Gilles Ste-Croix grew up on a farm in Val-Paradis, a tiny village in northern Quebec. It was a sleepy place where nothing much happened, and he still remembers the day the circus came to town. The small troupe pitched a tent in an empty field and — voilà! — magic happened.

“I remember walking home to the farm thinking, ‘Wow, that’s what I want to do when I grow up. I want to be a clown,’ ’’ Ste-Croix says during a phone interview from Montreal.