(my brother, the year he fished the bass tournament. Photo: Joey Payeur)

Here’s what nobody in Fort Frances and surrounding areas would tell you about the bass tournament: it is boring.

Oh my goodness, it is so boring.

I can’t speak for what it’s like in the boats. I’m sure the anglers have a blast during their seven plus hours in the sun (or the rain, or the freezing cold), struggling with Mother Nature and begging a bass to take a bite. The rest of us mere mortals, however, have our bass tournament experience boiled down to watching the boats take off when the sky still has shades of dark blue in it, and then going on with our day until the weigh-ins start in the afternoon. Just like sitting still during assemblies, there is nothing natural about sitting around for over two hours watching fish get weighed.

(Perhaps this is why “Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship” and “beer gardens” are synonymous around here.)

Nobody would ever say it, unless it was to commiserate with somebody else who knows the truth. To people who are new to town, however, or those who are just coming through—the bass tournament is the highlight of the summer. It is our claim to fame. We embellish a little, like we don’t know better. We sell out VIP tickets to Quest for the Best (and regular tickets, depending on the year) like the amateur musicians are the hottest ticket in town. We count down the days to when the tent goes up, even though it makes getting ice cream at the Sorting Gap that much more complicated.

It’s boring. It is so boring.

Even so, every year, the question ripples around town after day one, day two, in the lead up to day three:

Who’s the highest ranked local guy?

Because that’s what the bass tournament is about. It ties this community together, because when things are boring you have nothing better to do than connect with people. People you see every day, people you haven’t seen in years, people who time their visits to the bass tournament because it’s one big community reunion. It’s about kids who grow up in this town wanting to fish it every year, and then someday living their dream. It’s about my brother meeting some of the fishermen he’s looked up to since he was a kid when he finally fishes the tournament, and me showing up to Day One and Two weigh ins and suffering through, and creating a drinking game about common tournament happenings and sayings to survive Day Three. It’s drinking Sprite while playing that drinking game, because otherwise you’re going to get sloshed.

It’s about petting zoos and helping out my cousin set up hers because there are people who don’t have a free pass to see the goats and the chickens and the ponies. It’s about the three inflatables set up and how the kids do not want to leave them. It’s watching the tent slowly fill up as the weigh ins drag on throughout the afternoon. It’s about the Top Ten parade, because somehow there is nothing more exciting than boats being driven through the tent as the teams get applauded and cheered for and show off their fish like they’re heroes.

Which, maybe they are.

Because what would this town be without it? What would punctuate our summer? We can’t claim the fair—that’s Emo’s. On the surface, it begs the question of what does it say when the biggest annual event consists of everyone sitting around watching fish get weighed? Beyond that, though—the locals know. We know.

It’s boring. No matter which way you slice it, watching fish get weighed is never not boring.

But there’s something that beckons us back to that big tent year after year, and we all know it’s not the fish.