A Squamish Days Loggers Sports Association press release last Sept. 24th from president Amy Fast related the news that Paul Mackenzie aka “Paula the Clown” had passed away at the age of 78 after a brief battle with cancer.
“While most Squamish locals think of Paula the Clown as a Squamish Days Loggers Sports tradition, many other communities around B.C., Washington State, and the world had the pleasure of taking part in Paula’s lumberjack clown antics,” read the release.
Paul had 59 years of continuous involvement with Squamish Loggers Sports as a competitor, parade, and logging show clown, emcee and more.
A hard worker, Paul Mackenzie never missed an opportunity to pitch in.
As one of the surviving ‘originals’ of the first Squamish loggers’ sports shows, Mackenzie would explain how it was built up by everyone in the small community lending a hand — in his case, also stepping forward at the suggestion the show could use a clown.
The clown act took shape year by year and especially in partnership with emcee Al McIntosh.
The clown would do his clumsy versions of the choker race, the axe throw, obstacle pole bucking, birling and carving a chair. He was not a tree climber but did once attempt a spar tree ascent holding on to a homemade live rocket.
Beyond these comical routines, the fun was mostly improvised.
Mackenzie’s antics and his interaction and bantering with the hosts became as crucial to the whole entertainment as the loggers’ sports competitions.
With his clown act perfected in Squamish, Mackenzie was already in demand for logging shows all around the Pacific Northwest by the mid-1960s, and then beyond.
“Paula the Clown” became an institution.
It was the trust Mackenzie had built up here with the competitors, with host McIntosh and the Squamish Days organizers that enabled crazy antics on the field impossible to script, and other surprises for the parade and show crowds every year.
A special grand entrance for Mackenzie would be sprung on him at the last minute — such as an arrival by limousine, in a box wrapped up as a present, handcuffed in a police car, and in an outhouse strung with beer cans.
For his last Squamish “Paula” performance in 2014, after some years of retirement from logging show clowning, Mackenzie arrived together with old partner McIntosh in a time capsule that he sawed his way out of.
Squamish has pioneered competition events for the sport and set standards in hosting lumberjack shows. The development of the clown act has been another key innovation behind the ongoing success and influence of Squamish Days.
The logging skills and clowning entertainment has also been performed for countless Squamish community fundraising and special events and been taken on the road.
Although Mackenzie came to reside in other towns and perform around the world, he never forgot his show business roots in Squamish. He proudly became part of Squamish promotional branding.
But loggers’ sports clowning was more than show business for him. He simply loved it.
Mackenzie’s own favourite photos of himself were with the children smiling and laughing with him.
With Paula the Clown, Mackenzie, and his Squamish show partners figured out how to put on unique, world-class family entertainment, year after year.
Many entertainment innovations that have and will come along in Squamish and around the logging show circuit owe much to Mackenzie.
