By Will McGuirk

Downtown Bowmanville bridges the liveliness of a city with the loveliness of a village. The main thoroughfare is often shut down for community events and celebrations. The downtown is the gathering place for the town, and wandering around the side streets and neighbourhoods is a peek into the lives in one of Durham Region’s best-kept secrets.

At one of those community events in the late 1800s, a boy named William Hunt witnessed his first circus. He would grow up to become the Great Farini, an internationally known showman and explorer and one of the first to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope.