Original subtitles

Teeswater is flying into the 19th century with gusto.

(Laughs)

We got something for him! -

Holy (beep).

I don't know sir if you're dressed as a woman

or if you are a Viking.

This is so wrong.

(Laughs)

Usually the farthest I'll go on a first date

is like under the shirt, over the bra.

(Laughs)

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. 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.

Welcome to Teeswater!

♪

It seemed like the quintessential Ontario town,

situated here between Lake Huron

and well a whole lot of farmland.

Here we are in Teeswater Ontario!

(applause)

Let me tell you something,

nothing says to people, "welcome," more than

some orange pylons and a road closed sign.

(Laughs)

(applause)

♪

There was a, ah...

quirkiness to the place right from the start.

This is Teeswater.

♪

This is Teeswater. - Teeswater.

Teeswater. - This is it.

Maybe our name comes from some of the women around

town I'm not sure.

(Laughs) I can't say.

They know who they are.

(Laughs)

Alright the main drag, downtown Teeswater.

♪

I wouldn't call it bustling.

When the train stopped coming this town lost

its agricultural base and businesses followed.

And that was it, that was the downtown.

My hope was they hadn't lost their sense of humour.

I love the name Teeswater, it's - you know,

it's sort of playful.

It's definitely better than the old town name, right,

which was Wingham 20 km.

(Laughs)

I got to have a lovely chat with Mark Law right here.

(applause)

He's a wealth of information.

He's the town journalist.

Does Teeswater really need a journalist?

Could you not just open your window and

sort of yell, "Fred won the bingo last night"?

He knows every detail of every place,

person, event in Teeswater.

This town's a big hub for the farming community.

We're at the end of the railway.

The railway of course went away.

Every time we'd stop at a new building,

Mark'd be like, well now,

the story with this building is...

A young lady bought it after it had been condemned,

didn't know what to do with it,

ended up putting a hobby horse in the window.

Is she single?

♪

This town's been around a long time.

A three hour tour to learn downtown Teeswater.

I've taken in Old Montreal in less time than that.

(Laughs)

Here is Teeswater United one of the

original churches in town.

I'm just thinking oh my God, don't start in the 1800's

don't start in the 1800's.

We have elevator systems and we also have

wireless internet.

Are you serious?

It's got a 32 stop organ, it's got wireless internet.

Now I think it's a bit weird that the best place

in town to surf for naughty websites

is the United Church.

(Laughs)

Maybe that's what keeps the people united.

(Laughs)

And maybe that's why the organ has to be so loud.

(Laughs)

♪

The sense of community started to disappear.

Mark explained to me that commercial progress

in other towns took a piece out of this one.

Also people were driving to big box stores in the cities.

People were shopping less in the town.

We're getting it back but slowly in different ways.

I wanted see what kind of person was

still making a go of it on main street.

I went to visit Ralph the barber.

Everybody in town thinks Ralph is funny especially Ralph.

(Laughs)

What do you got in here? - That's my pet mongoose.

You got a pet mongoose? - My mongoose, yeah.

Harry's his name. There's his paw.

Come on, they're quick. There, he moved there.

Oh, yeah? - They're really quite -

Oh jeez! (Laughs)

(Laughs)

Everybody likes to have a laugh.

Everybody should have a good laugh every day and I do.

I make damn sure I do.

How long have you been in business here Ralph?

41 years.

Is that right? - Yep

Oh, there we go.

I'm not getting a tooth pulled am I?

(Laughs)

It's been a long time since I've done this.

Are you serious?

Don't tell me that Ralph, my god.

I was like you know Ralph anybody's that's going to laugh

at your jokes when you got a straight razor

to their throat right.

(Laughs)

Let me see your mongoose trick again.

Yeah I loved it, I loved that.

(Laughs, applause)

I thought I was the one supposed to be making the jokes

but it seems everyone around here

has a dry sense of humour.

Teeswater concrete, we dry hard.

Jaime Armstrong, we went to pay him a visit,

what an operation he's got going.

Three concrete yards.

A fleet of trucks.

We employ 40 people, full and part time

and some students.

Mostly people from Teeswater?

From the area, yeah.

Hires all kind of people from the area.

Pillar of the community, yada yada yada.

He got a working steam shovel!

(Laughs)

♪

Want to give it a try?

I'd love to give it a try.

I don't have to dress like that do I?

No no you're good. - Okay good.

And what I love is that instead of having all this

stuff behind a velvet rope at a museum,

he uses them to move a massive pile of dirt

from one side of his yard to the other one.

(Laughs)

Just jump up here.

Mike Mulligan eat your heart out.

♪

It's blasting steam out the front.

It's blasting steam out the rear.

It's like burping and farting at the same time.

(Laughs)

Oh, oh, jeez.

Well now we're in trouble. - I broke it!

(Laughs)

Here's a man he's playing in the world's

largest sandbox folks.

(Laughs)

(applause)

Oh, (beep)!

(Beep)! - Farmer: Are you alright?

There comes my breakfast.

♪

The Four H kids were kind enough to ask me out.

Cheese!

And then one of the kids was explaining it to me.

It was like head, hearts, hands...

I started getting nervous.

I thought these people were harvesting organs.

(Laughs)

It's apparent to me that you know kids who grow up

on farms you know they got to start pitching in

right away and I never had to do anything like that

when I was a kid.

I was more of a three H kid.

I played a lot of hungry, hungry hippo.

(Laughs)

So I took out the phone book and of course

it being Teeswater, I flipped open to the yellow page.

(Laughs)

And I found the goat farm.

Turned out goat farming is relatively new to these parts,

and one of things keeping the region afloat.

I met the whole Van Der Vlies family.

Four lovely kids in the house.

And many more kids in the barn.

And I thought there was going to be maybe

ten or twenty goats.

I go in, there's hundreds, hundreds and hundreds

of goats, all in this square.

It was like the times square of goats.

(Laughs)

And It smelled even worse than times square.

(Laughs)

I think there's an air freshener in the car

I might shove up my nose.

We have lots of work to do so

if you don't mind giving us a hand.

I'm a hard worker for upwards of half an hour

maybe even forty minutes.

There's only ten percent of the male goats

who get chosen to... live.

But those guys get to spend the rest of their lives

eating as much food as they want and just

impregnating mate after mate after mate.

Having all the sex they could possibly want.

Let the fun begin.

Oh help yourself buddy, make me proud.

There you go.

I think I would take my odds on those chances.

(Laughs)

Look he's putting on a show.

Yeah he is. He is. - I know, he does.

That's the same way I court yeah yeah,

I sort of do my bit and then hopefully.

But then she got me to hand milk one of the goats,

now that's something I've never done in my life and

I felt a little bit awkward,

it's kind of an intimate thing you know get in between

the legs and really...

(Laughs)

This is so wrong.

...get your hands on the teat.

(Laughs)

Be gentle remember when you're touching the udder.

It's the first time I met the goat.

(Laughs)

Yeah yeah, the milk is coming.

(Laughs)

Usually the farthest I'll go on a first date is

under the shirt, over the bra.

(Laughs)

No you don't shake it out. - Don't shake it.

You have to squeeze it out, don't shake it.

I'm a guy, so you're supposed to.

I know that's why I'm telling you.

Now I will say that I did give Onya twenty dollars

to go towards a bag of feed so you could say

I bought the goat dinner before I -

(Laughs)

How do I know when I'm done?

Well when there's no more coming.

If there's still some coming then it's not done.

Onya choose your words.

(Laughs)

And when the goats get pregnant, somebody comes

along and gives them an ultrasound.

Right there in the barn.

Be careful there's babies in there.

Oh my god. I'm sorry.

That's better medical attention than most of us

are getting.

And these goats don't even have a health card.

(Laughs)

♪

By then I was feeling ready to get

my hands dirty for real.

I went and visited Doug Ireland.

He's one of the biggest suppliers of used tractor

and combine parts in all of Ontario,

maybe even the country.

Are you going to give me a hand here?

I figured I'd go help him take an engine out of a

tractor because you know I'm sort of mechanical.

I used to take the old tickle pump and sludge shaft

out of my old Honda all the time.

(Laughs)

You can undo that top rad hose that's there.

What? Huh? - Right here.

But Doug starts riding me. He's a man of business right?

A man of action.

He felt like I wasn't working fast enough.

How you getting along there?

It looks like you're struggling.

It would be better if I had

like a longer wrench or an assistant.

He was trying to give me a hard time just because

I spilled brake fluid all over the floor of his garage.

(Laughs)

Oh oh a little bit more fluid.

That's a mess.

And coolant and dirty motor oil.

(Laughs)

And the clean motor oil that's supposed to go in afterwards.

(Laughs)

So then he sends me out on this wild goose chase

out in his massive tractor graveyard.

♪

I was out there stumbling around rusty parts.

I didn't know what I need.

You know the only thing I think I need is a tetanus shot.

(Laughs)

By the time I came back, he'd replaced me.

You get rid of me that fast!

So then I realized with Doug I gotta push back.

If I'm gonna keep some pride here. I gotta-

I gotta give him a few so I said,

you got so much garbage out there, I don't know

if you belong on this show or hoarders.

(Laughs)

And you know what he said?

He didn't say anything.

(Laughs)

He chained me up on his engine lift.

(Laughs)

(applause)

♪

I went back into town to find out about the

future of Teeswater - and the future stinks,

but in the good way!

The biggest thing going on in Teeswater right now

is the new sewer system, is that right?

Teeswater is flying into the 19th century with gusto.

(Laughs)

It sort of begs the question if you're only now getting the

sewage system, for the last fifty years

where have you been taking a poop?

(Laughs)

And I think I know, right?

The Dairy Queen in Goderich, right?

(Laughs)

♪

I went and visited mayor Bill Goetz.

The man was a good sport actually.

(applause)

What does somebody from Teeswater call themselves?

If someone from Newfoundland is a Newfoundlander

what's somebody from Teeswater?

That's a good question.

I heard the mayor is an older gentleman.

Of course we know cause we had him carbon dated.

(Laughs)

But his sense of humour was a bit of a clue too.

Maybe I can try one on you.

Alright.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Why? - To get to the other side.

Did you make that joke up?

Oh no that's an old one.

Mayor Goetz, we're not sure exactly how old you are

but we know it's somewhere between Larry King

and a brontosaurus.

(Laughs)

He's experienced.

Experienced, that's a better way of putting it yeah.

He's still got a healthy head of hair on him too.

Sure, yeah.

Sharon, Sharon Chambers was nice enough to,

to show us around.

My job is chief administrative officer

or CAO.

We are trying to reach people

maybe from Toronto or some bigger cities

to say why would you come to Teeswater?

Why would you land in Teeswater?

So what did you come up with?

Well we think that we are a tractor town.

Tractor town. - Tractor town.

We think that that's a theme we can really build off of.

Maybe every city person thinks oh yeah if I could

just get out to the country and have a farm

and get up with the sun and.

Exactly.

That's a really sort of exotic lifestyle.

Get the dung on their boots and

be able to drive a tractor.

That's what we're thinking about as tractor town is

bringing that experience here.

Did you get a chance to see the square dancing tractors?

The Farmall square dancing tractors.

♪

I'd been hearing about it since I first got here.

♪

Jonny. - Doug.

How are ya? - Good man good to see ya again.

So square dancing tractors?

I'm not even sure where to begin.

And they're doing all these called dances in

the tractors which was amazing.

The idea goes way back to the 1950's when some of

these tractors were made and they promoted the

tractors by square dancing with them at shows like

the CNE and country fairs and things like that.

The way they do it they've got a larger

tractor which are the male tractors and then the

smaller tractors which are female tractors.

Why are some of you dressed like women?

We have twelve guys in the group.

We had to get six guys that were girls and

six guys that were boys right?

So the male tractors dance with the female tractors

which is good you know cause

otherwise it would be weird.

(Laughs)

I don't know sir if you're dressed as a woman

or if you are a Viking.

Man in green wig: You want her number?

(Laughs)

Now these handles are very important.

Hold onto the handles. - Hold on tight yep.

Before the guys let me drive a tractor myself,

I have to go through the classic rookie initiation.

Is there an eject button on one of these things?

(Laughs)

Good lucky, Jonny.

Is there a strap or anything?

You don't need a strap on there, just hang on.

Alright, tell my mom I died doing something stupid.

(Beep)!

Woohoo! Oh, (beep)!

(Beep)!

Are you alright? Are you alright?

I think they just wanted to see me puke.

Are you still back there buddy?

Here comes my breakfast!

Oh my god.

I need to try and focus on one horizon point.

Feels good to be on the ground again?

First time. There we go. It's on the ground.

I was sure glad to see these were guys having fun,

but I was pretty sure as usual in this town

they were not laughing "with" me, especially Doug.

(Laughs)

And then the town of Teeswater punked me

country style.

♪

I went to visit the Swamp Stompers, but

I didn't know at the time what I was getting into.

(Laughs)

I'm starting to feel nervous why are these guys

out doing this stuff in the middle of the woods?

By themselves, like some sort of secret society or

something like that.

It's like a group of seven painting

meets Tim Burton or something.

♪

It's getting dark.

I thought maybe I was going to end up being some

like some sort of sacrificial offering to

some heathen god or something like that.

(Laughs)

Okay that's it.

I don't know if there's anyone here.

Teeswater Swamp Stompers.

This here's private property we don't hanker

to no strangers round here.

Well I was- - We got something for ya.

- Holy (beep)!

Where do you reckon you're going?

How'd you like some of that, mister?

Jamie had invited me to go out and visit the

Swamp Stompers and out of the woods comes

Clayton Bell with no shirt and a skunk skin over his

shoulder and a musket and he shoots at me.

(Laughs)

How do you like some of that mister?

No I'm fine thank you.

You come in peaceable? - Oh absolutely.

Oh well then if that's the case come on in

we'll have some corn squeezings.

I just got a fresh batch on.

I said Clayton I think I'll just squeeze some corn

on my own thank you very much.

I'll do without.

♪

Have a drink of my chicken here.

Oh, sorry.

Yum.

Not bad, not bad it's pretty good.

Drinking from a decapitated chicken,

all in a day's work.

Come on in Jonny.

♪

Okay, I get it, you need a place where you can

get away from your wives so you can drink

till you fall down.

(Laughs)

And by the way they're dressed they don't need to

worry about the wives or any women at all

coming out to the place.

(Laughs)

Weddings, parties, dances whatever.

We broke in a grocery store in London.

Two of the Canadian Open fiddle champions

came from Teeswater. - Yeah?

Yeah. One played with us for a while.

Is that right?

Well I think you guys should show me what you got.

Have a drop of that it makes you play better.

Okay.

♪ She'll be coming around the mountain when she comes. ♪

They've got all kinds of homemade cobbled together

instruments and one of the instruments

it was a piss pot with beer caps stuck to it.

(Laughs)

This is not like the good one is it?

I can play this one.

♪ She'll be driving six white horses, ♪

♪ she'll be driving six white horses, ♪

So then once we'd had enough drinks,

we went outside to shoot a cannon.

(Laughs)

We packed it with gunpowder and cheerios.

(Laughs) - I know.

(Beep)!

She's got a bit of recoil to her.

And I'm just sure, somewhere in the States,

there's some CIA building where they've got

satellite imagery of the little tiny cannons

getting fired off in Teeswater, Ontario.

They're like what the hell are the Canadians

gettin' up to up there?

(Laughs)

Right on the powder.

Good shot Jonny!

I really fell for this town.

♪

(Laughs)

This town found a way to laugh through the hard times.

It was time for me to rise to the occasion,

jump on the bandwagon of "tractor town" and

ride off into the sunset...

but I wasn't going down like some cliche ending.

Luckily I always carry something for

just this kind of occasion.

(Laughs)

Alright boys, let's dance.

♪

Teeswater taught me you gotta take the bull by the

horn or take the tractor by the wheel.

You're not gonna make it here taking a back seat.

It's a good thing that they got the male tractors

and the female tractors, you know why?

Because if it was all male tractors,

it might turn into a tractor pull.

(Laughs)

Teeswater, Ontario where men are men and

the women well, double check.

(Laughs)

For the first time since I arrived in

Teeswater my mom called.

And she says Jonathan how's it going in Teeswater?

And I said mom I'm in the middle of the woods,

half in the bag, beating on piss pot and

shooting cereal out of a cannon.

(Laughs)

(applause)

She said, why?

I said cause that's how they do it in Teeswater.

Thanks so much everybody you've been really great!

It was great. It was a great show.

We had a blast.

I enjoyed it very much.

He was excellent, excellent.

We're very proud to be from Teeswater.

It's awesome, funny, my cheeks hurt.

(Laughs)

I didn't pick up on his accent when he was in the shop

but yeah he's got a little bit of an eastern droll eh?

I'm dressed like a woman driving a tractor,

there's nothing more small town Ontario than that!

(Laughs)

♪