The audience was in awe.
On the stage in front of them was a man of average height with flowing hair like the Biblical Samson.
They were there to see him showcase his superhuman strength.
But he wouldn’t be lifting a weight above his head. That would be too simple.
No, what he was going to do would defy explanation.
The man with the golden curls was hunched over.
Above him was a platform, with 18 men standing on it.
The total weight was 1,967 kilograms, or 4,336 pounds.
And then…using his back the man lifted the platform.
There was no trickery, no illusions, just pure brute strength.
It would become one of his greatest feats but in reality, it was just another day for the strongest man alive.
I’m Craig Baird, this is Canadian History Ehx and today we are lifting the weight of history as we explore the life of Canadian strongman Louis Cyr!
For thousands of years, humans have been fascinated by people who could do the impossible.
From the Chinese practice of lifting heavy stones and cauldrons dating back to 6000 BCE, to the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans who delighted in feats of strength, which eventually influenced our modern Olympics.
It’s always been with us.
If you could lift great weights you were seen as a demigod or at least to have been touched by the Gods.
Not surprisingly, some even inspired mythical stories.
Arguably the most famous of these is Samson, the Biblical hero mentioned in the Book of Judges.
Given superhuman strength by Yahweh, he helped the Nazirites against their enemies.
Tales of his strength included slaying a lion with his bare hands and massacring an entire Philistine army with the jawbone of a donkey.
In the Bible, he lost his strength when his long hair was cut by servants on the order of his lover Delilah. The action violated his Nazirite vow and nullified his strength.
Other strongmen in mythology include Gilgamesh and Hercules, both of whom were known for Godlike strength that far exceeded what l humans were capable of.
The modern strongman emerged in the 19th century and included Apollon, Donald Dinnie and Arthur Saxon.
They dazzled crowds with their feats of strength. From lifting barbells to carrying horses.
But they paled in comparison to Louis Cyr.
Noe-Cyprien Cyr (NOY CYPRIEN), as he was baptized, was born on Oct. 10, 1863, to a French-Canadian family.
He was the first of 17 children born to the couple and genetics would play a hand in making him truly remarkable.
Cyr’s grandfather, Pierre, was known for his strength.
His great-grandfather, lived to 102, also had great strength.
Cyr’s mother towered over others and thought nothing of carrying heavy sacks of flour on her shoulders.
From an early age, Cyr was deeply influenced by his grandfather Pierre who took the young lad to watch the village blacksmith pick up an anvil with one hand and bend rods of iron.
This had a lasting impact on the boy, who saw that his future was to be a strongman.
But first as Cyr was the eldest when he turned 12 years old, he went to work to help support his large family. Despite his best efforts, he was unsuccessful.
Until one night Cyr was walking through the woods near his home, and across a man with an injured his leg.
Gagnon was unable to get back to his horse and wagon which were a distance away.
Cyr offered to carry him, but Gagnon doubted the child could do so.
He was surprised when the budding strongman carried him back to his wagon with ease.
Gagnon was a local lumberman, and he offered Cyr a job at the logging camp.
Cyr worked at the camp through the winter and on his family’s farm the rest of the year.
Let’s remember he was barely a teen, and he suffered at the hands of the adults from the lumber camp who bullied him. Usually though, he bested grown men with his fists.
Cyr would try to go the extra mile to impress his coworkers and win them over.
One day, he heard the story of Milo of Croton, a Greek athlete who carried a calf on his shoulders until it grew into a full-grown bull.
Cyr decided he could do the same.
Well, at least lift a calf, that is.
Unfortunately, when he tried to lift it, he was kicked in the back as the calf escaped and ran away.
So, he tried again but this time he used a sack of grain and carried it half a kilometre on the first day.
Each subsequent day he added one kilogram.
His mother encouraged him to grow his hair out so he could be like a biblical hero come to life.
To add to his Samson likeness, she regularly curled his hair.
By 15, Cyr was 200 pounds and in excellent health.
Unfortunately, that didn’t save him from disease, and he was exposed to typhoid which forced him to take time away from work as he recovered.
The disease is caused by a type of Salmonella bacteria and symptoms often include weakness, abdominal pain, among other things.
Without treatment, symptoms may last weeks or months which meant Cyr couldn’t exercise so instead he trained his mind.
During this convalescence, he learned to play the violin.
Unfortunately, his time away from work shone a spotlight on the fact that money was tight for his large family.
Seeking new opportunities they moved to Lowell, Massachusetts.
Around this same time, Cyr became Louis Cyr, so English speakers could have an easier time with his name.
In Massachusetts Louis Cyr got a job at a textile factory carrying 50-kilogram bales of cotton.
He was soon bored and to entertain himself and his co-workers he began to display his strength.
He threw bales of cotton around the plant with ease and threw so much attention his manager made Cyr a janitor and forced him away from an audience.
Unable to perform, Cyr hated the job.
He also missed being outside in nature.
So almost as soon as he was made a janitor, he left to work at a farm.
And things would take a turn for the budding showman.
Dan Bawdy owned the farm where Cyr and a fellow worker came across a wagon stuck in the muddy road.
The horse could not pull the wagon out and Cyr witnessed the angry driver whipping the horse.
Cyr wouldn’t stand the abuse.
He astonished both men by lifting the wagon out of the mud and onto the dry ground.
News of this incredible feat spread, and it didn’t take long for promoters to come knocking on the door of this young Hercules.
Cyr was about to officially become a strongman.
The farmer encouraged Cyr to use his strength to make good money.
He left for Boston with his father and brother in tow where Cyr would compete not by lifting weighted barbells but by lifting boulders and, in some cases, animals.
At the first competition, Cyr made it through the elimination rounds lifting boulders but then he found himself facing off against two much older competitors.
The 18-year-old was not a tall and imposing giant.
He was average height, with blonde curls and had the look of a slightly overweight young man.
He was also French-Canadian which led to ridicule from the crowd as he attempted to lift a Percheron cart horse.
He quickly silenced the crowd as he lifted the horse off the ground, something his competitors failed to do.
Cyr won his first competition, and, in the process, the young Francophone became the strongest man in the United States.
Upon his return home to Massachusetts a dance was held in his honour.
At the event he met a woman named Melina and his life was never the same again
Cyr was smitten with Melinda.
If he wasn’t at work, he was with her.
As soon as they heard their families would be returning to Quebec, the young lovers began planning their wedding.
Upon his return to Canada, Cyr looked for employment.
Being a strongman wasn’t paying the bills, so he took a job at a lumber camp.
This time he wouldn’t be bullied or fought instead his outgoing and friendly nature quickly earned him friends at the camp.
His immense strength and work ethic earned him their respect.
And his popularity grew by entertaining coworkers during lulls in the action.
He would often perform feats of strengths for growing audiences around town As his fame grew in Quebec and people began to refer to him as the strongest man in Canada.
And THAT attracted the attention of David Michaud who up to that point called himself the strongest man in Canada.
He had done so for the better part of a decade.
And he HATED Cyr.
It wasn’t just that this young upstart was becoming famous Michaud also believed Cyr had stolen his soul mate because he had attempted to court Melina and failed.
Michaud wanted to silence Cyr’s strongman claims and humiliate him in front of Melina.
So, he challenged him to a contest.
Cyr was never one to back down from a challenge and he immediately agreed to it.
The contest would take place near Quebec City and Michaud made sure to use his fame and influence to tip the scales, so to speak, to his advantage.
In front of a crowd Michaud ensured his preferred boulders were used for the contest.
Cyr had no previous experience with them, but it wouldn’t make a difference.
The younger man easily lifted the 236-kilogram boulder to his shoulder to defeat Michaud.
Cyr was now the strongest man in North America, and Michaud faded into the mists of history.
By 1881, Cyr and Melina had married and were ready to welcome their first child, a daughter, together.
There was pressure to ensure he could provide for his family.
This led him to Mac Sohmer, a promoter that claimed he could take Cyr on a tour for $35 a week.
This was more than enough for the new father to agree once it was ensured the family would be able to travel together.
It didn’t take them long to discover that Mac Sohmer was a con man.
Sohmer covered their expenses from Cyr’s$35 weekly pay so the family only received a small portion of the money from the tour.
It was barely enough to survive on.
One day, they got fed up.
They left Mac Sohmer standing on stage in front of an increasingly hostile audience while they boarded a train to Quebec.
There were plenty of other reputable promoters looking to build the career of Canada’s strongest man.
Upon their return to Quebec, the couple met a Georges Denis, a former policeman, who offered to be their promoter.
Denis was an honest man, and he became one of Cyr’s closest friends.
After a performance at Pointe-Levis, Denis gave Cyr most of the profits from the show.
The strongman was shocked when he received $200.
It was far more than Mac Sohmer ever gave him.
After a few shows the family was out of debt and soon their finances were secured.
Enough that Cyr was able to leave logging behind him and launch l The Strongest Man in the World tour.
It traveled through Quebec to immense success.
He realized he was incredibly popular when the children in Saint-Cyprien were given the day off from school to see his show.
By the time the tour ended, Cyr and Melina discovered that they were going to have a second child.
He missed the birth of his first child because he had been at a lumber camp.
This time, he refused to miss it and insisted on being by Melina’s side and refused any appearances that would take him away from her until the baby was born.
Gus Lambert, a promoter, arranged with the Mayor of Montreal to help Cyr get a job with the Montreal Police Force so he could be near his wife.
The couple moved to the city as Louis Cyr became a police officer.
He was placed in a nearby village, which was known for its high crime rate.
Cyr was kind and gentle, but he could easily take care of himself if he needed to.
Criminals in the community who challenged him and soon came to regret it.
During one operation, the police used Cyr as bait.
He was to wander around pretending to be lost and afraid.
Before long a small gang surrounded him, believing he was an easy target.
When the police arrived, they found several members of the gang on the ground caring for bruised bodies.
The rest were locked in Cyr’s powerful arms.
The gang swore revenge.
While he was on patrol with his partner Proulx, the gang ambushed them wielding hatchets.
Proulx called for help, but he was killed.
Cyr fought back like The Incredible Hulk.
He picked up one of the attackers and used him first as a shield against the gang then wielded the man as a weapon to bludgeon his attackers.
When police arrived, they were able to arrest the wounded criminals.
The man Cyr used as a weapon spent considerable time in the hospital but as soon as he recovered, he was thrown in jail.
Meanwhile Cyr’s family made sure to save every dollar they could while he was with the police force.
With their savings, they bought a tavern in St. Cunegonde and Cyr left the police force for good in 1885.
They also opened a gymnasium that became a popular training spot with strongmen and boxers.
Cyr loved his gym but soon people came just to challenge him.
He was more than happy to oblige, and he defeated all who tried.
His popularity once again grew and by late-1885, a story about him was published in the Police Gazette by Richard Fox after he saw Cyr’s strength first hand.
Fox offered $5,000 to anyone who could beat Cyr.
No one could.
Soon after Cyr reconnected with Lambert, the promoter who got him into the police force to help him set up new challenges.
Robert Pennell, a weightlifting champion and baseball pitcher from the United States was one of the first ones to face off against the French-Canadian.
Cyr defeated the American by doing three lifts, including a one-arm curl of 57 kilograms, which was 11 kilograms more than Pennell could manage.
That competition had an impact on Cyr’s future.
You would think his dominance would have others lined up to challenge him.
But the opposite was true.
Challengers dried up. No one wanted to take him on.
Cyr was simply too strong.
His supporters spread rumours that Cyr was unlikely to repeat such a success.
New challengers came forward and Cyr learned to defeat opponents by the slimmest of margins.
Even if he had to fake it.
Along with the challenges, he put on performance At these shows he did things that boggled the audience’s minds.
Some of the feats included lifting 242 kilograms with one finger and pulling a freight car up an incline.
At a show in Quebec City, he lifted a platform with 15 men on it.
On Nov. 2, 1889, the Societe Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montreal presented Cyr with the Fortissimo Belt in front of future Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier and Quebec Premier Honore Mercier to celebrate the way he promoted French-Canada.
Two years later, in Montreal in front of 10,000 people, he resisted the pull from four draught horses, two on each hand.
When the Ottawa Police Force called for deputies to round up a local gang, Cyr volunteered.
They turned him down thinking his size would make him slow.
Obviously offended, Cyr challenged the officers to a foot race.
He beat most of them and the police force took him on.
His time with them didn’t last long, because his commitments as a strongman kept him busy.
By then he had formed the Louis Cyr-Horace Barre Troupe with his friend.
At their shows, Horace Barre would lift a bar with two men sitting in hollow spheres on either end.
Cyr would then come out and lift with one hand the same bar with two women on either end.
They would finish each performance, by lifting 30 audience members waist high.
Through it all Cyr maintained a relatively quiet life.
He was a devout Roman Catholic and stayed away from most vices.
He said in one interview,
“I neither drink nor use tobacco in any shape or form. In fact, I do not know the taste of them. But then, I have always taken care of myself.”
He went on to say,
“I never trained in my life. I do not know what training is. My strength is natural and inherited and when I challenge anybody, I am ready at any moment. I don’t want six weeks, or two months wait before putting it to the test.”
Cyr preferred to go home to play his violin after shows. Those who knew him said his strength was only matched by his kindness, generosity and quiet dignity.
Ini1892, Cyr’s fame would cross the pond.
He made his London debut at the Royal Aquarium on Jan. 19, in front of r 5,000 people as British strongmen challenged him.
They all lost to the French-Canadian.
The London’s Sporting Life quoted him saying.
“I will nonetheless beat many records, and when I leave England, I will add numbers to the record books that will take many years to wipe out. I have come to the conclusion that no one will make a match with me, so I might just as well wipe out all other people’s records and have an unbroken list all to myself.”
During his tour of Scotland, he lifted a 332 kg granite Dinnie Stones named for strongman Donald Dinnie and carried it for a short distance.
Throughout his time in England, Cyr enjoyed a level of fame he had not experienced so far as celebrities and royalty clamoured to meet him.
His next feat would take his fame worldwide.
In Boston in 1895, he performed his greatest feat.
His famous Back lift often required placing a number of men upon a heavy platform resting across two trestles.
Cyr would then duck beneath the platform, place his back below the center, and raise both the contraption and the passengers clear off the trestles.
In Boston he lifted 18 men standing on a platform, weighing an incredible 1,967 kilograms in total.
It became one of his most famous acts of strength and made news across North America cementing his legacy.
The Montreal Gazette wrote,
“He had given out that he would attempt this difficult feat, and as a result the place was so crowded that many people had to be turned away, unable to get any further than the entrance.”
By now Cyr was making $2,000 a week, six times what he made at the logging camp.
His fame reached the ears of Dr. Dudley Sargent, the physical director of Harvard University, and in 1895 he asked to measure Cyr to determine how he could be so strong.
Cyr stood 5’8 and weighed 291 pounds.
His neck and biceps were the same circumference 20 inches, and his forearms were 16 inches while his wrists were half that.
His fully expanded chest was 60 inches.
He was a big beefy guy which meant Cyr could put away a lot of food.
He typically ate as much as four men and could eat a 95-ounce steak in a single sitting.
Remember John Candy eating that giant steak in The Great Outdoors? Well, that was the same size of the steak Cyr ate.
And he ate that on a regular basis.
Through the 1890s, only one man was able to really challenge Cyr.
August Johnson of Sweden.
The two strongmen met in 1896 and by then Cyr was used to winning relatively quickly.
The battle with Johnson would be his hardest.
The two men lifted barrels, held out dumbbells, swung weights around and lifted them from the floor without a harness.
For three hours they went at it like gladiators but in the end, Johnson conceded the strongman match to Cyr.
It was the closest Cyr ever came to losing.
The Toronto Evening Star wrote,
“Johnson’s fingers were blistered and raw and Cyr’s fingers split and bled from the heavy work.”
Soon after, Cyr ran away and joined the P.T. Barnum’s Circus.
One day while he was in Boston John Sullivan, a heavyweight boxing champion, walked in and offered to buy everyone drinks.
Cyr rarely drank, so he refused k.
Sullivan was immediately offended, and he punched Cyr square in the chest.
He might as well have punched an oak tree.
Cyr stood up from his chair, grabbed Sullivan with one hand and threw him against the wall, knocking him out.
After Sullivan came to, he asked who had beaten him.
Cyr walked over and introduced himself.
The two men became lifelong friends.
But Cyr left the circus soon after \to embark once again on his own.
From 1899 to 1904, he toured 300 towns and villages in Quebec, performing 650 times for 600,000 people.
During that time, he earned $150,000, a fortune for that time and had one of his most famous battles.
On March 25, 1901, Cyr took on the Willow Bunch Giant Edouard Beaupre.
Beaupre, was born in Willow Bunch, Saskatchewan,
By the time he met Cyr he had earned the nickname of Giant because he stood at 8 feet 2.5 inches.
He is also considered the tallest Canadian to ever live.
Beaupre exceeded Cyr in both height and weight and challenged Cyr to a well-publicized wrestling match.
The Montreal Star wrote,
“The supposed wrestling match was a ridiculous affair and one of those things that is apt to make people fight shy of the real game. Neither man understood anything about wrestling and when Beaupre grabbed Cyr by the neck, the latter became angry, lifted the giant up in his arms and tossed him down good and hard outside the mat. That is about the extent of the match.”
I don’t know…sounds like Cyr may have helped invent modern professional wrestling…
By then Cyr’s eating habits had caught up to him His back hurt constantly, he was plagued with fevers and digestive problems, and he weighed over 200 kilograms.
Sir William Hingston, a former mayor of Montreal and doctor, diagnosed Cyr with Bright’s Disease which is an outdated term for various kidney conditions.
He instructed the strongman to gradually remove solid food from his diet.
His weight decreased to a healthier level, but it was clear that his career was over.
But He had just one more famous match left.
In 1906, he accepted a challenge by fellow French-Canadian strongman Hector de Carrie.
Carrie was 15 years younger than Cyr, and after a great match the judges ruled it a draw.
Cyr, true to his nature, refused to accept it.
He walked over to de Carrie and lifted his arm in the air.
He declared the young man the new Strongest Man in the World.
The torch had been passed.
Cyr went on to live on his farm with his family, being tended to by his doctor who often kept him on an all-milk diet to help his heart disease.
On Nov. 10, 1912, Cyr died of chronic nephritis, a condition that causes the inflammation of the kidneys.
He was only 53.
Throughout Canada, Cyr was honoured for his strength exploits.
Immense crowds attended his funeral and floral tributes arrived at his home from around the world.
Today, Parc Louis-Cyr and Place des Hommes-Forts in Montreal are named after him.
Statues of his likeness stand at Place des Hommes-Forts and Musee de la Civilization in Quebec City.
In 1955, long after his death, he was one of the first inductees into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame.
Two decades later, he was named a Person of National Historic Significance by the Government of Canada.
In his hometown of Napierville, a high school was named in his honour.
In 2013, Antoine Bertrand best known for his roles in the television series Les Bougon and Starbuck starred in the film Louis Cyr, l’homme le plus fort du monde.
The film won two Canadian Screen Awards for Art Direction and Costume Design.
At the Jutra Awards, Quebec’s film awards, it picked up nine awards including Best Film, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Director.
It was also the top grossing film in Quebec that year and is available to stream in Canada and I quite enjoyed it.
But Louis Cyr left behind something else…
In the 1930s, Ben Weider was a young boy living in Saint-Lin, Quebec when he heard the stories of Cyr.
He was a Quebecois hero for Ben and his brother Joe.
They were inspired to create a bodybuilding and fitness empire that led them to co-founding the International Federation of Bodybuilding Federation in 1946.
That organization exists to this day and is the governing body for bodybuilding and fitness around the world.
But these two boys who idolized Louis Cyr did something else.
In 1968, they found a young Austrian bodybuilder who spoke little English.
They saw his potential and invited him to California to conquer the body building world.
He did exactly that by winning seven Mr. Olympia titles.
And then he conquered the world.
That young bodybuilder was Arnold Schwarzenegger.
And he became a legend thanks in part to a French-Canadian strongman with golden curls who was once the strongest man in history.
