Shout-out to Victor Delamarre, a musclebound Montreal cop whose feats of strength, (climbing a ladder carrying a horse in a sling, bending a quarter between his thumb and forefinger, etc) made him the heir apparent to Louis Cyr.Delamarre was born into the lumberjack trade 50 miles north of Chicoutimi and came to Montreal where he fathered six girls and four boys.
He was deemed too small for the Montreal police force at 5'8" and 154 lbs but when they saw his feats of strength on display in freakshows like the one picture in the postcard to the left (the best image I could find of the guy) they hired him on and he fought crime for most of his life.
Some of his feats,* such as lifting up cars or 20 policemen or the coin-bending trick were surely stunts but that's ok..what do you want, to sue him for entertaining people?
At about age 56 he moved to Quebec City where he lived for 10 years before succumbing to a long-term illness in hospital in 1955.
He apparently did some wrestling before he died as well, which pissed off some purists.
Back in the day Montreal cops sought strong men to hire but we now have 34 percent female cops, twice the rate of Toronto.
According to a friend named LB who is looking for a Montreal apartment, "recently.a superintendent told me that he'd like to rent to me because, you know, some black people had looked at the place. Also, the windows were cracked because the building's owners were Jewish and didn't want to pay to fix them, and there had recently been cockroaches but then, the previous tenants were Chinese, and you know Chinese people aren't very clean."
That last story has nothing to do with Delamarre but I put it in just to see if you're actually reading this stuff to the end.
Delamarre is said to have lived in Alma, Hebertville, Quebec City, Montreal and possibly many other places in the province and the various timelines having him living in a couple of places at once, so who knows.
*In 1914 - Hifted world record weight of 309.5 lbs with one hand, lifted 201 pounds with one finger and lifted platforms with 60 people weighing 7000 lbs