What has Gravenhurst done for us?
After a decade of being featured in the local press, with more than a few news coverage controversies to my credit;…. more than a few political adversaries hunting me down, my portrait in black and white and also cartoon, topping numerous aggressive columns, and then a lengthy run as a freelance, pain in the arse contributor, our home in Gravenhurst offered a pleasant respite from the otherwise public domain….. which could get pretty interesting at times, particularly when the subject character of a news story or column didn’t agree with the editorial point of view. I’ve stared down a fair number of threats. Several goomers have threatened physical harm and there have been a few sundry death threats over the years, and well, the writing goes on regardless. Gradually I removed my face from the stories I wrote, and because most of the material was district wide in the Muskoka Adavance, and Muskoka Sun, I started to enjoy being much less recognized and robustly encountered. Those who wished to secure my writing assistance or to give me the next “really big” story tip, found me alive and well, thriving here in uptown Gravenhurst. It was nice to be able to shop locally without a boisterous head-to-head with somebody wishing to give me crap because they didn’t like, for example, being mentioned in the drinking and driving story on the front page, or who otherwise felt compelled to down-dress this reporter about the less than stellar theatre review given his or her most recent performance. Gads, I heard it all from 1979 to the mid 1990’s, the sensible part of the last century when I assumed a lesser profile writing position here in my comfortable Gravenhurst headquarters. Instead I spent more of my work week on larger research, and historically themed projects. It wasn’t long before I was on the World Wide Web, which we installed for our boys’ educational pursuits. I stayed away from the technology until the day my son Robert asked whether I would be interested to see the results of an on-line search of my name. Being as vain as any artist-writer kind, I feigned modest interest, and found myself mesmerized within moments of viewing that glaring monitor screen. I couldn’t believe how many sites had my name attached for writing work that somehow and for some reason was published on-line without my knowledge. The rest is, as they say, history. Now I’m taking a greater hand in adding to my stock of editorial material available on-line, including this newest project.
I have always measured my place of residence as regards to quanity and quality of editorial output. Up until about the fifth or sixth year living in this Gravenhurst house, the only other place that inspired more editorial composition was in the attic office I once had, in the Manitoba Street residence, the former, quite haunted home and office of Dr. Peter McGibbon and his wife Mabel, situated in uptown Bracebridge. What appealed to the fledgling writer in this instance, was the view the attic provided, onto Bracebridge’s Memorial Park. It is still a wonderfully scenic little park site, with bandshell and fenced war memorial. It now has a beautiful Victorian era fountain at the northern corner of the park. The fountain was once on the site of Woodchester Villa and Museum, and my yearly task as director was to attempt to correct its askew, to the west, worsening, annoying lean. The point is, the view from three stories up, all seasons of the year, was a voyeur’s dream situation. I could watch the town without it watching me. I could study the citizenry all times of the day, criss-crossing the park, heading downtown then uptown, the school kids trundling off to school on weekday mornings, and running home in high spirits after that final bell.
I had positioned my chair to be parallel to the window, and my typewriter on a small table in front, so that I could take a side glance downward if I got stuck on any detail, or there was for whatever reason a shortfall of immediate inspiration. I was never stuck for more than a few moments before something else would enter the scene and invoke some memory of reconsideration worthy of print. It was hard to leave that house, typewriter in hand, at the end of my residency. The house was torn down shortly after my move, and long since its unceremonious demise, I still visit the site, a sort of impromptu pilgrimage on the spur of the moment, and think back about the days when I would write from sunrise to set, and beyond just because the mood struck.
Now if you know much about the writer-kind, artists and creators generally, you may appreciate that residence is a weighty subject, and that it’s just as easy to be suffocated by an environs as encouraged. When we moved to Gravenhurst’s Segwun Boulevard, my biggest concern was whether or not I would be afforded similar sources of inspiration, as I had enjoyed at the McGibbon house. We had purchased the property because the neighborhood appeared to be quiet, with well maintained properties, kindly neighbors, an abutting green belt I have long-called “The Bog,” running almost the entire length of two urban streets, Segwun and Oriole, and the fact it seemed to be the perfect home to raise our two young sons. Segwun Boulevard is a dead end, and the traffic is still, after all these years, sparse compared to other linking roadways in town.
Admittedly, it took a long time to adjust from the more inspirational qualities of our other homes, and a family cottage we lived in for awhile in the Village of Windermere. In each dwelling we had lived, I was always able to fumble around for a good vantage point and produce editorial copy either forced or gently persuaded from my usually active imagination. When we first arrived at Birch Hollow, our present dwelling, I was writing for a number of significant local publications, and I had pressing deadlines every week and a publisher who didn’t except excuses period. I hated this side of writing. I have always been prolific but my best work comes from enthusiasm for a subject, or because of an inspirational setting, not from the incentive of a pay cheque. So initially I hated writing from this house and tried on several occasions to sell it and move elsewhere. I could write in my home office if I truly had to, in order to make ends meet. If on the other hand, I was to write happily, and willingly for many more hours of the day, I simply required a new environment. I gave up on Birch Hollow because of a bad start. To begin with, we tried to sell (it was our first taste of recession) within a hair’s breadth of the 1989-90 housing crash in Ontario, and that seemed pretty much an omen to me. When we tried to sell it a half dozen years after that, the realtor cut up our abode so much, and asked for so many concessions in pricing and or physical changes to the property, such as converting to natural gas, that we decided as a family to drop the idea entirely and remain a while longer at good old Birch Hollow. This was pretty much the turning point. Sometimes resignation can do that to a person. I positioned myself in about thirty different locations in the house for brief periods, until I found a comfortable portal to watch clearly over The Bog, my raspberry patch in the front garden, and the lilacs we transplanted in our garden from our summer cottage on Lake Rosseau, planted originally by Mrs. Sam Stripp in the early 1900’s. Over time and with a few adjustments, and the coming of the computer era to our abode, my final adoption of Birch Hollow as the place to remain would never again be in doubt. I have produced an absolute mountain of editorial copy since I’ve been living in Gravenhurst, and that has translated into about five regionally themed books, and hundreds of feature columns for local and provincial publications. From a place I initially believed void of inspiration, and just a place to hang a hat and hammer out copy for cash, this blog site is my own humble validation about the good life my family, this writer, have been afforded living in South Muskoka, in the charming town of Gravenhurst.
As I noted earlier in my blog submission, this collection of “I Love Gravenhurst” personal testimonials has not been solicited, paid for, begged of me, or been designed in any way to promote anything more than the truly good graces of the town that first embraced our family in late 1989, and still holds us close in this new year of 2007. One of my own cornerstones of respect in this life, is to recognize the contributions others have made to my own sense of success and prosperity. In this case, these humble testimonials highly regard and bestow thanks generally, for what we have enjoyed and celebrated about our existence in this ballywick. It isn’t specifically about friendships, work partnerships, neighbors or bad neighbors. It will hopefully be insightful about the reasons we should all be more respectful and proud of our hometown, and show it by working hard to improve its well being from the centre outward. Sometimes it seems we expect too much from outside investment, to make the positive changes to our community, and defer making the kind of investments and changes that enforce the reality of kith and kin, and the initimate history of families that built this town from the Canadian wilds. We get upset when external influences and intrusions change our daily lives and revise our perception of the future. Yet time and again I have watched political will make historic changes while many of the most prominent, significant, historic families of Gravenhurst have remain subdued, only to complain later they weren’t consulted or aware of imposed changes. As a newcomer to Gravenhurst, I look to these founding families, the ones who have ancestral roots in every urban and residential neighborhood, (family names etched onto the stone slabs of our community cemeteries), for direction. What is “needed change,” “required progress”, and “sensible advancement?” What of this “change” and “progress” is in keeping with the traditions that have been honored here from the first humble homesteads? It’s not about resistance to change, that a long time resident may object to a project but rather the concern that a way of life, a small town culture, a neigborliness may be scuttled by the blind acceptance that strip malls and golf courses are symbols of the new and better way of life. If anything I despise today of our movers and shakers, politicians included, is the failing reverence and respect for the heritage they walk on and over, in their reckless, rapid pursuit for more expansion and investment than the town beside or down the road. This quest for more and better has not served the cultural, historic composition of respective towns, Gravenhurst included.
In both Bracebridge and Gravenhurst I have never once been requested by town hall, or even one politician, to make comment on a matter, just one, about local heritage and the importance of its recognition and preservation. While I’ve had reasonable relations with associate historians, Gravenhurst having some of the finest, most dedicated historians in rural Ontario, there really isn’t much interest in listening to old farts yarn on about the ways and precedents of the past. One of the reasons I enjoy living in Gravenhurst is this strong relationship with the past, and that descendents of community builders from the 1800’s still want to be stakeholders in the next century. I feel comfortable being in their company. My only criticism is that their passion for maintaining these respective legacies, and the heritage of their town generally, is a much too polite and gently wielded reaction, to be taken as serious opposition. Particularly to let those who show indifference to matters of local cultural heritage, know the full weight of historical precedent, family connectedness, and the true significance of being kin to the folks buried beneath those graveyard markers. The kin that built the foundation of the community in the first place. What a tremendous disservice to dismiss their contributions, their dedication, their base construction of what we enjoy as a community today. And while more than a few glad handers and glory hounds will claim it was their contributions that gave us these good graces, the historically inclined know differently. If I want to know who built this community, I need only take a casual stroll through our local and regional cemeteries to find the builders; the carpenters, bakers, doctors, nurses, businessmen, clerks, steamship staff, gravediggers, clergy, teachers and homemakers, and yes those true leaders in local politics who worked hard to get the town and district recognized abroad, for improvements in all our respective neighborhoods. I can browse through books like “Light of Other Days,” and read the names of Gravenhurst’s many builders from the first log cabin to the steamship empire that carries on to this day. It’s not that I spend all of my time dwelling in the past.
As an historian, I equally respect the role of present workers, leaders and policiticans, and all other visionaries who will take us into the future. Yet I still have a modicum of worry the modern day policy makers and investors, anxious to go forward with the redevelopment of our community, including the visionaries who might see advantages in even more golf course development, have no respectful appreciation of the premise history is a critical foundation to any successful future. My rather naïve hope is that our mutual pride and respect for this home town, and genuine concern for its long-term well being, will continue to motivate the citizenry to speak up and get involved in matters that appear disrespectful and intrusive, to the way of life we have enjoyed living in Gravenhurst. While the critics may argue we have already dawdled too much and scared away important investment because of our restrictive reputation, (some argue a town suspended in time between the 1940’s and 60’s), being reluctant to except progress at all cost may turn out to be our town’s greatest moral asset. Faced with stepping forward, or stepping back in the face of new age change, has been the damnation of many small communities, most abandoning good planning out of greed, in the bid to be more competitive and prosperous than neighboring communities. I concur that it is the problem of many good old hometowns in North America that opted for Jack’s magic beans in the ill-fated quest for economic fulfillment. Gravenhurst still enjoys an opportunity to defend its historic, cultural integrity, while at the same time being open to new investment and more expansive progress. It means however, that those who know Gravenhurst best, and who are ingrained in every decade of this town’s history, speak up and let it be known a legacy is worth its weight in moral character. This will be demanded many times in the coming decade as development interests in all areas of this town continue to experience growth pressures from external investment. Ten years ago I predicted that by early in the new century, Gravenhurst would experience tremendous new growth and its governance would be under increasing pressure to handle redevelopment of the existing urban neighborhood, and contend with the demands for outward expansion. I wasn’t wrong, and if anything I underestimated the present urbanizing pressures.
This is the time now that I would like to see the citizens of Gravenhurst, those who appreciate the sacrifices of the founding families, the first settlers to the courageous, visionary investors of our business community, who built and re-built our mainstreet, and all the painstaking work undertaken ever since, to take a greater, more personal interest in this community’s future well being and preservation. Folks with Muskoka in their blood, stepping up to take a leading role, is the only way of truly defending tradition. Gravenhurst has been a “survivor” community for decades, and has proven time and again, to be able to fight back to an even keel, despite the barrage from naysayers in perpetuity who believe it’s an inevitable, quite beyond salvage “sinking ship!”
I would like to make a start by detailing a rather important aspect of local history that gets very little attention, and frankly is deserving of a great deal more. I would like to introduce you to a chap by the name of William Dawson LeSueur, the bloke who named the newly established post office, “Gravenhurst,” in 1862.
I have always measured my place of residence as regards to quanity and quality of editorial output. Up until about the fifth or sixth year living in this Gravenhurst house, the only other place that inspired more editorial composition was in the attic office I once had, in the Manitoba Street residence, the former, quite haunted home and office of Dr. Peter McGibbon and his wife Mabel, situated in uptown Bracebridge. What appealed to the fledgling writer in this instance, was the view the attic provided, onto Bracebridge’s Memorial Park. It is still a wonderfully scenic little park site, with bandshell and fenced war memorial. It now has a beautiful Victorian era fountain at the northern corner of the park. The fountain was once on the site of Woodchester Villa and Museum, and my yearly task as director was to attempt to correct its askew, to the west, worsening, annoying lean. The point is, the view from three stories up, all seasons of the year, was a voyeur’s dream situation. I could watch the town without it watching me. I could study the citizenry all times of the day, criss-crossing the park, heading downtown then uptown, the school kids trundling off to school on weekday mornings, and running home in high spirits after that final bell.
I had positioned my chair to be parallel to the window, and my typewriter on a small table in front, so that I could take a side glance downward if I got stuck on any detail, or there was for whatever reason a shortfall of immediate inspiration. I was never stuck for more than a few moments before something else would enter the scene and invoke some memory of reconsideration worthy of print. It was hard to leave that house, typewriter in hand, at the end of my residency. The house was torn down shortly after my move, and long since its unceremonious demise, I still visit the site, a sort of impromptu pilgrimage on the spur of the moment, and think back about the days when I would write from sunrise to set, and beyond just because the mood struck.
Now if you know much about the writer-kind, artists and creators generally, you may appreciate that residence is a weighty subject, and that it’s just as easy to be suffocated by an environs as encouraged. When we moved to Gravenhurst’s Segwun Boulevard, my biggest concern was whether or not I would be afforded similar sources of inspiration, as I had enjoyed at the McGibbon house. We had purchased the property because the neighborhood appeared to be quiet, with well maintained properties, kindly neighbors, an abutting green belt I have long-called “The Bog,” running almost the entire length of two urban streets, Segwun and Oriole, and the fact it seemed to be the perfect home to raise our two young sons. Segwun Boulevard is a dead end, and the traffic is still, after all these years, sparse compared to other linking roadways in town.
Admittedly, it took a long time to adjust from the more inspirational qualities of our other homes, and a family cottage we lived in for awhile in the Village of Windermere. In each dwelling we had lived, I was always able to fumble around for a good vantage point and produce editorial copy either forced or gently persuaded from my usually active imagination. When we first arrived at Birch Hollow, our present dwelling, I was writing for a number of significant local publications, and I had pressing deadlines every week and a publisher who didn’t except excuses period. I hated this side of writing. I have always been prolific but my best work comes from enthusiasm for a subject, or because of an inspirational setting, not from the incentive of a pay cheque. So initially I hated writing from this house and tried on several occasions to sell it and move elsewhere. I could write in my home office if I truly had to, in order to make ends meet. If on the other hand, I was to write happily, and willingly for many more hours of the day, I simply required a new environment. I gave up on Birch Hollow because of a bad start. To begin with, we tried to sell (it was our first taste of recession) within a hair’s breadth of the 1989-90 housing crash in Ontario, and that seemed pretty much an omen to me. When we tried to sell it a half dozen years after that, the realtor cut up our abode so much, and asked for so many concessions in pricing and or physical changes to the property, such as converting to natural gas, that we decided as a family to drop the idea entirely and remain a while longer at good old Birch Hollow. This was pretty much the turning point. Sometimes resignation can do that to a person. I positioned myself in about thirty different locations in the house for brief periods, until I found a comfortable portal to watch clearly over The Bog, my raspberry patch in the front garden, and the lilacs we transplanted in our garden from our summer cottage on Lake Rosseau, planted originally by Mrs. Sam Stripp in the early 1900’s. Over time and with a few adjustments, and the coming of the computer era to our abode, my final adoption of Birch Hollow as the place to remain would never again be in doubt. I have produced an absolute mountain of editorial copy since I’ve been living in Gravenhurst, and that has translated into about five regionally themed books, and hundreds of feature columns for local and provincial publications. From a place I initially believed void of inspiration, and just a place to hang a hat and hammer out copy for cash, this blog site is my own humble validation about the good life my family, this writer, have been afforded living in South Muskoka, in the charming town of Gravenhurst.
As I noted earlier in my blog submission, this collection of “I Love Gravenhurst” personal testimonials has not been solicited, paid for, begged of me, or been designed in any way to promote anything more than the truly good graces of the town that first embraced our family in late 1989, and still holds us close in this new year of 2007. One of my own cornerstones of respect in this life, is to recognize the contributions others have made to my own sense of success and prosperity. In this case, these humble testimonials highly regard and bestow thanks generally, for what we have enjoyed and celebrated about our existence in this ballywick. It isn’t specifically about friendships, work partnerships, neighbors or bad neighbors. It will hopefully be insightful about the reasons we should all be more respectful and proud of our hometown, and show it by working hard to improve its well being from the centre outward. Sometimes it seems we expect too much from outside investment, to make the positive changes to our community, and defer making the kind of investments and changes that enforce the reality of kith and kin, and the initimate history of families that built this town from the Canadian wilds. We get upset when external influences and intrusions change our daily lives and revise our perception of the future. Yet time and again I have watched political will make historic changes while many of the most prominent, significant, historic families of Gravenhurst have remain subdued, only to complain later they weren’t consulted or aware of imposed changes. As a newcomer to Gravenhurst, I look to these founding families, the ones who have ancestral roots in every urban and residential neighborhood, (family names etched onto the stone slabs of our community cemeteries), for direction. What is “needed change,” “required progress”, and “sensible advancement?” What of this “change” and “progress” is in keeping with the traditions that have been honored here from the first humble homesteads? It’s not about resistance to change, that a long time resident may object to a project but rather the concern that a way of life, a small town culture, a neigborliness may be scuttled by the blind acceptance that strip malls and golf courses are symbols of the new and better way of life. If anything I despise today of our movers and shakers, politicians included, is the failing reverence and respect for the heritage they walk on and over, in their reckless, rapid pursuit for more expansion and investment than the town beside or down the road. This quest for more and better has not served the cultural, historic composition of respective towns, Gravenhurst included.
In both Bracebridge and Gravenhurst I have never once been requested by town hall, or even one politician, to make comment on a matter, just one, about local heritage and the importance of its recognition and preservation. While I’ve had reasonable relations with associate historians, Gravenhurst having some of the finest, most dedicated historians in rural Ontario, there really isn’t much interest in listening to old farts yarn on about the ways and precedents of the past. One of the reasons I enjoy living in Gravenhurst is this strong relationship with the past, and that descendents of community builders from the 1800’s still want to be stakeholders in the next century. I feel comfortable being in their company. My only criticism is that their passion for maintaining these respective legacies, and the heritage of their town generally, is a much too polite and gently wielded reaction, to be taken as serious opposition. Particularly to let those who show indifference to matters of local cultural heritage, know the full weight of historical precedent, family connectedness, and the true significance of being kin to the folks buried beneath those graveyard markers. The kin that built the foundation of the community in the first place. What a tremendous disservice to dismiss their contributions, their dedication, their base construction of what we enjoy as a community today. And while more than a few glad handers and glory hounds will claim it was their contributions that gave us these good graces, the historically inclined know differently. If I want to know who built this community, I need only take a casual stroll through our local and regional cemeteries to find the builders; the carpenters, bakers, doctors, nurses, businessmen, clerks, steamship staff, gravediggers, clergy, teachers and homemakers, and yes those true leaders in local politics who worked hard to get the town and district recognized abroad, for improvements in all our respective neighborhoods. I can browse through books like “Light of Other Days,” and read the names of Gravenhurst’s many builders from the first log cabin to the steamship empire that carries on to this day. It’s not that I spend all of my time dwelling in the past.
As an historian, I equally respect the role of present workers, leaders and policiticans, and all other visionaries who will take us into the future. Yet I still have a modicum of worry the modern day policy makers and investors, anxious to go forward with the redevelopment of our community, including the visionaries who might see advantages in even more golf course development, have no respectful appreciation of the premise history is a critical foundation to any successful future. My rather naïve hope is that our mutual pride and respect for this home town, and genuine concern for its long-term well being, will continue to motivate the citizenry to speak up and get involved in matters that appear disrespectful and intrusive, to the way of life we have enjoyed living in Gravenhurst. While the critics may argue we have already dawdled too much and scared away important investment because of our restrictive reputation, (some argue a town suspended in time between the 1940’s and 60’s), being reluctant to except progress at all cost may turn out to be our town’s greatest moral asset. Faced with stepping forward, or stepping back in the face of new age change, has been the damnation of many small communities, most abandoning good planning out of greed, in the bid to be more competitive and prosperous than neighboring communities. I concur that it is the problem of many good old hometowns in North America that opted for Jack’s magic beans in the ill-fated quest for economic fulfillment. Gravenhurst still enjoys an opportunity to defend its historic, cultural integrity, while at the same time being open to new investment and more expansive progress. It means however, that those who know Gravenhurst best, and who are ingrained in every decade of this town’s history, speak up and let it be known a legacy is worth its weight in moral character. This will be demanded many times in the coming decade as development interests in all areas of this town continue to experience growth pressures from external investment. Ten years ago I predicted that by early in the new century, Gravenhurst would experience tremendous new growth and its governance would be under increasing pressure to handle redevelopment of the existing urban neighborhood, and contend with the demands for outward expansion. I wasn’t wrong, and if anything I underestimated the present urbanizing pressures.
This is the time now that I would like to see the citizens of Gravenhurst, those who appreciate the sacrifices of the founding families, the first settlers to the courageous, visionary investors of our business community, who built and re-built our mainstreet, and all the painstaking work undertaken ever since, to take a greater, more personal interest in this community’s future well being and preservation. Folks with Muskoka in their blood, stepping up to take a leading role, is the only way of truly defending tradition. Gravenhurst has been a “survivor” community for decades, and has proven time and again, to be able to fight back to an even keel, despite the barrage from naysayers in perpetuity who believe it’s an inevitable, quite beyond salvage “sinking ship!”
I would like to make a start by detailing a rather important aspect of local history that gets very little attention, and frankly is deserving of a great deal more. I would like to introduce you to a chap by the name of William Dawson LeSueur, the bloke who named the newly established post office, “Gravenhurst,” in 1862.
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