American and Canadian Sportsmen’s Vacation and Boat Show – March 1971

Back here, I featured some ads and publicity for the Mid-America Boat Show from the 1960s and 70s. One of the comments on that post mentioned the Sportsmen’s Show, which was also held at Public Hall. I remember that my family went to it at least once in the 1960s, because we were a camping family. I picked up a lot of brochures, and especially remember the lumberjack show with its chopping, sawing, axe-throwing, log rolling and pole climbing.

But that’s no Paul Bunyan lookalike in this photo (below) promoting the 1971 edition of the Sportsmen’s Show. The show (retitled the American and Canadian Sportsmen’s Vacation and Boat Show was held at Cleveland’s Public Hall, March 5 - 14.

The article and photo ran in the Journal on Feb. 19, 1971.

Alas (I seem to say that on this blog a lot), there were no lumberjacks lumbering around at the show that year. Judging by the ad copy, the show's focus seemed to shift away from camping and fishing and more towards boating in general.

The 1950 show in Cleveland sounded like it was much more fun.

Attractions included: apelt armadillo exhibit; Explorer Dave Irwin’s Eskimo Village; John Turner’s Trapper’s Camp; Square Dance demonstrations; Chief Young Deer’s Indian Village; a casting tournament; Bruce Miller, woodcarver from Alberta; Frank Weed's Game Birds; Cherry Haushalter’s Golden Retrievers; an archery exhibit; a firearms exhibit and gun-handling demonstrations; and a rabbit display.

There were also programs featuring a tug of war between ‘husky humans’ and Alaskan huskies; Chief Evergreen Tree, a Cochiti Pueblo Indian from Wisconsin Dells who did bird and animal imitations (seen in vintage postcard at right); horseshoe-pitching champion Ted Allen; and Russ Dotson and his Aquatic Zanies.

There was also Doug Cartland and Harry Cook (a table tennis exhibition); and Montana Kid and his Wonder Horse, Coley Bay, along with the Campbell Girls.