Lillian’s Crafts Art Gallery: Feel the love in lifetime collection of Indigenous art and craftsmanship

Lillian Debassige with paintings by famous Island artists Leland Bell and James Simon in her gallery. Photo by Isobel Harry.

By Isobel Harry, This is Manitoulin April 2021

It’s all about love at Lillian’s teeming crafts shop and museum at the crossroads in M’Chigeeng First Nation—the same love for collecting that Lillian Debassige first felt 60 years ago suffuses Lillian’s Crafts and Museum today. 

“I started buying baskets in the 1950s,” says Lillian as we tour her museum in the big back room of the overflowing store at the edge of the beach at West Bay. Lillian’s Museum is a collector’s dream, paintings are hung everywhere, glass cases brim with exquisite bead and quill work, walls are stacked high with black ash and pine needle baskets woven with consummate skill and artistry. “I don’t know what it is with baskets,” she says, still a little amazed at what’s she’s gathered over the years. “I just love baskets.” 

Lillian, from Kentucky, met Lloyd Debassige from West Bay (now M’Chigeeng) in Chicago and together they came to Lloyd’s Island home in 1962 to buy the building that stood here then. They returned in 1966, this time to stay, and started a restaurant until they tore it down and built the current place so Lillian could open a gift shop. Local basket weavers and crafters would bring their works for her to sell and she ended up buying many for her ever-growing personal collection. 

“I wanted to show what I collected; for me, sharing the beauty of the art was the most important part of collecting. There were lots of baskets being made then, and almost none now,” Lillian says, taking in the hundreds of finely crafted pieces of local craftsmanship she acquired over the years. “Baskets are very hard work. The bark of the black ash is removed first, then the log is pounded until the layers of the tree separate into thin ribbons for weaving into baskets. The young kids are not doing this work.” 

The gallery also features supplies required to make Indigenous crafts. Photo by Isobel Harry.
The gallery also features supplies required to make Indigenous crafts. Photo by Isobel Harry.

Painstakingly crafted and decorated quill boxes are highlighted in glass cases centered in the room; small cards bearing photos and names identify the women who made them by hand many years ago. “They’re gone,” says Lillian of her beloved artists of the porcupine quill. “Anne Pangowish, Josette Debassige, Henrietta Toulouse, Mildred Aguonie, Mamie Migwans.” The stunning quill boxes of Mamie Migwans with their shaman figures taken from petroglyphs line one case; the indescribably beautiful tufted quill animals of Rose Williams are startlingly three-dimensional. “You have to be a sculptor to do tufted quills,” Lillian explains as she shows how the quills are placed straight up with the colours arranged in the planned pattern. “Then you sculpt them down.” She demonstrates, waving an imaginary knife above and through them to carve out the final imagery.

But Lillian’s is also an art gallery that is proud to show talented Indigenous artists’ works, most of them in the ‘Woodland School’ style, for sale.

Illuminated against the back wall are large paintings by Leland Bell. “I love Leland’s work. Everyone loves it,” Lillian says of his timeless towering figures in hot blues and oranges and blazing white. Painters Stan Panamick, Blair Debassige, Stephen John, Duncan Pheasant, all vividly represented in nooks and crannies, on walls and shelves, pottery by Carl Beam, Ann Beam, David Migwans and leather work and bone and antler carvings by many other fine artists. 

In the shop, Lillian bustles, answering questions and working the cash register. Much is for sale here and in the museum, but Lillian Debassige’s lifetime cultural collection remains a community heirloom beyond price.

Lillian’s Crafts and Museum
5950 Hwy 540 
M’Chigeeng First Nation
Tel 705-377-4987
www.lillianscrafts.ca

Sheguiandah Site: Travel back 10,000 years to the prehistoric quarry of Manitoulin Island’s first people

Photo by Isobel Harry.

By Isobel Harry, This is Manitoulin 2021

The morning of the long-awaited excursion is wet; rain, misting at first, turning into a soaker. Nevertheless we persist, unlocking the newly-installed metal gate off an unremarkable lane in the village of Sheguiandah and closing it behind us.

Ahead, a newly-built boardwalk and sets of stairs climb the gently rising escarpment until they vanish into the forest. We are entering the Sheguiandah National Historic Site of Canada, one of the oldest archaeological sites in the country, open this year for the first time ever to the public: Spring 2021.

The earth beneath our feet was laid down 450 million years ago, in successive layers over millennia, on top of what had come before, the two-billion-year-old quartzite bedrock of the Canadian Shield, or Precambrian Shield. On Manitoulin, quartzite is visible in only a few places, in high spots, usually, where the brilliant white rock was the only landform standing above the waters of glacial Lake Algonquin (ancient Lake Huron) over 10,000 years ago. As the waters receded at the end of the last Ice Age, sediment covered the rock below the water line, leaving exposed knobs of quartzite behind. It is then that the Island’s first inhabitants arrived here, moving north as the glaciers retreated and water levels fell, drawn by the glinting white stones’ great utility in quarrying for tools and spear points.

Dr. Patrick Julig picks up pieces of quartzite roughly chipped into usable tools thousands of years ago. Photo by Isobel Harry.
Dr. Patrick Julig picks up pieces of quartzite roughly chipped into usable tools thousands of years ago. Photo by Isobel Harry.

Guiding a sneak preview of the upcoming site tours (pending pandemic conditions) is Dr. Patrick Julig, the geo-archeologist of Sudbury’s Laurentian University who, in 1991, along with Dr. Peter Storck of the Royal Ontario Museum, re-opened the long-abandoned excavations first dug by Dr. Thomas Lee in the 1950s. The team analyzed thousands of found stone implements and geological samples and carbon-dated the site to 10,000 years B.C.E., or about 11,000 calendar years ago.

“The heritage value of the remains found in Sheguiandah,” reads the Canadian Register of Historic Places, “resides in a series of successive cultural occupations of early inhabitants in what is now Ontario, beginning circa 11,000 B.C.E. with the Paleo-Indian Period during the recession of glacial Lake Algonquin. The site also contains artifacts from the Archaic Period (1000-500 B.C.E.) as well as Point Peninsula Culture stone tools associated with the Middle Woodland Period (0 – 500 C.E.).” 

The Sheguiandah site offers the thrilling opportunity to experience these ‘successive cultural occupations,’ one after the other, on a guided tour. 

“We are walking back in time,” says Dr. Julig as we begin our ascent, describing our trek upward through a series of ancient beach terraces representing different cultural periods, based on the tools and other artifacts found here and on analyses of the earth’s layers. 

Earlier, during our orientation in the gazebo at the edge of Sheguiandah Bay, Dr. Julig pointed to the treed escarpment that lines the other (east) side of the bay to explain the beach levels corresponding to different eras that are clearly visible as “steps” in that ridge. The natural landform is a geological record of the ancient glacial lake waters receding through time – remaining at one level for thousands of years, carving a step, or beach, into the ridge – down to the modern water levels we know. Similarly, as we go up the Sheguiandah site hill, each new beach level is higher and older geologically than the last, ending with the oldest part of the site at the top. These older and successfully newer sites correspond to the historic access to the quartzite, from the water, as the ice sheet gradually melted and, over time, access was gained to lower and lower sites.

Dr. Patrick Julig is the geo-archeologist who, in 1991, along with colleague Dr. Peter Storck, carbon-dated the Sheguiandah quarry site to 11,000 calendar years ago. Dr. Julig was instrumental in designing the sensitive site for public access. Photo by Isobel Harry.
Dr. Patrick Julig is the geo-archeologist who, in 1991, along with colleague Dr. Peter Storck, carbon-dated the Sheguiandah quarry site to 11,000 calendar years ago. Dr. Julig was instrumental in designing the sensitive site for public access. Photo by Isobel Harry.

From the edge of the bay to the trailhead, just a few hundred yards up a low rise, we have already gone back in time 2,000 years, to the first ancient raised beach terrace on this walk (or the last, and earliest, if you count back from the oldest, top level), the 2,000-year-old Algoma water level. Here lived nomadic people known in anthropology as ‘Late Woodland,’ tribes that traded copper goods, shells and flint tools, made pottery pipes and vessels, baskets and worked hides. 

The beach levels are highlighted in a series of 12 explanatory plaques along the boardwalk, as are the corresponding periods of human activity, offering a rare ‘living lesson’ in the prehistory of Manitoulin Island as we walk. “The people kept coming back here to work the site,” says Dr. Julig. “They first arrived to work the quartzite at the top and as more and more land became exposed as the water lowered to the present-day levels over thousands of years, succeeding groups of nomadic people arrived to quarry and live here for brief periods.” 

Accompanying us is Heidi Ferguson, economic development officer for Northeastern Manitoulin and the Islands (NEMI), who has worked with the municipality, landowners, the Archaeology Division of the Ministry of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries and with some First Nations chiefs and Dr. Julig for several years on bringing the development of the site to fruition. Both Ms. Ferguson and Dr. Julig underline the importance of conservation in the planning, building and ongoing use of the site. “The site is very sensitive to disturbance,” says Dr. Julig. “We ask visitors to stay on the boardwalk, to protect the ancient artifacts.” 

“We continue preserving, studying and exhibiting collections of artifacts that tell the story of the Anishnabek and earlier Indigenous cultures that quarried, camped, fished, hunted, gathered and traded around Sheguiandah Bay,” Ms. Ferguson adds.

New steps and boardwalk weave through the forest on their ascent back in time. 
Photo by Isobel Harry.
New steps and boardwalk weave through the forest on their ascent back in time. Photo by Isobel Harry.

For history, geology, anthropology and archeology buffs, hikers, lifelong learners and kids, the Sheguiandah site is a magical place of wonder. The forest provides a leafy backdrop to contemplation and imagination as we rise through the millennia. We move up to the Nipissing beach terrace as Dr. Julig explains the ancient seasonal uses of certain plant species for medicines, dyes and foods including rare-for-Manitoulin blueberries found here in the more acidic soil around quartzite. This beach level, the archeologist says, dates to around 5,500 years ago, and evidence of people of the Archaic era—large quartzite bifaces (the beginnings of their distinctive notched spear points)—has been found near here. 

Upward we go, ever farther back in prehistory, reading about fossils found in the 450 million-year-old Mystic Ridge area, learning from Dr. Julig’s intimate knowledge of the site since the ‘90s and of the controversies surrounding the dating of the site since the 1950s. The relatively flat ‘Habitation Area’ is the site of the first excavations of Dr. Lee. Here, in these shallow rocky pits, the scientist found the knives and scrapers that would have been used in a camp or habitation area, animal bones, pigment of the ‘Late Paleoindian’ period, when humans first appeared in the archeological record in North America. 

By the time we reach the top, the immensity of what we’ve just experienced as we time-travelled up through this silent forest of ancient secrets is finally felt. We seem to exhale all at once, standing here on the fabled quartzite, eyes tracing the gently sloping landscape as it glides down to Sheguiandah Bay and the Modern Era.

The approximately one-hour-long guided tours can be booked in advance at the Centennial Museum of Sheguiandah or online.

An interactive exhibit with site artifacts may be viewed at the Museum. 

For updated information, visit www.shegsite.com

The Centennial Museum of Sheguiandah 
10862 Highway 6, Sheguiandah.  
Tel: 705-368-2367 
Open May to October.

The Life Aquatic: Cruisers dish on the delights of sailing and safety in the legendary North Channel

By Isobel Harry, This is Manitoulin April 2021

For thousands of years, the spectacularly beautiful waters of the Georgian Bay and North Channel of Lake Huron have served as major transportation routes—a lifeline for fishing, hunting and trade for this region’s first inhabitants, the ancestors of today’s Anishinaabek. Much later, beginning after European contact in the early 1600s, the waterway, coursing between Killarney and Sault Ste. Marie and nestled by the weathered two-billion-year-old rocks of the Canadian Shield, saw the huge canoes of the French fur traders, the commercial traffic of the booming lumbering and fishing industries and of shipments of iron ore, grain and limestone.

By 1850, the steamboat ‘Gore’ was taking passengers between Georgian Bay and Sault Ste. Marie via Manitoulin Island. But it was when the Owen Sound Transportation Company, founded in 1921 (its 100th anniversary is this year), began to accommodate passengers and ever-increasing numbers of cars on their new ferry service between Owen Sound and Sault Ste Marie, that tourism really took off in this region.

Boating as a leisure activity on the waters of the North Channel gained momentum then too. Today, Lake Huron’s North Channel is “the jewel of Ontario,” considered “magical” and “intoxicating” by those lucky enough to cruise its 160-nautical-mile length and “the world’s best freshwater cruising” by leading nautical magazines and boating aficionados the world over.

“We’re mesmerized by it,” laughs Becky Middlebrook over the phone from her home in Owen Sound. For the last 25 years, Becky and Paul Middlebrook have sailed in Georgian Bay and the North Channel and are current vice commodore and past commodore, respectively, of the “wonderful Georgian Yacht Club” in Owen Sound. 

Their first trip was “part-terrifying,” explains Becky. “Unlike Paul, I was not a seasoned sailor; it rained for three days solid and it was very intimidating!” The following year, they went back with experienced sailors; that trip whetted their urge to return ever since. Starting out with an “entry-level” 24-foot vessel, they now sail the 34-ft ‘Nyala’ – “just the right size for the North Channel” – west to Spanish and beyond, staying in favourite anchorages like the Whalesback Channel. 

The Middlebrooks cite tranquility, outstanding natural features and wildlife as the main motivators of their annual pilgrimage, and the social aspect of meeting up with other boaters. “We enjoy being by ourselves, too, and every morning we love the smell of the bush, we see deer on the shoreline, the mountains in the distance,” says Becky. Adds Paul, “You’re in your own oasis on your boat; we anchor and go swimming and kayaking. The water is so clear and fresh. It’s almost surreal.”

Becky usually sails up the Bruce Peninsula with her “girls’ crew” first, while Paul works a little longer in the city, joining her later. They chart a course to Cabot Head for an overnight, then up to the north shore to spend a couple of days in Fraser Bay near Killarney. In the summer of 2020, Becky made the journey alone. “It was perfect weather, I took my time, it was all very controlled. Paul came up by ferry and we spent four weeks on the boat.”

The Middlebrooks took this photo of their 34-foot cruiser ‘Nyala’ at anchor in a North Channel cove as they hiked onshore. By Isobel Harry.
The Middlebrooks took this photo of their 34-foot cruiser ‘Nyala’ at anchor in a North Channel cove as they hiked onshore. By Isobel Harry.

Keeping boaters safe on the North Channel is the number one mission of the Cruisers’ Net, broadcasting from Little Current on VHF Channel 71. During the pandemic’s much quieter summer of 2020, with lower than usual numbers of sailors in the North Channel, for Roy Eaton, the anchor of the daily summer marine broadcast and boaters’ help network for the last 17 years, it was business almost-as-usual. 

The biggest change was staying home instead of walking to the station in the Anchor Inn. “The antenna at home is the same height as the one at the Anchor Inn, 110 feet,” says Roy. 

When Becky Middlebrook sailed solo last summer, she says, “I’d call Roy to let him know I’m leaving, where I am and when I get there. At 9 am you get the news, weather and the opportunity to connect with people and help each other.” 

The two-hour broadcast and call-in begins at 9 am five days a week in July and August with the question: “Any emergency, medical or priority traffic?” As a fully licenced shore station registered with the Canadian and American Coast Guards and the Air Search and Rescue unit out of Trenton, Cruisers’ Net mobilizes “ready assistance” in case of trouble on the water. After the marine forecast for the North Channel and northern Georgian Bay, local and world news, sports and local events, boaters call in with their locations and itineraries. Volunteers at the station record all the calls, questions, concerns and relays to fellow boaters who are out of range of their yacht’s transmission.

“I set up a site on Zoom last summer,” says Roy Eaton, “so people could tune in. About a dozen boaters would log in for the broadcast, and some were calling in from Alabama, Michigan or Missouri just because they missed the North Channel so much and wanted to say hello.” 

The increased camaraderie afforded by the screens accessed on iPads, laptops or phones has convinced Roy to continue using Zoom “from now on.” After each broadcast last summer, sailors on Zoom would show their paintings, for instance, or hold up the phone in a game of ‘Guess That Anchorage.’ 

Cruising veterans Bob and Kathy Hall of Orillia have been sailing together since 1978 and wax similarly poetic about their North Channel experiences. While Kathy grew up with boats, Bob tried out his first sailboat at age 40, a 22-ft craft that took them to the North Channel for the first time. The now-annual tradition first lasted two weeks, “while the kids were at camp,” since expanded to the entire summer aboard the 36-ft ‘Georgian Mist,’ berthed in Little Current.

“It just blew us away,” says Kathy of their first sighting of the North Channel at Killarney, to which they’d driven their boat after Bob had read about it in a boating magazine, “despite the bad road at the time.”

Bob and Kathy Hall’s grandsons, Emmett, left, and Owen, clamber ashore in the spectacular landscape of a North Channel cove. Photo by Isobel Harry.
Bob and Kathy Hall’s grandsons, Emmett, left, and Owen, clamber ashore in the spectacular landscape of a North Channel cove. Photo by Isobel Harry.

“It was just so beautiful. One great anchorage after another. We were amazed—why on Earth didn’t we know about this before?” Now, favourite spots include Hotham Island near Sagamok First Nation and breathtaking Baie Fine, North America’s only fjord, Covered Portage Cove in Killarney and the stunning Benjamin Islands “when the anchorage is good.” They visit Manitoulin marinas by boat and tour the Island by car, once taking in the Wiikwemkoong Cultural Festival, and seeing the sights.

Greatly enhancing their comfort on the water, the Halls check in with Cruisers’ Net, “almost daily when we’re in range and by email with Roy if we’re not. Roy takes check-ins from certain areas at a time. There’s a community out there that is ready to help, and thanks to the Net, the fellow boaters in the North Channel are friends, some of whom we just haven’t met yet!”

“The North Channel stacks up against anywhere, and we’ve seen a lot—the Bahamas, Chesapeake Bay, Florida, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland,” say the savvy sailing couple. Swimming in the clear, deep blue water of the North Channel and “poking around” in a dinghy, “visiting very dear summer friends” anchored in coves among the picturesque islands dotted between the North Shore and Manitoulin Island to the south, and so summer drifts along, gently bobbing on the waves under the dazzling sun, moon and stars.

No boat? No Problem!
North Channel Tours’ 2021 boating excursions will put the wind in your sails:

northchanneltours.com/calendar
Sailboat rentals: Canadian & Yacht Charters (CYC): cycnorth.com
Cruisers’ Net: VHF Channel 71
exploremanitoulin.com/boating
thenorthchannel.ca/

Olde South Shore Style: ‘Barn style’ house roofs unique to Island’s Lake Huron area

Photo by Isobel Harry

By Isobel Harry

Manitoulin’s south shore, from Providence Bay in the Municipality of Central Manitoulin to South Baymouth in Tehkummah Township, is a delight to explore: multiple rural side roads and concession roads lead bicyclists and motorists on a merry chase down to beaches and lakeshore sand dunes, through idyllic pastoral land- and river-scapes dotted with century farmhouses and barns.

A closer look around at the early homesteads of the settlers who arrived on Manitoulin’s Lake Huron coastline after the still controversial Manitoulin Treaty of 1862 reveals much about how they coped with the rigours of settlement. The wooded and rock-strewn land was painstakingly cleared for farms, gardens and livestock and the first rough shanties and small log cabins built for the families that would grow there. These first structures later became outbuildings, many still in use or barely standing, when money allowed for the construction of a “proper” wood frame home, usually one and a half storeys high. 

Photo by Isobel Harry

A good example of two styles on Highway 6 near South Baymouth. Gambrel roof home with a shingle-sided addition. Photo by Isobel Harry.

This early farmhouse style is seen everywhere on Manitoulin and indeed in all of Ontario – variations on a small wood frame home with a steeply pitched roof, a central entrance door in front with a ‘pointy’ gable and dormer window or transom over it and two evenly-spaced windows on either side. The style first gained popularity in 1865, when the Canada Farmer magazine published the architectural plans for the “ideal home” for a small family, known as the Ontario Gothic Revival Cottage, The wide use of these plans over one hundred and fifty years ago ensured that the style has become almost synonymous with settler architecture – it was the most common residential design in all of Ontario prior to the 1950s.

However, in the early years of settlement in remote rural regions such as were being established on the Island’s south shore, necessity became the mother of invention and gave rise to uniquely functional home building styles.  Without architectural degrees or the expense of ordering plans from a magazine, many settlers built homes of their own devising, better suited to their often straitened economic circumstances, the available supply of local builders and materials and the climate and locality. This type of construction is called vernacular architecture, buildings by and for local people, using what’s on hand locally, according to needs and means. 

Here, in Manitoulin’s south shore townships, that often meant putting up a small square stone or wood-framed one- or one-and-a-half storey house with a gambrel roof  – no pointy gables here, no decorative flourishes. The gambrel roof, often called a barn roof or hip roof in these parts, was the choice of many homesteaders in those days. Adapted from capacious barn roofs, it provided much more room under the eaves than the usual Gothic-style roof with its steep sides. 

An abandonded farmhouse in the gambrel style on the Government Road near Michael’s Bay. Photo by Isobel Harry
An abandonded farmhouse in the gambrel style on the Government Road near Michael’s Bay. Photo by Isobel Harry

A rural ramble along Government Road yields many examples of the use of the practical, space-enhancing barn roofs topping newer or antique homes, a phenomenon exclusive to the Manitoulin south shore. While popular all over the Island on barns and outbuildings, here the barn roof defines a micro-local home building trend that is fascinating to discover.

One of the oldest existing homes in this style is the stone house built “during the Depression years” (1920-30s) by Archie and Hazel Brown on the 15th Concession in Tehkummah. This is the grandparents’ home of Gary Brown, himself a builder, son of Carl who  built Carl’s Trading Post in South Baymouth in the 60s, the gas bar, garage, convenience store and unofficial visitor information centre known to all in the ferry port.

Now unused by the farmers who till the fields around it, and despite its disrepair, the house has an air of unmistakable solidity, squarely set into the ground on its stone walls. Here was a humble and heartfelt effort to provide shelter from the elements, a place for children and animals to thrive – the texture of time etched into the stones. Archie and Hazel Brown’s house was considered large at the time, says their grandson. On the second floor were three bedrooms, a washroom and “a little music room at the top of the stairs” where the gramophone waited to be cranked up of an evening.

“All the materials were from around here,” says Gary Brown. “The stones came from the Overfield quarry or from the bush. There were other quarries and quite a few sawmills, in Tehkummah, Michael’s Bay, Sandfield area – there were options.”

Mr. Brown recalls the many gambrel-roofed homes he built in the area as the owner of Gary Brown Construction, pointing this way and that, up the road and across the township, listing homes built without formal plans, featuring the distinctive roof. 

“It’s a popular style because these types of houses are easy to build,” he explains. “You put the ground floor in first so you can stand on it to erect the walls. The homes are usually small, sturdy and easier to heat because the warmth rises up the middle through vents; the barn roof saves on siding, too, because it comes down over the house, which also helps keep it warm.”

Down in the community of Snowville, Anne Leeson, the daughter of one of Tehkummah’s best-known local builders, still lives with husband Lorne under the gambrel roof of the family home. Her late father, John Blackburn, a stonemason and builder, constructed the sturdy stone residence in 1948, across the road from the original house of the community’s founding Snow family. 

Settled sometime in the late 1860s or early 1870s and tucked into the township’s northwest corner off the Townline Road, Snowville once had a store and a post office to serve the busy little farming outpost.  

“Mom and Dad raised three girls here,” says Ms. Leeson, as we look around the tiny, tidy ground floor layout comprising the kitchen, dining and living rooms built by her father. “Everything is trimmed in black cherry, including the archways and the built-in cupboards that my dad fitted in instead of closets; many houses didn’t have basements, but we had one, with a furnace. Dad put vents in the ceiling so the heat could get up to the bedrooms under the roof. It’s always cozy in winter.” 

Among the family photos are some glossy black and white prints by the late South Baymouth photographer, Art Gleason, who seems to have had an eye for local architecture. Anne Leeson recalls that her dad’s stonework was meticulous: “He would hand cut the rock, and never used rusty stones,” she says of the limestone that can sometimes show stains from iron deposits. “The stones never need patching; he also made headstones and gateposts.”

Mr. Brown started his building career “as a kid,” by helping John Blackburn with stonework: “He was a big man, he chipped the rocks and I laid them,” says the man who went on to build Brown’s Restaurant and many homes in South Baymouth.  “All the places I built with John Blackburn were in that style. The stonework kept the house warm.”

This classic gambrel-roofed farmhouse was built in 1948 by Tehkummah builder John Blackburn for his own family and is currently the home of his daughter Anne and her husband Lorne Leeson. Mr. Blackburn built several other homes in the area in the same style and always made use of local limestone as in this case. This home is located in the historic Tehkummah hamlet of Snowville at the southwest corner of Townline Road West and the 15th Sideroad. Photo by Isobel Harry.
This classic gambrel-roofed farmhouse was built in 1948 by Tehkummah builder John Blackburn for his own family and is currently the home of his daughter Anne and her husband Lorne Leeson. Mr. Blackburn built several other homes in the area in the same style and always made use of local limestone as in this case. This home is located in the historic Tehkummah hamlet of Snowville at the southwest corner of Townline Road West and the 15th Sideroad. Photo by Isobel Harry.

In those days local hand-built lime kilns fulfilled the key function of burning limestone into powdered lime to be added to stonemasons’ mortar. Lyle Dewar, farmer and retired delivery mainstay for forty years with the old McDermid’s hardware store in Providence Bay, recalls: “There were many lime kilns in this area; my father had a lime kiln. It would take 25 cords of cedar burning stone for five days and four nights to make the lime that would be mixed with cement, mostly for barn foundations, barn stone floors, chimneys and homes.”  

Because of the extreme heat required to burn the stone, fires had to be tended night and day, sometimes leading to raucous parties around the kilns. No longer in use, they long ago crumbled into the ground, but a keen eye, alighting on an overgrown mound, perhaps, a  scattering of bricks or stones, might catch a glimpse of these elderly sentinels of the settler era. 

Only a small vestige of this thriving industry remains, near Sheguiandah in the Town of Northeastern Manitoulin and the Islands (NEMI), where the Island’s first peoples began quarrying the area’s quartzite for tools and spear points after the last Ice Age, over 10,000 years ago. A trip along Sheguiandah’s rolling, picturesque Townline Road from Highway 6 ends at Lime Kiln Road, marking the site of an old kiln here, overlooking gorgeous views down to Lake Manitou. A new quarry has started operations here in the last few years, carrying on the local tradition of millennia as the Lime Kiln Quarry.

Several homes with this roof style can be found in Providence Bay. Photo by Isobel Harry.
Several homes with this roof style can be found in Providence Bay. Photo by Isobel Harry.

 “There were lots of stonemasons around then; these guys cracked stone like there was nothing to it,” says Mr. Brown. “Builders were pretty quick, too, they’d put up a barn in a day. Boards were nailed, not power-nailed; we used string to line things up, not lasers; materials were better, roofs thicker – a roof would take a whole day to burn, not an hour like today’s houses,” adds the veteran member and past fire chief of the all-volunteer Tehkummah Fire Department, somewhat wistfully.

No-one on Manitoulin’s south shore ever called what they were building “vernacular,” or anything of the kind. Nevertheless, a wander along here rewards with many opportunities to imagine the stories of its built structures – simple, unadorned (and now, sometimes almost falling down) yet esthetically pleasing repositories of regional history and culture, genuine manifestations of the environment, its people and its history.

Did Glenn Gould’s ‘Idea of North’ include Manitoulin? Searching for traces of the celebrated pianist on the mystical isle

Shutterstock.

By Isobel Harry, This is Manitoulin April 2020

Much has been written and recorded about the late, legendary Canadian pianist of international fame, Glenn Gould (1932 – 1982) – said to be the most documented musician of the twentieth century. Everyone knows the iconic interpreter of Bach’s keyboard pieces as an “eccentric” – wearing wool gloves, coat and hat in high summer, always carrying his homemade wooden folding chair so he could sit comfortably while playing (and humming loudly), seated much lower than is customary by pianists. 

From his birth in Ottawa, his retirement from public performances at 31, until his untimely death in Toronto at age 50, we can learn all about Gould’s early life as a child prodigy, his piano theories, styles of playing, love affairs, inspirations, collaborations, health, phone habits, apartment décor, cars and love of dogs. Innumerable films and videos reveal him driving around Toronto, walking through parks, chatting in a Muskoka chair at his Lake Simcoe cottage, performing on concert stages in Moscow and Berlin and in rehearsals in New York recording studios. 

And Glenn Gould, who was also an accomplished radio documentarian, loved Canada’s North; he often drove north from his home in Toronto to Muskoka and farther afield, along Highway 17 to Wawa and Lake Superior’s shores. His radio documentary series, the ‘Solitude Trilogy,’ includes ‘The Idea of North,’ in which he explores the varied meanings of North, making clear his affinity for remote regions. 

In ‘Northern Ways to Think about Music: Glenn Gould’s Idea of North as an Aesthetic Category’ (Canadian Journal of Music, 2005), Markus Mantère acknowledges that Glenn Gould was “a ‘northern’ artist par excellence […] the North plays a pivotal role in his aesthetic thought.

But, the author adds, “Gould cared not so much about the geography, history, population or economy of the Canadian North, but rather about the symbolic and metaphorical meanings that the idea of North implied for him.” The North was “a metaphor for things Gould regarded as indispensable to his music-making: Isolation, loneliness and the ideal of artistic creation as an activity taking place outside institutions, canons and conventions of the art world.” 

Is there any evidence that Glenn Gould stopped in and drew inspiration from the Island on his northerly peregrinations? There are some tantalizing clues that Manitoulin was such a metaphor for him, representing his life after retirement.

First, there is a solid an Island connection – a cousin of Glenn’s (their mothers were sisters), now deceased, had married a woman with Sheguiandah family roots and the couple lived for many years in Little Current. They attended the pianist’s funeral service. 

A hint of Gould’s northern travels comes in the film ‘Genius Within,’ when one of the pianist’s lovers, Cornelia Foss, who left her pianist husband and their home in the US to live in Toronto near Glenn with her two children, remembers their car trips to Muskoka in the 1960s. 

Later in the film, the prominent Canadian soprano soloist Roxolana Roslak – whose voice Gould first heard on his car radio before insisting they meet and work together – declares, “He was the most glamorous person I knew.” Ms. Roslak describes a trip they took to Manitoulin Island in the 1970s: “He loved animals and one of his fantasies was to get some place up on Manitoulin and set up a puppy farm and retire there. So we took a trip just to take a look around and we came across a field and there were a bunch of cows and we just started singing a little bit to the cows.”

In ‘The Secret Life of Glenn Gould: A Genius in Love’ by Michael Clarkson, the anecdote is colourfully retold by the author: “And so it was that Miss Roslak found herself – for better or for worse – in the tipsy but exciting world of an unorthodox pianist and, shortly after, she would be alone on desolate Manitoulin Island with him, singing a Mahler duet to the Hereford cows with a fake German accent.” 

Many books and films refer to Mr. Gould’s love of animals, from childhood pets to his rescue efforts and his bequeathing of half his estate to the Toronto Humane Society upon his death. 

In ‘Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould,’ Kevin Bazzana writes: “Animals even figured in retirement plans he thought up as a child and was still entertaining at the end of his life. He often talked of leaving the city behind and retiring to some rural setting, where he’d buy property that could become a refuge for unwanted pets, or for old cows and horses and other obsolete farm animals – the ‘Glenn Gould Puppy Farm’ was one imagined incarnation of the plan.”

The plot thickens a soupçon in speaking with Kate Shapero, Gould researcher for her website, Unheard Notes: Glenn Gould Interviews (GlennGouldInterviews.com). Her father, the announcer Harry Mannis, once adopted a foundling dog Gould had brought into the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation studios on Jarvis Street in Toronto and named Foxy. And in conducting dozens of interviews of Gould’s friends and associates, Ms. Shapero says many referred to Gould as having “gone to Manitoulin a few times, looking for land in remote spots on the south shore.” As well, she says, just before he died, the pianist told one relative that his puppy farm was about to become a reality here. “It remains a mystery to this day as to whether Glenn Gould ever bought land on the Island and, if so, what happened to it,” Ms. Shapero says.

As to where, exactly, the world-weary pianist envisioned retiring, Kevin Bazzana says that Gould had a few other favorite places: Cape Breton, Newfoundland and the Bay of Fundy, but, Bazzana adds, “He was particularly fond of Manitoulin Island, which he considered an almost mystical place, as have the Indians [sic] who have long inhabited it.”

It seems fitting somehow that the artist’s presence here remains an intangible one, as though, by just passing through, singing to cows and looking at land for his dreamed-of puppy farm, Glenn Gould left something ethereal of himself, invisible but vital – wisps of his creative genius, perhaps, floating on the fresh, clean Manitoulin air.

A drive, bike or hike around the Mystical Isle, a walk on a beach or along a split rail fence, a bench by a lake (with or without Mr. Gould on the soundtrack) may summon the northern spirit and imagination of the maverick musician, and, like his, your soul will be soothed.

Better with Age: Launch of travel website caps 60 years of Island’s ‘tourist lure’ magazine

Front cover (right) from the first issue of This is Manitoulin from 1960.

By Isobel Harry, This is Manitoulin April 2020

“If you are looking for a vacation of night clubs, we would suggest other places in Ontario,” cheekily yet sagely counsels the vintage first edition of This is Manitoulin magazine, published 60 years ago this year. This bit of travel advice, and much else about the Island’s appeal, remains true today, as reflected in the premier guide dedicated to informing and enlightening visitors about the charms, people, places and events, histories and legends of the world’s largest freshwater island. 

The first issue of This is Manitoulin, published in 1960 – slightly more compact and printed in black ink on white paper with Kelly green accents – extolled the “rugged yet peaceful countryside. It changes in appeal from morning until night … from arrival to departure … with each change of the weather. It is country for the adventurer and for those who seek rest.” This elemental portrayal stands as it did then over the length and breadth of Manitoulin – with some inevitable changes wrought over the intervening decades, many in response to the growing trend in tourism, the main driver of the Island economy.

The “vacation opportunities” abound as they did then – for family holidays, cruising the North Channel, fishing, agricultural fairs, community fêtes – now augmented by crowd-pleasing rock, country and bluegrass concerts, myriad powwows and film, theatre, kite-flying and cultural festivals and an expanding network of hiking trails and bike routes.

Getting here is far easier than it was back in 1960.

“By steamer,” says the section on how to reach Manitoulin, “you can come to many points on the Island from Owen Sound, Sault Ste Marie, Thessalon, Bruce Mines …” This mode of transportation, these routes, no longer exist, just as the old CPR train line into Little Current is gone. 

But roads have been vastly improved – in 1960s This is Manitoulin, Highway 6 (then 68) through the LaCloche Hills, aka the Drunken Snake Trail, was being “straightened out” from being “twisty-turny” (quaint wording for what by all accounts was a hair-raising, death-defying drive) and many roads, including Highway 6, now incorporate bicycle lanes. Bicycling has seen phenomenal growth on the Island as a mode of transportation chosen by many visitors, unheard of before highway shoulders were paved.

In 1960, the ferry SS Norgoma operated on steam power; the steamship was converted to diesel fuel in 1964 and could carry 25 cars on the main deck and a dozen vehicles on the lower deck. Its sister ship, the SS Norisle was steam-powered all its life and had a similar carrying capacity. (The Norisle has rested at anchor in Manitowaning Bay, in that peaceful village, since its decommissioning in 1974.) Today’s MS Chi-Cheemaun ferry, launched in 1974, can carry 638 passengers and crew and almost 150 vehicles while offering dining, deck chairs and onboard experiences for all ages. 

The Swing Bridge in Little Current – the only way off or on to the Island in winter – still admits only one lane of traffic at a time, causing drivers to pause upon arriving or leaving, to the delight of some and the dismay of others. Whatever the opinion, the iron structure, built in 1913 and declared an Ontario Heritage Bridge in 1983, is still-operating, an historical marvel.

Accommodation options have grown from many to multitudinous. There are fewer, if any, “housekeeping cottages with outdoor toilets built on rocks,” certainly, than reported in 1960 – and nowadays, only a tiny number of resorts offer American Plan, paying a daily rate that covers room and all meals. The trend in lakeside resort cottage rentals is now self-catering kitchenettes and eat-as-you-tour pit stops at Island eateries. (Check The Manitoulin Expositor’s weekly listings of community barbecues, dinners and picnics.) 

The sailing schedule (left) for the ferries at the time, the SS Norisle, which is currently moored in Manitowaning and her partner vessel the SS Normac. Front cover (right) from the first issue of This is Manitoulin from 1960.
The sailing schedule for the ferries at the time, the SS Norisle, which is currently moored in Manitowaning and her partner vessel the SS Normac from the first issue of This is Manitoulin from 1960.

Many once-legendary resorts, stores and services listed in 1960 are no more, replaced by new owners or sold outright for new purposes, or, in the case of the famous Harbour Island Yacht Club and resort near Kagawong, left slowly to disintegrate after its celebrity heyday of the 1940s. The good news is that Harbour Island is undergoing restoration by a descendant of the original owners and that many of these olden-days places are still offering old-fashioned pleasures to a newly appreciative clientele. A diverse roster of cabins, campgrounds, motels and hotels, homestays and resorts to suit any vacationer is listed, as ever, in the pages of this publication, This is Manitoulin. 

With Lake Huron encircling Manitoulin and 108 inland lakes on the Island, water sports have always been a big attraction. The North Channel is consistently named as the best for freshwater sailing in North America and in summer, marinas in Little Current, Gore Bay, Kagawong and Meldrum Bay are filled with boats and boaters from all over the continent. Visitors may choose from any number of kayak, paddleboard and canoe rental outfitters, rent a yacht for a day or a week or simply relax on a sightseeing cruise.

Fishing has been rewarding anglers on Manitoulin’s large and small lakes and streams for eons – smallmouth bass, walleye, perch, lake trout, whitefish, salmon and so on – and can still boast “real fishing fun,” just like in the old days. 

Much has been done over decades to keep eco-systems and fish populations thriving, including restocking by the fish and game clubs, extensive stream and watershed restoration programs and increasing awareness of, and work on, invasive species of aquatic animals and plants.

Manitoulin is home to fishing derbies winter and summer. Now in its fifth year, the Manitoulin Expositor Salmon Classic is the largest, a many-categoried contest that lasts four weeks in July and August – with big cash prizes and other incentives, chances of winning something for your catch are pretty good. 

The two-day, two-lake Manitoulin Ice Sbowdown in February is co-organized by the Wiikwemkoong Ice Fishing Derby (through Wikwemikong Tourism) and The Manitoulin Expositor. The event attracted over 400 hardy anglers to Lake Manitou and Manitowaning Bay in Lake Huron last winter. “This event put bums in beds, gas in cars and people in restaurants,” Luke Wassegijig, manager at Wikwemikong Tourism, said in an interview at last year’s Ice Showdown. “We’re making this Manitoulin’s premier winter event, bringing much-needed tourism dollars to Manitoulin during the winter season.”

This is Manitoulin, then as now, “provides a print product that shows Manitoulin as an interesting place to visit and spend holiday time,” according to Rick McCutcheon, who took on the magazine in 1980 as part of the Manitoulin Publishing Co. Ltd. “Unlike virtually all internet and social media sites that focus on an individual town, resort or attraction, a tourist lure book like This is Manitoulin tries to give an overview of the whole package – the entire Island.”

Fourteen thousand copies of the magazine were printed in 1960 and today the print run is close to 60,000, distributed to travel and trade shows beginning in February each year. This is Manitoulin has spawned ExloreManitoulin.ca, a spinoff that has “quickly become Manitoulin’s leading tourist website,” says Mr. McCutcheon. “Anything we can do to bring tourists here and have them bring ‘new’ dollars into the economy.”

Writing of the region in 1960, the authors of This is Manitoulin wrote lyrically of “.… almost a solid wall of Pre-Cambrian rock which has been gouged out by the ice of early times, leaving magnificent lakes … deep and clear-watered. There are streams and waterfalls. There are bays with hundreds of islands …” Yes, and towns and small villages with original, evocative Indigenous names, miles and miles (as they used to say) of cedar rail fences, a riot of wildflowers, dazzling stars in dark skies, peace and blessed quiet, it’s all still here. 

Some things never change.

Manitoulin’s Mini-Museums: Small Spaces make Special Memories

The covered bridge at Mindemoya’s Pioneer Museum is a gallery for the display of local family trees that extend from the settler days of the 1860s to the present day. Photo by Isobel Harry.

By Isobel Harry, This is Manitoulin April 2020

There’s a surfeit of riches to discover in Manitoulin’s several distinct museums: each offers a snapshot of the local history of their community in a great variety of displays of artifacts, lore and distinct areas of specialization. For a small fee or donation, visitors can spend a little or a lot of time absorbed in Island collections of early photographs, domestic and farm implements, Indigenous regalia and artistry, model boats, ancient fossils and 10,000 year-old quartzite tools, all locally sourced and displayed in outstanding settings.

But there’s more to these repositories of the past. Some main museums, institutions and even a department store and a souvenir shop also hold fascinating ‘mini-museums,’ perfectly-restored historical sites or thoughtful groups of rare objects in settings designed for special contemplation. 

A tiny log cabin (left), housing the Post Office Museum of early Manitoulin Transportation and Communication, is a mini-museum to peek in at the Old Mill Heritage Centre in Kagawong.  Photos by Isobel Harry.
A tiny log cabin (left), housing the Post Office Museum of early Manitoulin Transportation and Communication, is a mini-museum to peek in at the Old Mill Heritage Centre in Kagawong. Photos by Isobel Harry.

The mini-museum on the grounds the Old Mill Heritage Centre Museum in Kagawong (a former pulp mill built of limestone in 1925) is a postage stamp-sized log cabin housing the Post Office Museum of early Manitoulin Transportation and Communication. The former Spring Bay pioneer post office, built in 1890, was relocated here and houses settler artifacts, an early switchboard and intriguing stamps and postal curiosities. KagawongMuseum.ca

Turners’ evocative mini-museum is a thrilling jumble of old scrapbooks, photos and newspaper articles dating back over a hundred years. Photo courtesy of Turners Museum.
Turners’ evocative mini-museum is a thrilling jumble of old scrapbooks, photos and newspaper articles dating back over a hundred years.
Photo courtesy of Turners Museum.

Up the wide wooden staircase in Turners of Little Current, tucked into a far corner, a small, evocative room holds the old typewriters, yellowing paper invoices stamped paid, wooden desks and display cases of the family business founded in 1879. Turners’ mini-museum is a valuable archive in a thrilling jumble of old scrapbooks, photos and newspaper articles dating back over a hundred years of local history; many stern, sepia-toned portraits of ancestors survey the visitors. Turners.ca

Intricate quill boxes and unique quill and birch bark curios are displayed among historical and contemporary works of art in Lillian’s Museum. Photo by Isobel Harry.
Intricate quill boxes and unique quill and birch bark curios are displayed among historical and contemporary works of art in Lillian’s Museum. Photo by Isobel Harry.

In M’Chigeeng First Nation, the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation’s small museum makes a big impression. Striking exhibits and artworks encircle the room, highlighting the art, customs, traditions and ways of life of the Anishinaabek – the Odawa, Ojibwe and Potawatomi of Manitoulin Island and the Great Lakes region. The gift shop displays many works made by artists in the community. OjibweCulture.ca 

Also in M’Chigeeng is Lillian’s Quillbox Museum, the extraordinary collection of Lillian Debassige, amassed over 70-odd years and displayed in a big room at the back of her store, Lillian’s Crafts. Anishinaabe art dating to the 1940s is arrayed from floor to ceiling: rare ash baskets and intricate quill boxes by noted artists of these media. Contemporary works of Leland Bell and Stan Panamick, pottery pieces by Carl Beam and David Migwans and many handcrafted curios round out the collection. facebook.com/lillianscrafts

In an airy third-floor loft in Gore Bay’s Harbour Centre, the waterfront satellite of the beautiful Gore Bay Museum in town, the William Purvis Marine Centre houses a huge collection of Great Lakes marine memorabilia. The Centre features an archive of 17,000 slides and 20,000 prints, a gallery of original log books, ships’ wheels, lanyards, photos, flags and finely handcrafted model boats. GoreBayMuseum.com/marine-museum

The William Purvis Marine Centre in Gore Bay features finely detailed models of Great Lakes commercial fishing vessels of the past and much marine memorabilia. Photo by Isobel Harry.
The William Purvis Marine Centre in Gore Bay features finely detailed models of Great Lakes commercial fishing vessels of the past and much marine memorabilia. Photo by Isobel Harry.

Outside Mindemoya’s Welcome Centre with its compact modern museum of fascinating times past, the Pioneer Museum spills out onto the leafy grounds to an authentic 1921 barn sheltering early sleighs and carriages, and a blacksmith’s log smithy. A covered bridge lined with the family trees of the founders of the central townships and a furnished, tiny log cabin from 1867 are moving reminders of a simpler life filled with mighty struggles. Central Manitoulin Welcome Centre and Pioneer Museum Tel: 705-377-4383.

A furnished two-storey log  cabin, built in 1867, forms part of several mini-museums that may be visited on the grounds of the Pioneer Museum in Mindemoya. Photo by Isobel Harry.
A furnished two-storey log cabin, built in 1867, forms part of several mini-museums that may be visited on the grounds of the Pioneer Museum in Mindemoya. Photo by Isobel Harry.

For fans of Jack’s Agricultural Museum, also in Mindemoya, it is now closed but the rare collection of pre-war farm implements and machinery that Jack Seabrook amassed in his lifetime could be moving to another location. (The collection contains one of every model of Massey-Harris tractors manufactured by that once-famous Canadian company.)

Within sight of the ferry docks in South Baymouth, the Little Schoolhouse and Museum’s main, modern building includes recovered artifacts from the ‘ghost town’ of Michael’s Bay. 

The mini-museum is right next door: the Little Schoolhouse, red wooden siding trimmed in white, built in 1891 and in use until the 1960s. An authentically furnished one-room schoolhouse, it’s exactly as experienced by generations of Manitoulin schoolchildren: rows of small wooden desks, blackboards with cards of cursive writing, a wall-sized world map, a woodstove and creamy globe lamps hanging overhead. The Little Schoolhouse and Museum Tel: 705-859-3663

The original 1891 Little Schoolhouse in South Baymouth is the mini-museum next door to the modern Museum building housing memorabilia from the fishing heyday of the town. Photo by Isobel Harry.
The original 1891 Little Schoolhouse in South Baymouth is the mini-museum next door to the modern Museum building housing memorabilia from the fishing heyday of the town. Photo by Isobel Harry.

The Centennial Museum of Sheguiandah offers a sweeping survey of this area’s origins, beginning with prehistoric stone tools carbon-dated to 10,000 years ago. Excavated from a quartzite outcrop nearby, they confirm quarrying by the first humans on Manitoulin after the last Ice Age. 

The mini-museums are scattered among the several settler log cabins that dot the gorgeous grounds; one building serves as a hangar for the remains of US President Franklin D. Rooselvelt’s communications floatplane. In 1943, on a one-week “top-secret fishing vacation” off Birch Island, the President relaxed before his famous meeting with Winston Churchill in Quebec. The floatplane, rumored to carry twice-daily mail and classified dispatches to the wartime president, caught fire and sank in the North Channel, where it remained for nearly 50 years before coming to rest in this peaceful glade.

The largest of the mini-museums here is the entire village of Sheguiandah! A free museum map highlights many original buildings, all now bearing historical markers. The Sheguiandah archeological site is a National Historic Site of Canada, as is the ancient habitation area that encompasses today’s village. TownOfNemi.on.ca/places/museum

The lush grounds of the Centennial Museum of Sheguiandah are dotted with log cabin mini-museums. Manitoulin chairs and picnic tables welcome visitors to soak up the history. Photo by Isobel Harry.
The lush grounds of the Centennial Museum of Sheguiandah are dotted with log cabin mini-museums. Manitoulin chairs and picnic tables welcome visitors to soak up the history. Photo by Isobel Harry.

The Assiginack Museum and Heritage Complex started life as a ‘lockup’ and jailer’s home in 1878. Now complemented by temperature-controlled exhibition and research facilities, the Museum collections feature scale model boats of Jacob Shigwadja, taxidermy, children’s toys and early 20th century china and glassware.

The mini-museums outside among the picnic tables include a restored one-room log schoolhouse (1878), a driving shed and a blacksmith shop; One tiny whitewashed log cabin, belonging to Philomene Lewis, was moved here from Wiikwemkoong, splendid in its simplicity.  Assiginack.ca/assiginack-museum-heritage-complex

Among the ‘mini-museums’ at the Assiginack Museum in Manitowaning are authentic settler log buildings dating to the 1860s. Photo by Isobel Harry.
Among the ‘mini-museums’ at the Assiginack Museum in Manitowaning are authentic settler log buildings dating to the 1860s. Photo by Isobel Harry.

Picturesque Prov: Much More to Love than Sun, Sand and Surf

The iconic 1930s McDermid’s hardware store in the centre of the village of Providence Bay was converted to the Mutchmor in 2016. A vibrantly-coloured mural covers the south wall, facing the newly refurbished village square. Photo by Chris Hurd (@churdphoto)

By Isobel Harry, This is Manitoulin April 2020

There’s an invigorating breeze, a fresh new wave rolling onto Manitoulin’s shores, a bit of a rural Renaissance, if you will. Feel it in many of the Island’s small, historical towns and villages as more artists, artisans, growers, creative innovators and entrepreneurs – passionate about being a part of and contributing to Manitoulin’s vital communities – launch original initiatives born of creative new approaches to living and working here.

As in many small villages on the Island, Providence Bay was feeling the effects of the tectonic shift from a farm-based economy – the closing of stores and services that once had anchored a community, the dearth of jobs, the exodus of young people – the very effects that are proving to be the driver of a new economy based on inventive ideas about Providence Bay enduring appeal as a popular tourist destination.

Always a well-loved getaway, Providence Bay has it all, starting with the North’s longest sand beach, a magnet for its crescent moon of pale gold sand, a marina buzzing with fisher folk in quest of the abundant large salmon, a renowned agricultural fair that has been “showing the fancy work and prize livestock” of this vibrant community for 137 years, a renowned bluegrass festival and, new last summer, a farmers’ market on Saturday mornings. Campgrounds (such as the large and well-liked Providence Bay Tent and Trailer Park) and cottages do a roaring business, old-fashioned wooden rental cabins ringing the bay, many in operation since the 1930s and ‘40s. 

By the time McDermid’s iconic hardware store closed in 2010, the gas station was shuttered and the centre of Providence Bay lost its main commercial amenities, the changes that would transform Providence Bay had already been afoot for a while.

Twelve years ago, when erin-blythe reddie (no caps please) moved here, local consensus seemed to be that “the hamlet was dying,” she says. “But some things have to leave for something else to happen. I saw Prov as a phoenix rising.” She bought a house off the main street and set up ‘Naturally … it’s a Working Studio’ to produce her ‘naturescapes,’ paint with watercolours, weave textiles, including Japanese Sashiko pieces, and sew contemporary art quilts. “And I’m an artist in the garden in summer!” she adds, producing a bounty of food, some of which is enjoyed by guests of her rental loft who, like her, appreciate Prov “as a nature-based creative place to be.

At Huron Island Time, a diverse music program on the boardwalk includes local musicians, such as the Kagawong Folk Roots Collective (pictured), 
and touring acts. Photo by Isobel Harry
At Huron Island Time, a diverse music program on the boardwalk includes local musicians, such as the Kagawong Folk Roots Collective (pictured), and touring acts. Photo by Isobel Harry.

“There are more and more pockets of imaginative and resourceful people cropping up,’ says erin-blythe. “Networks are strong and very fluid; you can find kinship all over the Island.  Infused with this creativity, a community keeps building and getting stronger.” 

The library – with Sally Miller at the helm – the post office and the community centre are revitalized as gathering spots; the newly re-designed village square is now a restful park that Mary-Jo Gordon, in consultation with the community, saw through to fruition. As the Huron Sands Motel is refurbished by new owners Inessa Taibert and Vera Kuminov Mamoutov, they run their diner year-round and stock small convenience items; the 1898 School House Restaurant, operated by spouses Heather and chef Greg Niven, has been serving up fine dining since 1995. 

The Interpretive Centre on the beach has been given new life by Lance Baptiste, a former resident of Ottawa who came to Canada from Guyana with his parents when he was nine. The music industry professional ended up in Providence Bay “as a result of a series of happy accidents,” he says. In 2016, his partner found a job on the Island and a home in Providence Bay for the family, two blocks from the Interpretive Centre – and the ice cream bar within was available for lease! From the kitchen of his newly-purchased beachside venue, Huron Island Time, Lance soon was offering Guyanese specialities – roti, dhalpuri, and Jamaican-style jerk chicken. As for music on the boardwalk, he says, “I want eclectic, to marry professional touring musicians with local musicians, to bring more new experiences for people to enjoy.”

For this season, Lance has invited a cellist, a Trinidadian calypsonian, an “amazing” percussionist and a ‘cavaquinho’ (a small Portuguese guitar) player to join local performers in serenading visitors to the lakeshore. 

A passion for Prov was ignited in Matthew Garniss by his parents, United Church minister Martin Garniss and Lynda Garniss, a nurse, who bought a home on the Mindemoya River after a camping trip here in 2003. Matthew came to visit after his second year at Ryerson University and promptly found a job at Greg Niven’s Huron Fish and Chips for the summer. 

After a post-graduation stint in the printing industry in BC, Matthew started to think about being his own boss, and in 2010, he returned to Providence Bay and bought the fish and chips shop. 

The Peace Cafe inside The Mutchmor is a great place to relax and enjoy the ambiance of this charming artistic space. Photo by Isobel Harry.
The Peace Cafe inside The Mutchmor is a great place to relax and enjoy the ambiance of this charming artistic space. Photo by Isobel Harry.

He isn’t running “your usual fast food place,” says Matthew, who “wanted to keep staff around, encourage and mentor them so they feel a part of the business. Some of the little kids who visited with their parents every year worked in the shop when they grew up,” he says, “and local kids have gone off to college after working here in the summer and are now looking to come back to the Island with their new skills. It’s more than just ‘exchange money for food.’” 

In 2012, casting about for opportunities to showcase the arts, he put in an offer on the old McDermid hardware store; it was turned down. Finally, in 2016, Matthew and partner Bridget Sarpong bought the building and began to realize their concept of a cafe, gallery and gift shop in the large, open space they named the Mutchmor (after the namesake side street, named for a community pioneer family of that name). Bridget’s Peace Cafe is at its heart while a large artisans’ bazaar fills the high-ceilinged recesses with stalls and nooks and crannies filled with locally-made and international finds. “We wanted half country and half city, a more stylized experience,” says Matthew. On the second floor are the four Mutchmor Lofts, airy rentals with views of the lake and the main street. 

Looming large in countless souvenir photos is the vivid mural that takes up the entire south wall of the Mutchmor. Painted in 2018 by Toronto multi-disciplinary artists, husband and wife Bruno Smoky and Shalak Attack, and Fiya Bruxa – it’s like a billboard announcing all the bold, new creative responses to the timeless inspiration that are places like Providence Bay on Manitoulin Island.

Easy Breezing on Manitoulin’s Bucolic Bike Routes

Ten Mile Point provides a spectacular backdrop for a well deserved rest stop.

By Isobel Harry, This is Manitoulin April 2020

The indefatigable cheerleader of all things healthy, fun and affordable on two wheels, Maja Mielonen, president of Manitoulin Island Cycling Advocates (MICA), has three words for the previous season of MICA’s curated bicycling activities: “Best summer ever!” 

Based in Central Manitoulin on Mindemoya’s main street (along with Maja’s little bistro, home of Gourmet Garden Gigs in summer) and supported by member-owners of Island businesses of all types and by many volunteers, MICA has expanded and refined its menu of cycling offerings over 10 years as a non-profit organization. 

Riders can choose the annual Passage Ride (June 6-7, 2020) – free ferry, three Island bike routes, two nights’ accommodation (pre-booked by the participants), luggage shuttle, mechanical breakdown assistance, aid and snack stations, dinner and entertainment on Saturday and lunch on Sunday – or head out on a self-guided tour with MICA’s handy Cycling Routes and Road Map, now in its fifth edition, available for $2 on the website.

“The Passage Ride travelled to Little Current last year for the first time using the paved shoulders of Highway 6,” says Ms. Mielonen. “The tour was a hit with the 240 cyclists – the hotels were sold out in town, we featured local foods and drinks to showcase Manitoulin and involved as many MICA members as possible.” MICA members are Island businesses and institutions that are ‘bike-friendly’ – welcoming riders with bike racks, for example, at their accommodations, restaurants, shops and cultural spaces.

New since 2016 are MICA’s Alvar Cycle Tours, five days of riding and four nights in lakeside accommodations in June and September. “We were sold out, all four Alvar tours with 12 riders each, touring galleries, farms, museums, fisheries, cultural sites. Everything’s pre-paid, accommodations, meals, it’s an all-inclusive vacation – riding, eating and sleeping is all you have to do.” Thirty spots were already booked last fall for this year’s Alvar Cycle Tours.

Expositor file photo.

A large part of MICA’s mandate is to raise awareness of the benefits of all those quiet cyclists pedaling through Island communities while visiting shops and restaurants and staying in campgrounds, motels and cottages. MICA received unanimous support from all Island municipalities to its proposal for them to consider including a mobility plan in their strategies for roads, parks and buildings: “Often,” says Ms. Mielonen, “pedestrian safety is not sufficiently included. Good planning is making streets safe for all road users between eight and 80.” Since there are now more safe routes for cyclists, Ms. Mielonen has noticed an increase in Island residents and schoolchildren using bicycles to get around.

In 2018, after research into the Island’s most peaceful, scenic back roads, MICA, in partnership with Destination Northern Ontario and FedNor, distributed 60 ‘Bike Route’ signs, posts and a small fee for each installation to all municipalities (except Dawson at the western end of the Island), and erected eight trailhead kiosks. A ninth was announced in the fall – located in Tobermory on the Bruce Peninsula. It gives a sneak preview to cyclists, hikers and other tourists of what to expect when they make the ferry crossing to the Island. The new trailheads allow people to park their cars and ride off on their bikes along routes clearly marked on the large trailhead maps and the Bike Route signs, in their simple green and white splendour, invite riders to explore some of the loveliest land- and waterscapes in Northern Ontario.

MICA’s tireless networking, promotion and activism since their founding in 2010 are the pillars of the organization, encompassing working for better road conditions for cyclists, including MICA’s spectacular impetus in convincing the Ontario government to pave the shoulders of three out of the four Island highways. It involves linking with other regional bike routes, such as the Lake Huron and the Georgian Bay routes that now cross Manitoulin, eventually with the potential to connect internationally to US bike routes. MICA’s lobbying, community outreach and regional and provincial networks are intrinsic to its holistic vision for cycling tourism on the Island. 

Expositor file photo. This is Manitoulin 2020.

MICA’s original dream for the 1,000 km Georgian Bay Cycle Route concept to include Manitoulin is complete (and nearing completion between Sudbury and Muskoka), signed by the Waterfront Regeneration Trust as part of the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail (GLWT).

Recently recognized by peer organizations at the Share the Road Cycling Coalition’s Share the Road Bike Summit in Toronto, MICA was presented with the 2019 Wheels of Change ‘Organization of the Year’ Award. The GLWT also praised MICA for establishing a loop through Manitoulin, thus becoming part of the 3,000-km cycling network, and for their many accomplishments on behalf of better cycling.

MICA’s efforts have brought back an old pastime to the Island, one custom-made for tranquil enjoyment of its natural, historical and cultural attractions, friendly folk and of Manitoulin’s undeniable magic. And for getting from A to B. Celebrate the summer season and saddle up! 

Manitoulin Island Cycling Advocates
6152 Hwy. 542, Mindemoya 
ManitoulinCycling.com 
manitoulincycling@yahoo.ca

Anchored in Little Current: Manitoulin’s Cruisers’ Net a Beacon for Boaters of the North Channel

Roy Eaton, former teacher and secondary school principal, has been broadcasting his Cruisers’ Net from the Anchor Inn in Little Current for 16 years. ‘Boaters helping boaters’ is what the Net is all about. Expositor file photo.

By Isobel Harry, This is Manitoulin April 2020

For 16 years now, seven mornings a week for 62 days in summer, the retired Island schoolteacher, former principal of Manitoulin Secondary School and keen sailor, Roy Eaton, leaves his home nearby and climbs the stairs to the second floor of the Anchor Inn in Little Current. Behind the doors of the conference room he sits at a table on which is positioned a microphone, arranges a few sheets of paper, and begins the 9 am marine radio broadcast of his Cruisers’ Net on VHF Channel 71.

Greatly encouraged to start a Cruisers’ Net by Bruce O’Hare, then the owner of the Anchor Inn and a Rear Commodore of the Little Current Yacht Club, Roy took up his offer of free space and equipment and set up for his first broadcast “in a very tiny, very hot cubicle under creaky stairs at the Anchor Inn.” The room the Net occupies today has windows, a large table for helpers who record the call-ins, is spacious, air conditioned and bedecked with “155 burgees (club pennants) and flags donated by visiting boaters.” 

In the old days, “cruisers” were under sail, motorless and with a reputation for extreme toughness in long distances, but the term today includes sail or motor yachts built for long distance sailing and with permanent living quarters (often quite spiffy) onboard. There are thousands of cruisers each year on the North Channel, Canadian, American and international sailors, first-timers and veterans, exploring the “Number One freshwater cruising area in the world,” according to Roy’s survey of top boating magazines’ “Best of” lists.

He rhymes off the reasons: “The purity of the water of the North Channel,” he says, adding, “the great variety of protected, five-star anchorages, the white quartz formations glinting in the east, Baie Fine, the only true fjord in North America, the pink granite of the Benjamin Islands in the west.” 

Behind the mic, Roy always starts each broadcast with “First, is there any emergency, medical or priority traffic?”  “‘Boaters helping boaters’ is what the Cruisers’ Net is all about,” he explains. “It’s a community and if someone is in trouble, there’s always ready assistance.” This is followed by the marine forecast for the North Channel and northern Georgian Bay.

Then it’s on to the news of the day. “Sometimes, you’re out on the water with no TV, internet or the daily newspaper, you’d like some news highlights.” The news is followed by sports reports and local events of interest to boaters, half of whom are American.

The second half of Roy Eaton’s broadcast is the ‘safety feature’ of the program, when boaters call in with their locations and itineraries. With the help of volunteers, a record is kept of all the calls: questions, concerns, relays to fellow boaters who are out of range of their yacht’s transmission.

In 2019, Cruisers’ Net received 5,217 calls. Roy has “hundreds of stories,” he says, of times when the Net assisted people in mild or serious distress: the woman with little boating experience whose husband had a tooth so badly infected that he was incapacitated, for example. Cruisers’ Net to the rescue! A dentist, sailing nearby, heard the call over the Net and raced to help. “One fellow had a fish hook embedded deep into his hand. We found his location and a doctor was there in 15 minutes.” And many other tales: an older couple’s broken mast and the young man who repaired it, the spare parts painstakingly found and replaced for a stalled power boat, mishaps magnified by this occurring on the ‘big water’ with no-one around.  

Roy Eaton’s Net is fully licenced as a shore station, and is registered with the Canadian and American Coast Guards and the Air Search and Rescue unit out of Trenton. They have his phone number, as do most of the boaters on the Cruisers’ Net who also have his number at home in case of no cell service on the water. “We look for assistance. I’ll help boaters fix their radios,” he says of the free testing service offered by Cruisers’ Net.

Donations from boaters and local businesses such as the Anchor Inn, Dreamers’ Cove, Turners, the Little Current Yacht Club and help from volunteers keep the Cruisers’ Net on the air year after year. Here, volunteers help to record some of the 5,217 calls received in 2019. Expositor file photo.
Donations from boaters and local businesses such as the Anchor Inn, Dreamers’ Cove, Turners, the Little Current Yacht Club and help from volunteers keep the Cruisers’ Net on the air year after year. Here, volunteers help to record some of the 5,217 calls received in 2019. Expositor file photo.

Socializing is all part of cruising, and the two highlights of the sailors’ social season at the end of July and August are hosted by Roy and Margaret Eaton on Little Current’s waterfront. And every Friday afternoon in summer the Cruisers’ Net Happy Hours are in effect at the Anchor Inn, with upwards of 30 boaters enjoying hors d’oeuvres generously donated by the Anchor’s new owner, Denise Lytle-Callaghan. Donations from boaters and local businesses such as the Anchor Inn, Dreamers’ Cove, Turners, the Little Current Yacht Club and help from volunteers keep the Cruisers’ Net on the air year after year.

Only once was Cruisers’ Net out of commission, “when the power went out across Manitoulin Island,” says the commodore of the airwaves. “Now, the radio tower on the roof of the Anchor Inn gives a height of 110 feet above water and there’s a continually-charged 12-volt battery backup – so that won’t happen again!” VHF Channel 71