(cheering & applause)
Or, just port, as a lot of you guys call it.
The drinking town with a fishing problem.
Woo! (applause)
Here in port, kettle creek runs between
The two sides of your town.
On one side, there's warm beaches,
Cold beers, caesars, margaritas.
Then on the other side, you've got fine dining,
Boutique shops, the theatre.
(cheering & applause)
Port is the perfect name. You're a little bit like port -
High in alcohol, but kind of fancy.
(laughing)
One big problem now that's facing this town is
Literally keeping those two sides from coming together.
The problem now in port stanley is the people
Are great, it's just your bridge is a bit stuck up.
(laughing)
When you grow up in a small town in newfoundland,
You see the people have a sense of humour about hard times.
Check, check...
I turned that into a career and hit the road.
[mc] mr. Johnny 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 port stanley, ontario.
♪
This lake erie town was built upon a fishery.
People are very proud of that here.
This town, it's sort of like a mix to me of like
East coast fishing town mixed with this sort of like
Caribbean... Beach party vibe.
(cheering & applause)
It's almost a bit like newfoundland
Mixed with jamaica...
(laughing)
And that's a winning combination.
That gave us screech, okay?
(laughing)
People here are laid back like in jamaica.
People here are feeling irie.
Erie, sorry, lake erie. Erie!
(laughing)
♪
The fishing, as I understand,
Has declined in recent decades.
And port has really leaned into tourism.
You still see the fishing tugs steam out of port stanley,
But far fewer of them than back in the heyday.
To find out how the local fishing tradition kind of
Got gutted in port stanley, I had a chat with marna berry.
(cheering & applause)
Used to be, but as the daughter of one,
She's very proud.
Port stanley has always been a commercial fishing village.
Right from the beginning.
What are people catching mostly?
Perch and pickerel.
When I was growing up,
There was 15 fish tugs in the village,
And all those families depended on the commercial fishing.
She has fond memories of a childhood that,
To me, sounded like a lot of work.
One of my earliest memories is,
When I was 5 years old, bagging corks into burlap bags.
If you said, "can I have 20 bucks?" they'd go,
"sure, go the shanty and make some nuts."
- And earn your 20 bucks. - Yeah, absolutely.
Keep in mind, folks, when it's family,
It's not child labour. It's chores.
And then, it kind of when to a next level when my parents
Built a processing plant in our yard.
Is that right?
So, my job was to take pales of fish and put them into a
Repurposed potato peeler, put on the timer,
5 minutes later you have rinsed, scaled fish.
She said as they got older,
They would do more important jobs...
Then eventually, I graduated up to fileting and, of course,
More lucrative because you're paid by the pound.
So, you're handy with a knife?
- I am. (laughs) - yeah.
The girls would be gutting the fish,
Making the filets so, careful, fellas,
Port stanley girls are handy with a knife.
They won't rip your heart out...
[audience] they'll cut it out.
They'll do it with a careful incision.
My brother started fishing when he was 12 years old,
Full-time, in the summer.
At the age of 12, she said, kids would be out in the boats--
Well, the boys would be out in the boats
Helping fish, yeah.
Pulling the fish out of the water,
That's too much for a girl's delicate constitution.
Peeling their skin off and cutting their guts out...
(laughing)
That's like a debutant's ball.
The quotas were brought into effect in 1984.
Part of the decline in the local fishing was due to
Quotas that were introduced in the 1980s.
With that, came government inspectors.
You know, you have to fill out daily paperwork and then,
You know, say exactly how much of everything you got.
The fishermen, not so affectionately,
Referred to the ministry of natural resources
As the nature narcs.
My father was fined once for having a salmon that was
An incidental catch, dead in the nets.
But, because it wasn't reported and he was just
Bringing it home to the family to eat...
Suddenly, you got guys in uniform with side arms
Coming on the boat, looking around.
Suddenly, it's like an episode of border security, right?
(laughing)
Like you're some sort of illegal fish smuggler.
- (laughing) - pablo escargot-bar.
(laughing)
And these inspections continue to this day.
It's interesting times we live in.
I wonder if it, an inspection,
You know, would they sort of be,
"hey, chief, I think I found something illegal on this boat.
Underneath that bag of marijuana,
I think it's a salmon."
[johnny] you know, there are two sides to port stanley.
I went from the coffee side to the beer side,
Or rather, the pier side.
I went to the pierside pub and had a chat with
The owners brent and bernice noels.
(cheering & applause)
Brent and bernice have owned the pihas brought aboutyears,sr
A problem they had not faced before.
The bridge...
Beautiful bridge built in the 1930s and
It's going through full repair and restoration,
Which is gonna take a while.
[brent] when the people decided to work on it,
We figured it was gonna be 14 months.
So, we're expecting it to be done
Halfway through next summer.
We knew it was gonna impact our business.
[johnny] normally, tourists could go do some shopping,
Have a coffee on one side, 5 minutes,
Stroll over the bridge,
They could be at the beaches and the bars.
The trouble for tourism now is,
To walk up and around takes about half an hour.
Walking from one side to the other,
It is a long walk.
You know, and even driving, you can't do that
'cause you have to drive home.
Yeah, yeah.
With the bridge, you know, half...
Half way up...
(laughing)
It's just another good time ruined by a partial erection.
Happens to the best of us, happens to the best of us.
If people kind of miss out on coming to the party side,
We wanted to come up with a way to bring them
From that side to this this side.
♪
Brent went out and got himself a stretch limo...
(laughing)
With burgundy vinyl top and matching custom flame job.
If you happen to be staying on the other side of kettle creek,
He will personally drive you over to the pierside.
And then once you've drank and danced your night away,
He will personally give you the number for a taxi.
You've already got a free ride in a fancy car,
Don't worry about getting home.
Cross that bridge when you get to it.
(applause)
♪
If you want a hot dog with all the fixings from a
Fixture of port stanley, a local institution,
I'm talking about the longest running,
Busiest business on the beach,
I'm talking about mackies.
I had a chat with greg lale!
(cheering & applause)
Mackies has been here since 1911.
For people around here, mackies is something
That's been there their whole life.
[johnny] greg filled me in on the history.
He said mackies has been in operation for over 100 years.
Let me put that in perspective.
The first people to buy french fries at mackies,
French fries were new.
(laughing)
Like a new type of food.
George mackie went to a convention to learn how to
Make this new thing called french fries.
- Is that right? - Yeah, that's right.
- Do you know where he went? - It was in chicago.
- Really? - Yep.
That's a long way to go.
French fries are pretty straight forward.
Do you go all the way to chicago and some guy's like,
"yeah, really, you just cut 'em in skinny strips and
Throw 'em in the deep fryer, honest to god."
♪
When greg's family took over mackies,
It was doing well.
Making food and drinks with highly secretive recipes...
[audience] (laughing)
[johnny] I am, of course, talking about the
Orangeade and the fry sauce.
(cheering & applause)
Orangeade?
It'll be just like you bit into an orange.
[johnny] I feel like I have a fairly sophisticated palate.
I don't want to sound all like anthony bourdain here...
But to me, the orangeade almost tasted like
Lemonade but with oranges.
It really did. It really did.
I really found that.
Yeah, it's good. Nice and...
Very refreshing, nice and icy.
People say, "oh, can I get the syrup that you make that
Out of for a party that I'm having?"
And I say, "it's not a syrup."
[johnny] the other secret recipe, of course,
Is the fry sauce, and I'm told that is addictive.
(cheering)
Yeah, not just the fish'll get hooked around here.
Some people use so much of it that they have
A little bit of fries with their sauce.
- Right, right. - New schoolers dip it in.
The old schoolers you can spot because they just pump it
On top, pump it on top 'til it's running down the sides,
And then they come up to pump a little more in the bottom.
[johnny] people who like it...
Love it. They get addicted.
They come back their whole lives,
Not just their lives, their parents,
Their grandparents have been hooked on this.
Generations!
You had it as a kid, and then,
You're just hooked on it forever.
It was, you see a pregnant woman pumping sauce on
Her fries and you're like, that baby's getting
Addicted right now.
He or she doesn't even know it.
Can you get hooked on fry sauce in utero?
What is making the fry sauce so addictive?
There's not too many things in this world that I know
That nobody else knows, so I'm gonna keep that to myself.
These secret recipes, they're known only to greg,
And his brother, and their mother.
And they've all agreed never to be on the same flight.
Just in case, just in case.
I'm not the only one who thinks that port stanley
Has a caribbean vibe.
I talked to a spanish teacher who's lived
In cuba and costa rica.
I went and I had a chat about your beach con beatriz peraza.
(cheering & applause)
She said, you know, she loves the lake.
In the summer, it reminds her of home.
You have the sun, you have the waves,
You got the girls in bikinis.
The sun, the surf, the girls in bikinis.
Although, with her spanish accent,
It sounded like she said, "the gulls in bikinis".
(laughing)
I thought, gulls in bikinis?
She's been teaching spanish to people here.
She says there are a lot of canadians who are
Really eager to learn spanish now.
A lot of my students tell me when they go to a country,
They would like to honour the people there and
Speak their language.
I don't know if it's easy.
Like, my name, she said jon would juan.
But because I'm a jonathan, it would be jonatán.
But I go by johnny, which would be juanito.
When I came over here, I thought, you know,
I would love to honour this country and
Learn the language. I still have my sexy accent,
There's nothing I can do about that, johnny.
She said, "I can't help that I kept my sexy accent."
I said, "neither can I, missus, neither can I."
She wants everybody here to learn spanish.
I don't know, in canada, we've already got french.
Do we need another reminder that english is
The least sexy language of them all?
You tell me, who's sexier,
Johnny harris or senor jonatán?
(laughing & applause)
♪
(laughing)
♪
I met one couple who told me that
Their favourite sport is cricket.
I did not expect to hear that.
Unlike some of my jokes tonight where crickets
Is exactly what I expected to hear.
I had a chat with doris and gabriel chordekar.
(cheering & applause)
These guys lived in india, in israel,
Then they moved to canada.
What brought us out here was coincidence.
Yeah?
We went to the beach and we said,
"oh, my god. What is this?"
- Lake erie is magical. - Yeah, magical.
If it likes you, it's gonna pull you.
And, everything changed at the beach.
We said, "we are coming here."
They soon noticed that nobody was selling ethnic food
In this area, so they opened shebaz's shawarma & falafel.
(cheering & applause)
And people here took to it. They loved it so much so
That they opened a second location.
It's a lovely story, it would "shwarm" your heart.
Doris and gabriel are diehard cricket fans.
The only trouble is, they cheer for rival teams.
I like the mumbai indians and she likes the...
- Chennai super king. - Chennai super king.
My team won four times. Her team only three times.
It's okay, this year is ours.
It's okay, it's okay.
Mumbai indians is an interesting team name for me.
It's like everybody from mumbai be indian?
It's like the montreal canadiens.
It's the same thing.
Like, your team name shouldn't be less specific.
- Where's your team from? - Montreal.
- What are you? - Canadiens.
Yeah, I knew that when you said montreal.
(laughing)
Within india, we have the ipl,
Indian premier league...
That's where the clash comes.
But, internationally, it has to be indian.
- India. - Of course.
- There is no doubt about it. - Yeah.
But I said to them, I think the stigma in north america
Is that cricket is confusing.
Is it a difficult game to understand?
- No. - No.
They both said, "no, no!"
And then they explained it to me.
Test matches, there is one day,
And there is twenty20.
So, twenty20 is only four hours.
- Test matches, 8 hours. - 8, 8...
No, test match is 5 days.
5 days. And one day is 8 hours.
Each team bats for two times and balls for two times.
[speaking over each other] that's a 5-day test--
...And they start playing.
Then we have the one day where each team faces
50 overs and makes a score and the other has to defend.
And the twenty20 is 20/20 overs for each team and
That's like four to five hours.
It's an entertaining game.
To me it just sounds like little league softball.
Everything went over my head.
So, how long could a game possibly go?
So, test match, is played in five days.
Five days to reach a decision!
Their decision to move to port stanley happened
In a fraction of that time.
Throw it here.
[johnny] we got out there, gabriel was showing me
How to bat, it's a different stance from
Anything I'm used to.
Doris was pitching or rather bowling.
Their daughters were doing some fielding.
Gabriel is great with the bat,
He can really knock them out.
If he can't get doris or the girls to bowl for him,
He's got a technique to self-serve.
You put the ball on your neck.
On the right-- on this side.
Like you're doing dishes on the phone,
You know what I mean?
You sort of hold it like that,
And then you drop it and quickly swing at it.
Okay.
It's a little bit like, guys,
If you drop your phone over the toilet,
You're like, "oh, god, no!"
(laughing)
- Oh! - Oh!
- Contact, at least. - Super.
At least.
For them, moving to port stanley might have been a gamble,
But they moved anyway.
I think life, for them, is like cricket to me.
Sometimes you see people moving
Even though it doesn't make sense.
(laughing)
(applause & cheering)
Oh! Nice one!
[johnny] is canada a great place to catch waves?
Yes, people are friendly and polite.
But surfing on the great lakes?
Well, it happens.
I went and got tipsy with carol thompson.
(cheering & applause)
Surfing has always been a passion,
Even when I was just a little kid.
I was watching surfing on tv and I was just
Really enthralled with it.
She's a real estate agent who goes from the office
To the river to the beach. Location, location, location.
(laughing)
I'll be sitting in my office and my paddle boards,
You know, surf boards, they're all there.
When I want to have a break, I just put a sign on the window
Saying, "gone surfing, I'll be back whenever."
Gotta be a big temptation when you're working, like,
I wonder if she's ever bailed on a client, you know...
(laughing)
"very sorry, I have an important board meeting."
In the off-season, I still like to make sure
That I, I keep in shape. So, I go out paddle boarding
And it just keeps me going all year.
She's got a gang of gals that she goes
Paddle boarding with.
Woo!
We got out there and getting up on a paddle board
Is shaky enough. I can't imagine actual surfing.
She said, "you gotta wait for a wave,
Then you got a split second, and then you gotta pop up."
I could not do a pop up.
I would call it a got up, gradually.
And... He does it!
Carole said for paddle boarding,
You really have to have a solid core.
I've always liked to think of my core
As like the earth's core...
Soft, but still super hot.
Oh, my god, the wind!
The wind was... A factor.
I was paddling away and I was just looking down
Trying not to fall over, and I looked up 5 minutes later
And I was 50 feet behind where I started.
(laughing)
The first thing I thought was,
Oh, man, I feel out of shape.
The second thing I thought was,
What do you mean, feel? You are out of shape.
♪
But it was just nice to get out there,
Nice to get moving out there on kettle creek.
You see the old train bridge,
And you see both sides of the town, you know.
The side with the inn, and the shops,
And the businesses.
And the side with the, the beach parties and...
Oh, my god...
You're business in the front,
Party in the back. You're a mullet!
(cheering & applause)
♪
Port stanley, you've gone through
Some boom times and experienced loss.
The future is as unknowable
As the recipe for mackies' sauce.
[audience] (laughing)
On the beach, there's surfing, swimming, tanning.
Do what you please here in port,
Just don't come home with salmon.
Catch a big yellow perch with a small silver minnow,
Or catch a ride to the bar in a big, white limo.
It's a beautiful town, just look around.
That's why more and more people pick it.
There's water and sand, it's not hard to understand...
I wish I could say the same for cricket.
(laughing)
People paddle kettle creek,
Which the bridge would normally straddle.
For now, it's stuck up on the creek,
But you'll always have a paddle.
Thanks for coming out, port stanley!
You've been great!
(cheering & applause)
- I was crying laughing. - My cheeks...
I think he did a beautiful job of capturing our village.
♪
Johnny's set tonight was like a perfect set of waves, yeah.
♪
- Johnny at cricket? - He was amazing!
Ooh!
- And that's how you do it! - Oh, maybe not.
It's the best $3700 I ever spent.
3700?
♪
I need a limo driver.
Johnny, if comedy doesn't work out for ya,
Come and see me.
You can be the next limo driver in port stanley.
♪
There was no fish tales. Johnny was this good!
♪