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
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
