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.

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