Eight Seconds: The Quebec Rodeos

Rodeos were introduced to Quebec Canada in the early 70′s. This relatively new activity and its associated culture are taking shape in rural Quebec – the very popular Festival Western de St-Tite is evidence of this growing trend. In all, Quebec hosts about 25 rodeos annually. From late spring to early fall, cowboys travel throughout the province on weekends to ride in small towns. From 2003 to 2005, I documented Quebec rodeos and their cowboys, witnessing the development of a unique sub-culture. This documentary project is not only about the 8 seconds, the danger, the hype and glory but also to explore the Quebec rodeo experience and the uniqueness of these cowboys.

“Together, the men wait. Hands reach out to steady the riders, adjust ropes, and offer a pat of encouragement. It strikes me that the bond in this camaraderie is not only shared experience, but a shared, psychic loneliness. Balanced above the bull, feet up against the chute rails, the bull rider waits his turn. He exists in a kind of suspension, here and not here, adrenaline preparing him for the explosive movement, concentration holding him still. Up above, in my perch, his world seems inconceivable from the one I know. I have to stretch my mind to imagine what he lives: the endless road, the small towns, the dream world that keeps him in this life.

In the arena, all of this living culminates in the attempt to achieve those rare 8 seconds of equilibrium. 8 seconds, as Aislinn evokes so powerfully in her photographs, is a time both fast and short, both miniscule and eternal, where the life of the bull rider is risked, earned and validated. 8 seconds is the brief knife edge of a long and disquieting road where, if the rider is lucky and good, every piece of that road, every moment of preparation and anticipation, will burn brightly for the full moments before the timer sounds, in full view of the crowd that gathers to watch.”

Madeleine Thien