A WRITER’S LAMENT
I can remember the din of traffic all day and all night, in central London, and I’ve known the historic peace of a quiet nook in Robin Hood’s (Nottingham’s) Sherwood Forest. I have written in the city, on buses, trains and airplanes. I’ve written in a seaside cabin in Florida, and wrote a journal about our honeymoon in Colonial Williamsburg, in Virginia. I’ve written in a miniaturized manor house, known as “Seven Person’s Cottage,” on the shore of Lake Joseph, a cottage on Lake Muskoka, an old family homestead on Lake Rosseau, at residences ranging from a Toronto apartment, two Bracebridge apartments, and three bungalows including our present abode we call Birch Hollow. I’ve worked in busy newsrooms, and written rough drafts of crime stories while sitting in the midst of court proceedings. I’ve worked with the circumstances I find myself in......whether wild and woolly with noise, or as silent as the morning dew settling on my scraggly front lawn.
At Birch Hollow, however, I must confess to having lost some capability of working with distraction. There was a time in my life that I couldn’t write, without the din or the skirl of bagpipes coming from a partying neighbor’s home. Here it is so quiet most of the time, I have admittedly lost some of my earlier capabilities. When I write here now, the only intrusion is the one that works for me.....the chatter of birds and all natural sounds. I can no longer work with a radio on, and no matter if it’s Mozart or Pink Floyd, I started to find that the music would adversely influence, what I was trying to write. So I had to settle down here in my office with lesser distraction, now mired in my elder years.....and although I still get wildly interested in writing when there’s a storm brewing, or wind singing through the evergreens, I find these days, a purring cat on my lap one of few welcome intrusions.
I hate phone calls that halt me in the middle of a column, and when the earth movers start rumbling away, and the lawnmowers, chainsaws and leaf blowers churn up the solitude, well, I just find something else to do. I don’t ask the world or the neighborhood to conform to my work schedule, or pay any attention to this writer in residence. I will find my time to work, with the sounds of nature, sooner or later in any given day.
Here is another installment of the Ada Kinton biography, being prepared for submission to both the National Art Gallery and Art Gallery of Ontario archives, dedicated to the Gravenhurst Food Bank, operated by the Salvation Army........and yes, I did it during a most precious calm here in urban Gravenhurst. Not a chainsaw buzz within two blocks.
IN THE WORDS OF THE ARTIST - ADA FLORENCE KINTON IN MUSKOKA
By Ted Currie
A chickadee, just this moment, hit the window pane above my desk. I ran out onto the verandah, to see if it had survived the substantial bump. I cradled it in my hands for a few moments, and just when I thought it had succumbed, the wee creature opened its eyes, began to moves its wings, as if to push free of my hand, and when I put it down on a chair cushion, it soon sat upright and stared right at me. I wondered if we had met in some previous life. It was that kind of look. As suddenly as our paths had crossed, the chickadee hopped up onto the verandah railing, fluttered about for a few moments, and took off for parts unknown. I was delighted. I thought it was an appropriate way to commence this months column, on a pioneer artist in our region of Ontario.
In the early months of 1883, Ada Florence Kinton began to explore the narrow lanes and winding country paths, in and around the pioneer settlement of Huntsville, Ontario, in the northern part of the District of Muskoka. Artist, writer, and eventual mission worker, with the Salvation Army, the young Miss Kinton had come to stay with her brothers, Ed and Mackie, both Huntsville businessmen. After the death of her father, and the earlier demise of her mother, family felt it best if their sister left city life in England, for the health and healing benefits of the Canadian wilds. It took awhile before Ada Kinton found much in the way of benefits in the rugged, hardship-laden, pioneer lifestyle.
What makes her work so significant for regional and art historians, is that she made copious and highly detailed notes about what she was painting. Even without seeing her paint-boards, the written descriptions allow us the full pleasure of her creative insight. Ada never thought her journal would be published one day. Her sister, Sara Randleson, crafted the handwritten notes into book-form, in 1907, entitled “Just One Blue Bonnett,” a reference particularly to Ada’s eventual work with the Salvation Army. The artist / missionary had died several years earlier, after moving back to Huntsville to convalesce. We have to go back to a colder season to re-join her journal. The date is March 9th, 1883, Huntsville, Ontario.
“Went into Miss Godolphin’s shanty, an odd, nice little wooden house, having a certain indescribable English air. Took tea, afternoon tea, English fashion. It reminded one so delightfully of home ways. It seemed quite a change to have tiny cups of pink china that felt like egg-shell in comparison, handed to you to sip slowly, and slices of thin bread so delicate and small that they might have been petals of a flower, and baked dough biscuits just a little larger and thicker than a dollar, cut in half and buttered, and passed round on one big plate, to hold between the thumb and finger, and nibble delicately, and dear old Granma Dolphi, at the tea tray with a little brown teapot, asking if you ‘took sugar.’ It seemed so sweet and homey to me, but to Mrs. Kinton (here sister-in-law), the scraps of food seemed aggravation with her Canadian ideas of plenty.”
“March 10th. Snowing heavily. Foddie (a Kinton child) flung her head at mine and broke my glasses a little. Felt worse than a toothache. A settler’s little girl tramped in to get some goose-oil for the baby, sick with bronchitis. Goose-oil is considered very efficacious in such cases. Afternoon, went for a walk to meet Ed, returning from Burk’s Falls. Didn’t meet him and had to return on foot with the children. Boyo (another child) refused to walk and had to be carried. He looked quite picturesque, lying on his back in the snow, in his little crimson wool coat and cap, and scarlet socks, with arms and legs spread so far and wide over the land, with his eyes screwed tight and his cheeks about as red and brilliant as holly berries, causing the forest to ring again with his screams and cries.” It’s quite easy to visualize the scene, as described by Miss Kinton, as she painted with carefully chosen words. It might have compelled her to later sketch the wee lad in his bright winter contrast.
She writes, “There had been quite a heavy fall of snow and it was still coming down steadily, but the air was soft and mild, and the track well covered with nice elastic, sandy dry snow; so walking there was pretty easy. But coming back, the falling snow was just as downy and soft, and light, and warm-looking, as if it were the big blanket Ed speaks of, spread over the old earth to keep it warm - all feathery - or like an ermine mantle, and just lightly spread over every branch and shrub tree. The silence almost appalls one, and if you stand and listen, no sound but the almost silent beat of the tiny myriad flakes, as they fall with their noiseless thud on the trees around you, in a sort of faint musical tinkling, and yet not harsh enough to be a tinkle even.
“You may also hear a gentle tapping perhaps; and if you look, right steadily above, somewhere between earth and sky, among the exquisite Gothic arches, formed by the branches and slender trunks in the forest cathedral, you may hear a woodpecker tapping at the bark for ‘brekbust,’ as Foddie and Boyo say. Or you may hear the jingle of some coming sleigh bells - but that’s all on a day like this. We got home very wet and tired but thankful and hungry. Ed came in soon after, having been immersed in a vast buffalo robe in the cutter.”
The author-painter wrote the following description, on the eleventh of March. “Strong wind, snow drifting and swirling about violently. Slight fall of snow, said to be heavy and strong outside, beyond Toronto. Sat on the lounge in the buffalo robe by the stove all the afternoon, knitting my first sock. Mrs. Kinton and I gossiped steadily, and the babes ate taffy-sugar melted and poured onto a plate of snow. The new houses here look rather nice, about the colour of thick rich cream, little oblong blocks with slanting roofs with a window or two and a door. In the sunshine they get as golden as buttercups, and the pure snow gleams on the roofs. The sunrise and sunset bring out some very pretty colouring (hot buttered biscuit) among the shadows, purple violets, blues and pearly grey, or every tint and hue, but tender and vague in tone.
“The children are so pleased to see their father. He stoops down on the carpet, and they hover around him, fluttering their wings, and twittering like young birds. He brought some big fungi home (from his trip to Burk’s Falls), and the most enchanting was a wee mossy bird’s nest, with about a foot of birch bark attached - white birch.” “The inclement weather became known as ‘Wiggin’s Storm,” she noted in her journal on March 11th, 1883.
I raised my head, from the task at hand, the final edit before sending this tome off to the publisher, and I couldn’t help but notice my wee friend, the chickadee, had returned to the railing. The tiny bird was back at the feeder with a chum, and all appears safe and sound once more. I believe Ada would have found something inspiring about this brief liaison. I can so clearly visualize her cradling the injured creature, and sense her joy, watching it re-awaken, and fly off into the shadows of the leaning old hardwoods, here at Birch Hollow.
WHY NOT TALK ABOUT GHOSTS? UFO'S AND THINGS THAT WENT BUMP IN THE NIGHT?
THE VERY REAL FEAR OF RIDICULE
EVERY FEW MONTHS, A STUDENT WILL COME UP TO MY PARTNER, SUZANNE, AND ASK HER IF SHE IS THE MRS. CURRIE IN THE GHOST BOOK. SHE HAS A STANDARD RESPONSE, BECAUSE THE QUESTIONS ARE ALMOST ALWAYS THE SAME. "DO YOU MEAN THE STORY OF 'HERBIE,' IN THE GHOST BOOK, BY BARBARA SMITH?" "WHY YES," THEY REPLY, LOOKING AT HER BECAUSE, WELL, THERE'S SOMEONE THEY CAN ACTUALLY TALK TO, WHO CAN HONESTLY CLAIM, "TO HAVE SEEN A GHOST." SO ARDENT ABOUT THIS, THAT SHE AGREED TO HAVE HER STORY PUBLISHED IN A MAJOR COAST TO COAST GHOST ANTHOLOGY. I'M IN THERE TOO, BUT THEN I'M ALSO INCLUDED IN ANOTHER BOOK ON THE PARANORMAL, BY WELL KNOWN GHOST SLEUTH, ROBERT JOHN COLOMBO. SO IT'S PRETTY NORMAL CONVERSATION AROUND HERE, TO TALK ABOUT GHOSTS. THERE'S JUST ONE THING MORE UNUSUAL THAN SEEING GHOSTS, AND THAT'S ADMITTING YOU'RE NOT FRIGHTENED OF THEM. WE'RE AS CURIOUS AS THEY ARE…..AND I CAN SPEAK FOR THEM (THE APPARITIONS); BUT WE DON'T MIND THEIR INTRUSIONS, UNLESS IT COSTS US SLEEP. THE GHOST OF HERBIE, WHICH YOU CAN READ ON THIS BLOGSITE, BY GOING BACK A COUPLE OF MONTHS, WAS THE WAYWARD, EARTHBOUND SPIRIT OF A LOST LAD, OF ABOUT TEN YEARS OF AGE, WHO USED TO VISIT SON ANDREW IN THE WEE HOURS OF THE NIGHT…..HIS FACE APPEARING AT THE WINDOW OF HIS BEDROOM. WHEN HE'D AWAKE, HE COULD LOOK UP AND SEE THE CHILD'S FACE, ILLUMINATED THROUGH THE GLASS. HE MADE ME GO OUTSIDE, ON THESE OCCASIONS, TO FIND HIM. ANDREW BELIEVED IT WAS PETER PAN, AND HE DIDN'T WANT TO GO TO NEVERLAND. SUZANNE EVENTUALLY SAW THIS GHOST TWICE IN THE HOUSE. I HAD ONE EXPERIENCE WITH HERBIE.
IN THE EARLY 1980'S, I UPSET THE NEWSPAPER EXECUTIVES, AT MUSKOKA PUBLICATIONS, IN BRACEBRIDGE, (WHICH HAPPENED EVERY THIRD DAY DURING MY TENURE), WHEN I ANNOUNCED A GREAT UPCOMING FEATURE FOR THE PAPER, ON GHOSTS AND HOBGOBLINS I'D MET IN A MAINSTREET HOUSE. THIS WAS A STORY ABOUT THE MCGIBBON HOUSE IN BRACEBRIDGE, THAT HAD FORMERLY BELONGED TO WELL LOVED MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, AND TOWN DOCTOR, PETER MCGIBBON. EVERYONE WHO LIVED THERE, FROM ABOUT 1977 TO ABOUT 1984, UNDERSTOOD THE RAMBLINGS AND BUMPS IN THE NIGHT, FROM SOME RESIDENT PHENOMENON. IF YOU GO BACK A FEW BLOGS, YOU WILL FIND THE ONE THAT DETAILS MY FIRST WRITER'S LOFT, OVERLOOKING BRACEBRIDGE'S MEMORIAL PARK. I LOVED THE HOUSE, AND ALTHOUGH A TAD UNSETTLING THE FIRST FEW TIMES, THE ALLEGED HAUNTINGS WEREN'T FRIGHTENING, BUT THEY WERE FREQUENT. SO WHEN I DECIDED, AS EDITOR, TO RUN THE FEATURE, WITH THE HELP OF OUTSTANDING PHOTOGRAPHER, HAROLD WRIGHT, MANAGEMENT TRIED A NUMBER OF ARGUMENTS TO TONE IT DOWN…..OR BETTER STILL, SAVE IT FOR THE SUMMER PAPER….THE MUSKOKA SUN. WELL, I WON, AND WE MADE SOME BRACEBRIDGE HISTORY. I HAVE WORKED ON HUNDREDS OF SIMILAR FEATURES, BUT THIS ONE GOT THE BIGGEST RESPONSE OF THEM ALL. IT WAS APPARENT, MY ADMISSION THAT I BELIEVED IN GHOSTS, WAS ENOUGH TO ENCOURAGE OTHERS, WHO HAD EXPERIENCED SIMILAR APPARITIONS IN THEIR HOMES, COTTAGES ETC., TO SHARE THEIR STORIES. THE PROBLEM OF COURSE, IS THAT WHILE WE GOT EXCELLENT RESPONSES, NO ONE WANTED TO ATTACH THEIR NAMES.
I MUST HAVE HAD TWENTY OUTSTANDING GHOST STORIES. I COULDN'T USE ONE OF THEM, BECAUSE I NEEDED THEIR CONSENT, AND IT WAS STILL THAT TIME IN COMMUNITY HISTORY, THAT FOLKS WORRIED TO A FRENZY WHAT OTHERS WOULD THINK OF THEIR CONFESSIONS. I HAD CONVERSATIONS WITH TWO YOUNG LADIES I KNEW, ABOUT GHOSTS AND THEIR KIND, AND THEY WANTED TO HEAR ABOUT ALL MY ENCOUNTERS. I KNEW THE WAY THEY WERE LOOKING AT ME, THAT THEY HAD ALSO SEEN SIMILAR APPARITIONS…..BUT HAD BUILT-UP SUCH A DEFENSE, ABOUT THE ENCOUNTERS THAT I COULDN'T RELAX EITHER ONE OF THEM…..OR ASSURE THEM ADEQUATELY THAT THEIR STORIES WERE SAFE WITH ME. IT'S A PROBLEM OF BEING A WRITER, THAT MOST PEOPLE THINK THAT UNLESS THEY SAY "OFF THE RECORD," EVERY FIVE MINUTES OF CONVERSATION, I WILL BE QUOTING THEM IN MY NEW GHOST BOOK…….THAT BY THE WAY, I'M NOT WRITING. I CAN TELL, WHEN I'M TALKING TO SOMEONE ABOUT GHOSTS, IF THEY'VE ALSO HAD AN EXPERIENCE. IT SHOWS, NO MATTER HOW HARD THEY TRY TO DEFLECT THE FOCUS AWAY FROM THEMSELVES. THEY STILL BELIEVE, THEY WILL BE RIDICULED IN THE COMMUNITY, FOR HAVING BELIEFS IN THE PARANORMAL…..WHICH IS STILL TRUE TO A MINOR EXTENT TODAY….DESPITE THE FACT WRITERS LIKE BARBARA SMITH AND JOHN COLOMBO HAVE MADE IT FAR MORE ACCEPTABLE TO ADMIT TO HAVING SEEN GHOSTS. WHICH I THINK IS A GOOD THING.
John Colombo had even suggested that I put a book together of Muskoka ghost stories, and he helped launch my first full-season series, of local ghost stories, one summer in The Muskoka Sun, in the late 1990's, which was also an enormous success. It's not every fledgling ghost hunter who is endorsed by one of the best known paranormal researchers in Canada. But the problem was a big one. They, my story sources, would spend hours setting up the story, and explaining every detail, and then say, "But you can't use any of this in print." I got to the point that I asked the question before going to the interview, and if they said "no way," to me using the story in print, then I dropped the interview. Some required quite a bit of time and driving to meet with, and at the time I was working free-lance, and simply couldn't justify the expense. So several years ago, I started to compile my own accounts of paranormal encounters, on the Muskoka and Algonquin Ghost blogsite…..containing our family's inventory of strange meetings with those wandering spirits trapped on earth.
The main reason I adore these stories, is the fact we have lost so many cultural beliefs and traditions, and no one has given much attention, to the loss of this important aspect of Muskoka and regional Canadian history. Not just about ghosts, and their mortal / immortal coming together. But the fact, from the beginning of our region's settlement, dating back to the late 1850's, family historians, and historians generally, didn't spend much time recording the cultural attachments that came with European settlers, to the wilderness of the Muskoka woodlands. It wasn't just religious beliefs that came across the ocean with the homesteaders, seeking their free grant land. They brought with them the beliefs and superstitions of the old country, and the rich, ancient traditions from countries like Ireland, Scotland, England, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany. If they had even a smidgeon of belief in the paranormal when they left the cities of Europe, I'm willing to bet that when they arrived in these haunted woods, they were more than wary of what may have been hiding out in the pine shadows, and over the rock cliffs, and through the misty bogs. Was it fair to say our region may have looked frightening to those early pioneers? Could they have imagined new world leprechauns, and banshees, trolls and ogres, ghosts, witches, sundry other hobgoblins and run-of-the-mill ghosts? In the isolation these folks found themselves, I think it's very likely they were particularly watchful for those fanciful creatures that haunted the countrysides in their homelands…..which lived under bridges, and others that carried pots of gold, or frightening old hags that would turn the innocents into wart-covered toads. What about the fairies and Queen Mab, and the fairy circles the children looked for in the mornings, matted down in the enchanted woods, where the midnight revel had been held.
This is very much a part of our culture as Muskokans, but very few historians dating back to the 1860's, bothered to deal with these superstitions, and belief in the paranormal……by simply writing them down for future posterity. Thus we have to rely on the heritage of these settlers, to understand how they looked upon strange occurrences in a new land. And because of the isolation, some fears were exacerbated most definitely, such that even the winds of an approaching storm sounded like banshees howling for blood…..trolls stomping up to homestead windows for a wee peak. A lot of superstition centered around death, and rituals / traditions practiced, depending on the religious and cultural thinking, of the time. Remember the omen of a "bird in the house"? I can so clearly recall a sparrow getting in through our apartment window, once, in the 1970's, and my mother Merle freaking-out because it was a sign that someone in the family was going to die. Merle was a mix of English, and German ancestry, and in her family, her mother Blanche was a keeper of the traditions……the old and dear tales of what to be guarded about in everyday life……..and my mother lived by those traditions, and superstitions for her entire life. She would never, ever walk beneath a ladder, and she hated black cats. If she dumped a salt shaker….or even if I did, I had to toss some sprinkles over my opposite shoulder, to get rid of the curse that apparently went side by side being clumsy. She didn't linger on any 13th day, that happened to be a Friday, and she eagerly scooped the froth off her stirred tea, saying it was "money," if you sipped it first, from a spoon. I broke a mirror once and I thought she was going to hold an exorcism for me. I was informed, "Teddy, you're going to have seven years of bad luck." I think she may have been right on that one, because every girl I went with during those years, gave me the proverbial heave-ho, just when I thought things were going great. Merle was scared of tea leaves, and would never go to a reading, because she feared what revelations they might prevail upon her. She apologized to God for thinking bad of people, but she wouldn't attend church. She thought I should go, but she wouldn't. Yup, she was a contradictory person, who had more bugaboos than I could list in ten blogs. She had a new one, to hit me with, whenever I wanted to do something she felt was risque. I always remember her saying to me, that when I had bad thoughts for a prolonged period, I was wishing that same event on myself. As the years went my, I seldom used my mother as a confidant. And for good reason.
Getting back to gathering stories about ghosts, UFO's, and almost anything else in the paranormal domain; I have received a wealth of information about occurrences here, in the District of Muskoka, but once again, they become an information base for me, but not an omnibus of stories to share with you. John Colombo included some stories about UFO's showing up in the Huntsville area of Muskoka, in a small book he wrote back in the early nineties if memory serves. There have been quite a few sightings here, and from some very credible people. Now it is worth noting, that Muskoka, according to several historians, and other published accounts I have read, have numerous meteor deposits. It is said, of course, that the imprint of Skeleton Lake was made by a meteor strike, and that there was one that hit near the Brackenrig Road, and another that may have landed in Portage Bay, of Lake Rosseau. I was told by a well versed local, of the Portage Bay area, that there is a place where a compass will gyrate wildly, giving improper readings, until the location is bypassed. I can't say that this is true, but it is what I have heard over the years, from a number of sources. I remember a well known writer telling me once, that Muskoka was a spiritually powerful place on earth, and I think part of that came from the meteors that hit here once upon a time. I have met and talked with those who have seen UFO's in Muskoka, and places like Vankoughnet have had a few interesting sightings, although you won't find much in print to support this claim. When, in the 1970's, a UFO was seen in vicinity of Three Mile Lake, in the Raymond area, I believe, it made the city dailies. There were witnesses that night, miles away, who later corroborated everything that the primary witness had observed, yet because they feared being ridiculed, the chap who came forward with the claim, was hounded without mercy, and made to look like a fool for being honest, and forthcoming. For years after this, many folks would talk in hushed tones, admitting they had been outside their homes on the same night, and had experienced something quite out of this world……yet they left this poor chap to take the brunt of the ridicule. What was an important story, with many avenues to investigate, was turned into a circus…..because that's the way the news accounts were written…..with a bias from the get-go. There weren't many scholarly, scientific types, around for these interviews with the witness, and eventually, he just avoided discussing the matter. No one blamed him either. I believed him the first time I heard the story, which was through the grapevine, before I read the first newspaper account. We were a small town with a long, long grapevine with big ears.
I have so many neat stories about ghost hitch-hikers, on the roadsides where accident fatalities had occurred. There are dozens of stories, from motorists, who stopped to give these apparitions a ride, only to find them missing, when they reversed their cars. One other claimed to have given a ride to a ghost, who never once conversed during a ten mile ride between Bracebridge and Gravenhurst, and disappeared out the door, at the end of the journey, without opening it first. There's the story of a Victorian-attired young woman, being seen in the moonlight of a summer night, in the Township of Muskoka Lakes, trying to step over the fence of a small community graveyard. The witnesses, of which there were two, believed she had been, like them, that night, taking a shortcut through the cemetery, but having got her gown caught on the wire of the half-fallen fence. When they went to help her, untangle the fabric, she turned to them and suddenly vanished. There was another specter that would sit on the staircase of an old house in Bracebridge, and cry in the night. She was seen sitting on one of the stairs, about halfway up, always in distress. They could hear the crying and when they'd investigate, she would stare at them for a moment, then vaporize. There was another malevolent little beggar, possibly the ghost of a child, that used to continually open and close doors in a tiny little house in my Bracebridge neighborhood. It was a constant, and although it wasn't seen as a vapor, it would open a door only seconds after the householder would close it……almost as if a game between the living and the dearly departed.
I think it is far more acceptable to admit seeing these paranormal quantities and qualities today, because so many folks have broken trail, admitting their experiences without the same fear many lived with thirty years ago. The stigma has diminished, and I can tell you honestly, we enjoy talking about interesting ghosts we've met through the years. I've presented this theme at Museum lectures, and I've been overwhelmed by the response of the audiences……certainly not indicating their total belief in ghosts, but being interested in hearing different accounts, especially the tales that have been with us, in this region, since the 1850's onward. As an example of this, you can go back a few weeks, in mid-March, when I wrote about the Sheas encounter with Irishman, Pat Lovely, in the pioneer hamlet of Ufford (near Windermere), who it was said, saved a young boy from bleeding to death, by using his mind-only, and from considerable distance. There were many witnesses that day, who swore Pat Lovely had a mysterious power. There are some wonderful stories yet to harvest, but the going is tough. Few thought it important to write them down for posterity. I wish they had.
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