Christmas in Muskoka 2016 Introduction

INTRODUCTION - CHRISTMAS IN MUSKOKA 2016

Historical Privilege Now Taken After Forty Years Representing Muskoka

     The windstorm today has, at times, seemed powerful enough with its sustaining gusts, to lift our humble cabin from its foundation. The wood frame of Birch Hollow is holding fast to its heritage, at this moment, and the commitment as a home, to keep us, its resident family, out of harm's way.
     I can't even hear the tick of the clock at my side, and barely detect the cheerful gong on the hour. The furniture out on the verandah is being thumped against the outside wall, with low thuds, and the old barn lantern swings back and forth as if a child's swing in play. Even the flames of the oil lamps, illuminated on the harvest table, are wavering from the drafts around the window that I meant to fix this past summer. The temperature is dropping outside, and it is nice to be close to these three old farm lamps, and the scent of coal oil is as intoxicating to me, as it was when I first began using them nightly, to shed light on my manual typewriter, set up on my desk in our cottage on Alport Lake, of the wider Lake Muskoka.
    Back then, in the maturing 1970's, I was writing copious amounts, detailing old Muskoka homesteads and pioneer times, that I had observed in lonely retrospect, while digging bottles from these abandoned rural properties. So the aroma of spent coal-oil infused a perfect amount of actuality, reclaiming for me, the essences of that period from the mid to late 1800's, when these lamps and candles gave peace of mind in the dark of night. I still write on winter nights like this, especially leading up to Christmas and New Years, with the golden illumination of firelight, as cast down on my desk by these tall oil lamps. I am a creature of habit, and they warm my spirit, which in turn, gives me plenty to write about, while the storm etches over our landscape here at Birch Hollow.
     For the past half decade, I have written a series of blogs (stories) beginning in mid November, under the heading "Christmas in Muskoka," and even "Christmas in Gravenhurst." As the Christmas season has always been my favorite time of year to write about the locality of our residence, in this fine region of Ontario, I have once again, despite a little delay, found the time to put together a month-long series of editorial pieces, in celebration of the Muskoka I have long adored; since my family found reason to abandon the city life in the winter of 1966, to take up their new residence on upper Toronto Street, in Bracebridge; my father going to work for the historic Shier's Lumber Company, and my mother working, as she had in the city, for the local branch of the Bank of Nova Scotia. It was then that I was enrolled in Grade Five classes, at Bracebridge Public School, and became one of the hundreds of local kids who joined the Roger Crozier fan club, after his brillant performance in that same year's Stanley Cup playoffs, between Montreal and Detroit. Roger, born and raised in Bracebridge, won the Conn Smythe Trophy that year as the playoff's most valuable player, despite the fact, his team, the Detroit Red Wings lost the series.
     But admittedly, it was the great sprawling rural clime than appealed to me so much, as a kid with and overburden of wanderlust. I was living in the middle of town but the town was in the middle of a vast wilderness, and you didn't have to go very far, before you were walking in a forest, or a beautiful, sprawling forest abutting a water course, whether lake, river or pond. I was a city kid in every way, having come from Burlington, Ontario, and this culture and recreation shock was changing my life day by day. I am, today, so very grateful that my parents, Merle and Ed, decided to find a better way of life by heading north to the District of Muskoka. They gave me a very great gift with that decision, that I'm not sure they ever understood; or that I was able to make them appreciate, in the final years of their lives. We were city refugees and we were saved by this incredible place of forest, lakes and rivers, and its splendid, dynamic communities that proudly reflect Muskoka values. I am not of course, a homegrown Muskokan, but my wife Suzanne, and sons Andrew and Robert, are truly local yokels; Suzanne, born in Huntsville, and raised in the Village of Windermere, our sons born in Bracebridge, and raised there and in their present hometown of Gravenhurst. Suzanne's side of the family arrived in Muskoka circa 1862, so when we make the claim of being a Muskoka family, we're not exaggerating. Every now and again someone will come into our shop, and claim their Muskoka status as entrenched, because they've resided or cottaged her for twenty or so years. Suzanne grits her teach, but when asked, will offer-up her family chronicle just to clarify who has the deepest roots in this district. Bragging? We think this is something to brag about. So much so, in fact, that Suzanne and I have also been working as Muskoka historians, as a research team, for more than thirty years now. I've been writing about Muskoka for the past forty years.
     My most poignant period in Muskoka, came shortly after I moved away to attend university in Toronto, and found myself feeling smothered by the cityscape. When I graduated in the spring of 1977 all I wanted to do, as a first celebration, was to get back home to Bracebridge and start living. I wanted to know everything I could about Muskoka. Most of all its history. In short order, I was a columnist for the newly launched Bracebridge Examiner, the co-owner of Old Mill Antiques on upper Manitoba Street, and one of the founding directors of the Bracebridge Historical Society; which by the way, would help launch Bracebridge's first community museums, Woodchester Villa and Museum. In several years I took the helm, as editor of The Herald-Gazette, and would become assistant editor of our summer season publication, The Muskoka Sun, being responsible for its heritage component.
     The reason for including this biographical information, plain and simply, is to validate some of the historian's right to opinions, soon to be laid down in future articles. I am, you see, a wee bit of rogue, an outside and trouble maker, when it comes to local history, and its representation, and I can not count one other historian in this region to share or defend my views, as we don't make a habit of getting together to discuss our differences of opinion. I consider myself a folk historian, and I have made progress debunking quite a number of historical errors than had been entrenched for far too long. I have become to some, who don't like change of what has been cemented in place, often with many inaccuracies, to be disturbed and revised, no matter whether I'm right or not. I am not compliant for the sake of status quo. I love to stir the pot, as my critics argue, and of this, I can find no disadvantage, other than I don't often get invitations to the annual historian's Christmas Ball. I'm not much of a mixer anyway, and besides, we host our own little party at the shop each Christmas, and I can talk about history and antiques till the guests get tired of my robust story-telling. All historians are inclined to give boring lectures when given a soap box on which to stand.
     My recollections about growing up on Bracebridge are loathed by some of my contemporaries, because they don't fit the normal bill of what makes local history, and what tickles it as mere trivial pursuit. To me, they are the folk culture, the real life, real time patina of what has made our modern day communities special; at least for us, as the Muskokans who cherish them for the good hometowns they have been in our lives. I wouldn't expect even one of my cronies, stuck to historical fact, as if a wet tongue adhered by flesh to cold metal, to give much respect to my memories of people, places and things, that hinge on the emotions of the moment instead of the minute by minute actuality, to fit the puzzle openings of the big picture. But one can not, in any way, understand the history of anything really, without that folkish overview of the scenario by which history was forged inadvertently or by purposeful intention. My approach has always been more human I suppose, and my focus has been on the makers of history, and the character patina of any community in my study area, not just the hard facts and figures that are immovable as they should be for the record. But should we wish to have color in the black and white outline, there is no way of avoiding the institution of folk history where it belongs. When I write about the local lads of the Hunt's Hill gang I used to hang out with, back in the late 1960's and 70's, there isn't one of these characters who would have got into the history books any other way, and through my reminiscences of those golden years of my youth; our youth. Why were they so deserving? They weren't! They were deserving in my eyes, because they helped influence who I was, who I became, and what I wanted to write about when I got the chance with the local newspaper. But there are thousands and thousands of delicious stories, similar to mine, as recalled from all the former residents from this same period, who unfortunately never got around to recording their stories, their memories, about good friends and all the others, good and bad, from the big old neighbourhood. So I tried to make up for what they didn't write, and the historians didn't see fit to record. These folk tales in the form of recollections of friends and family, are the pedigree of our towns, villages and hamlets, and why would this seem surprising to anyone, even the historical purists?
     The days on the cusp of Christmas, for example, when us neighborhood lads haunted the old downtown, in Bracebridge, darting in and out of our favorite stores, shopping like adults for gifts, and ideas where to spend the money we were going to get from doting grandparents, cuddling aunts and uncles, who stuck those cards high on the tree like ornaments. What fun we had in the light snow, and crisp winter air, hustling about the downtown, stopping at the Dairy Bar or the Muskoka Restaurant for hot chocolate and french fries. How memorable to us was it to head up to the arena on James Street for the Saturday afternoon public skating hour, or over to the Norwood Theatre for the matinee. It was where we got the gum in our hair, the buttered popcorn down the backs of our good wool sweaters, rock candy residue on our coat sleeves, and possibly the unwritten suspension from ever attending another matinee. The owners were pretty fair in this regard, just like the arena manager and ice attendants who let us rapscallions get away with stuff, that today might put a fellow in the back seat of a police cruiser.
     In the snowy, cold evenings up on Alice Street, the neighbor lads would play road hockey until my mother rang the buzzer to end the third period; which was when she came to the front door of the Weber Apartments and yelled at the top of her voice, "Teddy, it's time to come in for the night." It was the game-ender we didn't recognize until the fourth yell which was more like a scream. We all hated the game-ending scream. We had very much enjoyed playing out under the dim lamplight, that stretched just far enough to give us a good surface to play three periods of hard-fought road hockey; Merle seemed to know just the right moment to intervene, to keep us from fainting from exhaustion, being half-frozen, our eyebrows encased with ice, and our bodies barely able to tap the ball past the snow-chunks we used for goalposts. We had been saved in the second intermission when my mother emerged from the lobby door, with a tray of cups full of steaming hot chocolate with marshmallows melted on top. Naw, this was not the stuff historians were interested in, but I sure was, because it was my, "our" chronicle, and it, in part, was what gave us the opinion of having had a good or adverse childhood in our hometown.
     I was particularly observant during the Christmas season, when everything seemed to magnify and I suppose, electrify what it meant to be living in the hinterland, in such a curious little Sleepy Hollow, like Bracebridge. "Sleepy Hollow," was a title penned first by American Author Washington Irving, from his famous tale, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The Town of Bracebridge was named after Irving's book, "Bracebridge Hall." Without knowing this in advance, my mother referred to our new hometown as Sleepy Hollow from, quite literally, the first drive through the famous silver bridge of the Bracebridge falls, on that first visit in February 1966, for what would become their cherished place of residence for the rest of their lives. My mother was, of course, the inspiration for writing a book about Washington Irving, and the naming of the town in August 1864, in the year of our new century, when she would learn just how providential her reference to "Sleepy Hollow" had been, from more than three decades earlier.
     The upcoming series of "Christmas in Muskoka," will include some stories from the archives, which I could never successfully re-write, and some are new to this year, but with the same theme as all the years previous. To me, Christmas in Muskoka, like Robert Frost's famous poem, "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening," is a story within a story, a poem within a poem, a folk story within a folk story, for both what it possesses, and what it represents in the abstract. I have stopped by the woods on a snowy evening. A Muskoka woods, and I have felt its resident enchantments, and be inspired time and again, to make the daring attempt to capture its essence, and why to me, the historian, it must be noted in the story, of Muskoka, if not included in its formal histories.    
     In the same vein of inclusion, I want to put these thoughts in print, if only for the posterity of our family record, as I recognize I haven't always practiced due diligence in this regard; leaving a lot of stories important to me, unrecorded, and the reasons why I remained in Muskoka instead of seeking work elsewhere, untold. For all the years of my sons' lives, now aged 31 and 29, I have written about Muskoka and our place within, feeling quite proud of our historic association, which go back to the first Shea settlers to build their humble farmstead on the rolling hills of scenic Ufford on the shore of Three Mile Lake. By remaining in Muskoka, instead of re-locating to the city to work on a daily newspaper, I opted instead to live and work in Muskoka, where I married a local girl, who I had gone to school with at Bracebridge High School, and we both agreed we could make a life for ourselves and family where we were most comfortable and compatible. It's our "actual" and "folk" history, and these Christmas season stories will contain a little of both, in the exploration of why I, and we as a family, believe Muskoka is an enchanting place throughout the year, but poignantly so during this most spirited winter season festival.
     We want to share these seasonally-themed stories with you, our friends, and good neighbors, over the next month, in the spirit of Christmas goodwill and good cheer, wishing you all the best in health and happiness at this festive time of the rolling year. Please join Suzanne and I in tomorrow's post, on this facebook page, for Part One of "Christmas in Muskoka, 2016, Part One." The series will conclude on New Years Day 2017. See you soon.