GRAVENHURST, MUSKOKA – TED CURRIE’S HOMETOWN JOURNAL
Mine has not been a particularly well traveled life. Compared to my associates in writing I have led a somewhat sheltered existence all these years. Although I can stake no claim to having composed poetry in Paris, begun the preamble for a novel in Madrid, or penned thoughts on a South Pacific beach, I have instead spent hundreds of hours by lamplight and camp fire, on Tea and Rock Lakes in Algonquin Park, researching, for example, the mysterious circumstances surrounding the 1917 accidental drowning of Canadian landscape artist, Tom Thomson.
Sure I spent time in London, England, where I wrote my first modest journal, circa 1974, while staying at the Regent Palace Hotel. I penned many short stories while sitting on the sandy beach at Florida’s Ponce Inlet, motivated by the words of American poet, Wallace Stevens, who wrote the poem “The Idea of Order at Key West.” I’ve written short stories and journal entries all over Southern United States, on my travels in the 1970’s and 1980’s, most by the Greyhound milk run, village and town to town. I’ve written aboard aircraft over the Atlantic, and in those turbulent flights over snowy Buffalo and busy Atlanta. I wrote my earliest short stories from a small room with a tiny window, in a rooming house in Toronto, in the same area where my grandfather Stanley Jackson used to built many charming residences for customers back in the 30’s and 40’s. Like most urban writers, I became capable of writing just about anything while huddled in a back seat on a Toronto Transit run from Bloor and Jane, to Black-Creek Drive and on to York University. Sometimes I regret that I didn’t sojourn to Athens, or Glasgow to write. Most of the time however, I’m pleased with the adventures I’ve had as a regional Canadian author, and have enjoyed the company of all the folks met along the path.
Of all the places that I have holed-up for periods to write, I can tell you honestly and with definitely no regret about my place of lodging, that my years in Gravenhurst have been the most productive, inspiring, and enjoyable of my many years of authordom. I could find wonderfully exotic places to work, enchanted, historic portals to the world. Yet the comfort and neighborliness of a good home town is what impresses me the most, and in Gravenhurst I find so very much contentment, and fulfillment of what I have long searched for…..a cheerful, restorative, peaceful place to work. This is my author friendly Birch Hollow. Gravenhurst is my home town. Nothing could be finer!
Ted Currie is a long time Muskoka writer-historian living and working from his home in Gravenhurst, (District of Muskoka) Ontario, Canada. He is a past (news and feature) editor of the Muskoka Lakes-Georgian Bay Beacon (MacTier), The Herald-Gazette (Bracebridge), The Muskoka Advance, Gravenhurst Banner, The Muskokan, and The Muskoka Sun. He was one of the founding directors of the Bracebridge Historical Society and Woodchester Villa and Museum, and has served on the board of the Muskoka Lakes Museum in Port Carling. He has authored numerous regional histories, and has been a research contributor to many other books and publications dealing with matters of Muskoka heritage. He currently writes for “Curious – The Tourist Guide,” “The Wayback Times,” and the web site, “Antiques Ontario.” With his business partner and wife Suzanne, Ted has operated an old and out of print book business, known as Birch Hollow Antiques, since 1986, initially from Bracebridge, and presently from Gravenhurst. The couple’s two sons, Andrew and Robert, operate “Andrew Currie’s Music and Collectables,” a vintage guitar and record shop on Muskoka Road in Gravenhurst.
ALL PHOTOGRAPHS FEATURED HERE WERE TAKEN BY ROBERT CURRIE
Mine has not been a particularly well traveled life. Compared to my associates in writing I have led a somewhat sheltered existence all these years. Although I can stake no claim to having composed poetry in Paris, begun the preamble for a novel in Madrid, or penned thoughts on a South Pacific beach, I have instead spent hundreds of hours by lamplight and camp fire, on Tea and Rock Lakes in Algonquin Park, researching, for example, the mysterious circumstances surrounding the 1917 accidental drowning of Canadian landscape artist, Tom Thomson.
Sure I spent time in London, England, where I wrote my first modest journal, circa 1974, while staying at the Regent Palace Hotel. I penned many short stories while sitting on the sandy beach at Florida’s Ponce Inlet, motivated by the words of American poet, Wallace Stevens, who wrote the poem “The Idea of Order at Key West.” I’ve written short stories and journal entries all over Southern United States, on my travels in the 1970’s and 1980’s, most by the Greyhound milk run, village and town to town. I’ve written aboard aircraft over the Atlantic, and in those turbulent flights over snowy Buffalo and busy Atlanta. I wrote my earliest short stories from a small room with a tiny window, in a rooming house in Toronto, in the same area where my grandfather Stanley Jackson used to built many charming residences for customers back in the 30’s and 40’s. Like most urban writers, I became capable of writing just about anything while huddled in a back seat on a Toronto Transit run from Bloor and Jane, to Black-Creek Drive and on to York University. Sometimes I regret that I didn’t sojourn to Athens, or Glasgow to write. Most of the time however, I’m pleased with the adventures I’ve had as a regional Canadian author, and have enjoyed the company of all the folks met along the path.
Of all the places that I have holed-up for periods to write, I can tell you honestly and with definitely no regret about my place of lodging, that my years in Gravenhurst have been the most productive, inspiring, and enjoyable of my many years of authordom. I could find wonderfully exotic places to work, enchanted, historic portals to the world. Yet the comfort and neighborliness of a good home town is what impresses me the most, and in Gravenhurst I find so very much contentment, and fulfillment of what I have long searched for…..a cheerful, restorative, peaceful place to work. This is my author friendly Birch Hollow. Gravenhurst is my home town. Nothing could be finer!
Ted Currie is a long time Muskoka writer-historian living and working from his home in Gravenhurst, (District of Muskoka) Ontario, Canada. He is a past (news and feature) editor of the Muskoka Lakes-Georgian Bay Beacon (MacTier), The Herald-Gazette (Bracebridge), The Muskoka Advance, Gravenhurst Banner, The Muskokan, and The Muskoka Sun. He was one of the founding directors of the Bracebridge Historical Society and Woodchester Villa and Museum, and has served on the board of the Muskoka Lakes Museum in Port Carling. He has authored numerous regional histories, and has been a research contributor to many other books and publications dealing with matters of Muskoka heritage. He currently writes for “Curious – The Tourist Guide,” “The Wayback Times,” and the web site, “Antiques Ontario.” With his business partner and wife Suzanne, Ted has operated an old and out of print book business, known as Birch Hollow Antiques, since 1986, initially from Bracebridge, and presently from Gravenhurst. The couple’s two sons, Andrew and Robert, operate “Andrew Currie’s Music and Collectables,” a vintage guitar and record shop on Muskoka Road in Gravenhurst.
ALL PHOTOGRAPHS FEATURED HERE WERE TAKEN BY ROBERT CURRIE
CHECK OUT MY OTHER BLOG @ http://thenatureofmuskoka.blogspot.com/
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