness.
Courtney said one day her phone blew up.
It was her friends calling her to tell her
that 70 Below had gone viral.
Courtney: And I’m like, wow, that’s amazing.
And then we went to bed, and we woke up to
our online store completely sold out.
Jonny: Freeze-dried foods are becoming a hot commodity.
Courtney: So, we do have like a little secret community
of preppers in the Halton Hills.
Jonny: She said a lot of her clients are preppers.
Doomsday preppers.
But I think it’s got to suck for the kids of
doomsday preppers.
For most of us, it was like, "No, no, no, no.
No candy ’til after dinner."
For them, it’s like, "No, no no.
No candy ’til after the apocalypse."
But it’s a nice entrepreneurial
success story here in Acton.
She now employs seven teenagers.
Courtney: For me, the teens just make it so fun.
Like, they sing, they dance.
They’re just fun to work with.
Jonny: And yes, they are allowed and even
expected to sample the goods.
This has got to be a very different first
job experience than back in the day
at Beardmore Tannery.
These kids are like, "Oh, let’s make a TikTok video of
ice cream bars melting on our tongues."
Over at Beardmore, it was hides and maggots
and vats of acid.
If you licked your finger, you were dead.
And the blueberries, the blueberries were small.
I asked her if they shrank during the freeze-drying.
Courtney: They do naturally come that small because
they’re wild Canadian blueberries.
Jonny: I said, "From Oxford, Nova Scotia,
the blueberry capital of Canada?"
She said, "Yes!"
And we all know those are the most flavorful-est,
most nutrition-full blueberries
that ever existed...
and naturally are small, so it’s not the freeze drying.
You think 70 below,
that’s cold enough to shrink your berries.
And all these things were very delicious, except for...
Courtney: There’s some chicken hearts.
Jonny: So that’s a chicken heart?
Courtney: Once we were approved,
that’s when we went into all the fruits
and desserts and stuff.
Jonny: I knew it was a chicken heart.
I did not know it was a dog treat.
And I realized I was a beat behind the conversation
when I started eating it, and she says to me....
Courtney: It’s human grade.
You should have waited ’til I told you that.
Jonny: And then my heart skipped a beat.
Sorry, so this is a pet treat?
Courtney: It is a pet treat. Jonny: That’s nasty.
That’s a-
Save that one for Fido.
I was confused there for a second.
And...
the chicken heart, let’s just say
my body rejected it.
Jonny: Next, I got to do a very interesting thing
here in Acton.
When I first heard I would get to use a turtle launcher
on Fairy Lake,
I assumed I was rescuing Princess Peach.
But instead, I had a conversation about
turtle conservation with Acton’s own,
Peter Duncanson and Louisa Lamberink-Van Wijk.
Peter and Louisa are members of a volunteer group
called the Halton Hills Turtle Guardians,
rescuing turtles who are trying to cross the road.
Louisa: It’s important that we’re in a small town
and we’re well known,
and we have a hotline now so people call that,
and it really helps us to respond very quickly.
Jonny: They’ve got a hotline.
Peter said by the time they get there,
there’s usually a crowd of people
all gathered around the turtle.
Peter: And they show their innovative side.
They have all kinds of floor mats and carpets.
Jonny: He said one time he saw a person
lay a trail of sliced carrot.
But I think that’s great that people in Acton
are asking the right questions, at least.
They’re saying, "How can I make sure
this animal crosses the road safely?"
It’s not like the comedy world where we just wait for
the animal to cross and then cynically ask why.
Why does the turtle cross the road?
Louisa: They travel early in the spring.
They go from where they hibernated to where
they want to spend the summer.
And the more roads, the more crossing
of roads they have to do to get there.
So, they get in trouble.
They told me that people are often scared of the turtles
’cause most of the time around here
it’s snapping turtles.
Ah!
They said the danger of these animals
is greatly exaggerated.
Louisa: And that is their only defense mechanism.
It can’t run away.
Peter: And snapping turtles can’t pull into their shells
’cause their shells are very small for their body size.
Jonny: I found out snapping turtles snap
because they can’t turtle.
I thought that was the whole gig.
Nor can they defend themselves verbally, so...
A snapping turtle will snap because it cannot
snap back with a witty retort.
They told me sometimes they’ll get a call from
somebody who has found a turtle nest where a predator
has gotten at the eggs.
Peter: Raccoons, skunks, possum...
dig up the turtle eggs and eat them.
Jonny: But I also wonder if maybe these animals
resent the turtles because people make such a fuss
about helping them across the road.
Like you gotta think a raccoon. He’s like,
"Oh my god, half of my cousins are roadkill."
"They’re rolling out the red carpet car mat
for this turtle?"
"Is that guy cutting up a carrot?"
But what the Guardians do is they’ll take these eggs
that haven’t hatched and they have incubators.
They’ll incubate them.
Whoa, he’s like... staring contest.
Peter: He’s giving you the evil eyes.
Jonny: Yeah, he really is.
And then they’ll bring the hatchlings back to
their original habitat and set them free.
But I got to join in with bringing
these hatchlings back.
We went out in the canoe,
beautiful afternoon on Fairy Lake.
Peter: So we like to put them in areas where
there’s the aquatic plants, the lily pads.
Louisa: So we have a spot picked out for them.
Jonny: There’s a thing called the turtle launcher,
which I thought it was gonna be like, you know,
you take a turtle and you’d be like, all right,
fire in the hole. "Bsh!"
But, it’s not.
It’s like a fishing rod with a cup from a Nutra Bullet
on the end of it, is more what it’s like.
There we go.
That way you can reach out and you sort of plop it
where it’s gonna have its best chance at survival.
Jonny: Oh. Good luck, little fella.
Louisa: There you go.
Jonny: I mean, although they’re tough little buggers.
I was joking about the mortar,
but I bet they’d survive a t-shirt cannon.
But it was a cool thing to be a part of, you know?
Oh, I can feel him kicking.
- Wee. - There he goes.
There he goes.
I felt like I was saving wildlife.
I felt, like...
that’s probably the closest I’ll ever come
to giving birth.
Peter: Turtle line.
Louisa: We’re getting a hotline call coming in.
Peter: Okay, is it off on the shoulder now?
And while we’re doing it, they get a hotline call.
Peter: Okay, by the sheep farm, okay.
Jonny: It went to Peter’s cell phone and he got the
address of where a turtle had just got hit by a car,
and then he relayed it to Louisa.
She called another person that she knew was free,
and he was like, "Yeah, I’m on the way."
Louisa: Keep me posted. Jonny: So that’s it?
The team is gonna be on it now,
they’ll head out there? Peter: Yeah.
Jonny: Like most 9-1-1 calls don’t get
that kind of efficiency, I think.
And at no point did they ever tell the caller,
"Okay, ma’am, you need to calm down."
Jonny: An event that all Actonites are very proud of
is the annual Acton Fall Fair.
When I was told I could attend a practice run for
one of the Fall Fair events, even though it’s mid-spring,
I felt like it was Christmas in July.
I went to Prospect Park to meet Fall Fair VP,
Derek "Gooch" Andrews.
Gooch said the fall fair here is known as
the best little fair in Ontario.
It’s food trucks, a midway, and games.
Derek: When you move away,
you always come back for fall fair.
Jonny: Yeah, yeah.
Derek: It is literally like a homecoming.
Jonny: Even the little practice event that
we had drew a bit of a crowd.
This is a fair fan favourite.
It’s the Garden Tractor Pull.
Jonny: This thing looks a bit to me like a riding lawnmower.
Is that what it once was?
Derek: They start life as basically garden tractors.
Jonny: Competitors bring these modified
riding lawnmower sized tractors
to see who can pull a weighted sled the furthest.
Derek: On you get, Jonny.
Jonny: They gave me the green flag.
Hey!
Jonny: Like you’re on this kind of
toyish looking tractor, but then you look back
at the size of the thing you’re hauling,
with 1,600 pounds of concrete on it
that’s designed to defeat you.
And this little thing is just trucking along
down the dirt road, it’s very cool.
Hey, that was a blast!
Thanks, everybody! Eh!
But I had a challenger.
Gooch’s daughter, Dalen.
She’s got his little tractor with a hot pink paint job.
It looks like one of Elvis Presley’s Cadillacs.
Jonny: Then she got the flag and boom, she takes off,
and I get to see it this time.
She’s hauling this enormous sled,
and everybody’s cheering her on, "Dalen!"
And I was like, "What the hell?
I thought you were on my side!"
Derek: Official results are in.
Jonny went 227 feet 8 inches.
Jonny: Thank you, thank you!
Derek: Dalen went 207 feet 7 inches.
Jonny: Now, how did I beat a competitor
with more experience? I think as a comedian,
I have experience taking things too far.
Dalen: Come back in the fall.
Jonny: I will, I’m coming back.
Definitely gonna come back.
And then after the race, I got to meet
the Acton Fall Fair ambassadors,
Olivia Wilson, Erin Day,
Yavika Sharma!
And what’s all this stuff you have here?
-It’s for you! -For you!
-For me? -Yeah!
Jonny: And apparently I am the first-ever
honorary ambassador of Acton.
I’m not saying that makes me a role model, but...
Yavika: You’ve got to make sure to stand up straight,
you know, put your best foot forward
and don’t forget to iron your sash.
Jonny: Although what I really want,
I’m wondering if being the ambassador,
if I get diplomatic license plates for my car.
Like, if I get pulled over speeding in Toronto,
can I be like, "Ah, excuse me, officer,
I am an ambassador from Acton on official business."
You might not like how I drive, but trust me,
it’s worth it."
Jonny: Although the leather biz finally dried
and tanners no longer tan hides,
and no longer do leather sales draw crowds en masse...
you’re still tough and willing and able,
and somehow make ice cream that’s shelf stable...
and build tractors that are small but haul some ass.
Toronto grows by the day,
but the Green Belt keeps it at bay.
And the small town energy here is still alive.
So are the turtles of Halton Region,
and from Mill Street to the parks to the Legion,
it’s still fair to say that Acton is worth the drive.
Thanks for coming out, everybody!
You’ve been great, thank you!
Rick: Everybody’s walking out
feeling a couple inches taller.
You, know feeling that pride.
Dalem: I learned how large the Beardmore Tannery was.
I didn’t know that before.
Courtney: I didn’t know the turtle guardians were
so serious, like I knew we had them,
but I didn’t t know they had a whole hotline
and a whole system.
Jonny: Something like old and wise looking about it.
Almost like it knows things about the cosmos
that I don’t.
Dalen: Definitely love that he came to Acton,
but I let him win.
Jonny: It’s sort of a strange get up for me.
Yavika: Next time you’re here,
bring your sash and your cowboy hat.
It’s absolutely required for this job.
Erin: Absolutely, and we’ll be there
making sure it happens.