Paintings and Sugar Bush Relics

I ACTIVELY SEEK OUT PAINTINGS AND SUGAR BUSH RELICS AS AN ANTIQUE HUNTER

     I hate to admit this, but in the past ten years, I have bought and sold a pretty fair quantity of maple syrup and sugaring-off relics from Ontario and Quebec. It has been a ten year period in my life, that frankly, has been full to over-flowing with projects and new directions, and in the frenzy to check off all the "things to do" on my rather lengthy bucket list, I've had less patience for having a long term relationship with any of my prized possessions of once. After burying some close friends and family, and hearing about other associates facing cancer treatments, with poor outlooks, I began loosening my grip on a lot of items I had collected, and assumed would be with me until the end. Among those cherished items were many relics, artifacts and art from my collecting tenure, of maple syrup interests; which in reality have been life-long in nature. I have had some incredible folk-art depictions of the maple syrup industry, especially wood carvings from Quebec, which reminded me daily of a place I wanted to be other than here. I had a dozen paintings of sugar shacks and tapped maple forests, and then one day I thought to myself……."I've enjoyed these pieces for long enough……it's time for someone else to benefit from my years of collecting." In this house today, outside of some photographs taken on my visits to sugar bushes, including Jimmy's, in Bracebridge, I wouldn't be able to find even one book or one tiny wood carving, to remind me of this former passion to possess all reminders of the sugar bush heritage. I'm mad at myself for having done this, but it's one of those things as a writer and antique dealer in the same body, and soul, that happens from time to time, and always with the same kind of end-game regrets. Of course I wish I had it all back. Suzanne reminds me that, because I accepted invitations to Jimmy Hillman's sugar bush, and went with the school students to V.K. Greer Public School, and once to the Kortright Centre for the March Break program in the sugar bush, I've at least got those precious memories for company. You know, it doesn't quell my pangs, for actually, one day, owning a sugar bush, but as Suzanne draws my attention to frequently, these days, she is retiring from teaching this year, and we have to hunker down and be frugal to keep our antique business up and running……and our home out of foreclosure.  No money for land, she says, with a nod and a confident smirk, like Stan Laurel, used to give Oliver Hardy. There's not a lot of money left for buying back all the sugar bush relics either, unless they are for re-sale at the shop. Hey, that gives me an idea. I'll just be a dealer of maple syrup related pieces. I'd only truly be happy, however, if I could have a sugar shack like the one Jim Hillman had, to dismantle and rebuild in the middle of our Gravenhurst shop. Suzanne is glaring at me now, because I'm talking to myself as I write these lines.

     Suzanne is an old softy when it comes to the sugar bush. Her relative from the Ufford area of Muskoka, is Bill Veitch, and his property has long been the site of the annual Windermere and District Lions Club Pancake Social, in late April, at the Dougherty Road acreage, not far from the Village of Windermere, on the shore of Lake Rosseau. As a reporter for the local press, I always volunteered to cover the event on Bill's property, and the week after, at the Milford Bay property of Don Goltz, where the local fire fighters were in charge of the festivities. I believe this has been re-located in recent years to the Milford Bay community hall. The last time we were at the Goltz farm, it was on a rainy and windy afternoon, and as Suzanne and I were walking back to our picnic table, fully laden with pancakes, sausage and freshly made maple syrup, a gust of wind came up over that bald rock off the pasture, and blew the paper plates up and then forcefully against our respective jackets. I may have cursed God that day. I apologize now for that indiscretion…..but come on……what a terrible waste!  Actually, the cooks felt sorry for the reporter and his mate, and got us more food and syrup……as long as I agreed to tell the story in my column the next week……of misadventure; illustrating how silly we looked covered in pancakes and sausages, glued with maple syrup, and their responding act of kindness, to make sure our experience in little old Milford Bay, was given some positive press. They got it. And by golly, they're getting it again, quite a few years later.

     I have a real passion, this time of the year, to wander out into some sunlit, smokey, sugar bush, to do it all again. It is the place I'd rather be…….immersed in history, regaled by nature, and impressed by pioneer tradition. Now this is cookery at its most rustic, rural core, and it's something that has to be experienced to be believed. You just can count on relics and paintings of sugaring-off, to fill in all the blanks. This is a sensory perception adventure, so if you get a chance this late winter, early spring, to participate in any sugar bush activities, please, don't delay this intimate relationship with nature. The most "Canadian" I can be, is wandering the trails of a sugar bush in March. Thanks again, for taking the time to visit this blog-site. It's not as good as a sugar bush but suffice to say, my memories, at least, are not for sale. I'm offering them to you for free. We're taking some time off this week, my bride and I, and you never know what sugar bush I might turn up in, while on our hunting and gathering adventure. I'll let you know what we found and witnessed along the way. Drive safely out there. Take some time to enjoy the view. It's precious. Really!