BLACKFOOT — Miranda Gillins said the most difficult thing she tried to do while walking on water at the Eastern Idaho State Fair on Sunday was trying to walk backwards.

“Going backwards and standing up. I thought it would be really sweet,” she said of her decision to try walking backwards. 

But all the falling she did was among the funnest part of the experience.

What the 11-year-old sixth-grader from Blackfoot did Sunday afternoon was attempt one of the newer attractions at the fair, called “Walk on Water.”

“Last year was our first year here,” said Cody Drago, who was managing the attraction. “We have inflatable spheres that the kids get inside of, they zip them up, fill it with air and they run around on top of the water.”

The attraction costs $8 and Drago says that buys the child about five minutes of trying to stay upright inside that sphere, maybe a little more if the day is slow.

Walk on Water is just one of a number of attractions in the West Events area, that location accessed by walking through the walkway that momentarily runs under the ground. But once you come out of that tunnel, you are hit with a number of choices to occupy your time, many of which are free and focused on the kids.

One of those free events is the Live Shark Encounter. It’s also among the attractions that first draws your attention as you come into the West Events area.

“The biggest part of our show is we have a 5,000 gallon aquarium with four sharks in it and we put a diver in with them,” said Rick Pefley, one of the attraction’s operators. “There are other things to the show, we do some skits with the kids and stuff, but that’s the biggest part of it. He has some routines he goes through with the sharks.”

Between the shows, those sharks are on display.

It’s the Live Shark Encounter’s first year at the Eastern Idaho Fair, but it’s hardly the event’s first year in operation. Based out of Myakka City, Fla., it’s been touring fairs and other events for about 15 years.

Outside of the obvious dangers associated with having someone inside a tank with four live sharks, Pefley says transporting the exhibit from one location to another can be a difficult task. It’s also one they have down to a near routine.

“We have a 5,000 gallon aquarium that we have to drop about a quarter of the water to get it under 80,000 pounds,” he said of meeting federal load limitations. “It’s unbaffled so your going to avoid panic stops and quick starts. It sloshes around, but these are sharks you find in the surf so the slosh doesn’t really bother them much.”

The Live Shark Encounter does three to four shows daily while Walk on Water is open all hours.