Portuguese bull runs becoming an Ontario fixture

It is not easy to understand why a full-grown man would climb into a ring, look a bull in the eye and dare it to charge him. But stranger things have been done in the name of "tradition."

At a ranch near Arthur, Ont., north of Fergus, as a Portuguese singer stomps about an outdoor arena, a series of bulls stumble out of red wooden crates to be taunted by some brave, and arguably foolish, men.

An audience jeers and cheers from the bleachers of the 213-metre-long ring, which is decorated with facades to mimic a Portuguese street. English is rarely heard.

"Bullfights belong to the story of the island," says Joe da Silva, a Portuguese-Canadian with a deep voice, referring to the tiny Portuguese landfall of Terceira – part of the Azores islands in the mid-Atlantic – where most of the spectator families have roots.

"This is the most strong tradition from back home. And the way we are doing things here, we are following 99.9 per cent."

In a remarkable feat of cultural perseverance – and victory over animal rights activists and reluctant politicians – bull runs have thrived in Southern Ontario for the last 20 years, staged at rural sites close enough to Mississauga, Brampton and Toronto to draw a crowd of Portuguese-Canadian families aching for home.