While other kids played catch with their dads in the backyard after dinner, Gunnarson and his pop played a far different game; binding, tying and trapping young Dean and challenging him to get free.

His first real "escape" -- unless you count the "Great Escape" Gunnarson jokingly says we all share, our exit from the womb during birth, -- came when he freed himself from a stubborn skipping rope after a particularly heated game of Cowboys and Indians when he was only eight years old. Friends would tie his shoes in knots and he'd get free. Soon Dean had graduated to experimentations with handcuffs, straitjackets, coffins, etc.

He's been astounding Winnipeggers, Manitobans and Canadians in the years that followed with his uncanny ability to get out of impossible and dangerous situations. You name it, and Dean Gunnarson has conquered it in his daring career as an escape artist. He's been on the front page of every major daily newspaper in Canada.

Finally, on Halloween night last month, through what can only be called a strange twist of fate during a gala tribute to the great Houdini, the entire world got a look at Dean Gunnarson and they were bowled over by what they saw.

He not only wowed the viewing public, but impressed his peers, the creme de la creme of the world of magic who watched from the wings. The accolades are still pouring in from as far away as, yes, believe it or not, Saudi Arabia! Dean's name has since been dropped on both the Carson show and Entertainment Tonight. Offers are flowing in. There's a Carson spot booked in December The kid is hot!

Yes, Dean Gunnarson, the skinny blond kid who grew up playing with handcuffs and chains around the 'Peg, has suddenly hit the big time, and you couldn't write a wilder Hollywood script or fairy tale. More people saw Dean Gunnarson on that one night than saw the great Houdini in his entire lifetime!

Gunnarson was scheduled to perform several minor escapes on the star-studded program The Search of Houdini live from Los Angeles October 31. He was to escape from a special pair of handcuffs only Houdini himself had ever beaten, and free himself hanging chained from a straitjacket at the same spot Houdini performed the thrilling feat back in 1915.

Suddenly, the 23-year-old was also thrust into the role of under study who gets a BIG shot at the limelight moments before curtain. His part in the show was minor, although a tribute to his budding abilities as Canada's greatest escape artist. The Amazing Randi, however, was slated to perform the daring Milk Jug Escape, a major slot on the program and one of the most difficult escapes of all.

Randi slips, injures his back prior to show time and Gunnarson, whom Randi views as his successor anyway, steps in to save the day.

"What's really eerie," he says, "was that very morning I was watching a Happy Days rerun in which Randi accidentally drinks a glass of alcohol which he is allergic to instead of water and is unable to perform. The Fonz has to step in to do the Milk Jug Escape. Deja vu or what!"

Sounds too good to be true, right? But the kid who started off his professional career doing magic and juggling on rock and roll bus tours to the U.S., is headed for bigger and better things a la fellow Winnipegger Doug Henning. . . the sky is the limit! Henning, after the LA. show, paid Gunnarson the ultimate compliment by exclaiming, "How do you do it?"

Gunnarson has an interesting theory on why Winnipeg seems to produce such top-flight people in the field of magic like Henning, up-and-comer Brian Glow and now Dean Gunnarson in escapes.

"I think the isolation has a lot to do with it. It helps in two ways, it forces you to be independent and the seclusion gives you time to develop and buffers you from the mainstream where ideas are stolen. Nobody's ripped me off.

"I also think the multicultural influences here force you to come up with your own ideas, challenging one to be creatively independent."

Dean Gunnarson was born January 27, 1964 in Winnipeg. His parents moved to San Antonio, Texas until Dean was 11 and returned to Winnipeg where the youngster first became interested in magic and escapes.

His dad and he used to play after- dinner bondage games when Dean was growing up. After the rock juggling gig, the young self-confessed entrepreneur began performing at friends' birthday parties at McDonalds while training in theatre at school.

Eventually escapes became his exclusive domain. He has a $10,000 collection of handcuffs that would make the Marquis de Sade cringe with envy. "I realized there were more starving actors than escape artists. I began to specialize. I'm in a field by myself basically."

A book his mother had given him at the age of nine on Houdini had a profound effect on him, but the escape specialist insists that although he has admired, studied and respected Houdini throughout his life, there was never a sense of hero worship.

P.T. Barnum summed up Houdini best when he called him the greatest showman in the field, says Dean. "The biggest thrill for me was when people like Copperfield and Henning complimented me on my showmanship after the Los Angeles gig."

But he's paid his dues. There's only one way to learn what he knows, and that's to dare to do it. Winnipeggers are familiar with some of the hairy stunts he's pulled over the years. He's escaped from a coffin lowered into the Red River, freed himself from suspended straitjackets, conquered all manner of handcuffs and manacles, given the RCMP fits and awed the public at large. Thought to be somewhat of a flake by some, Gunnarson has proven his dedication and professionalism. "I don't do it for you," he says flatly, "I do it for me You just watch.

"Sure, I want the American market," he adds. "We've had lots of offers since the show and very interesting ones. The temptation was to jump at the first to come along. But staying in control is one of the keys to what I do."

Instead, Dean stayed in Winnipeg and did a recent show in Portage La Prairie before heading south of the border.

Perhaps Gunnarson's unique show partially explains his fascination with the fight for freedom. It is based on the great men of freedom in history: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy and the impossible historical situations in which they "escaped" to freedom. It's a dazzling display of showmanship and escape artistry rooted in history.

"The show creates its own world. The switch is Canadians have seen it first. It's the Americans who are excited now. But I've been supported all along by people here and l'm proud to be a Canadian I insisted they use a Canadian flag for my stunt on the show."

It looks like Dean Gunnarson's next great escape is out of Canada to take on America and the world.

"Panic and you're dead!"

It was Remembrance Day, a day dedicated to honoring those who fought and risked their lives for freedom, and I was talking to a young man who has carved a career out of freedom and escape.

Dean Gunnarson and I sat in Impressions Cafe and discuss freedom, bondage, escape, history, attitude, psychic phenomena, magic, living and dying.

Physically, other than a few telltale scars on wrists mangled by handcuffs over the years, and the inability to touch his toes after stretching ligaments like pretzels, Gunnarson looks like your average 23-year-old.

He isn't trying to escape any of my questions on this day. Although he dodged revealing any real trade secrets, he was frank and honest about himself and what he does, revealing a thoughtful, down-to-earth young man whose big secret is hard work and dedication.

He likes history and collecting things, he escapes by going to the movies, listening to music or relaxing in a whirlpool. He's not weird or strange, constantly obsessed with death and risk-taking. "I don't have a fascination with death. People shouldn't live in such fear of dying that they end up cheating themselves out of living," he says.

"Yes, I have faced my fears, come to grips with them and I'm not afraid of a calculated risk."

On the physical side Gunnarson couldn't name any specific assets to the art of escape except endurance "you have to learn to hang in there."

I also asked Dean about the mental side of what he does, the mind set he creates prior to an escape. "There's a certain amount of psyche to it. First, I forget about the audience and control all of my fears. You must maintain this control. If you panic you are dead."

"It is difficult not to freak," admits Gunnarson. "After I did the coffin escape the ambulance people told me that if I had panicked in the least bit I would have been dead. I was without oxygen for four minutes and I was blue when they pulled me out. But I kept my cool.

"You have to believe in yourself. Attitude is so important in everything we do."

Dean Gunnarson's advice to young escape artist turks? "BE CAREFUL! They'd have to pay me a million dollars to do the coffin trick now, but I did it for kicks when I was a kid. All I can say is work hard.

"There's lots of work yet for me but it's coming."