THE AUTUMN SEASON IS FOR "GHOST" WRITING HERE IN MUSKOKA

I'M OKAY WITH GHOSTS - BUT I THINK THEY FIND ME TOO INTENSE

     I HAVE OFTEN KIDDED SUZANNE, ABOUT MY SPIRITUAL EXISTENCE AFTER DEATH. SHE BRUSHES THIS OFF BECAUSE IT'S GLOOMY BUSINESS....THIS DEATH STUFF. I MEAN IF WE'VE GOT LIFE INSURANCE AND A WILL, WE MUST HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT DEATH LONG ENOUGH TO SIGN THE PAPER WORK, AND CUT A CHEQUE FOR THE COVERAGE. SO SHE HAD ADDRESSED THE ISSUE, BUT JUST DOESN'T LIKE TO DWELL ON THE REALITY, ONE DAY, ONE OF US WILL BE OF THE "DEARLY DEPARTED." LIKE HARRY HOUDINI PROMISED TO COME BACK FROM THE DEAD, I HAVE INSISTED THAT I WILL DO THE SAME.....AND LEAVE SUBTLE REMINDERS THAT, ALTHOUGH I MIGHT NOT BE SEEN AS A VAPOR HOVERING ABOUT MY EASY CHAIR, I WILL AT THE VERY LEAST PULL SOME OUT OF BODY PRANKS.....WHICH MOST CERTAINLY HAVE BEEN MY HOBBY OVER A LIFE-TIME. I HAVE SAID TO HER, WHEN SHE HASN'T YET PLACED HER HANDS OVER HER EARS, THAT I WILL LEAVE OBVIOUS PILES OF CRUMBS IN THE PLACES AROUND THE HOUSE, I USED TO LOVE TO SNACK......AND I WILL REPLACE MY SHIRTS WHERE MY UNDERWEAR USED TO BE, AND IF ANYONE TRIES TO USE MY DRESSER WITHOUT MY PERMISSION, I SHALL PROTEST BY NIGHTLY UNDERWEAR RAIDS, AND WILD SOCK THROWING EPISODES. THE POINT I'M TRYING TO MAKE, IN A ROUND ABOUT WAY, (WHICH IS TYPICAL), IS THAT I BELIEVE GHOSTS ARE MORE LIKELY TO SPAWN FROM INTENSE HUMAN CHARACTERS......WHO ARE PARTICULARLY PASSIONATE ABOUT LIFE AND THEIR PASSAGES, DAY TO DAY....EVEN TO THE DETAIL OF WHAT CHAIR THEY SELECT TO SIT IN, NIGHT AFTER NIGHT, TO HAVE DINNER; OR JUST UNWIND WITH A GOOD BOOK. SUZANNE WILL TELL YOU, AND MY FRIENDS WILL SURELY CORROBORATE THE STORY, THAT I AM ONE OF THOSE INTENSE HUMANS, WHO SPENDS A GREAT DEAL OF TIME IMAGINING STUFF......AND PRE-PLANNING. "IF ANY ONE ALIVE WAS TO LEAVE A GHOST BEHIND, IT WOULD BE YOU," SHE SAID TO ME ONE NIGHT, IRONICALLY, AS I WAS READING ABOUT GHOSTS, FROM A BOOK WRITTEN BY JOHN ROBERT COLOMBO, AN ACQUAINTANCE. I KNOW WHAT SHE MEANT, AND IT WAS BY NO MEANS INSULTING. I OFTEN ZONE OUT FROM EVERYTHING ELSE AROUND ME, EVEN IN OUR SHOP, WHEN I'M PLANNING OUT FUTURE BLOGS, AND OTHER WRITING JAGS I'M INTERESTED IN PURSUING. I HAVE INVESTED A LOT OF SOUL IN THIS HOUSE; THESE FEW ROOMS OF A SIMPLE, NO FRILLS ABODE, AND IN THESE SEVERAL CHAIRS WHERE I AM APT TO WORK THROUGH THE DAY ON SOME CREATIVE JUNKET. I'VE HAD SUZANNE CALL ME FIVE OR SIX TIMES, TO GET MY ATTENTION, AND HONESTLY, EVEN WITH GOOD HEARING, I'M TOO DEEP IN CREATIVE ENTERPRISE TO CATCH THE DRIFT. I THINK A LOT OF ARTISTS, MUSICIANS AND WRITERS GET LIKE THIS......CATCHING WHATEVER CREATIVE SURGE COMES ALONG....FEARING THAT IF THEY MISS ANY INSPIRATION, IT COULD BECOME A LONG TERM HABIT OF PROCRASTINATION; NOT BEING ALERT TO THE PSYCHIC ENERGY THAT ALLOWS US TO MEANDER THE NETHERWORLD WITHOUT A TICKET. I WILL EXPLAIN THIS LATER.

     AS FOR LEAVING A GHOST BEHIND, WELL SIR, I HOPE IT WILL BE WELL BEHAVED. I'D HATE TO LEAVE A RUDE APPARITION FOR SUZANNE, AND ONE THE BOYS WILL HAVE TO APOLOGIZE FOR, WHEN GUESTS ARE PINCHED ON THE BUM, OR A DRINK IS KNOCKED FROM THEIR HANDS. NOT TO MENTION THE PARANORMAL FLATULENCE. I WOULD LIKE TO BE MORE LIKE "CASPER" THE FRIENDLY GHOST. BUT I DO INTEND TO HAUNT BIRCH HOLLOW.....AND THAT'S ALL THERE IS TO IT. SO HONESTLY, IF I HAVE THIS OPINION AS MY OWN LAST RITE, IT SHOULDN'T BE ANY SURPRISE, THAT I BELIEVE IN GHOSTS PRESENTLY, AS A LIFE AND AFTER-LIFE CORNER-STONE.....AND I HAVE A FAIR AMOUNT OF EVIDENCE OF THEIR EXISTENCE. I'VE BEEN RESEARCHING AND WRITING ABOUT THEM SINCE THE EARLY 1980'S, AND I HAVE LIVED IN NUMEROUS SPIRITUALLY ENHANCED DWELLINGS IN MUSKOKA......AND THE INMATE GHOSTS WERE HARD TO DENY. I'LL EXPLAIN THIS LATER. STILL, I WANT TO REMIND ONE AND ALL, THAT I DO NOT BELIEVE GHOSTS AND THE PARANORMAL GENERALLY, TO BE EVIL OR MALEVOLENT QUALITIES AND QUANTITIES IN ANY WAY. THEY'RE JUST THE REMNANTS OF A LIFE THOROUGHLY ENJOYED, AND CLEAR EVIDENCE OF A RELUCTANCE TO LEAVE IT ALL BEHIND. HERE ARE A FEW INTRODUCTORY TALES TO GET STARTED.

     AS A FOOTNOTE, I WILL ALSO EXPLAIN MY OPINION ABOUT ANTIQUES THAT CARRY PASSENGER SPIRITS......PIECES, FOR EXAMPLE, THAT WERE PASSIONATELY ENJOYED IN LIFE BY INTENSE MORTALS......LIKE DOLLS, CRADLES AND EVEN BIBLES.....THAT POSSESS A LITTLE EXTRA ENERGY AFTER THE OWNER'S PASSING.

IT'S SEPTEMBER.......TIME FOR SOME CAMPFIRE GHOST STORIES.......THAT MAY GIVE YOU A SHIVER.....BUT HOPEFULLY NOT

Our family has been Ontario's Algonquin Park campers for many years. Since our boys were in their early teens, we have canoed on many of the fabulously scenic park lakes..... but our favorites have always been Canoe Lake, Tea Lake and Rock Lake. As an ongoing researcher somewhat obsessed with the alleged drowning death of Canadian artist Tom Thomson, I have spent my vacations close to Canoe Lake (for study) where his body was found in the early summer of 1917. I believe it was murder. I will deal with this down the road in my blog collection.

One evening at Rock Lake, as my wife and son Andrew were sitting down at the campground's beachfront, adjacent to the famous Booth Trail, they watched in the low light of autumn dusk, a man walk through the shoreline area, down onto the beach, stop momentarily, and then walk into the water. He hadn't taken many steps into the lake when he simply vanished. A ghost? An apparition? A message to the living from someone who has passed? Who can say?

It was only a short time before this holiday weekend for us, that a gent had perished in a canoe mishap a short distance from this camping area, being found on the other side of the bay several days after he went missing. Could it have been the image of the chap repeating the events of that fateful night. This is an example of the kind of encounters our family has had, and never discounted, over the past twenty five years. We don't over analyze these events and we certainly aren't frightened when something similar happens in our day to day activities. We are open-minded to such interactions but we don't make any attempt to draw spirits into our domain, or hope to make any particular connections with the other side. If it happens, well, it happens, and we appreciate the opportunity to experience something a tad outside simple explanation.

Our many parallel encounters certainly won't make the next thriller movie out of Hollywood and I don't believe there's one story here that would be the spark for an author to embellish into fiction. These are just honest, non-sensational recollections of personal experiences with unknown entities that may abut or prutrude a tad into the true definition of paranormal. Yet the fact of their commonplace may validate your own encounters that you may or may not have dismissed as something unworthy of after-thought. Then this is for you......not stories to frighten.....rather accounts to enlighten. Please read on!

*Ghosts of Muskoka and Algonquin Park, A Few Other Wee Beasties And Tales Of Our Own Haunted Sleepy Hollow

I was looking through a pile of old books I collect, picking up a half dozen that had fallen over on the old hearth here at Birch Hollow, our Gravenhurst, Ontario homestead, when low and behold a business card appeared at my feet. Now Canadian author/researcher John Robert Colombo might find this hard to believe but none the less, there it was right under my nose.....a modest stretch of the arm to pick up his business card from the odd little space on the bricks amidst the artful array of fallen titles

strewn on and off the cold hearth. As if placed there as an exclamation point amongst the printed words of some really excellent books, was the business card of Colombo & Company, John Robert Colombo, one of Canada's best known "master gatherers," an unyielding, intrepid researcher who has done so much to reveal the mysteries, legends and tales of the unexplained in this country. He has published many books with stories of haunted places, about haunted lives, and published hundreds of first person accounts of experiences with the paranormal, provided by citizens who trust his sensitivity to these often emotional tales or ghostly encounters.

Quite a few years ago now, I was one of the contributors to John's efforts to record these first person accounts, with a re-telling of a paranormal experience I had while living in a Manitoba Street residence, in Bracebridge, back in the late 1970's. The story was published a few years later in a book he had released documenting a new and higly interesting collection of regional Canadian hauntings. We kept up a correspondence for a number of years, and it was with great honor that I was able to recruit him to compose the opening column of a lengthy series of Muskoka ghost stories I was writing for a local publication known as The Muskoka Sun, back in the mid 1990's. Following that success he suggested that I should write my own book documenting local ghost stories for the district market. A note on the back of the business card he sent me about the same time, read "Ted: I hope one day you write 'Ghosts of Muskoka.'

So here it was, John's business card that had been neatly pressed into one of his books, with this note on the back,.... and here I was reading and scanning through three books on ghosts and the paranormal; well, you can gather it was a sign I couldn't, and wouldn't ignore one moment longer. It was time, after more than a decade of pondering the possibilities that I finally put down in print, for the global audience, just what paranormal gad-abouts, appearances and maleovolant behaviour occurs here in the Ontario hinterland beyond fern and bogland, hill and misty dale. It was the good Mr. Colombo who....at about the point when I seriously contemplated giving up writing altogether, suggested my writing reminded him of his friend and Canadian author Wayland Drew....who penned the well known Canadian classic "Superior - The Haunted Shore," amongst many others. John at the time, didn't know that I had worked with Wayland to launch the local historical society and musuem. I had worked closely with Wayland for a number of years and had greatly admired his work. I was the one who informed him that Wayland had passed away after a lengthy illness. It felt a little surreal but it was all part and parcel of many coincidences and strange spiritual connections that have happened since, continuing to remind me an important life-enhancing task was yet to complete. Not a mundane chore of text building but rather one that would be adventure-filled and exciting even sitting at this scuffed-up old keyboard......in the hollow of my office between towers of old books and mounds of half-fallen paper files currently defying gravity. It's pretty much the problem of being both an historian and bibliophile that I face suffocation by printed word, every day here, in this precarious abstract of a life's work. But what inspirational environs in which to work.....being surrounded by the work of some of the finest authors ever published. I count John Robert Colombo among that group.

I have great respect for the work of John Robert Colombo, and we are richer in this country because of his exceptional and ongoing contribution to the archives documenting our social, - and paranormal legacy from the first days questing for survival on this continent to the present. I would like to dedicate this hale and hardy adventure to profile Muskoka and Algonquin Park ghosts, to Mr. Colombo, that although a wee decade or so behind its time, has finally made it to online publication. Thank you John for the encouragment to develop an inventory of regional haunts, those who have been haunted and many other paranormal encounters never before documented. First of all I would like to document my own encounters. Hope you enjoy the following editorial offerings.

In the spirit of Washington Irving and tales of the Haunted Hudson

In the mid 1990's I became fascinated with the under-recognized, and largely ignored historical reality my hometown, the Town of Bracebridge, Ontario, was named after the title of a book written by legendary Amercian author, Washington Irving. The book was known as "Bracebridge Hall," published I believe in the early 1820's, a carry over of stories from the earlier Sketch Book which first introduced Squire Bracebridge and life at the English countryside's "Bracebridge Hall," a fictional manor house that was most likely inspired by a stay Irving had at Sir Walter Scott's home, known as "Abbotsford." There has long been debate about the estate Irving had in mind when writing Bracebridge Hall, but most similarities seem to rest with Scott's abode. Irving was fascinated by Scott's Border Tales, and the adventurous hikes the two had taken through the storied property in the so called "old country."

In 1864 a curious, well read and history-minded postal authority in Canada, by the name of W.D. LeSueur (who became both a well published literary critic and Canadian historian), had the task of approving and in some cases naming pioneer hamlets registering for official postal outlets. Two years earlier he named the hamlet of Gravenhurst after a book written by revered British poet-author William Henry Smith, entitled "Gravenhurst, or Thoughts on Good and Evil," which wasn't as dire as the title suggests. When he completed his literary attachments for the two Muskoka towns, he neglected to provide each with the accompanying provenance which would have explained his reasons for borrowing names from a poet and author from other parts of the world. As a result, even up the the mid 1990's, well more than a century later, very few knew of the connections to Smith and Irving, and nothing much was known about W.D. LeSueur. It is not the purpose of this blog-site on old haunts here in Muskoka, to spend too much time discussing the handiwork of Dr. LeSueur. You can read about that in my Muskoka and Gravenhurst blog sites. Rather my fascination was peaked with the "spirited" work of Irving, in particular, because during research for a later publication, about the link between town and author, I had re-read both The Sketch Book and Bracebridge Hall.....quite inspired by the fact Washington Irving had an unyielding respect for preservation of cultural attachments....legend and lore, tradition and the preservation of stories about ghosts, ghosts ships, apparitions good and bad; and stories that told of spirited rides like that of the infamous headless horseman and the strange goings on in Sleepy Hollow. It was Irving more than any other writer, who drew attention to the mysteries of the Hudson River valley and the phantom ships and crews that navigated the mist-laden, hill embraced, narrow snaking waterway through forest and haunted valley.

I had for years found many regional parallels here in Muskoka to the physical characteristics of the longer, more storied Hudson, with the attributes of thick forests, rolling hillsides, deeply gouged lowlands, and meandering waterways. The black ribbon through the morning mist, and thunderous cataracts of the Muskoka River, where voices of the dead were said to call out to the living. There were some perceived similarities, particularly to the young reader, consuming the story of Ichabod Crane's Sleepy Hollow, and on many, many nights, I swear that I heard the pounding of hooves from the phantom beast carrying the headless horseman, down the well trodden paths through the woodland we knew only as The Grove, and along by the old swimming hole we called Bass Rock. A few of us more imaginative lads well expected to be swept up into the horseman's arms, to feel on our cheeks the flames from the jack-o-lantern he held under his arm, while the other hand held the reins of the fiersome beast galloping into the moonlight. This was our own Historic Hudson. The Muskoka River valley. And we were all young Irvings, penning wide and varied endings to the chapter best suited our needs. We scared ourselves half to death on those darker than dark autumn nights, when the boney fingers of early winter touched the passive soul.

I knew Muskoka was haunted even as a kid. It wasn't all imagination. We had all seen things, heard stuff, and witnessed what can only be called now, endearing enchantments of youth.....never to be fully explained but always taken into account when thinking back to the events and circumstances of a childhood well invested in a good hometown. It is quite beyond our control to change what has been imprinted by the adventures of once. It was the story below the headline, the meat on the proverbial bone. I hadn't lived in this ballywick for all those years without having gathered the evidence it was both a unique hometown and a fertile plot for those who cared to delve beyond commonplace..... believing with heart and soul in the dynamic of the supernatural. I never really understood the work of author C.S. Lewis, who wrote about the scope and unknown possibilities of the supernatural as one encounters it from one end of life to the other. I don't suppose I would have been a very good student under the tutorship of the good Mr. Lewis but I have always kept it in mind that to define supernatural requires more breadth of understanding before it is appropriately attached to an event or encounter. It takes a tad more investigation and interpretation than I was afforded then as an inquisitive, largely untutored citizen. I just bandied about "supernatural" as a blanket description for anything that was out of the ordinary.....from the bump in the night to the invisible footfall up the staircase. But I wanted to learn more, and I suppose over a lifetime my greatest character enhancement has been to question the reality of everything, and the relevances of everything in between. I'm so confident that the refrigerator light goes off when I shut the door that I have given up entirely the mission to sit inside to verify this fact. So this being said, can I be sure there are ghosts and a headless horseman when I have so little proof.....other than the vivid imagination I inherited from a long line of inquisitive ancestors? Well first of all, there's fiction and non-fiction. The headless horseman is a work of great fiction. My childhood pre-occupation, like many youngsters having some difficulty differentiating between reality and fantasy, painted a good deal of life into the phantom horseman. This was in part due to Mr. Irving being an exceptional story spinner....and the reader being so pitifully absorbed by the myriad mysteries hatched in that historic Hudson Valley

The stories of ghostly, spirited, paranormal and supernatural encounters I've had in Muskoka, and have researched over the past thirty odd years, are not frightful or disturbing accounts. While at the time they were a little unsettling, none of my own experiences made me feel uneasy or unwilling to seek them out a second or third time for posterity. I have never once felt in the presence of evil or malevolence although I have had a recurring dream for about a decade that suggests I should be scared of one particular entity.....which was inspired by a rather odd feeling I had about an attic in one of the houses I was associated in the late 1970's, early 1980's. I can't say it was akin to anything evil, just that the dream always ends prior to me finding out just what the opposing entity is, and what it wants with this old author anyway. I'll detail this further into the blog site and you can decide for yourself whether I'm in trouble upcoming, or was it simply the twisted root of indigestion......you know, the salty popcorn too close to bedtime that generates a wee nightmare from time to time.

While I have a beginning of this series planned, I have no conclusion intended and hope to keep adding to this inventory as time goes by, publishing new haunts on top of the old, to properly represent the spirit-kind and other related anomolies of my home region, the District of Muskoka.....of which I include the region of Algonquin Park and the mystery of Tom Thomson; also part of this collection of tales, legends, yarns and old wives' tales, when and where they become available. If you have any Muskoka ghost stories etc. yourself, please email me a summary of the story, and if you desire, we can include some of the details in this blog site. Thanks for reading and participating in this newest Muskoka blog site. Let's keep in touch. More stories on the way. While there was a time when I was worried about ridicule for believing in ghosts, goblins and the assorted wee beasties that haunt hill and moor, aye, after all my years being ridiculed for just about everything else, it is a pleasure to unfetter from the impositions of accepted thought and conservative protocol, to march on with this drum beat of adventure.....to meet face to face the unkown.....some I will undoubtedly like, some others may generate a little fear and trembling...... but truth be known, I'm too old and carefree now to worry about monsters under the bed. I only check once and a while now! I want to learn all there is to know about the activities of the paranormal.....what learned folks refer to with considerable expertise.....the supernatural!

-30-

The enchantments of childhood live on, in memory as Peter Pan's Neverland

My parents never told me that Peter Pan was a fraud and it wasn't until the end of public school that I sort of knew what "fictional" meant; and that's when Peter's "Neverland" and places like "Oz" fell apart for me.....I was an uncomplicated but always daydreaming kid, who stared out the classroom window desiring far off places, great escapes from my fetters, and lasting, fulfilling adventure. Like I said, my parents gave me all the freedom a kid could ask for, particularly when it came to the dynamic of an over-active imagination.

I used to sit on the platform of the Bracebridge Train Station, for hours on end, positioned up on one of the baggage carts, waiting for my special "escape" train to come in....so I could jump a freight car and head out over the wild and amazing countryside.....the opportunities were endless. Yet hundreds of trains passed me by in those ever-dreaming vigils but yet in my yearning young heart I was an experienced, story revelling traveller......mostly in spirit and the imagination of a writer apprentice. As a kid I was keen for just about any adventure. I just couldn't justify the risk of breaking my mother's heart by disappearing in a boxcar to some exotic locale. I did, over the years, without any other intervening excitement, become an astute "watcher" of events and curious other "goings on" down by the infamous Albion Hotel (across from the train station), where bouncers hastily exited their unwanted patrons without first opening the doors. It was really my first foray into the work of an historian.....experiencing actuality. In fact, I experienced so much actuality back then, I can't keep a straight face now, hearing or reading some other tight-arse historian trying to "make nice" and commonplace, the lives and shananigans of the colorful characters who occupied our community. I saw things differently. I paid attention to the real-life exhibitions occurring and didn't have to rely on the polished, sanitized overviews published in the local press, to paint my road forward with conservative protocol.

I was given ample freedom to explore life and times as a young lad, and I found many neat portals to watch down on this world of "the hometown." And mixed in were the kind of spirited, unexplained, allegedly supernatural stuff nobody, even this well-read voyeur, could really explain. I was just delighted to be able to observe. I didn't need the encumberance of research to find answers, just the moment or two in the midst of the paranormal to drink it all in.....like the box car I didn't jump aboard out of fear I'd fall short....I wasn't going to miss any opportunity to experience the so called super-natural when within observational reach.

I don't think my home region was any more spirited than any other community but not every ballywick had a watcher like me in the midst. When I first began writing about paranormal experiences in Muskoka, particularly Bracebridge, back in the early 1980's, a few of the self-acclaimed leaders of civility and good humor, felt I was out of order and should cease and desist congering up any more ghosts and goblins. While I love my old home town, there are a few objectionable, nasty old trolls under the bridge that I've sparred with for decades, about the rights and privileges of the press and sundry other writers who color outside the lines on purpose. Just to rock the steady-as-she-goes attitude that has prevailed for decades, I admit to being provocative to a fault. That would be me. The boat-rocker! The mad painter who believes soulfully that lines are suggestions and not the rule. I've seen ghosts. I've felt their spooky vapor. I've had a chat with several, and a Sunday evening dinner or two with others. They were all very sociable encounters. It's just not the kind of stuff you write about, worry my critics, to which I answer.....well, nothing actually. These paranormal encounters are history now so get over it!

My mother Merle never denied the existence of ghosts, hobgoblins, elves or Knights That Say "Neat." She didn't tell me there was "no such thing" as a monster, or multiples of monster-kind in the wide world, depending whether you were on land or sea..... just not under my bed at the time she needed me to nod off. "Of course there aren't any monsters under there......?" she'd bark at my stubborn refusals to settle at night. "Well if not there.....where? She always left that open for interpretation as mothers love to folly with their marginally attentive youngsters. If I told my mother that I had been abducted by aliens all she would have asked is, "Did you change you underwear and socks this morning." Whether she believed in the paranormal or UFOs didn't matter as much as the fact she didn't try to discourage my own investigation. If I thought I had seen a ghost, who was she to de-rail the critical process of learning by deduction.......finding for oneself the clear differences between reality, actuality and wishful, creative thinking. On several occasions I probably did manufacturer contact with the alleged other side, when in fact the vision and the sound the vision made was quite explanable. Merle just nodded and her neutral position left me with the opinion that being open-minded to new things wasn't daft at all in this extraordinary and ever changing universe.

Now back in the real old days. Burlington, Ontario. Late 1950's, early 60's, when it was a town looking to become a city. As a kid getting daily if not hourly soakers playing along the shore of what I called Ramble Creek, the dense bush in the small hollow that bordered Harris Crescent and Torrance, and Lakeshore Road running along Lake Ontario, gave me a fertile environs to let my imagination root. While a kid's free climb of anticipation and expectation is supposed to be untethered until taught restraint at a later age, being an only child without a huge whack of friends, I occupied my time studying everything around me, and making friends with any critter that crossed my path. I would sit on the bank of the babbling creek and compose poems long before I knew what it meant to be "poetic". I fell in love with a little school chum named Angela, who used to invite me across a narrows in the creek, to play on the rusty swing that cut through the sunlight with a noisy, rusted cadence of chain on tin, a pendulum in silhouette that caught my attention, my heart with both hands. When I visited Angela it was as if her sunny side of the river was bonified wonderment rationalized, partly because I was smitten and secondly because I had no idea what the symptoms of newfound love could do to a budding imagination. Where was I? The Twilight Zone? But Angela's soft pink hand, so warm and comforting seemed as real as the pounding heart trying to jump from my chest. But after all the pondering and recalling since, I really don't know whether she was mortal or a manifestation of make believe.....if what I witnessed was even a smidgeon "real", I thusly have proof of angelic existence on earth. She was glorious. I still sort through the contradictions of experiences and truths about young Angela, who has haunted me in memory ever since.

For many years, I confess, I had my doubts about whether Angela was anything more than an elaborate illusion of a silly boy, being a waif that didn't really exist in the hand to hand sense; a visitation with a message, maybe? I know I was on my way toward Lake Ontario to sail a small model boat I had crafted, when she intervened on that first encounter. My mother always told me I'd surely drown if I disobeyed her and hiked to the lakeshore. Maybe she was supposed to intercept me and "spare me over for another year"....the words of an old song about buying a little more time from God. I could never find Angela when looking through old school photographs, and yet that's where I strongly believed we had met. At least I thought this was the case but unless she was absent for the class photo, there may have been more ghost than fibre to that friend of mine. It's not easy however, admitting that such an important person in my life may have been a mirage of wishful thinking. I can still bring that scene back to virtual reality any time I wish, and feel the warm sun on my body, swinging there while facing the amber sparkle of the creek water washing over thin limestone. Had I been swinging the afternoons away with "Angela the Angel? Possibly. But it was just one of many similar incidents over a full and mystery filled childhood that always seemed a tad more enchanted than it was supposed to be......at least according to those who tried to teach me by example. Admittedly I made a crappy student and a worse-off follower. The humourless beggars? The killjoys! Like I said, my parents didn't poo-poo ideas or observations I made, unless they were dangerous falsehoods that could have gotten me killed. We had massive hydro towers nearby and on more than one occasion I had been successful in getting to the second level of iron work. I did reckon that without wings the fall from grace was going to hurt like hell. So on several life and safety issues I did listen to the voices of authority. Angela kept me away from that lake. Not once but on numerous occasions, when that deep blue horizon drove me crazy with excitement....just as it did when I saw a train coming to the Bracebridge station with an open boxcar......just a short run and a nimble leap away from the open rails and wide open spaces.

As I wrote about earlier in this collection of blogs, the Ramble (or as some folks called it "Rambo") Creek basin, was an enchanted woodlands if ever there was one. It was thick and vine-clad and had a history intertwined on and through its remaining half fallen garden architecture, the fascinating trelaces and benches of a once grand Victorian estate, eeriely shadowed and overgrown, much as I could imagine the legendary enclosure of Alice's own Wonderland.

Through my early days and pretty much up to the present, I exercise a critical approach to most things, allowing myself the privilege of witholding judgement on subjects of debate until I can pro and con it into discernable qualities and quanties of half or near truths. I'm a bloody nuisance this way but I'm simply not going to deny or dismiss something without the substance of sensible argument, and even then I'm open to new input or old research to right any misconception. While I believe in ghosts, I also believe there is a scientific explanation. I believe in the existence of alien life forms but I don't set myself out in a field every night awaiting my turn to be abducted. If someone told me, as a reporter (which was my profession for many years) that there was a crop circle I should inspect, I would have hit the ground in a full Canadian trot (a little more conservative speed than most trots). Yet I wouldn't say, on inspection, that it was a manifestation of bored aliens....or that it had been done by out of this world anything, until I could prove it hadn't been the handiwork of a prankster(s). As a reporter I had stared down many such weird and whacky tales and even been duped on a few occasions when I didn't follow my instincts that a new "dupe" was about to be gleefully regaled. Poor Me!

Whether it was my family's liberal, never say never attitude or not, I have grown up with the idea that anything is possible, whether it be Queen Mab and the moonlight revel of the fairies, the curious travels of gnomes, trolls, hob-goblins, ghosts and other sundry wee beasties that traverse the misty moors late at night. So with this series of blogs you won't find blind acceptance to anything. It takes a steep, unreserved commitment to put a name to a lengthy tome like this that pretty much declares "I've seen dead people and stuff"....., which for all intents and purposes, does seem to favor the existence, in this writer's opinion, of the paranormal over what naysayers would like to quash as unscientific, unproven and sloppy old hogwash. I must thusly confess without regret, that I am not neutral in this matter. The stories in this collection, as I have duly noted previously, all have to do with first person encounters with what meets the criteria and definition of the paranormal and the "yet to be fully explained."

My wife Suzanne and I are long time historians in this region of Ontario, Canada. We deal with fact as historians and have worked on major research projects that demand attention to detail. Hearsay and speculation don't cut it for historians unless its an opinion piece. Some times it is, but most often the group or client we're working for wants factual record of an event or company history not the meanderings and inaccuracies that can be associated with prognostications and frothy adjective-burdened expectations. When however, we are working on a detail of history, such as the alleged accidental death of Canadian artist, Tom Thomson, where speculation has its place, then we balance carefully what we know with what we can imagine....based on the roughed-in, re-created scene and circumstances, to better understand how various events could have altered the outcome. We've paddled Algonquin's Canoe Lake many times in the past 12 years trying to re-create that 1917 murder scene. Not done yet!

Exactly as a judicial enquiry would beat the facts and speculation into something to hold up to the light.....we hope to find the flaws in the theory. Dealing with the flaws makes it a much tighter theory. We spend more time, I think, debunking our own theories in an attempt to make a sensible approach to the subject issue. We like to think of our work as having forensic intent but we are afterall just historical folks without rank.... not ghost-busters or ghost chasers with blinking scientific devices strapped to our backs, sniffing the atmosphere for ghostly remainders; and we stand by our overviews with our file-folders spilling forth with research material. Not as fascinating as catching "Slimer" in a ghost sucking machine but we're content with out finds anyway. When we tackle something like supernatural encounters, we do so with great and unyielding attention to detail, and offer as much counterpoint such that some readers might even believe we are, in reality, calling ourselves "nutters"..... for actually believing our own stories of ghostly encounters. Yet there's no way, even after many, many encounters with the so-called other side, or spirit world, that we can claim to have had anything more than an unusual visitation and accompanying experience by something that may or may not have been of the paranormal variety. We'll tell you what happened, and what we believe occurred in full detail but by golly, the believing part is up to you because frankly, we're still chasing down proof even years after something strange has crossed into our neighborhood. It's the history thing that keeps us questing for more information before we can say without a doubt, what we held hands with was a true, cold and misty entity of another dimension.

Any one who says to me "I don't believe in ghosts," is an individual I don't try to influence one way or the other. I won't say I agree with them but I certainly won't waste the time and energy to sway them to be paranomal flag wavers. It isn't that important afterall. When my wife and I have had encounters, they have never been ones that we sought out. We didn't purposely stay over in haunted houses or hold moonlit vigils in creepy old graveyards, employing night vision goggles, looking for whisps of mist that look like wandering spirits escaping the grave. All our events have been unexpected and at times when ghosts were the furthest from our respective focus. This is what has always amazed us,.... that we have never been able to meet up with the spirit-kind on purpose, on our terms but rather when they felt it was time to appear. You will see numerous examples of this in this collection of ghost-related tales.

A MASSASSAUGA RATTLER IN MY NEWS OFFICE DESK; MY MACTIER DAYS RELIVED

MASSASSAUGA RATTLER LEFT IN MY DESK DRAWER

WAKE-UP STRATEGY FOR THE ROOKIE REPORTER

     ACCORDING TO THE LOCAL MEDIA, AND I'LL TAKE THEIR WORD FOR IT THIS TIME, THERE HAVE BEEN TWELVE BITES THIS SUMMER SEASON, COURTESY THE NATIVE SPECIES, THE MASSASSAUGA RATTLER.

     I REALLY DIDN'T KNOW A LOT ABOUT THE MASSASSAUGA SPECIES, UNTIL I BEGAN WORKING IN THE VILLAGE OF MACTIER, BACK IN 1979, FOR THE MUSKOKA LAKES-GEORGIAN BAY BEACON. MACTIER, SITUATED IN THE TOWNSHIP OF GEORGIAN BAY, IS IN AN AREA WELL KNOWN FOR ITS MASSASSAUGA POPULATION. I BELIEVE, THAT WHEN THE 400 WAS EXTENDED NORTH TO PARRY SOUND, IN THE REVAMPING REGIMEN OF THE OLD HIGHWAY 69 CORRIDOR, RATTLESNAKE MIGRATION TUNNELS WERE CREATED, IN AN ATTEMPT TO REDUCE THE CARNAGE OF SNAKES KILLED CROSSING THE ROADWAY. THE MASSASSAUGA RATTLER, OF COURSE, IS AN ENDANGERED SPECIES, AND YOU CAN BE PROSECUTED FOR KILLING THEM WITHOUT CAUSE. WELL SIR, MACTIER HAD ITS SHARE OF JUSTIFIED SNAKE KILLINGS, AT LEAST IN THOSE DAYS.

     ADMITTEDLY, I'M NOT A BIG FAN OF SNAKES AND THEIR ILK, BUT I MEAN THEM NO HARM. I WAS FASCINATED TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE MASSASSAUGA RATTLERS, AND PLANNED TO DO A LENGTHY FEATURE FOR THE BEACON. IT WAS KIND OF A LOGICAL ONE, SEEING AS JUST BEFORE I PLANNED TO DO THIS, TWELVE OF THE LITTLE BUGGERS WERE KILLED  IN A BACKYARD, WHERE THEY HAD ENCROACHED INTO THE AREA FREQUENTED BY CHILDREN. THIS APPARENTLY WAS A JUSTIFIED REMOVAL OF SOMETHING DANGEROUS TO LIFE AND LIMB. I MAY HAVE ASKED WHY THEY WEREN'T TRAPPED AND RELEASED SOMEWHERE ELSE, BUT I DON'T REMEMBER THE RESPONSE. I THINK IT WAS A CASE OF THE LEVEL OF ENCROACHMENT AND THE IMMINENT DANGER TO THE HOUSEHOLDERS. ANOTHER PHOTOGRAPH CAME ACROSS MY DESK, OF SEVEN OR SO, KILLED WHILE CROSSING THE ROAD, A SHORT DISTANCE FROM THE MAIN STREET.

     ONCE LOCAL CITIZENS HEARD THAT I WAS DOING THIS FEATURE STORY, WITH A MACTIER NEIGHBORHOOD PROFILE, I STARTED TO GET ALL KINDS OF STORIES ABOUT LIFE WITH RATTLESNAKES. ONE FRIEND OF MINE, WHO HAD LIVED IN THE COMMUNITY FOR MOST OF HIS LIFE, TOLD ME THAT, BEFORE THE NEW ARENA WAS BUILT, NEAR THE MAIN BUSINESS SECTION, THERE WAS A BASEBALL DIAMOND, AND A PLANK-WAY THROUGH A MARSHY AREA TO GET TO THE PARK. AT LEAST IT WAS ONE WAY TO GET TO THE PARK, BUT A FAVORITE OF THE LOCAL KIDS, WHO USED TO TEASE THE SNAKES, BY RUNNING OVER THE BOARDS, AND WATCHING AS THE SNAKES SNAPPED UP, TRYING TO SINK THEIR FANGS INTO A JUICY ANKLE. I STARTED TO LAUGH, WHEN I WAS TOLD THIS.....BUT THE TELLER STUCK TO THE STORY, AND IT WAS BACKED UP BY SEVERAL OTHERS. MACTIER FOLK LOVED TO PLAY GAMES WITH ME.....AND ALL THE REPORTERS WHO WORKED THERE....INCLUDING PLAYING PRACTICAL JOKES.

     ONE DAY, I CAME BACK FROM A LUNCH OUTING, AND JOYCE LUSK AND LORNA MCLEOD WERE ANXIOUS FOR ME TO SIT DOWN AND GET TO WORK ON SOME HOCKEY SCORESHEETS, SO THEY COULD GET HARD COPY TO SET, AND THEN WAX THE FINISHED COPY ONTO THE FLATS....FROM WHICH THE PAPER WAS COPIED AND THEN PRINTED AT MUSKOKA WEB, IN BRACEBRIDGE.

     THEY WERE VERY, VERY ANXIOUS FOR ME TO OPEN THE TOP DRAWER OF MY DESK, AND ASKED IF THEY COULD BORROW PAPER CLIPS, AND TYPEWRITER PAPER......SO THAT I WOULD HAVE TO CRACK IT OPEN. I SUSPECTED ONE OF THEIR MACTIER JOKES, SO I WAS VERY SLOW TO FOLLOW THROUGH ON THEIR REQUESTS.

     THE FIRST THING THAT HIT ME WAS THE AROMA, AND IT WASN'T TYPICAL OF MY DESK DRAWER. IT SMELLED "SWAMPY" OR MUSTY, AND THAT WAS ONLY ALLOWING A BIT OF OPEN DRAWER. I DID HALF EXPECT SOMETHING WAS IN THE DRAWER I WOULDN'T LIKE. I DIDN'T EXPECT, THAT THESE WONDERFUL GALS WOULD PLACE A DEAD MASSASSAUGA RATTLER IN MY DESK DRAWER AS A GAG. IT WAS THE CLOSEST I'VE EVER COME TO SUCH A CREATURE, WHICH IN THIS CASE, WAS CLEARLY DECEASED. THE SNAKE HAD BEEN HIT EARLIER IN THE DAY, ON THE ROAD I TRAVELLED EVERY DAY......AND SOMEONE HAD FOUND IT; SO THEY DECIDED, THAT SEEING AS I WAS DOING A STORY ON THE MASSASSAUGA RATTLER, I SHOULD SEE ONE UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL. THAT WAS WHERE LORNA AND JOYCE DECIDED TO PUNK THE NEW GUY. I WAS MORE SHOCKED, AT THE EXTENT THESE LADIES WOULD GO TO, IN ORDER TO GET THE RESPONSE THEY WANTED. I WATCHED THOSE GALS REAL CLOSE EVER AFTER THE SNAKE CAPER....JUST IN CASE THEY WANTED TO STOP MY HEART ONCE AGAIN.

     IT DID AFFORD ME AN EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY TO EXAMINE THE SNAKE THOROUGHLY, AND I COULDN'T BELIEVE HOW SMALL IT WAS, AND HOW TINY ITS HEAD WAS, AS COMPARED TO THE IMAGES HOLLYWOOD GAVE ME OF WESTERN RATTLERS, STINGING THE CARTRIGHTS AT THE PONDEROSA.  I GOT TO PRY OPEN ITS MOUTH, AND SEE THE SHARP, CURVED FANGS, AND WHERE THE VENOM IS RELEASED INTO THE VICTIM. I GOT TO RATTLE ITS TAIL, AND WE TOOK LOTS OF PHOTOGRAPHS, WHILE MAKING SPECIAL NOTE OF ITS COLORATIONS. IT HAS A THIN HEAD AREA AND TAIL, BUT A LARGE BELLY AREA.

     WHAT THE EXPERTS PROVIDED US WITH, WAS A COMPLETE OVERVIEW OF ITS HABITS AND HABITAT, AND OFFERED THE INFORMATION THAT IT IS A GROSSLY MISUNDERSTOOD SPECIES. I WAS INFORMED, FOR THAT FEATURE STORY, THAT THE VENOM WAS MOST DEFINITELY DEADLY, IF NOT TREATED WITH ANTI-VENOM QUICKLY. THE SNAKE, HOWEVER, HAS A POWERFUL STRIKE, BUT BECAUSE OF ITS SMALL SIZE, USUALLY STINGS THE BACK OF SHOES AND BOOTS, MORE SO THAN HITTING FLESH. HYDRO WORKERS IN THE AREA MUST WHERE HIGH BOOTS, WHICH DEFLECTS THE MASSASSAUGA BITES. THE PROBLEM IS, MANY OF THESE CRITTERS, COULD BE FOUND IN AND AROUND WILD BLUEBERRY BUSHES, ETC., WHERE PICKERS WOULD BECOME VULNERABLE, BY REACHING INTO THE SHRUBS, AND THEIR HABITAT.

     IGNORANCE CERTAINLY PLAYS A HUGE ROLE, IN BITES EACH YEAR, AS HIKERS, CAMPERS AND COTTAGERS, DECIDE TO PICK THE SNAKES UP. ANOTHER BIG PROBLEM IS THE FLIP-FLOP AND BARE FEET ALONG PATHWAYS, WHERE SNAKES ARE LIKELY TO BE FOUND. EXPOSED FEET AND ANKLES GIVE THE SNAKE A GOOD TARGET. THE RATTLE SHOULD BE A WARNING, BUT MANY FOLKS DON'T PAY ATTENTION TO THINGS LIKE THIS.....AND WERE SLEEPING THROUGH NATURAL SCIENCE CLASS, WHEN THE SNAKE WAS BEING STUDIED.

     I'VE OFTEN THOUGHT ABOUT THE HARDSHIPS OF THE PIONEER ROAD BUILDERS, GOING THROUGH THE GEORGIAN BAY AREA, WHERE THE POPULATION OF THE SNAKES WOULD HAVE BEEN SUBSTANTIAL. I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT THE CASUALTY RATE WAS THEN....AND HOW MANY DIED AS A DIRECT RESULT; SNAKES AND WORKERS. I DON'T BELIEVE THE DEATH RATE IS AN ISSUE, THESE DAYS, AS THE ANTI-VENOM IS AVAILABLE IN THE REGION....AND WHEN YOU GET STUNG....THERE'S NO QUESTION YOU NEED HELP RIGHT AWAY. SO AT LEAST PEOPLE ARE REACTING FAST AFTER THE FACT.

     I HAVE A WOOD CARVING OF A RATTLE SNAKE IN OUR STORE, THAT WAS APPARENTLY CARVED BY A CRAFTSMAN IN BALA, A NUMBER OF YEARS AGO. I THOUGHT PEOPLE WOULD OBJECT TO IT SITTING PROMINENTLY IN THE SHOP, BUT SO FAR, THERE HAVE ONLY BEEN GOOD AND POSITIVE COMMENTS. I'VE SEEN PARENTS SHOWING KIDS THE DETAILS OF THE SNAKE SKIN, CARVED INTO THE WOOD......AND I CERTAINLY HAVEN'T SEEN ANYTHING THAT LOOKS LIKE FEAR. I ALWAYS GIVE IT A SECOND LOOK, JUST IN CASE, LIKE IN A HOLLYWOOD HORROR FLICK, THE LITTLE SUCKER MAGICALLY COMES TO LIFE.

     YOU MUST NOT KILL A MASSASSAUGA RATTLER. IT IS ON THE ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST. BUT DON'T KILL SNAKES AT ALL. AS I'VE STATED ABOUT MACTIER.....THERE WERE, AND I IMAGINE THERE STILL ARE, SITUATIONS THAT DEMAND SPEEDY REACTION TO A DANGEROUS LIAISON IN A RESIDENTIAL CIRCUMSTANCE.

     I'M NOT EVER GOING TO SAY, I WAS GLAD THAT LORNA AND JOYCE GAVE ME MY FIRST, FACE TO FACE MEETING WITH A MASSASSAUGA RATTLER.....BUT THEY CERTAINLY DID ME NO HARM. I KNOW WHAT TO WATCH AND LISTEN FOR, WHEN WALKING THROUGH THE BUSH.

     AND SPEAKING OF NOISE......YOU'D BE HARD PRESSED TO HEAR A RATTLER AROUND HERE....BECAUSE OF THE NOISE POLLUTION......FROM THE NEIGHBORS WHO NEED A RIDING MOWER TO CUT A POSTAGE STAMP SIZED LOT; OR THE HOBBY CARPENTERS WHO CUT WOOD WELL INTO THE NIGHT......AND THE FIREWORKS COMPULSIVES, WHO CELEBRATE THE DAYS OF THE WEEK WITH BIG AND SUCCESSIVE BANGS....NOT JUST ON THE 24TH OF MAY, IN HONOR OF QUEEN VICTORIA; AND ON CANADA DAY. SO HERE'S MY GENTLE RANT ABOUT TOO MUCH SOUND OF THE HUMAN KIND, BLOCKING OUT THE BEAUTIFUL NATURAL SOUNDS OF OUR LAKELAND.

THE NOISE OF THE URBAN ENVIRONS - AND THE LOST SHRILL OF THE LOON

There are operations near us, here at Birch Hollow, that are intrusive noise makers. There are times when you expect some rogue train to come barreling through the woodlands, coming from this local institution. I try to imagine what could create such a terrible racket, if not a train. I wonder if the management of said institution has any idea what their equipment sounds like, in the neighborhood, and in the vicinity. There have been some earth moving activities, or so it sounds, these past few days, and the first time I heard it, I ran over to The Bog to make sure a bulldozer wasn't plowing through the lowland.

Early this morning, before the neighborhood pre-occupation with leaf blowers, riding mowers, assorted rough-shape lawn mowers and chainsaws, you could hear the gentle tinkling down of run-off water, over two or three crystalline cataracts. The matting of grass and overgrown trees puts these water courses, out of view but what a wonderful sound it is, to hear the life force moving through the landscape, like blood pulsing through our veins. I heard a loon's shrill cry. A small woodpecker was tapping away at an old pine. The sound of the wind, rustling the old field grasses, made it seem pleasantly haunted. But I had only just emerged from the woodlands, when the first lawn mower of the day started up. Then there was the guy who idles his car for a half hour, somewhere on the next street. Even as I sit at my desk, two hours later, there is still a lawnmower in full regalia, close enough to be intrusive. Last night, as I sat down to read Wayland Drew's book, "Brown's Weir," a charming little book, with an east coast patina, that he wrote with his wife and creative partner, Gwen,…. a neighbor, with a postage-stamp lawn, fired-up his riding mower (which sounds like three smaller mowers), and did the rounds before sunset. I had to put the book down. It wasn't right, to have a rattling lawnmower intrude upon an ocean-side paradise, of which Wayland writes about.

When we first arrived on Segwun Boulevard, in the late 1980's, we reacted with great interest, to the sounds of nature. It was a paradise, as far as we were concerned. We were in town but with the Bog, as a green belt, nature was definitely a buffer from the usual urban chaos. It was great. But nothing prepared us for the sounds of explosions, gun-fire, and sundry other strange noises, including screams, that should have drawn interest from everybody on the block. We'd run out of the house, sensing that a neighbor's home had been blown to smithereens, and find nary a puff of smoke or the audience we would have expected under the circumstances. Some clown would shoot at something or other, a half block away, and sometimes we'd be out for a walk at the time. We'd duck in case a bullet was coming over-land. You could never find where the sound was coming from, as if someone was actually shooting from an open window in a house. What we found particularly strange was that nobody seemed to worry about this stuff. An explosion would literally shake the house and its contents, and yet there was no construction going on near us. It used to happen in the early evening. It was unsettling. Now we find ourselves used to these intrusions, and unless we're out of doors at the time, we don't even look to see if there's any carnage to validate that an explosion just occurred.

People here don't give much thought to noise pollution. But in most garden sheds along the street, throughout the neighborhood, there are arsenals of noise intruders from leaf blowers to weed whackers, chainsaws to log splitters, and then there are the wood chippers. Through the day there are construction projects abounding in this bailiwick, all having some intrusive quality, mixed with the power mowers and massive boat engines churning the water of Muskoka Bay. It may seem petty that this is an issue for us purists. But when you realize what sounds these devices are blocking out…..well, that's unfortunate, because they are the sounds of life forces, and they need to be heard. The noise impacts nature generally…..not just the sensitive ears of the mortals.

For a few moments this morning, there were no thunderous dump trunks smashing down the lane. The earth movers were silent, and there was no vehicular traffic. A dog was barking somewhere close and a mother had not yet begun to scream at her youngsters. That would come in the moments before leaving for school. There were no slamming doors, no chainsaws or leaf blowers. No horns, no sirens. And there was a loon. The brush of limbs ruffled by two squirrels. Two venerable old crows cackled above, and I think I heard the sound of a deer brushing through the shrubs on the other side of the Bog. These are the sounds I seek out, and find so restorative. By nine this morning, it was a neighborhood of oppressive urban harmony, as if I was back in my Toronto rooming house, of years ago, listening to buses and feeling the vibration of the nearby subway, hearing the chorus of jackhammers, horns, yelling and yes….explosions of one sort or another. Most people here don't care if they hear the hoot of an owl, the cry of the loon, the tap of the woodpecker, and wouldn't find it interesting at all to listen to these tiny cataracts of water, as they send water down to the lake. What a wonderful din nature provides. Now my neighbor has employed a weed whacker, one of the most annoying species of modern noise making.

Americans Won War Of 1812; Yeah Right. We Won Battle of Bracebridge

A HISTORY LESSON ABOUT REMEMBRANCE IN BRACEBRIDGE


     ALL US WRITER-KIND HAVE OUR FAVORITE STORIES.......ONES THAT WE'D SORT OF LIKE TO BE REMEMBERED FOR, OR HAVE INCLUDED IN A COMPENDIUM OF HISTORICAL VIGNETTES WITH THE WORK OF OTHER HISTORIANS IN THE REGION. THESE ARE STORIES THAT HAVEN'T BEEN COPIED AND COMPROMISED BY SURFACE-SKIMMING HISTORICAL COPY-CATS; OF WHICH THERE SEEM TO BE MORE AND MORE THESE DAYS, RE-WRITING THE STORIES WE MADE PUBLIC MANY YEARS AGO. THIS ONE IS MINE!
     MY FAVORITE IS THE "BATTLE FOR MEMORIAL PARK," A LITTLE KNOWN NON-VIOLENT SHOWDOWN BETWEEN THE NORTH AND SOUTH. IT IS ACTUALLY A FIRST IN MODERN CANADIAN HISTORY, AND I WAS RIGHT ON IT FROM THE BEGINNING. I SHOULD FOOTNOTE, OF COURSE, THAT THIS WAS A BATTLE MOSTLY WITH HOLLYWOOD, AS "THE SOUTH," AND DEFENDING THE HONOR AND REMEMBRANCE OF THE WAR DEAD, OF BRACEBRIDGE, ONTARIO, WERE A NUMBER OF LOCAL VETERANS AND FRIENDS. NO SHOTS WERE FIRED.
     THE REASON THIS IS A NATIONAL STORY, IS PRETTY OBVIOUS. HOLLYWOOD DECIDED, ON A FILM SHOOT, CIRCA 1989, THAT A WAR MEMORIAL (OUR WAR MEMORIAL) WAS THE PERFECT ANCHOR FOR A PROP-MEMORIAL TO FICTIONAL VICTIMS OF WAR.......WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN OF CIVIL WAR VINTAGE. YUP, THIS HAD "MOVIE" WRITTEN ALL OVER IT; BUT HONESTLY, THERE COULD EASILY BE A MOVIE MADE OF THE COUNTER-MEASURE TO RECTIFY THE INDISCRETION TO OUR COMMUNITY MEMORIAL.
     THE COUNCIL OF THE TOWN OF BRACEBRIDGE TRIED TO SMOOTH IT ALL OVER, AND FOR QUITE AWHILE, THEY TRIED TO BURY THE WHOLE EVENT, (DECLINING TO GET INVOLVED IN DISCUSSIONS AFTER THE FACT).....THAT INSPIRED A LATE NIGHT RAID, ON THE MAIN STREET PARK, KNOWN FOR ITS TWO CANNONS, BANDSHELL, FOUNTAIN (WASN'T IN PLACE IN 1989), AND HUGE BORDER MAPLES. BUT DESPITE THE EMBARRASSMENT ON THE PART OF TOWN AND HOLLYWOOD, I ABSOLUTELY REFUSED TO DROP THE ISSUE, ON WHAT I BELIEVE IS STILL A GREAT STORY OF MUSKOKA RESISTANCE.
     WHEN YOU HEAR TODAY THAT THE AMERICANS ARE STILL IN DENIAL, ABOUT LOSING THE WAR OF 1812, WELL SIR, HERE IS A SHORT BATTLE THAT WAS OVER IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE, AND ALL THAT WAS LEFT, WERE SPLINTERS AND A TOPPLED OVER CONFEDERATE SOLDIER. IT WAS A SILENT MISSION BENEATH THE PARK LAMPLIGHT, AND THE HARVEST MOON, THAT AUTUMN.
     I WAS WORKING AS OPERATIONS MANAGER OF WOODCHESTER VILLA, AT THAT POINT, AND ASSISTANT EDITOR OF THE MUSKOKA SUN; AS WELL AS THE MUSKOKA ADVANCE. THE PRIMARY SHOOTING LOCATION OF THE FILM WAS AT NORTHERN BUILDALL, ABOVE THE FALLS, AND RIGHT BELOW WOODCHESTER VILLA. ANDREW, ROBERT AND I ENJOYED A WONDERFUL VIEW OF THE PRODUCTION COMPANY VEHICLES, AND WE COULD WATCH SCENES TAKING PLACE IN AND AROUND THE LUMBER YARD. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A MOVIE DEALING WITH THE SOUTHERN UNITED STATES, AND A RETURNING VIETNAM WAR VETERAN, WHICH ONLY PARTLY EXPLAINS THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIER. THERE WERE LOTS OF OTHER AMERICAN TRAFFIC SIGNS ERECTED ON MANITOBA STREET AS WELL. FOR THE DRINKING DRIVER, IT MUST HAVE BEEN WILD TO COME UPON A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER ON TOP OF A CANADIAN WAR MEMORIAL, AND SEE INTERSTATE SIGNS ALONG THE ROAD. THAT WOULD SOBER YOU UP!
    I WAS THINKING BACK TO THIS, AFTER HEARING ABOUT THESE NEW REBUTTALS, FROM THE AMERICAN SIDE, ABOUT HOW THEY KICKED OUR ASSES BACK IN 1812........SO THUS, I THOUGHT THIS WAS A TIMELY STORY TO REVISIT.....CERTAINLY ONE OF MY FAVORITES. I AM THE ONLY REGIONAL HISTORIAN TO WRITE ABOUT THIS LATE NIGHT REVENGE, FOR A PROTOCOL VIOLATION. BUT IT'S HISTORY NONE THE LESS. IT WASN'T MUCH OF A BATTLE IN FACT.....MEN AGAINST A BUILT STRUCTURE, BUT I THINK IF THERE HAD BEEN A VIDEO-PHONE BACK THEN......WE'D STILL BE SEEING IT ON YOUTUBE, ALL THESE YEARS LATER.
     SO LET'S GO BACK A FEW DECADES, AND IMAGINE WE'RE SITTING ON A PARK BENCH IN THE COOL EVENING, IN THE LAMPLIGHT OF MEMORIAL PARK. CAN YOU HEAR THE MARCHING AVENGERS COMING UP THE STREET?

THE LITTLE KNOWN FIGHT OF HONOR FOR REMEMBRANCE, AND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, IN UPTOWN BRACEBRIDGE

THE MEMORIAL PARK CENOTAPH RECLAIMED ON A MOONLIT NIGHT ASSAULT

     TO MY KNOWLEDGE, THE ONLY OCCASION WHEN THE CONFLICT OVER BRACEBRIDGE'S MEMORIAL PARK CENOTAPH, AND THE CONFEDERATES OF THE CIVIL WAR, COMES UP, IS WHEN I DECIDE TO AUTHOR A LITTLE EDITORIAL PIECE, FEARING THE HISTORICAL CURIOSITY WILL ONE DAY BE FORGOTTEN. SOME WHO KNOW THE STORY SAY "BEST FORGOTTEN, YOU MEAN." WE CAN'T HAVE THAT, AND YOU'LL APPRECIATE WHY, BY THE END OF TODAY'S BLOG. IT'S ONE OF THOSE LITTLE GEMS OF LOCAL HISTORY THAT MIGHT NOT DESERVE A PLAQUE, OR GET A MENTION IN A FORMAL HISTORICAL TEXT, BUT IT CERTAINLY IS OF THE STATURE TO BE NECESSARILY RECORDED FOR FUTURE POSTERITY…..AND SEMI-HUMOROUS ANECDOTE. IT WAS A SERIOUS MATTER, DON'T GET ME WRONG. BUT WHEN THE STORY IS TOLD, WITH A FEW CHOICE EMBELLISHMENTS, AFTER A FEW DRINKS TODAY, BELIEVE ME, IT'S ALMOST ALWAYS ANECDOTAL, AND SOMETHING TO LAUGH AT….AT LEAST A WEE BIT!

     A FEW YEARS AGO, I WAS APPOINTED THE ACTING HISTORIAN FOR SOUTH MUSKOKA MEMORIAL HOSPITAL. IT WAS A TEMPORARY POSITION, TO RESEARCH THE HOSPITAL FROM ITS CONSTRUCTION IN THE EARLY 1960'S, REPLACING THE FORMER BRACEBRIDGE MEMORIAL RED CROSS HOSPITAL, WHICH OPENED IN THE LATE 1920'S. THE ORIGINAL "MEMORIAL" DESIGNATION WAS THE RESULT OF A MEATY, NEAR-NASTY CITIZEN PROTEST, YOU SEE, THAT HAD ITS ROOT IN THE PARK OF WHICH I WRITE. THE FIRST PLAN FOR A WORLD WAR I MEMORIAL, TO THE LOCAL MEN WHO HAD LOST THEIR LIVES IN SERVICE TO THEIR COUNTRY, WAS FOR A MEMORIAL BANDSTAND. THIS WAS CONSIDERED A REASONABLE IDEA AT FIRST, BUT THE CITIZENS MOUNTED A PROTEST, THAT A BANDSHELL WAS AN INADEQUATE MEMORIAL. A HOSPITAL WOULD ME MUCH BETTER, AND SERVE A GREATER PURPOSE FOR THE COMMUNITY. THE BANDSTAND WAS ERECTED AND A CENOTAPH ESTABLISHED IN A "MEMORIAL PARK." SO IN BRACEBRIDGE, TODAY, THERE IS MEMORIAL PARK, SOUTH MUSKOKA MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, AND BRACEBRIDGE MEMORIAL ARENA. ALL THE RESULT OF CITIZENS DEMANDING RECOGNITION FOR THE LOCAL SOULS WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR THEIR HOME AND COUNTRY.

     SO I HAD A CHANCE, AS HOSPITAL HISTORIAN, TO DELVE WAY BACK IN THE "MEMORIAL" INITIATIVE, AND I KNOW HOW SENSITIVE IT HAS, AND CAN BECOME, ESPECIALLY WHEN, FOR WHATEVER REASON, THERE IS A SHORTFALL IN PROTOCOL; FROM SOMEONE OR AN ORGANIZATION FORGETTING JUST HOW IMBEDDED "MEMORIAL" IS, BOTH IN A PHYSICAL SENSE, AND IN A TITLE. FOR EXAMPLE, A NUMBER OF YEARS AGO, A CITIZEN PUT FORTH A SUGGESTING FOR A NAME CHANGE, AT THE BRACEBRIDGE MEMORIAL ARENA, TO HONOR A LOCAL LEGEND OF SPORTS. SEEMED A REASONABLE REQUEST, EXCEPT FOR THE SACRIFICE THAT HAD TO BE MADE TO FIT IT ALL IN ON A SENSIBLE MAILING ADDRESS. IT WOULD HAVE MEANT DROPPING "MEMORIAL." THE MATTER WAS QUICKLY RESOLVED WITH A CLEAR "NO." WHEN THE NEW HOSPITAL AMALGAMATION OCCURRED, SOME YEARS BACK, THERE WAS CONSIDERABLE CONCERN, THAT THE NAME SOUTH MUSKOKA MEMORIAL HOSPITAL WAS BEING LOST, UNDER THE NEW IDENTIFICATION AS MUSKOKA / ALGONQUIN HEALTHCARE, AND IN FACT, AS CLEAR EVIDENCE, THERE ARE MANY MORE DEATH NOTICES APPEARING IN NEWSPAPERS TODAY, WHICH HAVE ELIMINATED "SMMH" ALTOGETHER, WHICH MEANS A MUCH LESSER RECOGNITION OF THE WORD "MEMORIAL." EVEN MEMORIAL PARK, ON MANITOBA STREET, SUFFERED A STRANGE OCCURRENCE, THAT JUST WASN'T ANTICIPATED BY THE CITIZENS OF BRACEBRIDGE…..WHICH CREATED A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF ANIMOSITY VERY QUICKLY. A MEMORIAL WAS DESECRATED IN THE OPINION OF SOME ACTIVISTS. IT WAS VIOLATED, ACCORDING TO THE ELDERS OF THE COMMUNITY. AND IT WAS A SILLY-ASS INTRUSION TO ALMOST MOST EVERYONE ELSE, WHO OFFERED A COMMENT ON THE TOPPING-OVER OF THE PARK CENOTAPH.

WHEN A MOVIE SET BECOMES DISRESPECTFUL

     I WAS SITE MANAGER OF WOODCHESTER VILLA AND MUSEUM, AT THE TIME, WHICH DATES THE OCCURRENCE TO ABOUT THE FALL OF 1989. SEPTEMBER IF MEMORY SERVES. I HAD OUR LADS, ANDREW AND ROBERT THERE, AND WHILE THEY PLAYED ON THE LAWN, I DID THE RAKING AND GENERAL YARD WORK, IN PREPARATION FOR THE THANKSGIVING WEEKEND….WHICH WAS OUR OFFICIAL CLOSING FOR THE SEASON. AT THE SAME TIME, THERE WAS A PORTION OF A MOVIE, BEING SHOT IN TOWN, AND AT NORTHERN BUILDALL, SITUATED JUST ABOVE THE RAPIDS ON THE BRINK OF THE FALLS. WE COULD ACTUALLY WATCH THE CREWS WITH THEIR MASSIVE EQUIPMENT TRUCKS, AND GEAR, WORKING IN THE YARD, BECAUSE OUR ELEVATION AT WOODCHESTER AFFORDED US A GREAT VIEW OF THE LUMBER YARD. I CAN REMEMBER US SITTING ON THE EMBANKMENT HAVING OUR LUNCHES, HOPING TO SEE SOME OF THE ACTORS WANDERING THE LUMBER YARD.

     The movie was entitled "Coming Home," with Kris Kristofferson, I believe, and in essence, it was about a Vietnam veteran's return home, to the United States, with the stresses of war upon him……facing the difficult adjustments back to civilian life. I didn't see the movie, so I'm hardly able to give it any stars out of five, for quality. Maybe you saw it. Point is, Bracebridge, straddling the 45th parallel of latitude, in North America, halfway between the equator and the north pole, became a southern city in the United States…..to accommodate the movie script. Those areas of Manitoba Street, being used as a background, were given a dress-up, to provide the appearance of a southern community….which was kind of funny for the locals, watching their town transformed in this fashion…..on the verge of a Muskoka winter.,,,which can have degrees of the Arctic attached.

     I remember getting quite a laugh driving home from work, and seeing the interstate highway signs, above Manitoba Street, and particular road signage with names that were definitely of southern influence. I almost twisted my head off my shoulders, when we passed by Memorial Park, and there was a huge memorial to a Confederate Soldier….I'm not sure of rank, or who it might have been, in the centre of the maple-lined park. Now remember what I wrote earlier, about the protest by the citizens of Bracebridge, in the 1920's, about the need for more and larger recognition for World War I Remembrance? The memorial statue to the Confederate American wasn't free standing. This might have been marginally tolerated, if it had been situated somewhere else in the park, or just about anywhere else for that matter. In a pasture, or on a grassy knoll in another park, but not on top of an existing cenotaph honoring Canadian soldiers lost in battle. Unfortunately, it was in the most disrespectful place it could have been constructed…..surrounded by memorial gardens and a nice memorial iron fence.

     There it was, built over and on top of the town's memorial cenotaph. What crisis is this? Gads, we're going to be making international news, if the dailies got tipped off about this cross border news-maker. I could have made some money stringing this story to the Toronto Star, but I thought about the consequences of being attached to this one…..considering I was also an administrator with the local Historical Society…..supposedly on guard for heritage sites like Memorial Park. The cenotaph in particular, with the memorial fence and gardens around it! I was still with Muskoka Publications at that time, as well as the museum and Historical Society, and I sensed we had a pretty serious breach of protocol going on here, and something had to be done as soon as possible to reel in the movie folks; to explain more clearly what they could and could not do, remaking our town look American in appearance. I don't remember if town council, at the time, had given specific approval for the cenotaph re-make, although I don't believe so. They were forced into a rather awkward situation anyway, just having to give basic approval for some visual "Americanizing" changes, being imposed upon the Canadian townscape. There were a few who didn't like the idea at all. Almost everyone was excited about a movie being shot in town, because it did bring extra revenue in for local restaurants and accommodation….which in the off-season, is quite welcome here in Muskoka. But they weren't excited about what happened next.

     I made a number of phone calls, and so did many others, trying to find a speedy solution to a near-crisis. Having a movie company in town, that had just re-fashioned the memorial cenotaph with a Confederate theme. As Muskoka has for long and long, played host to many American tourists and cottagers, there was considerable desire, on the part of the town administration, to handle the affair with quiet dignity. The less said the better. No in-park protests or placards. But a few veterans had a plan to rectify the situation, without passing a motion or hitting down a gavel in a council chambers.

    In the quiet dark of early morning, or so the story goes, a number of veterans and supporters, attended Memorial Park, and began dismantling the Confederate monument, board by board, until it was no more. By time the movie crew arrived on the scene in the morning, it had been returned to its original glory…..honoring our citizens who were killed in wartime. There was some pile lumber nearby. The hush was a loud one, as if a deep, deep inhale, and although it made the press that week, it was a story that most citizens were a little embarrassed about…..because the town had been playing the perfect host up to that point, and the "locals" wished it had never happened. Many respected what the alleged veterans performed, as a sort of honorable rescue that evening, but there were others who felt it could have been handled diplomatically, by good neighbor negotiation, instead of force under the cover of dark. It was seen as a slap in the face for the veterans of our community, and it was most definitely considered a slap in the face for those working on the movie set. I can't remember the wording of the apology, by the film crew, but there was something offered as an explanation. There may have been Canadians working on the film's production crew, who should have known that any compromise to a cenotaph, in any country, would be a clear sign of disrespect; and even if they had received poorly considered municipal approval, capping a war memorial for the sake of a movie was questionable judgement at best. The concrete structure of the cenotaph just happened to be perfect for the monument they had planned to erect. The "memorial" consequence was forgotten, and that nearly started a small war between the north and the south. The veterans actions that night, actually saved the larger potential of fall-out, had a formal and lengthy debate on the issue been held. The Confederate was removed before anyone could say "not just yet," or "no!"

     I was giving an historic walking tour, of Bracebridge, back in the 1990's, and this was my big finale……"The Battle for Memorial Park"……where the veterans came out for just one more fight…..this time, against those pesky Confederates. See you in hell Johnny Reb!" You won't find much in the way of historical record of this post-midnight raid. It's local lore now. Talked about, relived, and regaled, but not too loudly. I think there were some hurt feelings on both sides, and well, the site was cleaned up respectfully, the Confederate given back his dignity somewhere else, and forgiveness asked and granted from all concerned. At least that's the way I remember it…..and as you know, I never let the truth screw up a really good story.

     Thanks for joining this little historical essay, regarding an obscure battle in our forested heartland…….that returned the honor and dignity to a war memorial, and all the names etched upon its four sides. 

     Please come for a visit some time soon. I always enjoy your company

Banning Book Not In The Best Interest Of Gravenhurst Farmers' Market

BANNING BOOKS IN GRAVENHURST - WHAT'S NEXT

     YOU KNOW, THE TOWN OF GRAVENHURST SHOULD REALLY GET IN THE BALL GAME. I SURE HATE SEEING HEADLINES LIKE "MARKET BOOK BAN," IN THE PUBLICATION DELIVERED TO MY MAIL BOX EACH WEEK. THE ARTICLE, "VENDOR GETS MARKET BAN AFTER WRITING BOOK," APPEARS IN THE AUGUST 28TH ISSUE, OF "WHAT'S UP MUSKOKA," AND DETAILS AT SOME LENGTH, A PAPER SQUABBLE AT THE LOCAL FARMERS MARKET, INVOLVING A FICTIONAL BOOK, BY THE SAME TITLE, "FARMERS' MARKET," WRITTEN BY ONE OF THE VENDORS AT THE EVERY-WEDNESDAY EVENT. THE CHAP HAS APPARENTLY HAD HIS MARKET VENDOR'S PERMIT REVOKED, AS A RESULT OF BEING BAD A THIRD TIME THIS YEAR. THE REALLY BAD PART, ACCORDING TO THE MARKET MANAGEMENT, WAS WRITING A "SLANDEROUS" BOOK, THAT USES MANY WELL KNOWN LOCAL CHARACTERS, IN SOME INTERESTING SCENARIOS…..AND I THINK THERE'S A MURDER PLOT THAT UNFOLDS AS WELL. THE MARKET MANAGER IS QUOTED AS SAYING THE WORK IS "SLANDEROUS," AND THEREFORE THE VENDOR HAS TO GO. IT'S NOT NICE APPARENTLY TO WRITE SUCH A PARODY……SOMEWHAT LESS FLATTERING THAN STEPHEN LEACOCK WOULD HAVE WROTE ABOUT, IN "SUNSHINE SKETCHES OF A LITTLE TOWN," BEING MARIPOSA OF COURSE. (ORILLIA).

     FIRST OF ALL, THE ARTICLE AND THE MARKET MANAGER ARE WRONG ABOUT SLANDER. SLANDER IS ORAL OR PRESENTED ELECTRONICALLY ON RADIO, TELEVISION ETC…..POTENTIALLY OVER THE PHONE, OR IN CONVERSATION. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PRINT, AND I'M SURPRISED THE MAGAZINE ALLOWED THIS ERROR TO RUN. THE WORD THE MANAGER IS LOOKING FOR, AND THE PUBLICATION SHOULD HAVE USED, IN ITS OVERVIEW, IS "LIBEL." YOU JUST CAN'T BE SLANDEROUS WITHOUT SOMETHING VERBAL COMING FROM SOMEWHERE, AND UNLESS IT IS A TALKING-BOOK, IT JUST DOESN'T APPLY…..AND ACTUALLY, SHOULD THE VENDOR DECIDE TO LEGALLY CHALLENGE HIS OUSTER FROM THE VENUE, HE MIGHT BE ABLE TO ARGUE THAT THE REASON GIVEN WAS INVALID…..AS IT WAS NOT A CASE OF SLANDER. EVEN TO CLAIM LIBEL, AND MAKE THOSE KIND OF ACCUSATIONS, ONE SHOULD TRED SOFTLY AND CAREFULLY. MY FIRST DISCUSSION ABOUT LIBEL, AS A ROOKIE REPORTER, CAME FROM A VETERAN NEWS EDITOR WHO SAID, "NOW TED, YOU CAN CALL SOMEONE AN ASSHOLE, IF YOU CAN PROVE HE OR SHE IS ACTUALLY AN ASSHOLE. OTHERWISE, DO NOT SAY IT OR PRINT IT!" GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME. THAT WAS THIRTY FIVE YEARS AGO, AND IT HAS SERVED ME WELL EVER SINCE. I HAVE NEVER BEEN THE SUBJECT OF A CASE OF LIBEL. I DON'T INTEND TO SCREW UP MY PERFECT RECORD, WHICH I HAPPILY HAVE AS MY HALLMARK…..WHICH I WHIP OUT AS A GOLDEN CREDIT WHEN RECRUITED FOR FREELANCE EDITORIAL CONTRACTS. AND YES, IT IS OF VITAL IMPORTANCE, ESPECIALLY WHEN THROWING OUT OPINIONS AND ACCUSATIONS.

      I HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK. I'M NOT RACING OUT TO BUY ONE EITHER. I HAVE READ MANY SIMILAR, AND I BELIEVE IN FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. I DON'T CONDONE LIBEL, BUT THIS IS FOR A COURT OF LAW TO DETERMINE; NOT A BLOGGER LIKE ME, OR A FARMERS' MARKET MANAGER. THE AUTHOR DOES MAKE A GOOD POINT, WHEN HE SUGGESTS THAT THE NITTY GRITTY OF WHETHER IT IS DAMAGING TO THE REPUTATIONS OF THOSE ASSOCIATED WITH THE MARKET, AS RELATES TO CHARACTERS AND SCENARIOS IN THE BOOK, IS TO RUN IT BY A LAWYER SPECIALIZING IN LIBEL. THAT'S THE BOTTOM LINE. AS FOR KICKING THE CHAP OUT OF THE FARMERS' MARKET, I THINK THAT WAS A HUGE MISTAKE, BASED ON OUR COUNTRY'S CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, AND WHAT IS CONSIDERED FAIR AND EQUAL THROUGHOUT THE FREE WORLD. THE MANAGER AND THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS SHOULD BE CAREFUL PLAYING A CENSORSHIP ROLE, WITHOUT LEGAL ADVICE. YOU GET INTO A LOT OF CIVIL LIBERTIES ISSUES WHEN YOU BEGIN PUNISHING AUTHORS IN THIS FASHION. THE BEST WAY OF DOING THIS, WOULD HAVE BEEN, AS A FIRST STEP, FINDING OUT LEGAL OPTIONS FIRST; AND MY HUNCH IS, EVEN WITHOUT READING THE BOOK, THAT IT WOULD PROBABLY HAVE BEEN BETTER TO LET THE WHOLE ISSUE RUN ITS COURSE WITHOUT SPENDING A LOT OF MONEY TRYING TO PROVE LIBEL. THESE THINGS TEND TO PASS. I WAS AN EDITOR FOR LONG ENOUGH IN MUSKOKA, TO HAVE SEEN MANY, MANY MORE PROVOCATIVE SITUATIONS THAN THIS LATEST BOOK DEBACLE.

     I DON'T KNOW THE AUTHOR OF THE BOOK, AND I HAVE NEVER MET THE DIRECTORS OF THE GRAVENHURST FARMERS' MARKET. OUR FAMILY DOESN'T GO TO THE FARMER'S MARKET, BUT WE DIRECT PEOPLE TO IT, WHEN THEY ASK AT OUR MUSKOKA ROAD STOREFRONT. I RECEIVE "WHAT'S UP MUSKOKA" IN THE MAIL, WITHOUT ASKING FOR IT, SO FOR ME, MY RIGHT IS TO COMMENT ON THE EDITORIAL CONTENT, IF I PLEASE. I DID SO LAST WEEK, WHEN I HAD AN ISSUE WITH THE REPORTING ON THE WOODCHESTER VILLA RESTORATION PROJECT……IN BRACEBRIDGE, SOMETHING NEAR AND DEAR TO MY HEART, AS ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE MUSEUM IN THE FIRST PLACE. THEY NEVER GOT BACK TO ME. SO I GUESS THEY CONSIDERED MY EDITORIAL FEEDBACK UNWARRANTED, AND FRIVOLOUS. WHAT OTHER OPINION CAN COME FROM BEING IGNORED. SO THEY WON'T THINK ME A QUITTER, OR ONE EASILY DE-RAILED BY AVOIDANCE, I MUST ALSO SUGGEST, THAT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN PRUDENT TO HAVE INCLUDED A LITTLE EDITORIAL NOTE, WITH THIS ARTICLE, SUGGESTING THAT BANNING BOOKS, WHETHER IT IS FROM A VENUE, OR THE LOCAL BOOK STORE, IS SOMETHING QUITE SIGNIFICANT. REALLY. WHAT COUNTRY DO WE LIVE IN? DO YOU WANT THIS KIND OF COUNTRY, WHERE BOOKS CAN BE BANNED BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT FLATTERING TO THE READER. MARKET DIRECTORS MAY NEED TO READ A FEW MORE CONTEMPORARY BOOKS, TO KNOW MORE ABOUT WHAT IS ACTUALLY PERMITTED UNDER THE LAW…..BEFORE BEING SO CERTAIN ABOUT WHAT ISN'T.

     THE TOWN OF GRAVENHURST……..I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M SUGGESTING THIS…….SHOULD ACTUALLY GET INVOLVED IN THIS ONE, AS IT IS THE TAXPAYER'S FIELD, AT MUSKOKA WHARF, AND REGARDLESS OF THE MARKET'S THREE STRIKE POLICY, THERE MAY WELL HAVE BEEN SOME OVER-STEPPING OF RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES HERE…….AND WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT, THEY ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS ONE……IF IT TAKES OFF INTO A NATIONAL STORY, AS IT WELL COULD. SEEING AS THE STORY MAY IMPLICATE THE TOWN IN THE OVERALL BACKDROP OF THE BOOK, COUNCILLORS SHOULD COUGH-UP THE ASKING PRICE, AND LEARN MORE ABOUT THE "BOOK BANNING INCIDENT OF AUGUST 2013," FROM AN ACTUAL READER'S PERSPECTIVE…….AND NOT JUST WHAT COMES VIA THE LOCAL MEDIA. THE HISTORIAN HAS TAKEN NOTICE OF THIS…..AND HONESTLY, I'M WAITING ANXIOUSLY FOR OUR TOWN LEADERSHIP TO WEIGH-IN ON THE MATTER. MY OPINION…….RE-INSTATE THE VENDOR, AND THEN, IF DEEMED NECESSARY, SEEK LEGAL ADVICE ON WHETHER THE MATERIAL IS LIBELOUS OR NOT. IT'S NOT ABOUT SUPPORTING ANOTHER WRITER…….BUT WHEN YOU BEGIN THE CENSORSHIP THING……WELL FOLKS, THERE IS NO TURNING BACK. SO GRAVENHURST COUNCIL, SO GUNG-HO ABOUT EVERYTHING POSITIVE, AND NOTHING NEGATIVE, SHOULD CONSIDER THE RAMIFICATIONS OF REALLY BAD PRESS. I THINK THIS IS REALLY BAD PRESS. BY THE WAY, THERE IS NOTHING WRITTEN IN OUR CONSTITUTION OR IN THE BYLAWS OF THE GRAVENHURST FARMERS' MARKET, THAT DICTATES THAT IT IS A REQUIREMENT TO AGREE WITH DIRECTORS…..BE FRIENDS WITH ASSOCIATE VENDORS, OR TO BE LIKE-MINDED. YOU KNOW WHERE THAT CAN LEAD? A CRITICAL APPROACH TO LIFE ISN'T A BAD THING. SOMETIMES IT'S JUST INTERPRETED THAT WAY BY PEOPLE WHO LIKE TO SAY, "IT'S MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY!" I'LL TAKE THE HIGHWAY EVERY TIME.

     AS FOR THE AUTHOR……WELL SIR, YOU'RE NOT THE FIRST WRITER TO RUN INTO NEGATIVE PUBLIC REACTION. BUT HERE'S THE THING…….THERE WILL BE OTHER READERS WHO WILL CELEBRATE THE WORK, AND RECOMMEND IT TO THEIR FRIENDS…..AND MAYBE EVEN TWITTER ABOUT IT, AS BEING THE YEAR'S "BIG READ!"

     I REMEMBER ONCE, WHEN THE GRAVENHURST CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, THEN RUNNING THE TRAIN STATION VENUE, DECIDED THEY WEREN'T GOING TO CONTINUE SELLING "MUSKOKA TODAY," BECAUSE OF SOME OF THE PUBLICATION'S RECENT CRITIQUES. I WASN'T WRITING FOR MUSKOKA TODAY AT THE TIME, BUT I WROTE SOME BEEFY GUEST COLUMNS, ABOUT THE IGNORANCE OF SUCH A MOVE, AS WELL AS EXTREME SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS, AND I WROTE DIRECTLY TO THE CHAMBER ASKING THEM TO REVERSE THEIR DECISION. NONE THE LESS, I GAVE THEM A FEW LESSONS ABOUT FREEDOM OF THE PRESS…….WHICH APPARENTLY DIDN'T MOVE THEM. I DON'T REALLY EXPECT THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE GRAVENHURST FARMERS' MARKET TO GIVE A CRAP ABOUT MY OPINION OF THE SITUATION. I AM JUST AS SURE, THE TOWN OF GRAVENHURST WON'T HAVE ANY INTEREST IN GETTING INVOLVED IN SUCH A MOOT ISSUE AS "BOOK AND VENDOR BANNING" AT OUR MUNICIPAL PARK. BUT I HOPE READERS OF THIS BLOG WILL APPRECIATE, JUST WHAT IT ALL MEANS, TO OUR RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS, TO BE RESTRICTED FROM MAKING OPINIONS THAT AREN'T APPROVED BY SELF APPOINTED CENSORS.

     ONE MORE POINT. THE FINAL DECLARATION IN THIS ARTICLE, OF WHICH I AM REFERRING, SUGGESTS THAT NEGATIVE PRESS HURTS THE FARMER'S MARKET, AND THE FARMERS TRYING TO MAKE A LIVING. HERE'S AN IDEA. GET WITH THE TIMES. READ TWITTER NOW AND AGAIN. NEGATIVITY RUNS RAMPANT. CRITIQUES ABOUT OUR TOWN AND BUSINESSES ARE FREQUENT. EVEN TODAY I WAS READING HORRIBLE STUFF ABOUT ONE LOCAL BUSINESS, AND ITS TERRIBLE CONDITIONS. IT'S OUT THERE. BUT TO CONTROL OPINIONS……IT'S JUST NOT WHAT WE WANT IN THIS COUNTRY. THERE ARE WAYS OF HANDLING IT…..MUCH, MUCH BETTER, THAN CONFRONTATION…..WHICH ONLY SERVES TO EXACERBATE THE OFFENDING OPINION. I WOULDN'T WRITE OF THIS CIRCUMSTANCE, IF I HADN'T DEALT WITH IT A THOUSANDS TIMES OR MORE MYSELF. I VALUE OUR DEMOCRATIC FREEDOMS. BOOK CENSORSHIP? NAW. THAT'S NOT A GOOD THING AT ALL!

Following in their Grandfather's Shoes; This Love of Music Thing

STANLEY JACKSON GAVE SOME MUSIC TO HIS GREAT GRANDSONS

FIRST, THE GIFT OF AN OLD PHOTOGRAPH

     SUZANNE CAN PLAY THE AUTO-HARP, THE BANJO, GUITAR, AND THE PIANO. I WAS ONCE A BARITONE PLAYER IN JOHN RUTHERFORD'S BRACEBRIDGE AND MUSKOKA LAKES SECONDARY SCHOOL, "ENGLAND BAND," OF 1974. BUT HONESTLY, OUR BOYS, ANDREW AND ROBERT, DIDN'T GET THEIR GUITAR AND DRUM SMARTS FROM US. MORE LIKELY FROM THEIR GREAT GRANDPARENTS, ON THE SHEA SIDE, AND POTENTIALLY FROM MY GRANDFATHER, STANLEY JACKSON.....THE CARPENTER VIOLINIST. HE BUILT HOUSES (EVEN CHURCHES) DURING THE DAY, AND PLAYED HIS CHERISHED VIOLIN IN THE EVENING; AND ON SUNDAYS. I'D OFTEN HEAR HIM PLAYING IN THE PARLOR OF THEIR BEAUTIFUL HOUSE IN TORONTO......THE HOUSE HE BUILT FOR HIS BRIDE, BLANCHE. FOLLOWING THEIR PAUL HARRIS FELLOWSHIP AWARDS, RECEIVED THIS WEEK, FROM THE GRAVENHURST ROTARY CLUB, IN PART, FOR THEIR WORK IN THE FIELD OF MUSICAL ENTERTAINMENT, I THOUGHT I SHOULD GIVE OLD STAN A LITTLE EXPOSURE, BECAUSE HE WOULD HAVE BEEN THRILLED TO KNOW WHAT HIS GREAT GRANDSONS WERE GETTING UP TO......IN THIS NEW AND EXCITING CENTURY. STAN WAS A HUGE MAN, WITH MONSTROUS HANDS, AND IN STATURE, AS A YOUNG MAN, WOULD HAVE LOOKED LIKE SON ROBERT. ROBERT HAS HIS HANDS, BUT NOT QUITE AS MEATY. HE HAS LONG FINGERS, AND I USED TO TELL HIM, THAT HE WAS DESTINED TO PLAY EITHER THE PIANO OR GUITAR. ANDREW HAS A LOT OF QUALITIES, REMINISCENT OF HIS GRANDFATHER, NORMAN STRIPP, WHO WAS ONE OF MUSKOKA'S REVERED WOODEN BOAT RESTORERS, AND FORMER OWNER OF THE WINDERMERE MARINA. ANDREW IS A HIGHLY COMPETENT WOODWORKER, RESTORER OF OLD MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, AND I GUESS IT PAID OFF, LOOKING OVER HIS GRANDFATHER'S SHOULDER, THOSE OCCASIONS IN THE SHED WORKING ON YET ANOTHER DITCHBURN.

     MY PARENTS, ED AND MERLE, LOVED MUSIC, BUT DIDN'T HAVE THE PATIENCE TO PLAY. MERLE DID GRADUATE FROM HER CONSERVATORY PIANO LESSONS AS A KID, BUT WE NEVER OWNED A PIANO IN ALL THE YEARS I LIVED AT HOME. BUT SHE USED TO TELL ME ABOUT THE JOY SHE HAD, LISTENING TO THE QUARTETS THAT HER FATHER PLAYED WITH, PRACTICING IN THE PARLOR OF THE FAMILY HOME. SO I THINK SHE'D BE IMPRESSED TO KNOW HOW MANY MUSICAL SESSIONS OUR BOYS HAVE HAD, WITH SOME OF THE MOST ACCOMPLISHED MUSICIANS AND FRIENDS, IN THIS REGION. IT'S IN THEIR BLOOD, I SUPPOSE.

A LONG MISSING PHOTOGRAPH

     AS AN ANTIQUE DEALER, I HAVE THOUSANDS OF UNNAMED, UNTITLED VINTAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. AMONGST ANTIQUE AND SECOND HAND DEALERS, IT WOULD BE MOST UNCOMMON INDEED, TO VISIT ONE AND NOT FIND THE TYPICAL BOX OR BIN FULL OF PHOTOGRAPHS THAT HAVE BEEN ACQUIRED AT ESTATE SALES AND AUCTIONS. IN FACT, THERE IS NOTHING SO FRUSTRATING, AS TO FIND A WONDERFULLY APPOINTED OLD PHOTOGRAPH, THAT IS UNIDENTIFIED, EVEN EXCLUDING THE NAME OF THE STUDIO IT WAS TAKEN. SO WE ARE VERY CAREFUL WITH OUR OWN PHOTOGRAPHS, TO LABEL EACH OF THEM, FOR THE BENEFIT OF GREAT GRANDCHILDREN IN THE FUTURE…..SO THEY CAN GET A GOOD LOOK AT THEIR KIN. THEY MIGHT BE SCARED BY IMAGES OF THEIR AUTHOR GREAT-GRANDFATHER. SO IMAGINE MY SURPRISE RECENTLY, WHEN SON ROBERT HANDED ME A THIN BAG, WITH A BOW ON TOP, CONTAINING ONE OF MY FAVORITE FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS. SUZANNE AND ROBERT CONSPIRED TO HAVE A BLOW-UP IMAGE OF AN OLD PHOTOGRAPH, MY MOTHER PASSED-ON TO ME, JUST BEFORE SHE PASSED AWAY, OF MY GRANDFATHER, STANLEY JACKSON, OF TORONTO, PLAYING HIS VIOLIN. IT WAS A TINY, DARK PHOTOGRAPH, WITH A FAIR BIT OF SURFACE DETERIORATION. THEY TOOK IT TO THE ARTSTRACT COMPANY, OF GRAVENHURST, WHO CAN DO THIS SORT OF MAGIC WITH OLD IMAGES, AND HAD IT BLOWN UP TO AN EIGHT BY TEN FORMAT. I WAS SHOCKED TO SEE IT, BECAUSE EVEN THOUGH IT WAS STILL FOGGY WITH AGE, IT SHOWED HIS VIOLIN AND HIS CONFIDENT POSE WITH IT, TUCKED TIGHTLY AGAINST HIS NECK. I WOULD ONE DAY LIKE TO HAVE A PAINTING DONE FROM THIS SAME MARVELOUS DEPICTION OF MY GRANDFATHER AS A YOUNG MAN.

     I'VE MENTIONED STAN JACKSON MANY TIMES IN MY BLOGS. HE WAS A HOUSE BUILDER FROM TORONTO, BUT ORIGINALLY FROM THE TRENTON AREA OF THE PROVINCE, WHERE HIS FAMILY WERE AMONGST THE EARLY HOMESTEADERS. HE BUILT THEIR FAMILY HOME, LATER IN TORONTO "THE GOOD," AND THERE WAS EVEN A STREET IN THE CITY NAMED AFTER HIM…..KNOWN AS "JACKSON AVENUE." I BELIEVE IT'S NORTH OF BLOOR, NEAR JANE STREET, IN THE AREA OF OLD MILL. HE WORKED AS A BUILDER, WITH HIS SON, CARMEN, AND MY FATHER TED SR. (ED), IN CONJUNCTION WITH PAUL HELLYER, THE FORMER MINISTER OF DEFENCE, FOR CANADA, WHO AT THAT TIME DEVELOPED MANY ACRES OF CITY LANDSCAPE. WHAT I ALWAYS FOUND ODD ABOUT STAN, WAS THAT HE WORKED IN AN INDUSTRY THAT WAS AWFULLY HARD ON THE HANDS AND JOINTS. YET HE WAS AN ACCOMPLISHED VIOLINIST, WHO I HEARD A WEE BIT, WHEN WE'D VISIT STAN AND HIS WIFE BLANCHE, MY GRANDPARENTS, WHEN WE LIVED IN BURLINGTON. HE WAS ASSOCIATED FOR A TIME, WITH THE TORONTO SYMPHONY OCHRESTRA, AND HE WAS ABLE TO GET MY MOTHER MERLE, A JOB WITH THE GROUP ONE SUMMER AFTER SCHOOL. I HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO FIND WHAT HIS ASSOCIATION WITH THE SYMPHONY WAS, AS HISTORICAL FACT, BUT MERLE HAD CALLED HIM A "CONCERT MASTER," BUT THERE IS NO EVIDENCE HE PERFORMED THIS TASK WITH THE TSO.

     HIS MUSICAL TALENT SKIPPED A COUPLE OF GENERATIONS. MERLE WENT TO THE ROYAL CONSERVATORY FOR PIANO, AND WAS A LOVER OF CLASSICAL MUSIC, BUT THE TALENT GENE JUMPED A GENERATION. THIS IS WHAT I TELL THE BOYS ANYWAY, ALTHOUGH IT'S TRUE I DID PLAY UNDER THE DIRECTORSHIP OF MUSKOKA MUSICIAN, JOHN RUTHERFORD, WHEN I ATTENDED BRACEBRIDGE AND MUSKOKA LAKES SECONDARY SCHOOL, BACK IN THE 1970'S. I WAS EVEN IN THE FAMOUS ENGLAND BAND BACK IN 1974. JOHN RUTHERFORD WAS A LEGEND IN MUSIC HERE, AND COULD COUNT, AMONGST HIS FRIENDS, CANADIAN DIRECTOR, COMPOSER HOWARD CABLE.

     I HAVE INCLUDED THE FOGGY IMAGE OF MY GRANDFATHER ON TODAY'S BLOG. IT WAS ONE OF THE MOST THOUGHTFUL PRESENTS I'VE EVER RECEIVED. WHEN I KNEW MY GRANDFATHER, HE WAS VERY ELDERLY AND WE DIDN'T HAVE A LOT TO SAY TO ONE ANOTHER. I REMEMBER MERLE, SHARING A STORY ABOUT HIM, AND ONE OF THE REASONS HE QUIT GOING TO CHURCH. IT WAS DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION, THAT HE WAS HIRED TO BUILD A CHURCH FOR A LOCAL CONGREGATION. WHEN HE HAD THE WELL CRAFTED STRUCTURE COMPLETED, THE MINISTER ADMITTED THEY DIDN'T HAVE MONEY TO PAY HIM…..BUT HE COULD BRING HIS FAMILY TO THE FRONT OF THE CHURCH EACH WEEK, IN THEIR OWN SPECIAL PEW. STAN WAS A HIGHLY PRINCIPLED MAN, AND REFUSED THE OFFER, AND AS IT CREATED GREAT HARDSHIP FOR HIS OWN FAMILY, HE VOWED NEVER TO SET FOOT INSIDE A CHURCH AGAIN. HE WAS GOOD TO HIS WORD EXCEPT AT THE END OF HIS LIFE. AFTER HIS WIFE BLANCHE DIED IN THE EARLY 1960'S, HE DID EVENTUALLY REMARRY, A WOMAN NAMED EDNA, WHO RESIDED IN FLORIDA. MY GRANDFATHER HAD A HEART ATTACK, COMING OUT OF CHURCH IN FLORIDA, AND DIED IN HER ARMS ON THE CHURCH STEPS. IT WAS A SORT OF TRAGIC COMING TOGETHER AT THE END, BUT WE KNOW HE HAD SUFFERED NUMEROUS SMALL ATTACKS OVER ABOUT FIVE YEARS, SO HIS DEATH BY HEART ATTACK WASN'T A SURPRISE. PASSING AWAY ON THE CHURCH STEPS DID SEEM RATHER IRONIC, BUT SO WAS MY GRANDFATHER.

     THIS BLOW-UP PHOTOGRAPH HAS BEEN CAPTIONED FOR MY FUTURE GREAT GRANDCHILDREN I WON'T LIKELY MEET.

STORY BELOW TAKEN FROM AN 1871 ISSUE OF THE NORTHERN ADVOCATE - EXPOSING SOME SOCIAL FESTIVITY IN THE MUSKOKA WILDS

     I WANTED TO SHARE THIS WEE TALE TAKEN FROM THE NORTH ADVOCATE OF 1871, ADDITIONALLY PUBLISHED IN THOMAS MCMURRAY'S SETTLERS' GUIDEBOOK, ENTITLED "MUSKOKA AND PARRY SOUND," ALSO PUBLISHED IN 1871. IT DOES NOT REFERENCE WHERE THE "WOOL PICKING BEE" WAS HELD, BUT IT WAS MOST LIKELY BETWEEN GRAVENHURST AND BRACEBRIDGE, IN THE MOST HUMBLE OF PIONEER ACCOMMODATIONS. IT DOESN'T REFERENCE IT AS BEING AT CHRISTMAS TIME, BUT IT WAS IN THE WINTER SEASON. IT SHOWS THAT WE MUSKOKANS, EVEN BACK THEN, COULD MAKE FUN OUT OF JUST ABOUT ANYTHING. THIS IS A NICE PIECE OF CANADIANA.

     "Understanding one of the objects of your columns being to convey abroad information concerning our great country, as well as to supply means of edification to our own people - the settlers. It may, I think, be fairly regarded  as a needful part of your work to give the outsiders some idea of bush life, as well as land. One of the questions, no doubt, arising in the minds of those moving in, would very likely be: how do the poor folks make out to pass their evenings, or, have they anything corresponding to missionary breakfasts, complimentary dinners, or oyster suppers? Some sketches of real life in the bush might serve the purpose of answering such questions.

     "A 'wool-picking-bee' (let me guard against being misunderstood), does not mean an insect of the bee kind peculiar to this region, and noted for for picking the wool of the sheep, but is the name for a kind of affair which will be best understood by a brief description of a single 'bee'. The one I had the privilege of attending, was got up by a lady inviting her friends and neighbors on a given evening. A goodly number accepting, they assembled and commenced operations around a large home-made table, by teasing the tufts of wood, preparatory, to further manufacture; meanwhile some of the young people were good naturally at teasing one another. Amongst the company present might be noticed the various functionaries of the locality, as trappers, postmaster, path-masters, school teachers, miscellaneous traders, etc., and in most cases, several offices meeting in the same individual, and all claiming the addition of B.W. (Bush Whacker), and not in the least, the correspondent of the Northern Advocate (Thomas McMurray himself). But now the work and amusement proceed in unison, which is more than can always be accomplished. Interspersed, more-over, with something of edification, and not altogether with a religious bearing, hymn singing, and a trifle of political and theological discussion."

     A verse was read as such; "Here in bush, life is found, work and play abound, and yet strangely agree, here extremes we'd unite, here the sombre and the bright, mixed together you see; unrestrained seem to run, both the serious and fun, in the 'wool picking bee.'

     "About noon of night, there might, perhaps, be noticed a shade of falling off in the spirit of wool-picking, when a sound is heard indicating a change of scene and a variety in the exercises to be introduced, of which one might for an hour or two previously, have smelled the approach. Preparations are ordered, the wool is speedily removed, and picking of another kind introduced. It might do in the city to say 'the delicacies of the season,' but here the dishes, or what was on them, would require somewhat varied terms to describe. It was in fact a great meal, of which the items would be more tedious to describe than they were to discuss practically. A roast beaver might, perhaps, be the most notable deviation from the ordinary fare, but breakfast, dinner, and supper were so amply represented, that a good old-style brother declared, ' If this be wickedness, I hope to be always a sinner.'

     "It is not too much to say that full justice was done in relieving the rude table from its cause of groaning; so, having picked the wool, and the bones of the beaver, and chickens, and singing the doxology, each seemed disposed to pick a partner, and the 'bee' stood adjourned sine die. This I must say in conclusion, for the relief of some of your uninitiated readers, who may feel a kind of commiseration for the sadness of poor bush life, and would start with alarm to hear of a wool picking bee; had they only the chance of taking part in the affair, they might be more disposed to envy than pity; and I seriously advise them, if ever they get an invitation to a wool-picking bee - to go." (The editorial piece was actually written by McMurray on October 26th, 1868, when he resided in Draper Township.)

     An original copy of this rare Muskoka history, was given to me as a gift, when I married into the Stripp family of Windermere. Suzanne's mother, Harriett, was from one of the pioneer families, who settled in the Three Mile Lake, Ufford area, of the present Township of Muskoka Lakes, and the book had belonged to her father, John Shea, a farmer in the area and former municipal clerk. As an historian, I was honored by the gift, and it has been used many hundreds of times, to assist in research projects. There is a pencilled line above a verse written by McMurray, that John Shea found interesting. It reads as follows:

     "Now in the primal woods, the axe resounds, and the tall pine receives its mortal wounds, as stroke on stroke disturbs the silent snow, the wound enlarges by each well aimed blow. The forest giant shakes in all his might, and crashing falls neath his disposed weight, and quickly carries to the branches bent, that strive in vain to stop his sure descent. A swift and certain ruin with rebound, and echoing woods repeat the thundering sound, stripped of his limbs, and squared, and hewn he lies, to human kind a good but hard won prize. It soon is made to raise the sheltering house, Or o'er the seas afar is doomed to roam, to build the bark, or adorn the hall, raised from the ruins of a forest fall. His roots remain to meet a slow decay, and mend the soil when sown some future day."

     The Shea family was well connected in the logging industry of the pioneering period in Muskoka, so the fact this was marked, was quite relevant.

THE SLEIGH RIDE, OF THE 1870'S IN MUSKOKA

     IN RESPECT TO THE COMING WINTER SEASON, OF 2013-14, HERE IN MUSKOKA, I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE THIS POEM PUBLISHED IN MCMURRAY'S BOOK, THAT JOHN SHEA OR A FAMILY MEMBER, AT THE UFFORD FARM, HAD MARKED AS WELL…..AS BEING A POEM TO REMEMBER. YOU WON'T SEE MANY, (MORE LIKELY NONE) TO THIS IMPORTANT LOCAL PIECE, THAT IS PART OF OUR FOLK LORE AND CULTURE. IT IS A GEM OF OUR HERITAGE, THAT HAS BEEN LARGELY FORGOTTEN; BEING CONSIDERED TOO OLD TO MATTER ANY LONGER. AS A LONG SERVING SOCIAL / CULTURAL HISTORIAN, THIS KIND OF LOCAL WRITING, ESPECIALLY FROM THE HOMESTEAD PERIOD, IS DEFINITELY AN IMPORTANT PART OF OUR HERITAGE, THAT IS JUST AS RELEVANT TODAY AS IT WAS AS THE INK DRIED IN THIS FIRST MUSKOKA BOOK. YOU WILL FIND MANY OF THESE CULTURALLY SIGNIFICANT TEXTS, STILL REGALED IN STATES LIKE VERMONT AND CONNECTICUT, AND IN THE HINTERLAND OF QUEBEC, AND THEY SHOULD BE SIMILARLY CELEBRATED AND USED AND RE-USED FOR WHAT THEY REPRESENT OF THE PAST…..AS APPROPRIATE TO OUR BEAUTIFUL WINTER LANDSCAPE OF THE MODERN ERA.

     HERE IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE PIONEER JOURNAL EDITORIALS - IN THE FORM OF A POEM.

THE SLEIGH RIDE

     "Calm is the night, and clear and bright; the silver moon is shedding, a flood of light o'er the snow so white, and an icy glory spreading. In misty light the moon does lend her, and the starry vault of blue above, is sparkling bright with a frost splendor.

     "Swiftly we bound o'er the frozen ground, gaily, joyously, cheerily; and our thoughts to keep time to the musical chime, of the sleigh bells tinkling merrily. For our hearts are attuned to the pleasing strains, of gladness, glee and innocent mirth; and we feel the sin has made dark stains, yet happiness lingers still on earth.

     "In wrap and rug, right warm and snug, all care to the winds we fling; and laugh and song, as we speed along, make the silent forest ring. The distant owl our voices hears, and screams from the dark and lonely dell, in answer to our joyous cheers, a discordant, wild, unearthly yell.

     "Faster we go - the frozen snow, from our horses feet is flying; the echoes long repeat our song, far in the distance dying. Our joyous brass exulting bound, and utterance find in gleeful voice, till rocks and hills, and dales resound, and even the gloomy woods rejoice.

     "Our sleigh now glides where the river hides, under the ice bridges strong, where deep and low the waters flow, so silently along. And now it is past, and on we roam, by the frozen lake - snowy plain, past the gleaming lights of the settler's home, and away through the lonely wood again.

    "The fall, it is they; we can see the spray, that the seething waters toss, like a glittering cloud, o'er that foaming flood; and now, as the bridge we cross, its echoing thunders louder grow, Check'd is our noisy mirth and song, and we stop and gaze where far below, the rolling torrent roars along.

     "The trees that stand on either hand, are hung with icedrops fair - with gems of light and jewels so bright, and dazzling crystals rare - reflecting back each twinkling star, with a sparkling beauty, rich and grand, a glittering scene, surpassing far, our wildest dreams of fairy land.

     "When swiftly past, in the roaring blast, the frost king sweeps his pride, his icy form the raging storm, and the mantling snow wreath hide. And unseen spirits the way prepare, wherever his royal feet would go, with dazzling carpets white and fair, and the crystal bridge where waters flow.

     "I love the clink, on the frozen rink, of the skater's iron heel; The merry huzza of the boys at play, with their sleds, on the slippery hill; the long, long nights, by the bright fireside, in the joyous home where happiness dwells; and best of all, the merry sleigh-ride, and the musical chime of the tinkling bells.' I thought I'd tease you with a winter story to cool you off. In my office right now, it's about a hundred and twelve, and the dog has to lay on my feet, adding another few degrees of discomfort. So for the past few moments, writing about snow and sleigh rides, gave me a little creative hiatus to a colder clime. We don't have an air conditioner. Suzanne tells me that they didn't have them in pioneer times, and her family survived. We live a half-pioneer lifestyle, in case you don't know.....but honestly, I really do like air conditioning. We have it at the shop, so it's where I'm headed after finishing today's blog.

     This is the Muskoka heritage scene I love to recall. When we ponder our identity these days, I draw back to the old books, to see if I can find something remarkable to show the public…….that believe it or not, Muskoka was more than a pretty face….even way back when. This is our cultural identity. And there's a lot more to explore. I will be presenting some of these social / cultural anchors and traditions this autumn season.

     I hope each and every one had a restful and peaceful summer season.....because we didn't. Serves us right for being main street retailers. Everyone here at Birch Hollow is exhausted but satisfied we gave the summer season all we had.....and it was a profitable relationship with the tourist season.