Gravenhurst is complex and vulnerable, and a tad confused.

I have always been suspicious of any one who claims that improvements they intend to make, will affect me with the same positive, life enhancing stroke. Lately we hear and read many such claims, and for the most part, it’s a perspective thing and not a factual, statistical, or proven improvement…..the offers of community enhancement and progress of course fall very much into this area of grave concern, at least for a few of us, who routinely doubt the claims of politicians and developers that their model for our improved living will satisfy even a portion of our most hoped-for conveniences.
As a long-in-the tooth reporter-kind, serving our region of Muskoka, I see through the glossy images presented by developers, to the clear mission beyond, and it always has to do with their prosperity and our capability to adjust to the improvements they want us to support……I haven’t shopped at our new Wharf complex on Muskoka Bay once since it opened several years ago. I’ve walked the docks several times on humid summer nights, for a breath of lake-fresh air but I prefer to shop uptown-downtown as much as possible because it is the area that has been most disregarded in the grasp for the holy grail of progress. While I do not support the Business Improvement Association here, for a number of personal grievances, I know that if there isn’t positive change soon, the mainstreet will suffer a huge depression……and when you add on additional urban pods, such as the south end development, change is imminent and it may be devastating. The BIA and its alligator at both ends operating strategy, can not measure up to the demands of the day. The in-fighting, which is nothing new, has made it ineffective at a time when it should be in the midst of a giant campaign of mainstreet improvements.
Gravenhurst Town Council has not lived up to its mentorship role with the BIA at all, and the strife within is a clear demonstration of the surgery required……what clearly needs to be done now to make it healthy and dynamic for the coming year…..the fast approaching, back-breaking challenges. It will take the town exercising authority and responsible governance to keep the BIA executive to task…..or if necessary abandon it entirely and form a new and better suited organization to the mission of maintaining the business dynamic……by supporting all related businesses, not bashing one another into a spiraling down, self-defeating stalemate; at a time when each stake-holder should be clawing to rise above the threshold of out-datedness, and inaction.
I have cherished living in Gravenhurst because of its small town, neighborly way of conducting business. My boys went to school here and following graduation opened up a main street business to carry on their music craft….., and they are stake holders in the future well being of the historic business corridor but see a very dire situation manifesting year after year, the result of a leadership void. We would all be grossly disadvantaged by a decline in our historic main street and it is more than simply a BIA problem. As an active Muskoka historian, I see great decline approaching, because of a confluence of many urban, aged architecture and economic issues reaching peaks at the same time. Major fires in historic business communities in Ontario should raise serious concerns about how we must revamp and secure our old architecture, for everyone’s well being. Upkeep on many buildings in the older sections of Muskoka’s larger communities is of constant concern, particularly when you see pictures of what a mainstreet looks like after a major fire event.
I am one who heartily agrees with urban renewal and while many of my contemporaries believe old architecture should be preserved at virtually “at all cost,” I believe it is vitally important to modernize “at any cost”, to ensure future durability and security. I have watched fires consume mainstreet buildings, and have witnessed first hand how the absence of firewalls can take down an entire block of old buildings. When a number of local houses were torn down to make way for a new commercial building, I was one of few historical-types who approved. The chances of those houses being restored as residences and even small shops, was remote at best, and sooner or later there would have been a catastrophic fire with potential of wiping out a block of buildings, and endangering human life. Gravenhurst has a considerable relationship in its past to great, all consuming fires.
The new commercial building will revitalize the south-east segment of the main street here in Gravenhurst, and that’s what is most needed.
I haven’t decided whether I will travel to the new commercial node coming to the south end of town…….it all depends on the re-location of businesses and if the shops I regularly visit move out of the historic downtown. I’m still a supporter of the traditional mainstreet so if I can get what I need there…..well, it will leave more room for others to shop at our new business nodes.
Gravenhurst is at a crossroads. A dangerous place and position to be in, when the only hand-up is the developer, leading us into the false security of what may be progressive, and what may be the characteristic change, that alters forever what we know and respect of the town that grew here.

Gravenhurst as sanctuary

I have always been a character prone to controversy. Not because my Irish heritage curls my fists at first light but largely because of my own rigid sense of propriety and protocol; good manners and gentlemanly conduct. Back in my newspaper years here in Muskoka, I couldn’t get more than a day between the next slur against my editorial prowess. While I didn’t throw many punches at my critics for fear of losing my job….which always was strung silk thin at the best of times, I was notorious for never backing down when I could prove I was right. If I was wrong I’d admit it when the facts proved my ignorance and I’d knit you a nice sweater if that’s what would make us even.
My superiors in the newspaper enterprise didn’t appreciate my unwillingness to take a bullet for the team when the team for some reason screwed up. I’d simply remind them that if they had listened to me first, there would be no reason to offer an apology, or offer a pissed-off subscriber a written clarification in the next edition.
The reason I wouldn’t let any one besmirch my reputation, by association, is that I was a persnickety editor who couldn’t leave well enough alone…..whether it was a reporter who guaranteed me a quote was accurate or a name was properly spelled…..without demanding it be checked and if necessary cross referenced from another source. It is in my mind the reason that my decade at the helm saw very few corrections or published apologies. I hate being wrong and because of it I very seldom write anything that isn’t thoroughly examined and fact-checked two to three times. My reporters used to hate me as did any one around the office who wanted to get home early at night. From my perspective, I wasn’t going to let a little thing like impatience cause me to publish an inaccurate story. I have never once been sued in over thirty years presence in the media enterprise. That means about a trillion published words without once facing libel action, and although my staff hated the extra time spent, I could never have cut corners that would have meant a half-ass article made it to print……and all of us thusly to the courthouse to defend the virtues of laziness.
I’m still like that but I don’t have a staff, except family members here in our Gravenhurst house who help me file stories with several Ontario publications…..because I’m crappy at computer use…..I spent most of my writing years using a beautiful old Underwood, that could take spilled coffee in the guts and keep on pounding out the copy.
I was a staunch, hardline, and yes hard-living editor who didn’t take kindly to any slurs or off-hand, sarcastic comments about the quality of our print product,…. The Herald-Gazette. There was always somebody who hated the results of your work-week, and frequently they would phone one of our upper management to complain. Unfortunately we seldom got the benefit of the doubt and took blame regardless whether it was a real issue or perceived by some irate reader, or better still, advertiser. The joy on their (the complainer’s) part, ninety percent of the time, was to get us into trouble. I guess they expected a “firing” would make up for what was missing in their miserable lives. And I dug my feet in when I smelled a rat…..a criticism that was unfounded and unwarranted by fact and philosophy…..an unsolicited critique with a sharp point raised in offence between reader, or advertiser, and staff; which was usually a mission to nail an underling to the cross. It got worse when we wouldn’t capitulate and beg for forgiveness. We’d be scorned as if we’d committed the biggest print crime of the century. But when I’d get past the rhetoric of the situation and actually confront the person who made the original observation, I’d find that the weight of the perceived offence was much lighter than told to us…..now that made me mad. So I’d take it back to the boss and natter away until one of my reporters would cajole me into a beer at the tavern to cool off.
I never took crap unless I deserved it, and I never let a staff member catch-it without proof a breach of protocol had occurred in full. For ten years I was in this near fisticuff mood most of the time because it was easy to blame the writers…..for everything……if ad revenues went down for even a week, it must have been the result of crappy writing. If our paper sales were done, the writers were responsible. If however, our sales went up and the ad content increased, it was the result of moxy on the part of advertising staff. Needless to say, it was a non-stop challenge to protect the integrity of some really fine writers and ace photographers. It was a pleasure to have known them if only for one decade out of many in a lifetime.
When we moved to Gravenhurst it was like no sanctuary before. Although I was still in the newspaper business at the time, our homestead we call Birch Hollow, was a safe house because it was what we all needed. As an editor with a substantial profile, which was both good and unfortunate at times, living in Bracebridge was like residing in the back room of a shooting gallery. While we could disappear a wee bit behind the revolving ducks, the shot could still penetrate into the back room where we were holed up. I hated the ring of the phone. Is still do even though most of the calls these days are from girls looking for my sons, or the occasional student with a homework issue calling for my wife….a teacher at the local secondary school. And it’s pleasant. Considering that I’m writing way more today than I have in decades, the policy I established here in 1989 has guaranteed a safe conflict-free zone to hide-out during my free time. The only real penetration is the email blitz but I do actually prefer online communications to phone calls and in-person visits to my door…..which happened far too many times in Bracebridge……and with threatening intent.
Every year I tangle editorially or otherwise with four or five jerks who have made it a project to unsettle my editorial projects and opinions. Just as I have always been, when they make their forays to critique my work, I fall back on the reality I’ve got water-tight facts and figures, to which opinion is securely attached. So as far as arguing with accuracy, it’s my life-long policy, love me or loathe me doesn’t matter.
So when I arrive here after a day on the hustings, and set down to write a piece or two for a regional publication, I do so in this safe haven away from my adversaries. If you think you’ll slip past my wife at the door, to toss some editorial barb in my face, good luck trying. Not that I worry about a little scrap with an unhappy camper….. but I do worry a tad that it will upset a spiritual balance of home and castle, established nearly two decades ago the result of a decade’s worth of newspaper frazzling.
When people ask occasionally why we live in Gravenhurst, they look at me with astonishment when I say “it’s my sanctuary!” I have remained an active writer with lots of publishing credits because I’ve had this forgiving, lending, adaptive solitude here at Birch Hollow, across from The Bog, a wonderful lowland that was nearly lost this year in our town’s bid to sell off surplus lands. I’m told we put up a ferocious fight to save the property from development. I thought it was pretty much run of the mill actually…..you should experience the full monty of our objections. This was only a half-strength protest that admittedly would have been turned up if the town had carried the concept of development further. Home was where I rejuvenated the old juices to fight another day.
This modest bungalow has been a most wonderful place to contemplate life and its purpose. It has protected me with its simple, modest wooden embrace, encouraged me with its beautiful view down onto the bog, and nurtured me with silence in the midst of composing yet another raging editorial. I can never move from this location because I fear there are no walls as strong as these anywhere else.
I’m home. I’m glad. I’ve got two more columns to write before dinnertime. It’s not a chore. Not here in the embrace of Gravenhurst’s Birch Hollow.

Thank you for reading this blog-site entry.

From Activist to Nature Watcher for Awhile

Beginning in late June, at a time when my wife and I were busy planning our summer travel and antiquing adventures, the proverbial poop hit the rapidly spinning fan. We found out, via the local newspaper that our Bog (municipally owned but part of our neighborhood plan of subdivision), here at Birch Hollow, our home in Gravenhurst, was to be sold off as surplus property. Beware of the cash strapped municipality with a new town hall on their “want list!”
While we were assured this was an annual right of passage for Ontario municipalities, to offer up properties no longer required in their future planning, what was suspicious was the amount of high priced real estate hitting the market at the same time. This wasn’t typical and selling off a needed wetland was well beyond a sensible fundraising mission.
If you’re interested in the fight we had to save The Bog, you can click onto our other blog site………. which documents the basics of our protest….which we won by the way…..the municipality acknowledging that sacrificing a wetland for the sake of a few more urban residential lots wasn’t particularly sensible. We had help from many organizations and hundreds of people across our community, who let the Town know what natural resource stewardship meant. I don’t believe the Town of Gravenhurst liked being told to back off or else. It was on the brink of being a huge national protest well beyond a blog and some conversational ill humour, when sensibility and clear thinking won out, and the matter was dropped for the time being. It is unlikely residents here will ever forget this foray…..and be so complacent as to believe there won’t be another battle another day….that would make five bids by the Town since the 1970’s to subdivide this important Muskoka wetland.
From late June until late August there wasn’t one clear day when something or other needed our attention, in order to keep our mission to Save The Bog on track. It swallowed up a lot of time, and took its toll emotionally on everyone involved. What it represented to us from the beginning, was a fight against poor urban planning…..and we knew that if the town could destroy this wetland….which was part of the parkland designation of our subdivision from the late 1970’s, and infill this filtering bed of run-off water to Lake Muskoka, then it would be the ultimate sign of inherent power that council could move on to even more contentious, more aggressive plans, to strip the landscape to suit expansionary interests. Urban sprawl. The developers were watching our little protest, without a doubt, and what they saw was a citizen population band together to remind local government that they aren’t immune from serious intervention when required. In this period of mounting and warranted environmental concern around the globe, it was clear the citizens in our community were paying attention…..and not about to let our elected officials do what ever they want…..without consequence.
We could look back at any time throughout the process, and see the troops mustering, and I have to tell you, that was what kept us to task. We weren’t doing this alone. And when we heard that council had changed its mind, and removed The Bog from the surplus property list, well, it was one of the most memorable days in our family history. Community history was made. Town hall listened to ratepayers. For all the critters, the deer, rabbits, fox, wolves, a bear or two, birds of every feather, a trillion insects and water creatures,…..suffice to say, they came awfully close to being homeless. The Bog now is a lasting, slightly more secure safe haven. It could have been that this beautiful 20 plus acre greenbelt was sacrificed for another condo project, yet another residential street at a time when there are loads of family homes for sale. I can’t tell you how heart breaking it would have been to sit here, attempting to write for a living, and hearing the chainsaw massacre just beyond my office window. Well, as I noted in the local press here, I would have been in front of the chainsaw blade in protest that’s for sure…..and that would have been the only way I could justify having a broken heart. There was no other option.
It hasn’t been a normal fall season at Birch Hollow due to the delays in just about everything we had during the summer. Our old book business had been on hiatus for most of the summer, and we cut down our public sales events to two, which is a quarter of what we normally do in any given tourist season here in Muskoka. So it has taken a bit longer this autumn to get everything back on track, including our boys’ music and collectable business, on the main street here in Gravenhurst, which is having a tremendous year. While we’re happy about the successes of the year so far, we’re still a little “wobbly legged” about the dark side outcome that might have prevailed, had we not found that first newspaper article, back in June, telling us our neighborhood was on the cusp of profound change. When we get up in the morning we look out on the woodlands to make sure everything is well…..and that the town hasn’t re-visited the project, and when we close up the homestead at night, we always take one final glance over to The Bog, to make sure we’ve passed safely toward yet another day here in the Ontario hinterland.
There’s a contentment that I almost feel guilty possessing since our victory…..but I’m going to enjoy it for awhile longer but never again will I be so complacent as to believe the progressives have given up the fight for more urban land……but rather are re-forming to fight yet another day.
I hope now to update this blog-site more regularly thanks to a generally peaceful autumn season unfolding.
Thanks for visiting this Gravenhurst site.

Please visit my other blog at thenatureofmuskoka.blogspot.com

I wish at this time to express my deep concern and protest about the potential sell-off of an important greenbelt, wet land and buffer zone on the north side of Segwun Blvd., and abutting the west side of Oriole, to the property of the Ontario Fire College, as recently considered by Town Council.
In this supposedly enlightened period of enhanced environmental awareness, infilling this small but significant lowland to faciliate increased urban density is distressing to say the least. The woodland nature of this neighborhood is the reason we re-located to Gravenhurst from Bracebridge in the late 1980's.....because it didn't look like every urban neighborhood in North America.....it looked like Muskoka....something that is drastically changing the character of the entire region. The staggering rate of urban change, and forest reduction is accelerating at a dangerous speed throughout the region, and it should be of great concern to the stewards of our region,....members of our elected councils, to exercise caution with this developmental surge that has quality of life implications.....as it will be adversely affected in our neighborhood if its character is hacked down by the developer who will not live where he/she constructs their vision of paradise on earth. Paradise right now is in the wonderful shade of hardwoods and evergeen, the cool greens of fern and cat-tail.....the wildflowers in early summer and the autumn crimson in September. This is paradise. It is Muskoka. And for those who appreciate these characterisitics of Muskoka, cottage country.....the hinterland of Ontario, we have no choice but to stress our objection.
Please reconsider placing this property on the "surplus" listing, and instead help conserve it as a an important remnant of what this town was.....there's more to this community than steamships and The Wharf.
For more information on this mission to Save The Bog, you will be able to access a new blog in preparation.
Thank you for your consideration of this letter of protest regading the sale of the Segwun Blvd. North property.


We have commenced to seek opinion from the neighborhood to protect this 20 acre greenbelt.
I would be delighted to take any or all councillors on a site inspection.....so before you entertain the idea of destroying nature.....you can experience it up close and personal.

Selling off the woodland - it sucks big time



Our family has just found out the Town of Gravenhurst is considering the sell-off of the woodlands that abut properties on Segun Blvd. and Oriole, amongst other town assets.
The wonderful lowland known in my own writing work as "The Bog," was the reason we purchased the property in the late 1980's, and decided to make Gravenhurst our new home town. I was assured by a number of residents that this was a guarded greenbelt, as part of an agreement when the Calydor subdivision was developed. Apparently someone was wong because the town has made the property an item for consideration, for possible future disposal. Meaning that it will be sold for more housing, condominiums or whatever can fit these days onto 20 acres.
I have vowed to fight any compromise to the quality of this neighborhood, and the green belt plays a huge role, and as I am true to my word, the battle has begun. We invite those residents interested in this latest town foray into our neighborhoods, to contact me at the number 687-3629, email at birch_hollow@sympatico.ca and watch for the "The Blog" soon to be prepared to "Save The Bog".
Ted Currie
Muskoka History Resources

Gravenhurst and me – I just want to write

There was a time when I couldn’t remain uninvolved despite the most dire warnings from my wife, my kids and my friends…… that I was about to get sucked up into some vortex, a condition of non-dimensional rural mind-melt if I joined the latest community initiative I entered most of the region’s contentious debates and never let a bygone be a bygone without my initials sharply imprinted somewhere within. Even now when I sit back and let yet another nasty issue go by without getting involved, I think of myself as a craven coward. Yet there is a time in every muckraker’s life that it becomes necessary to look at the bigger picture of life fulfilled. I just can’t function as part of a committee or protest group these days without getting furious with the array of personal agendas that pop up at the worst possible times. I’ve found committees to have more inherent problems with conflicts of interest and associated personal ambitions, than with the target mission which becomes a smaller issue of concern, once all the gratifications of committee members are pocketed…… prior to even a modest effort forward to deal with the contentious issue at hand.
I get asked to join at least two action committees a year now which is down from the dozen or so I was recruited to serve on, back in my kick-arse columnist days for the local press. I’ve got pretty good at turning down such positions today because I’m not hesitant whatsoever asking about some inconsistencies I’ve found with their subject group, members and mission statement. They usually drop me as a political “hot potato” shortly after I begin asking sensitive questions. The committee seeking transparency of government is often just as evasive and shadowy about their conduct as the group they are trying to reform. So I find it’s better to be a consciencious-objector these days and stick to the power of the pen….or in this case keyboard, to make present my point of view.
As a long-serving historian in this region I have never subscribed to the “good time was had by all” crap offered up by some contemporaries, who would rather leave real history alone in favor of a nicely shined-up version, that seems to have experienced no real strife from then, our founding to the present. I’ve been asked to attend a number of events that were being promoted by these revisionists, some who claim to be full ranking historians. Undoubtedly they wish me to be there boast yet another speaking gig to a guy on the “outs” with nary a speaking engagement in sight. First of all I don’t have much in common with most of the self-proclaimed historical types these days and as far as sitting listening to them spout off about “history as they see it,” I’d rather sit here at Birch Hollow and pen actuality than fiction.
I’m disgusted by many of the fly-by-nighters who pen the volumes of tripe these days about “the way we were,” without any reverence to the critical approach of historical research. There is relatively little counter point used, and they routinely side with the source most verbose on the subject, in total disregard for “what is accurate,” and not just “a good story.” I have never witnessed so much baloney in print about the Muskoka I know from decades of research. I don’t read much published locally any more because I get too mad about the liberties with what I take so seriously…..the record of the past. Apparently it’s in vogue to be called an “historian,” these days…., however, I never once felt that my task at research had any “vogue” value whatsoever…..it was about as generic an operation as you could inspire from the historically inclined.
Every year I get the opportunity to work with university students and some family historians who are genuinely interested in pure, un-tampered-with heritage, who don’t care a lick about color commentary, or popular presentation but instead want to know the truth as it effected the region and its humanity.
As a long time writer working in this region, I will only offer my writing services for publications out of the region because frankly I don’t have much use for the editorship or leadership generally of the local press. Unless of course, one day some enlightened newspaper type agrees the local press should have a columnist who brushes his teeth every morning with “critical approach,” and sees great danger in complacent thought.
And then there is “The blog!” I adore this opportunity to write without the intrusive hot air of the publisher blowing down my neck……telling me in no uncertain terms…..”you can’t write that…..you’ll offend an advertiser…..you’ll offend a club member, church goer, candlestick maker!”
Yup, I like it pretty much here with this endless horizon I see from Birch Hollow. It just makes you want to write. Thanks for joining me for this most recent blog entry.

Enjoyment of home – a celebration of Gravenhurst, Muskoka, Canada
With only pennies in the pocket

On my first visit to Muskoka in the summer of 1965, I knew it would one day be home. We had been staying at a retreat property on beautiful Bruce Lake, a short distance from the shore of Lake Rosseau, where my future wife’s family had a large homestead built by her grandfather, Sam Stripp.
When we moved from Burlington to Bracebridge that winter, 1966, it was a dream come true. Even though we were residing in town, we were a short distance from river and lake, and thousands of beautifully forested acres. Although we did eventually rent a cottage on Alport Bay, which links to Lake Muskoka, and I rented another wee cottage on Lake Joseph, as a fledgling reporter working for the Georgian Bay Beacon (in the 1980’s), my relationship with the District of Muskoka has been mostly from a town neighborhood existence versus the waterside life.
My wife Suzanne enjoyed the best of both worlds plus, I guess you could say, by having a home in the Village of Windermere, a business on the lake known as the Windermere Marina (which had lodging above), and a cottage only a few kilometers away. As she notes however, every summer, to make ends meet, the family rented out the house and cottage and the family lived above the marina. It wasn’t until after the marina was sold that they had more time and financial capacity to enjoy their own cottage property….which I might add had been the Stripp family home from early in the 1900’s. This beautiful property was sold because of the crunching tax burden, the house was sold off as part of the estate when my wife’s father passed away, and the connection with both Windermere and Lake Rosseau as much a sentimental relationship with photo albums, scrapbooks and shared memories of a time spent, once long ago. Many, many Muskokans have faced the same reality, having to give up the family lakefront holdings because of ever increasing taxation. Some of course were rewarded handsomely by the new vested interest, who have been speculating on lakefront properties with reckless abandon……earning Muskoka a rather unfair distinction of being the place for the rich and famous…..the celebrities and hockey players who have the money to afford so called paradise.
I guess until we pass from this mortal coil, there will always be regrets we hadn’t hung onto a slice of lakeshore for our family. We used that money to make the most of being inland, and in reflection, I still believe we have a much greater appreciation of the nature of Muskoka, than many folks who have cottages…… but don’t really care a hoot about the future of the hinterland except in their own ballywick. While it’s unfair to use the broad stroke to paint all cottagers with the same bias, it is an alarming trend. I heard one cottager telling another about how it would be a wise move on the local government’s part, to shoot all the troublesome bears giving cottager owner’s grief. What she meant is that we should cleanse Muskoka of everything natural that causes inconvenience. I’ve heard similar statements for years and from people who are supposedly the leaders of the financial empire in this country.
I do know many cottagers who dedicate a great deal to improving the environment and ensuring local water quality of lakes and rivers. There are not enough of them however, and the majority think only of their individual properties and their adjusted, somewhat insulated hinterland experience. I don’t read the summer publications around here any more because they remind me of the frivolous, surface-scanning, good-time-was-had-by-all attitude that only exists in their editorial mandate…..not in real life. As a former editor for these publications I fought tooth and nail against the publishers who wanted to treat our summer customers with toothless features at the expense of oh so many “trees to paper.” Every piece I wrote was aimed entirely at awareness, either of history, local developments of concern, local politics botching up, and correcting an under-appreciation of just how much pollution is fouling our region. While I confess to occasionally selling out in order to keep my job and the rent money coming, I never let an issue go by that I wasn’t flogging some aspect of Muskoka’s history or environment, which I adamantly believed was being under recognized by not only the seasonal residents but the folks who lived here year round. I suppose it was this meddling with editorial content that eventually resulted in a life-long shunning from the local press. Being known as anti-development, even a smidgeon, does not make a majority of advertisers happy, and they had to choose backing me and my environmental bent, or selling those whopping big ads to development interests….the land sharks and speculators carving up our district into subdivisions and commercial icons as far as the eye can see. Just having my name on a letter to the editor can make developers cringe, and no publisher in our region would take a risk on an alleged progress-hater like me…..I can’t count one municipal councilor, who knows of my position against urban sprawl and development at all cost, who would support a tell-all column today from my pen…..because it would get in the way of the constructive attributes of shameless good publicity, from those oozing positive attitude, and possessing in great volume, the “never say never” commitment to fend off the pesky naysayers who tirelessly warn about impending eco disaster. Nuts to that!
Being outspoken is the way I’ve operated throughout my editorial life and times. While other writers make sure you know they’re the best advocates for a safe environment you’ve ever met, there are only a slim few I have any faith in at all, to save us from a risk-taking future in this region. There’s too much political correctness and editorial sniveling to influence municipal councils away from their “progress at all cost” agendas. When I tell them that “progress can mean environmental protection,” they wait in anticipation for the punch line.
We don’t own a lakeshore property in Muskoka. Although we can’t and won’t deny some regrets about what the taxman caused the family to sell-off, I have never felt disadvantaged about the relationship we have with our home district. There isn’t a summer night that we come indoors before midnight (unless in the midst of a violent storm). We travel extensively in our region over the four seasons, and we know its social, cultural history inside out. Every stroll through the woodlands here is a powerful invigoration, and each season has its inherent wonders. We celebrate the beautiful parklands, and enjoy many lakeside sojourns here in Gravenhurst, and around the district, and we have with great pleasure, consumed the scenery from every country road and laneway our vehicle can navigate. We have watched sunrises in West Muskoka, enjoyed a noon hour hiatus at Lake of Bays, a late afternoon tea in downtown Huntsville, and been enthralled by a magnificent sunset on Muskoka Bay back home in Gravenhurst. Winter, summer, spring and fall. We have taken our holidays since 1984 in our beautiful Muskoka, with nary a regret. And always on the budget we can afford. We’ve never yet been disadvantaged by our humble appointment in life, and our vantage point has always been unobstructed by any other bias than an enduring love for the home district.
While many, or most of my writing contemporaries disagree with my aggressive stand against urban sprawl and progress-mongering politicians and sundry other capitalists, with nothing grander in their lives than the prospect of bathing in cash, I encourage those who think of me as a kill-joy of prosperity, to travel the same roads and country lanes, to witness the last great bastions of hinterland before they are gone. I wake up each morning with the good conscience, that I have been blessed by residence, to have Muskoka as my writing partner, and such is our relationship that I will never, I can not, take her welfare for granted. We’ve been through a lot together since our introduction in 1965, while lodging at Bruce Lake…..soon to be, by the way, a neighbor of one of the largest resort-recreation developments in the history of Muskoka. I expect many more of these mega projects in the future. It worries me constantly.
If ever once I left this abode at Birch Hollow, here in Gravenhurst, and didn’t look at the abutting woodland and feel heartfelt respect, and then regard myself as fortunate to be in its proximity, I would thusly and regrettably believe myself amongst the desensitized of our population. If I should awaken one morning to find the chainsaw being employed to fell this haunted wood, it might well be the mortal blow in an old author’s chronicle, of a life’s mission invested in vain.
Enjoy natural Muskoka. Protect it. Spare it from the progressives who see capital prosperity as the meaning of life.

Please visit my other blog at thenatureofmuskoka.blogspot.com

Gravenhurst is my chronicle-
The place where I can write in peace

In the late 1980’s I had grown weary of my editorial responsibilities with the local press. While I had always provided publishers with twice as much copy as they paid me for, I was getting pretty aggressive with my forays into the sacred zones of the local political and social elite in central Muskoka. I was reprimanded weekly for challenging authority and bucking the in-house convention, to obey at all cost, the advertising department’s initiatives……performing editorial feats for the good cause of advertising revenue, not for journalistic integrity. I felt the cold knife-blade of professional compromise every time I was asked to shill for the business community…..sent out to do another good business review in return for an ad they had placed in the very next edition.
My notes home from public school used to inform my mother, “Ted doesn’t mix well with others,” and “Ted spends a great deal of time daydreaming.” Both are true and I can remember my mother Merle stomping off to parents’ night at Lakeshore Public, in Burlington, itching to unleash a steaming tirade against anyone who would suggest that “mixing with others,” has relevance to her son getting an education, and be damned any one who would even think about restricting a free thinker’s privilege to daydream. My mother Merle was quick to defend her son’s artistic integrity, as if she knew in the early grades of elementary school that her son would somehow put individuality and daydreaming into art, music or maybe even the writing profession. There were many other occasions, through my school years, when Merle went to bat for my lackluster in-class performance, without any real evidence it was going to help me become a great Canadian “anything!”. She just didn’t want teachers messing with her kid’s creative ambitions.
I was sitting on our verandah one summer afternoon in the early 1990’s, with my old and eccentric bibliophile friend David Brown, of Hamilton….the man who gave me my start as a book collector…..and we started comparing what people though of us respectively. Dave Brown, who at the time of his death, had over 100,000 books stacked in his small Hamilton bungalow, said he was tired of people thinking he was nuts just because he loved books. I said in response, I was really tired of people thinking I was nuts because I like to write all day and night. You know, by time we finished adding up all the public scrutiny about our personal interests, we agreed that at the very least it gave our friends and adversaries alike something to gnaw-on in our absence. In other words our eccentricities kept them from getting bored. Funny thing, I’ve never felt it necessary to analyze others for entertainment purposes. Dave said, “Well Ted, we’re at least popular if that means anything…..I guess we should feel flattered to have created all this fuss about whether or not we’re crazy.”
Dave would not argue that he was eccentric. I was his biographer and he was never once disturbed to be referred to as “eccentric.” In every finite definition of eccentric, Dave Brown was a textbook example. He was brilliant. He had the kind of inquisitive nature that demanded ongoing education, and I never once felt in our years working together, that he thought of himself too old to learn new things. When Dave Brown, who was also one of the country’s well known outdoor education specialists, wanted to talk…..about anything…..gads, I listened like a sponge handles spilled water. His knowledge was brimming and I had so much to learn when we first met in the early 1990’s. Everyone in our family listened to Dave Brown talk about history and his many adventures canoeing throughout Ontario, and we were reluctant to close down our evening chat, despite being at the brink of exhaustion. If Dave Brown was labeled eccentric, then I wanted to absorb as much eccentricity as he was willing to share.
I learned more about Canadian history and the outdoors from Dave Brown than I ever acquired through high school and at university. Suzanne told me once that Dave found us Curries to be kindred spirits because we continually quested for information, and challenged accepted thought when necessary. When Dave Brown passed away, and left me to write his biography, I mired for months fearing it would be impossible to capture this scholar’s character, such that he would reach out from the great beyond, and chastise me, as he did others in life, for unfounded generalizations. Could he ever approve of my written assessment of his life and times? I was his student! His apprentice! The job seemed immense. I did finally write the book and most of those who bought the biography agreed I had captured his most interesting qualities. I’m still not sure how Dave would have appreciated the over-view although he’s sent a few messages from the grave that our work isn’t quite done yet. Dave has some subtle reminders like pulling out books from the shelf, leaving them askew, if not dropping them to the floor as evidence a directive hasn’t yet been followed. A playful, mindful haunting you might say. I still validate Dave’s presence here at Birch Hollow, and keep him in my thoughts whenever I’m pawing through my thousands of old books and document. On visits he slept on a couch in my library and every night before slumber he sorted through these same titles, looking for something interesting to digest….as the last detail of learning for that day.
Dave and I shared a number of professional habits that obviously earned us the label of “eccentrics.” On our book hunting missions we were both so focused in the work (fun for us), we could ignore all other distractions. If there were any intruders into our respective domains, we could become a tad standoffish….and we were both quite capable of blowing off interlopers who got too close to our nitty gritty searches of book aisles, in dozens of shops and sales in this region of Ontario. This intent-focused mission of discovery gave others the opinion we were being rude, self absorbed, anti-social and disjointed from the demands of social conscience. If you interrupted Dave Brown at an estate or auction sale, to socialize or ask his opinion about a book, it was as if the hounds of hell had been set loose on their prey. You just didn’t! And while I have been known to exercise a far more tempered, gentle retort to any one bothering me, I’m still branded as “ignorant,” and “high and mighty,” just because my focus and mission are more intense than their own.
In Bracebridge, my reputation as an old miser, a writer who lacks self-restraint, an activist, someone who defiles the protocols of “getting along,” and shows disrespect to the rights and privileges of the power elite, has little if any relevance here in Gravenhurst, my hometown since 1988. For whatever reason here, I just don’t draw a lot of interest or busy-bodied attention. I’m just they guy who collects books and antiques and keeps to himself. I like that. I’m pretty sure there are those who view me as “a strange chap,” and somewhat “odd-in-habit” but by and large I’ve enjoyed a wonderful anonymity here, and can avoid having to defend myself in shops and at sales because I shy away from social interaction. In fact, I believe adamantly this “live and let live” relationship in Gravenhurst has been the reason I’ve found the perfect writing conditions here at our in-town homestead, we call with affection…..Birch Hollow.
There have been times when I thought possibly we should re-locate elsewhere in Muskoka. Suzanne will quickly remind me how much I’ve suffered living in homes in the past, that didn’t offer the inspiration I needed to quest-on at this typewriter. She’s right of course. I owe this little ranch bungalow a great deal, for housing so safely and happily its writer in residence. When I begin work here in my office, where my window looks out over The Bog, I feel confident my concentration on a project won’t be disturbed by a neighbor or friend on a mission to save me from myself…..the writer alleged to be swallowing the humanity of the real Ted Currie. The most distraction I will get here is when a squirrel darts along the walk outside, and our dog Bosko hears the footfall, letting loose a warning growl just to inform the critter the enforcer is on the job. You know, I haven’t won that Pulitzer yet, or even felt a single literary award in my grasp yet I couldn’t care less about measuring up to someone else’s standard. I do like having readers however, and I’ve been fortunate over the years to have reached hundreds of thousands….some who appreciate my perspective and others who don’t but read on anyway. I have especially appreciated the increases I’ve found most recently with internet exposure. I’m not writing to win awards. I’m writing as a person who loves his craft. While those who know me can’t get past the word “eccentric,” when describing my actions, reactions and obsessions, I now consider it all complimentary despite their intent. A female friend once said to me, “you spend so much time writing and collecting; you need to take a vacation!” Geez, for me, writing and collecting is a life-long vacation. It’s just a little hard to explain to someone who thinks it all sounds like a lot of work.
Birch Hollow here in Gravenhurst is a haunted place. I will always feel Dave Brown’s spirit hovering in my office, or sitting with me out on the verandah on still, moonlit summer nights. I will still get inspired to write some tome or other when I hear the shrill loon-call out over Lake Muskoka, and feel the ecstasy of discovery when I wander through the restorative woods of The Bog, the hollow across the lane. I owe this place, this town a debt of gratitude for being relatively free of the kind of social protocols that inhibited me during my much-loathed newspaper years. I think about my mother Merle’s defense of my creative enterprise as a wee lad, and hope now she feels the forays at parent-teacher nights were worth the fury…..to give a writer-in-waiting a chance at independent thought and unfettered imaginative freedom cum graduation.
I think I’ll stay here for awhile, and write a few more pages….maybe go off to the local book seller and see if anything new “that is old” has arrived since my last visit….and I shall thoroughly enjoy this freedom found living amidst the pines and birches, of my humble and accommodating home town. Thank you Gravenhurst.

Please visit my other blog at thenatureofmuskoka.blogspot.com