By: Marie Pascual
On Saturday night, my partner and I parked at Square One in Mississauga. We were chasing noise and kettle corn, curious to see if Canada’s largest free action sports festival could really turn a mall hub into something electric. Jackalope promised three days of skateboarding, BMX, breakdancing, and more. By the end of the weekend, around 50,000 people would drift through Celebration Square. We showed up just hoping to see how fearless people could get.
It didn’t take long to find out. The square was buzzing. DJs were throwing down overlapping sets, so you’d catch breakbeats in one ear and slow hip hop in the other. The air smelled like sweat, hot asphalt, and sweet kettle corn. Vendors were handing out free Haribo gummies to kids darting between the crowd. About 500 people clustered by the bouldering wall, cheering whenever a climber slipped, then scrambled back up and laughed it off.
Nearby, skateboarders took turns on rails and vertical walls. Some were kids barely four years old. Others were grown adults covered in tattoos with pants so baggy they nearly swallowed their boards. Every time someone fell, they popped up grinning before half the crowd even realized they had hit the ground.
At the breakdance stage, the DJ watched the dancers closely, feeding them beats that made toddlers bounce and older heads nod along. An announcer yelled, “Love is the second element of hip hop!” after watching two rivals hug, share daps, and clutch their beanies in awe when someone nailed a move that seemed impossible. A crew named Pizza Poutine advanced to the finals. It was probably the most Canadian thing I heard all night.
We found a patch of grass and watched it all unfold on the big screen. Right in front of us, a toddler spun in sloppy circles trying to copy the dancers. Her face was lit up with joy. Her mom recorded it on her phone while her dad stood there with his arms folded, trying to look serious, even though his foot still tapped to the beat.
The crowd was a full mix of Mississauga. There were old skaters, Gen Z kids with pink-kiss hair, immigrant families taking selfies, and cops who on another night might have been handing out tickets. Instead, they were filming breakdance battles and lining up for free Arizona teas.
On the bleachers, I met a woman who has lived nearby for years. “It’s usually concerts here, or a skating rink in the winter,” she told me. “I’ve never seen breakdancing and hip hop take over the square like this. I’m glad we wandered in. Makes me love this area even more.”
That felt like the real point of Jackalope, at least to me. It wasn’t just about the pros landing 360 flips or kids taking gentle spills off the climbing wall. It was about how all these people, families, newcomers, old heads, cops, and skaters, gathered close, laughed when someone fell, and cheered even harder when they got back up. For a few hours on a humid July night, Mississauga felt less like a sprawl of condos and more like one big backyard. Everyone was moving to the same beat.
Marie Pascual - Between Worlds 
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