A.Y. Jackson in Bala

A LITTLE UNFORTUNATE HISTORY FOR A.Y. JACKSON WHILE CANOEING IN MUSKOKA -

IT'S IN THE BOOK - "A PAINTER'S COUNTRY - THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A.Y. JACKSON," 1958 FIRST EDITION, HARDCOVER

I have colleagues in the antique trade, who only read price guides. "War and Peace," me thinks not! I'm sure there are lots of antique dealers who read constantly, just not the ones I know. We don't have much to talk about when we meet. I read all kinds of books. Price guides don't have much of a story-line. Talk about fiction. Many of those price valuations are ridiculous anyway.

When you decide you want to become a general, all-kinds-of-neat-stuff antique dealer, no matter what your age, you need to understand the basics of local heritage. Unless you're motoring out of the area to "pick" antiques, you can't avoid the necessity of learning more about what makes the region tick. What was its early history, what were the main industries, secondary industries, key businesses, and where did the population come from originally. Scotland? Ireland? Iceland?

The reason you need to know about the region, you're combing for antiques and collectibles, is to create a mental fine tooth comb. There is more likelihood of you finding logging tools and related artifacts in Muskoka, while out antiquing, than locally produced vintage glass, pottery, hats, porcelain and silver. The list is a big one. If you recognize, because you've done your homework, that the Birds Woollen Mill, in Bracebridge, created high quality blankets, then you certainly wouldn't be surprised if you found a hundred year old survivor, hanging on the bedding rack at the local thrift shop. You'd see the cloth label with the image of two roosters staring at one another. A genuine Bird's Mill blanket. But if you read your local history, as you should, it would be understood that in our region's history (with the exception of the work by modern artisans in Muskoka), we didn't have silversmiths, glass manufacturing, a porcelain factory, or any mass producer of hats. There are potters today but in year's past, if some crafters did make clay pots, it was nothing particularly remarkable. We didn't quite measure up to Medalta or Medicine Hat potters, from western Canada. But by golly, if you're looking for wool blankets, this is a hot spot.

Here's an example of strangeness with buyers. Have you ever picked up an interesting Canadian souvenir, and thought, you know what……I'm going to buy this because it was made right here…..on Canadian soil…..by Canadian crafters. So when you turn it over and find either "Made in Japan," or "Made in China" labels, all of a sudden, what was iconically Canadian, at first inspection, isn't quite so iconic having been made off-shore. I can remember being at an auction in Bracebridge, to watch the sale of several large crockery jugs, with the name of the general merchant, "Sibbett" on the side of each. It was a remainder of a Bracebridge business from the late 1800's, which was situated on the same side of Manitoba Street as the clock tower of the old federal building. As a museum manager, at the time, I thought it would be nice to acquire the pieces for Woodchester Villa. The only problem, that was about six feet high and the weight of an elephant, was that we had no acquisition budget during my years as chief cook and bottle washer. All our money went to staffing. My job was to bid up with my own money, as far as Suzanne would let me go, (without pinching me to stop), and then sadly, turn to my competitor, as if to make them feel guilty for beating out the local Historical Society….just to turn a profit in an antique shop. Alas, it was family on this occasion, that outbid everyone else. Every now and again, I would get offered a piece with local provenance, but usually we had ten of the same at the museum.

The dealers, in this instance, were left quaking in their boots. I tried to show my "sad face" to family members, on the off-chance they might have been willing to donate the crocks to the museum for a tax receipt. With, of course, the knowledge, these family heirlooms, with imbedded provenance, would be prominently displayed in one of our pioneer industry exhibits. I didn't get them, and the prices they sold for pushed into the nose-bleed elevation, to between three and five hundred dollars. But here's what I don't get. The crocks weren't made in Bracebridge, or Muskoka. The advertising on the side of the crocks, also came from some graphics company, somewhere else. Not China or Japan, but some other community in Ontario. So it was really just a vanity-rated value increase, because the only local provenance, was that these same assorted jugs, had once been used by the local business……and it had a family name written onto the sides. Now at the same auction, really nice Bird's Blankets were going for a tiny amount in comparison, and they were all Muskoka created……from sheep to blanket. They did import a volume of non-local wool to infill but largely it was a self-sustaining, regional industry.

It's pretty much the same today. A lot of modern day shoppers, even if they're interested in picking up second hand wool blankets, would opt for Kenwood and Hudsons Bay labels, if they had to choose one or the other. Which is good, because it leaves more for us. I never turn down a Bird's Blanket, even with holes. If it's got a complete, good condition label, I want it. I have a long history with the Bird family and their former estate, above the mill site (on the Muskoka River), known as Woodchester Villa. One of the Mill buildings is still being used today, (Chamber of Commere and a Restaurant) on the embankment above the Bracebridge Falls, adjacent to the Silver Bridge. Bird's blankets were very well crafted, and some of their most sought after are the reversible, pink and green variety, which we sell for between fifty and seventy-five dollars. We can pick them up for under twenty dollars, and Suzanne makes any repairs necessary, including re-binding them if necessary. It was said….and I wasn't there as a witness, that when, during the First World War, they were making military blankets for the Expeditionary Forces Overseas, the dumped green dye would color the river almost to the mouth, at Lake Muskoka. Least that's what the old-timers have claimed. In fact, some long time residents have stated, you could always tell what blanket colors were being infused that day, as this was the color of the river water.

Getting back to the opening suggestion, about antique dealers and their indifference to important heritage books, spending their time instead, noses pressed into price guides. I want to make a small but significant point, about the need to understand what has happened in your home region, from the days of those first roughly hewn cabins. If you truly understand all the neat stuff that has happened here, from steamships to log chutes, trapping to tanning, and don't forget about tourism, then you can better prepare for the finds you may, at some time or other, spot in a box, on a shelf, in the auctioneer's hand, or in a jammed shed at an estate sale. They could turn up anywhere……silent auctions, yard and church fundraising sales, thrift shops and estate clear-outs. If you appreciate what this area has been known for, and what items are coveted by area collectors…..who like local stuff, you can do much better for yourself sticking to the trends, if profit is what is most important. Tell you what. You won't find these local heirloom pieces in price guides. Because for our region of Ontario, I haven't written one yet. I have often appraised Muskoka related pieces for local museums. But I don't like price guides. I'd rather write about antique adventures, than about item valuations. Where's the excitement in that?

I'm reading all the time. Whenever I find an interesting biography, for example, of someone I know, had even a slight relationship with Muskoka, it's on my list of required reading. In the case of Group of Seven Canadian artists, like A.Y. Jackson, they didn't spend ages and ages painting in Muskoka, but they most certainly did visit and sketch in our area. Tom Thomson was not only in the Gravenhurst train station at some point, but he may have found himself on a steamship. We do know he was visiting a guest at Bracebridge's former Dominion Hotel, and may have spent the night. A.J. Casson sketched a Gravenhurst school house. A.Y. Jackson sampled the brisk qualities of a local waterway, the result of misadventure. The list goes on, but let's take a look at Mr. Jackson, courtesy his autobiography, "A Painter's Country."

"Apart from a canoe trip through the Rideau with my brother Harry, I had little experience of canoeing, when a young student from Harvard suggested that we make a journey from Georgian Bay, which was a popular canoe route at that time," penned the Group of Seven member. "My companion was a very cheerful, careless fellow, as inexperienced as I; thus when we set off from Williams Island, we had no proper equipment and we realized it on the first portage. We were paddling against some swift water at a bend in the river." He wrote, "Westengard was paddling bow, rather indolently, and the current caught the bow, swung it sideways and over we went. We swam around getting all our stuff ashore, retrieving the canoe, and getting it righted. As we were thus engaged another party came down the river. We tried to look unconcerned, as though this was normal practice with us, but they were not fooled. A few miles farther up-river, at a portage, we decided to camp and dry our stuff. We made a big fire and unpacked everything."

Jackson records in his memoir that, "While we were making camp, a canoe with a couple of lumberjacks landed, going up the river. One of them picked up the heavy packsack, swung it on his shoulders, and piled a dunnage bag on top of it. The other pulled up the canoe, shoved the paddles under the thwart straps, swung the canoe bottom up on his shoulders, and they were off. The whole procedure took less than two minutes. They grinned at us as they passed, asking, 'You the chaps that got dumped down there?' We felt like a couple of greenhorns, but not for long. Another party appeared going down the river; this was really an amateur outfit. It took four of them to carry one canoe, another trip for the second canoe and still others for the armfuls of bedding, the cooking outfit, and the cushions. A good half hour was needed to transport the outfit across the portage a hundred yards long. In our short time at the portage we had a perfect demonstration of what and what not to do."

"We had some rope, and we arranged our dunnage in the canoe in such a way that we could get over a portage with one carry. The next morning," according to Jackson, "as we went over the portage, a couple of young huskies, who had been camping at the upper end were just leaving. I said to Westengard, 'We won't see them again,' but I was wrong; about three miles farther up the river we saw them swimming about, getting their stuff ashore. They had been dumped through carelessness, and we knew how they felt. At Bala we had to replace some of our supplies, bread, sugar, and other stuff that had been ruined by water. The clerk said, 'Are you the boys that had the spill.' I said, 'Oh no. They should be along in about an hour."

And with a little plug for the lessons taught by the Muskoka wilds, Jackson concluded, "By the end of that trip we had learned a lot about getting around by canoe; how to choose a camp site, how to make fires in the rain, and how to adapt ourselves philosophically to whatever transpired."

Just because you know this passage, and a thousand other relevant Muskoka references, it doesn't mean you're going to find an A.Y. Jackson sketch, on the back of a Bala general store receipt….just because he shopped there once. Some would argue my plan, of reading everything and anything about Muskoka, is too much work for too little gain. Maybe they're right. But in my competitive line of work, where there are collectors and dealers in my face on most antique hunts we take these days, any over-and-above advantage I have, has to do with acquired knowledge……from books. I may not be as fast as some of my nimble-footed friends, or as connected as some others to major antique sources, but like the moral of the tortoise and the hare, I've been banking on wisdom and patience for long enough to know it works. Younger dealers simply don't want to take advice from an old fart. Who cares if A.Y. Jackson was in Muskoka or not? Why is this relevant? Unfortunately, many have this attitude about books generally, and prefer the comfort of price guides up around their ears. So I don't spend a lot of time trying to change their strategies or their philosophy.

If on the other hand, you were to re-read the passages re-printed from the Jackson biography, as a sort of "moral of the story," you might then realize what I mean about the rigors of trial and error. A lot of antique dealers I know, and see every time I'm out on the hustings, make the same mistakes time and again. They miss significant pieces, and a husky profit, because they haven't learned, "how to paddle the proverbial canoe." As newfound "philosophy," you might decide that what the artist was pointing out…….from his misadventure (as their lives were definitely in peril), was how keen observation "helped a couple of greenhorns," survive, and then arrive safely at their destination. "What and what not to do!" It's a story I've directed to many fledgling dealers, to help them out, and its usually met with……"get lost old timer."

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