A New Year’s Enlightenment-
I’m going to spend more time in the Muskoka woodlands – join me

I do spend a great deal of time reading these days, when not wandering through The Bog, the woodlands across from our homestead here at Birch Hollow. I watch news programming on television two or three times each day, and at the top of the hour, while driving somewhere or other, I always lock on to a news update. I’ve been an historian too long now to change. I’ve been a book collector for so many years to date, the thought of having an empty private library is of nightmarish proportion. I’ve been a writer-reporter far, far too long to be indifferent about the day’s occurrences. Maybe I am a self abuser. Possibly I have built my own torture chamber out of the cornerstones of personal interest. Yet I feel compelled day after day, hour by hour, to pay attention to world events. Not just how these unfolding events will affect my family’s lives but how they will change the course of history; from a micro degree of evolution to full-scale nuclear winter.
There are times when even the most dedicated historian, the voracious reader, and obsessive viewer has to, for sanity’s sake, retreat from all the world-coming-to-end revelations. I’ve consumed hundreds of books documenting the rule of evil throughout history, the horrors of war, the brutality of man against man in the name of religion, for greed, power, domination. I’ve read about broad-scale injustice and the ever-faltering rights of civilization despite democracy’s best intent. I’ve studied the Holocaust by reading every book on the subject, trying to understand how madness and inhumanity can be justified, as the business of the day. I try to place myself, as an inmate in Dachau or Auchwitz, suffering with the prisoners I have read about. Attempting to re-create the profound and horrid sensation of frozen, infected limbs, savage hunger, crippling illness and the brutal lingering of near-death experience. I try to put myself in the place of an arriving prisoner, watching guards separating family members in the line ahead, and the fear, the panic, that my wife, my boys will be led away to unspeakable horror. The smell of death. What madness would consume a prisoner, on stepping outdoors to the stench of incineration, and knowing, in all possibility, a loved one, a friend had been fuel for the fire?
What would it be like, in Sudan, to watch as your family, your wife and daughters are beaten and raped….then tied-up and burned by the proponents of the new reality? How can one assume to know, what it would be like to watch your family starve to death in a refugee camp, awaiting the rest of humanity to arrive enforce, as democracy, to cast-out evil by the good graces of democracy’s cavalry?.
How would it feel to be hope-less in every day existence? To disbelieve there can ever be an escape from the brutal, unfaltering grasp of evilness; to believe there could ever be a helping hand up from slavery and poverty. No chance of liberation from the burdens of religious strife and social-economic oppression? My ability to imagine it all falters in the overwhelming abyss of false security…..the insulation of my own privileged, protected life, from the actuality of strife and wickedness that gives the ink on the newsstand the justification for its bold headline.
As much history and news that I am able to consume in a day, a week, a year, I can never re-invent myself into those horror-filled situations I have noted above. Not knowing the full thrust of injustice, and inhumanity, brutality and oppression, I must continue my life-long quest for understanding at the very least. Admittedly at times, even the reader with an insatiable appetite for revelation, can become overwhelmed by the course of history and the actuality of the moment. It would be the choice of many of my contemporaries, and they have told me so, to “just shut off the television,” or to “stop delivery of the newspaper.” Maybe sell off the books at a yard sale, a sort of self-imposed purge of all contrary ink in the house! Yet amidst what is unmistakably depressing thought, is the reality of world heroes, and the fact that despite all the negative impact of news, like taking a canon shell to the gut every single day, there are visionaries, leaders, the faithful amongst us, who despite the carnage, continue to press on despite oppressive, impossible conditions, to change the world; save man from the wickedness of inhumanity; place religious fanaticism under global scrutiny for the brutality it bestows.
And in the most fearful moments, when it appears saving the world from the excesses and rage of humanity is impossible, I can read some of Martin Luther King’s speeches during the American Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s, and feel a modicum of trust that we can still find the strength and resolve to instill a better plan for the future. I can watch a documentary about Dr. King, and feel the new generation of inspiration, the tingle of excitement, listening to heartfelt words about a lasting equality, and a freedom sculpted from the huge well of inspired mortal will; the mission from a man who gave his life to fight oppression and for the establishment of full democracy for all citizens. I ponder what it was like to view the challenges of the world from Dr. King’s eyes; did he wake in the morning with a profound sense of fear about the prospects of the day, or did he rise from slumber with a profound sense of mission toward accomplishment? Or had he resigned himself that his mission was destined to fail without the commitment of others to lead alongside?
I grew up in a modest income family and although we weren’t without financial concerns and limitations, I never once went hungry. I was never beaten. I always got presents under the Christmas tree, and my parents afforded me every opportunity for education, including helping to fund my three year stint in university. They were always at my side during conflict, supportive at times of personal crisis, and were only too eager to help and participate with my wife Suzanne and I, to raise our lads Andrew and Robert. I believe very much, as related to many others in less fortunate situations, I have enjoyed a privileged life. I do feel guilty in many ways because I have that disconnect in reality to those facing dire consequence. Over a lifetime I have tried, possibly in a failed attempt, to understand the conditions and events of the world then and now. I’ve embraced enlightenment and the knowledge that compassion bestowed is infinitely better than ignorance preferred. So I will carry on information seeking, and act where and when I can, to represent the critical requirement of awareness and on-going education, about the actuality of world conflicts and turmoil that endangers all our lives; endangers our environmental well being; endangers any attainable solution to all-out war.
One of the first movies I saw on a newly acquired television, in the late 1950’s, was Alan Ladd’s portrayal of “Shane,” the cowboy hero, who fought for justice and survival, side by side the homesteaders, struggling in the great American west. For about 45 years now, I’ve used Shane as an example of “the good guys winning against the bad guys!” As simplistic as this is, and I apologize for having a movie hero as my role-model, I have never read anything more into the story of Shane than the script and the actions on screen revealed. And it has been my hope against hope, for a new Shane to emerge, and pull this world from brutal inhumanity toward the saving grace of neighborliness and lasting goodwill.
It’s kind of shallow, I suppose, for a career historian and crusty, set-in-his-ways writer-reporter, to credit a work of fiction as a source of inspiration. I’ve been a shade of Shanesque from childhood and frankly I have no reason to alter a good and worthy source of motivation that has served so honorably through these decades of authordom.
There are times burning the midnight oil, or even while penning something or other at the break of day that I feel as if my work is all a waste of time and ink. I truly wonder if it is all worth the effort. I’m not Shane. I’m a mere molecule of what Martin Luther King represented of change. Yet on the very brink of tossing down this mission of self expression, begun as a student philosopher-poet in the early 1970’s, I have enjoyed a goodly number of readers all these years, who have never been adverse to letting me know whether my particular piece was insightful, engaging or a deplorable waste of published space. A few have let me know they found my columns spiritful and provocative, and others let me know they were writing letters to the editor to complain why I had been hired in the first place. But you know, I would rather be in the position of “knowing” than in the reduced dynamic of the “ignorant.” As I have wondered about what it was like being in London, England during the Blitz, or in Dieppe as the Canadian soldiers were slaughtered on the beachfront by enemy fire, I so much demand now that I involve myself in history forthcoming. I don’t want to imagine what it would be like to be part of unfolding actuality, of world events, of crisis but be instead amongst the willing participants who would sooner kiss an incoming nuclear warhead on the tip than spend the last few frantic moments of life running in fear.
I can’t stop mankind from destroying itself. And there’s no Shane big enough to resolve all the conflicts with the compassion of the good neighbor’s honest handshake. I hold onto the belief however, that being an informed citizen is the best anchor for the most productive, helpful reaction. We see this in our communities when citizens raise money for worthy causes, and extend generosity to the local food bank and Salvation Army. The media helps direct charity to help families in crisis. We offer support to countries that have been ravaged by natural and manmade disaster. When I hear someone say that they don’t read newspapers or watch daily news reports or even care-less about the history of our town, region, country and world, I can’t help but pull on the precedents of Shane, to enlighten the naysayers about the life relevancies and responsibilities of good citizenship.
Despite what might appear a negative diatribe about the failings of man and civilization, I enter the New Year 2007, in trust that “good” can prevail over evil in the final analysis. And I shall give this authorship venue another go, and hope to meet a few readers along the path.
At this point however, I shall retreat for awhile with my canine friend, Bosko, into the snowy woods of Gravenhurst, Muskoka; the greatest healing place I know. Best wishes for a hale and hardy New Year from this writer and family in residence, here at our humble homestead, Birch Hollow.

The real heroes of community remain unsung –
Media consumed by profile as end-all

If an elected official here in Muskoka, gets a lump on his or her arse, it’s front page potential. Bump the fire shot and the accident flick to page thirty. Kill the drug-bust piece. Okay, it’s a stretch but it’s fair to say, there’s an obsession with politics and I don’t know why. As a writer and an historian, who cut his teeth on the local news beat, it is ridiculous what makes the news pages these days, and what is missed because investigative reporting apparently takes a staffer’s time away from the really good stuff, like covering the drier than dry local council meeting.
It’s not just a local preoccupation. It’s a national madness. Publishers and the movers and shakers of the electronic and print media believe we thrive on the latest news of a breaking boil on a famous person’s hindy, or anything else of a particularly personal, intimate nature we don’t need to know. It’s not the case readers are totally disinterested in the political gains and folly affecting their country, they just don’t need “a fix” of “what are the politicians doing today,” every day! Media barons seem to be more determined to satisfy their own agendas, their own sense of life’s truly important moments, rather than truly knowing or caring what the audience wants. I’d call it force feeding but the “out” here is, I can opt to switch channels and refuse to buy the subject publication. I have done this in my home district. More Canadians, I think, than ever, are simply employing remote control options, channel hopping, and refusing to spend hard earned money on news publications full of obsessive government watching.
It’s killing off readership from flaming sea to sea. The big wheels of local, provincial and national government and the weighty entourage of lobbyists, and sundry other bum kissers, are incredibly unworthy of the news coverage they receive. It is however, what they expect. Rather, demand of the media!
When I began working as a junior reporter for a one-horse paper, it was about politics. I mean the world evolved around local municipal councilors, and whenever a local provincial or federal member broke wind, “this could be a story!” I had to drop everything else when a politician was doing something interesting in our region. Gads, politician and interesting in the same sentence. For the dullards I worked for, yes indeed, politics was the end-all of a good week’s paper. The reality that our circulation sucked and most people bought the paper for the ads, the classifieds and to read about who of the citizenry had passed, never, never sunk into management’s power-protocol obsession. The politicians and the upper echelon of the local business community, including every prominent club member, was THE COMMUNITY, if like me, you read between the bulging lines of shameful propaganda.
Whenever I was approached to abandon a news story for a really, really good business feature (cause there was an advert hanging in the balance), I used to first of all cringe (that the manager found my hiding spot), and secondly, being forced to shelve real news for a staged story about a local business improvement initiative; one that frankly would only have been news if one of the blokes I’d been chatting with had spontaneously combusted before the ribbon cutting ceremony. My masters told me that parading the good graces of local business through the ink of hard and important community news, was of course, “good business.” They never seemed embarrassed to let me know my pay envelope hinged on my prowess at “good” reporting. Funny, as editor I always thought it was shilling for the almighty buck. Needing remuneration now and again, to support “a” lifestyle, well, I prostituted myself as a news-hound, by traipsing after every non-story to make the paper a tad more profitable. It’s with some modest sense of pride that I can report to you that I didn’t do grip and grin photos or staged biographical pieces of friends and business “fuss-free.” I’d put up such a stink they’d give the story to the new reporter or the advertising rep. who was cut from the same, “good news sells ads” cloth.
What was happening to me through my first decade in the local news gathering business, is that I paralleled newspaper work with the research projects of the historian. The eventual intersection of careers was the ultimate disaster. I could not resolve in conscience, the manipulations of newspaper management to portray the community as they saw fit! They had no right to create history in their own likeness, and I had a lot of fights with my superiors to make that point stick. In the end-run it was a lot easier to get rid of the activist-historian, than take their responsibilities beyond shilling for dollars. I was horrified by what misrepresentations of past and present were getting into print on a weekly basis that was plain and simply untrue on the wider historical scale. The problem I identified to other local historians as well, was that newspaper accounts were being used as source material by many other authors as absolute record. Even high school students conducting research projects, were using unreliable newspaper accounts as primary sources and not cross referencing in the spirit of investigation. There were a number of books of local history composed in this fashion, not based on accurate historical record but on a newspaper’s account of what happened. Having been in the reporting business for some time, it’s pretty much unavoidable with reduced staff members, particularly proof readers, to run a week or daily edition without error. Time and again these errors and inaccurate stories find their way into mainstream historical record. Tell me that this isn’t a huge problem. I tried many times, via columns I wrote as an independent in the late 1990’s, to remind folks that history is more than what the media chooses to print or broadcast, and that citizens need to play a more active role in correcting not only inaccuracies with facts but misinterpretations generally. I don’t expect everyone who reads this to believe my side of the story. For God’s sake “cross reference.” What I worry about locally is that future historians may decide to take the media accounts as the fundamental record of our times, and this quite honestly, would be a gross disservice to all stakeholders in our communities.
As a footnote to this, when I wrote the history of Bracebridge and Muskoka Lakes Secondary School, on the occasion of their 75th anniversary (in 2000), I begged the forgiveness of the readership from the early pages of the text, offering a preamble apology for any errors published within, because of the short time period we had to come up with the full text. I asked anyone who had found errors to notify me, in order to correct this for secondary printings. There were changes made. I’m still on the job to handle further revisions. I don’t give up on a project just because the publication is in the public domain. An historian worth his or her salt, is always open to new, revealing information and insights.
You see, in my admittedly prejudicial overview, politicians and the local self proclaimers, are the last folks I’d look at as being history makers. I wrote a column about ten years ago, for the local press that made this point very clear. Boy did I tingle some raw nerve endings. The history makers in our communities, across this country, are the ones who work all day, at jobs without particularly high profile, tending the wants and needs of a day-in-the-life community; the baker, plumber, teacher, crossing guard, postal clerk, mechanic, restaurant staff, police officer, and graphic artist. I am far more impressed and interested by the way these people, these unsung “working stiff” heroes, keep our communities vibrant than the way local politicians, the carry-on celebrities, grip and grin all over God’s half acre, happily oblivious to the “real” stuff that makes a “real” town work. I have marveled at these community builders since I began pounding the beat as a reporter. I was much keener to pen a story about a group of church volunteers fundraising to help support a family in need, or an international aid initiative, than sitting all evening at a local council meeting getting wind burn from a lot of posturing blow-hards; ones who had long since lost the connection with old fashioned, dynamic-in-its-own-way “commonplace”.
I have always been an outcast amongst my newsie peers, and dismissed as “the radical element amongst us,” from associate historians, who prefer to distance themselves from any one who dares disrespect the masters of Oz. I’ve been shunned by a lot of celebrity organizations because I don’t pucker at their beck and call. The only way for me to get a local historical award is if I stole it off the shelf before it was presented to someone else. Truth is, and it may just be sour grapes, but it is personal policy, that I would refuse any award in the region of local history, if I didn’t approve of the presenter. Call me old fashioned, and a stubborn old fart but I’ve never been impressed by awards or being asked to join organizations…..as Woody Allen once said, I wouldn’t belong to any club (group, association) that would have a guy like me for a member.
The history makers of Muskoka (and in your community) began with the first settlers who broke through the wilderness to build those inaugural homesteads. They are the good folks who have toiled and toiled and toiled at their respective tasks, to build homes, business and industry, from the ground up over these tumultuous decades, defying the climate, the economy, the politics of the day. They are the people who didn’t have time to give interviews to the local press because they were too busy community building. They are the people who literally broke their backs, with nary a mention of credit, to build that first foundation of settlement, and have carried on ever since, respecting both how it began and how it should continue. These are people who baked the bread, taught the young their lessons, built the mainstreet a brick at a time, laid out the roads, applied the paving, stocked the shelve of the variety store, and kept the town clock going for all these years…. for all our benefit.
Whenever I commence a retelling of history, I begin humbly and end humbly, just as a majority of our community builders operated one day upon the next, with little expectation of being given any additional recognition, for what was a basic responsibility of good citizenship. They invested their entire lives in the enterprise of making good and worthy centers deserving to be called “home towns.” When you flip through the pages of some local published histories, you must remember that these folks didn’t take the time to pose for pictures, or cut ribbons, or attend social galas with the upper echelon of society. That’s what the news cameras missed. That’s where historical record was distorted. The camera wasn’t capturing the single parent asleep in an armchair after a day of working in the trenches; having made a trip to the arena for a youngster’s practice, and then having a stint at the dinner table figuring out what bills get paid this month, and what are to be held over for another payday.
Publishers will claim it is necessary to profile the leaders of our community. I won’t disagree. What I will tell them however, as an historian, is that by the turn-out of voters at the last municipal election, as related to the population of our region, life doesn’t begin or end with the political wing of the great feathered bird.
I have known, and still know local politicians who have no interest in doing anything but the job of administering to the well being of our communities. Others can’t wait for the next photo-op to get onto yet another published page. This historian has never been impressed with those who get into politics for kicks and otherwise self indulgence. And while it was true that in my newspaper days I was forced to follow local politics, as if the mission to uncover the holy grail itself, I don’t perform lip puckers as an independent local historian. It bothers a lot of powerful community leaders out there but I have a mandate to serve. For every arena custodian, elevator repair-person, baker and candlestick maker, who contributes to community life and times by hard work and many kindnesses bestowed, I’m their historian.
I do not credit Muskoka politicians as the sole providers of community prosperity even though they may believe they’ve turned water into wine. History itself shows that our successes were created by co-operation and mutual interest in stable, prospering communities with a future dynamic to grow and mature. All the propaganda aside, there is clear, undeniable evidence that accomplishment came with back-breaking labor. Take for example the ground breaking ceremonies for the latest, allegedly greatest development to grace our landscape. There they all are, as if it is the most important image in history. The celebrity photo op! If I manned that camera lens, I’d be focusing on the construction worker up to her arse in mud, who is setting the forms for that all-important foundation, because if she doesn’t do the job perfect, it will all come tumbling down. Now if a politician was expected to manufacture policy and directives with such attention to detail, think of the wonderful possibilities it would net us in lasting community improvement.
The point of this rather scathing attack on the media preoccupation with politicians and alleged other important people, is that there is a serious perception problem between what is considered news by the general citizenry, and what is being force-fed upon readers disinterested to tears about ceremonial snap shots and non-news profiles of sundry other big shots. If publishers want to reflect the true nature of the communities they represent, they need to ask the public, the readers, what they want to know about in their home town…..and care a lot less about what advertisers and politicians believe are the themes of the day.
I’m the pain in the ass historian signing off….thanks so much for reading this blog opinion.

Booze, the reporter and friends lost along the way –
A drink was the inspiration –
This morning I watched a boyhood friend, not a day over fifty, hobble down the street of our hometown, cane in one hand, bag of booze in the other. He confessed to me one day, when I asked about his obviously failing health, “it’s the drink Ted; I have seizures now….had one today down the street.” When he got to the check-out counter to pay for his few groceries, he couldn’t figure out how to make the proper change; he didn’t have enough anyway because he’d hit the “in and out store” for an alcoholic’s lunch first. He was a spent human being because of the booze. That’s the whole nine yards of addiction. Here he was hovering between life and death, having numerous pant-peeing seizures a day, and then taking his last few coins and investing in more booze. The real problem isn’t simply reckoning the ill-fate of my alcoholic friend but the fact booze is apparently the dire consequence of a large, over-consuming chunk of present society.
My friend had a rough childhood. We all knew it at the time but nobody seemed to be able to stop his father from drinking either, and then whacking the crap out of him for a drunkard’s after-hours’ recreation. I’ve known quite a few alcoholics in my day, and as a reporter I used to follow them all the way to court and beyond, for such anti-social offences, as assaulting a partner and driving while impaired. With all the emphasis on the anti-smoking mission, I guess there hasn’t been much enthusiasm left over to take-on the booze industry. I’m pretty sure statistics on alcohol related deaths, and related crime would paint a reasonably dire portrait of a society in greater peril than previously known. Add street drugs into the mix and we’re, as they say, “knock, knock, knocking on heaven’s door,” or rattling against the hot iron bars of “that other place.”
I began my own journey with booze as innocently as most. It was the great liberator of conscience and conversation. I was at a party one New Year’s Eve, so intoxicated I took a bite out of a huge intricately carved candle that had just been received by the family as a Christmas present. As a lark, I had a few sips of aftershave lotion to impress the ladies. At the same party I broke an heirloom rocking chair and kissed rather lovingly, my girlfriend’s longtime friend. I was loud, acting badly, and a prime example of the downside to any good time in company of demon rum.
I woke up the next morning in a cold sweat with a pounding heart and booming headache. I had experienced a booze induced nightmare. In it there had been an accident and my girlfriend had been killed. I laid in the livingroom of the family cottage, where I had obviously collapsed after getting home from the party, and nervously attempted to reconstruct fact from the drunken distortion of the night before. It was after eleven in the morning and my girlfriend’s door was still closed. Was she in there? Could there have been a traffic accident? I couldn’t remember a thing other than we had been at a friend’s party. I had more than an hour to stew about the details. When that door knob clicked open, and she emerged unscathed, it was as if the angels themselves had rushed through that doorway in the most radiant glow. The relapse of course, was when she recounted the other stuff I had participated in, sucking all the radiance out of the room; her beautiful smile beyond recovery this precarious morning of our relationship. “Do you remember the candle,” she asked? “What candle,” I enquired with wax-coated teeth, while holding what was left of my crumbling head. “We’ve got the imprint of your teeth for evidence,” she barked back. “What I want to know is if you swallowed all that wax!”
You get the message. I wasn’t a sensible drinker, and following this hangover, there were many, many more to follow. It became a giant problem when I began my journalism career here in Muskoka, and my secondary news desk was at the local tavern, where many of us newsies of the day gathered like the great writers of history, to discuss politics, crime, punishment, and how much we despised respective publishers. We took offers of drinks from story sources, politicians, advertisers and stake-holders in real estate, and even the investment network. It only took a few days to drink a reporter’s salary so charity was always heartfelt, and what we believed was a justified perk of the job. The reality most of those purchased “bevies” (drinks) were of the “conflict of interest” kind, didn’t seem particularly dangerous at the time. In retrospect, we mishandled a lot of details about journalism on the straight and narrow. We even drank on the job because it seemed to be the best way to overcome the misery of being stuck in a job leading nowhere. A few staff members took exception with our on-site imbibing but we were always able to convince them our booze was consumed out-of-office; bestowed upon us by our many friends and admirers. We didn’t represent a large component of the staff but we were by far the most influential, as writers, and the strong drink was getting in the way; not because the stories were being tainted or even badly written but because we wanted to spend more time at the bar than chasing down the stories of the week. By and large we did get some pretty interesting story leads from tavern customers, feeding us the dark-side stuff we would never have found out about, huddled in the predictable day to day drudge of office “phone-tag” journalism.
We were rebelling I suppose. Most of us who did tip more than a few a day, couldn’t abide doing advertising stories. If we hung around the office that’s exactly what we were expected to research and write. If we weren’t in-house at the time of greatest need by the advertising department, sooner or later sales personnel would pen their own stories instead of imposing on us news gatherers. There is no question that by boredom and frustration, about being trapped in the bush league of publishing, we opened ourselves freely to liberal amounts of liquid inspiration. A half dozen beers and we were all of Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, and Joyce caliber. Ready to make our mark on the literary scene.
I remember after one hefty drinking jag, right out of the movie script of “The Lost Weekend,” I set myself up in my apartment with a stack of paper and a brand new typewriter ribbon, and spent hours upon hours banging out the first chapters of my first (and by the way, last) novel. As I started the project under the influence, I kept drinking through the night, and when the last page was signed off, the last amber drop of ale had been consumed, I honestly believed my ship had arrived. This was a keeper. Publishable. A name maker. A money fountain. Waking up enormously pleased with myself, despite having a thick head and thicker tongue, I re-read the still fresh ink of that new book, and was rather shocked to find it sounded, when read aloud, like a drunkard’s illogical rant; about the days of wine and roses in a tearful slober. I had produced about thirty pages of absolute garbage, without one salvageable page of copy. It wasn’t the last time I drank and composed but it was the last time I expected anything good to come from the effort.
I had long been in the company of girlfriends who liked the idea of being connected to the writer-kind; the ever brooding, incorrigible risk taker, who also got invited everywhere to “report” on the carryings-on. When I met my wife Suzanne, who I had known back in my high school years, she couldn’t have care less if I was a writer or a horse trainer. The only thing that mattered to her was that we enjoyed time together and shared some life missions. I used to get mad because she wouldn’t read my newspaper columns, unless she was mentioned, and very seldom if ever, issued a compliment. It used to drive me nuts and I often accused her of a selfish indifference to her husband’s creative enterprise. To get her attention I began taking writing much more seriously, and in fact, without booze, attempted to win her over with a better quality, more aggressive writing style. We’ve been married happily for more than twenty years now and she’s read about four stories since our nuptials. So what? Well, what she was telling me, by not involving herself in the ups and downs of my writing junkets, was that she was delighted by my successes but she expected as much from a career author. The effort at self improvement, and the reduction in show-boating, moved me further and safely away from my longtime partner, the “long hard drink.” If I had even a taste of beer while penning anything now, I’d be compelled to stop, because of wicked memories of how easy it was to get hooked on artificial inspiration. The reality Suzanne wasn’t ga-ga over the writer Ted, meant that if I wanted to stay in the profession, I had to rely on something substantially better than shallow jottings of the moved-to-expression drunkard.
The temptation that leads writers to booze is a behemoth reality, and whether it always germinates in self pity and frustration, or with the false securities it inspires, letting alcohol color perception and corrupt clarity of thought, is a career ending error in judgement. On the infrequent occasion of a wee stint of self-loathing, I still feel a tad miffed why Suzanne opts to leave my copy unread but it is made redundant by the fact we’re the best of friends in all other areas of partnership. She has always encouraged me subtly, to write out of passion and a personal sense of mission, not by the kind of adulation a fan gives to an idol. Her support has always been to offer me the freedom of time and space to compose without interference; and for providing the good counsel many years ago that I was a competent, determined and prolific writer without any requirement of booze for thought.
When readers comment about a story printed in one of the publications I contribute to, I always feel that surge of adrenalin, and even if the comment is of a critical nature, just having “a” reader confirmed outweighs the negative. Some times I wonder if readers want to know how the writer came to be interested in such things…..writing about antiques, history, current affairs, politics, the environment? So this is a little biographical piece for those who have pondered what keeps this gent at the task of word-smithing day after day.
I have watched a fair number of talented folks in my ballywick toss their lives away to partner instead with booze. I’ve known hockey players that could have easily made the National Hockey League, who beat themselves to a pulp after every game, not knowing when to push back from the bar and head home. I’ve known many writers and artists who depended on alcohol for their inspiration and instead they wound up losing it all; their mission, their profession, their families. All gone. And then in the midst of condemnation toward others, I can’t help but recall my own days of wine and roses, my lost weekend.
When I see the pathetic amble of my childhood chum, an eerie, wavering silhouette, his image is the harbinger of what my own life and time would have appeared, at this precise moment in time, if sensibility hadn’t prevailed; the writer releasing himself from a fate worse than death. My mate will die. He has damaged his body with years of abuse and as sad as it is, I can find no better image to demonstrate the casualty of life’s nasty side-bars. A few years back I might have saddled up to my friend and helped him drink that fresh flask. We’d have shared some dear old tales of the home town, laughed till we cried, and spent the rest of the occasion fearing the dark hole we’re about to fall into.
There isn’t a day that passes, in my much-cherished mid-life, when I can ignore this keyboard. I don’t expect to pen my way to a Pulitzer, a Booker or even a short story blue ribbon but the fact I still feel inspired after all these years, to invest in the creative process, booze-free, is a truly liberating reality I wish I could share with all those, who by circumstance, are woefully encumbered.
Thanks for reading this weekly blog contribution.

Antiques, history, and all the Zen adventure in between –
A million miles traveled on a lark–

Family members who dare tag along on antiquing adventures know better than to ask about destination in the first half hour of a motor trip. I’m a little bit like the late, great showman W.C. Fields, who was legendary for his extravagant automobile junkets to nowhere in particular. He carried enough provisions for several days to a week on the road, stopping for picnics wherever and whenever the mood presented. He seldom if ever gave his traveling companions an itinerary but they loved his company and the lavish roadside picnics complete with champagne and caviar.
Not being quite as affluent as Mr. Fields, we tote along much plainer food and beverage but we do think our picnic locations are just as scenic and invigorating as his entourage enjoyed. When our boys were younger, we had to take along a wide array of treats and time-occupiers (games to Lego), and any other offering to appease the unsettled. Even through the winter months out gad-abouts carry-on, sipping hot chocolate instead of lemonade, and enjoying a selection of homemade Christmas cookies instead of
ice-cream cones. While we don’t drive through blizzards, we very much enjoy winter travel; as much, in fact, as outings during gentler seasons.
My wife and business partner Suzanne, asked me one day if I had any Nordic region relatives, to explain my passionate, everyday embrace of Thule; the wanderlust to explore toward infinity. Just recently I’ve been looking into my family tree and although I can find Irish, English and Dutch, (a Sandercock on my Grandmother’s side, a Currie from Ireland, and a Jackson from England) there’s nary a Viking connection. So why do I wander so?
I have never liked being cooped up whether at home, school or in the work place unless it is of my choice. As a cub reporter, working for the Georgian Bay-Muskoka Lakes Beacon, back in the late 1970’s, I let this “Thule thing” ride shotgun, as I spent a lot of time on the road chasing stories and photo ops. I didn’t mind working in the office for short periods but it was on-the-road where I got the biggest buzz. I traveled every inch of road throughout Muskoka in my years as a roving reporter, and my mileage claims must have reflected this insatiable appetite for seeing the sights. The publisher used to give a Homer Simpsonesque “Doah!!!!” when I’d submit the monthly tally. I did however, get a larger number of spot photos of accident scenes and fire calls simply by being in the action, versus sitting waiting for a source to return my phone call.
When I decided to start my own antique business, after my first attempt with a family partnership ended with “who are you calling stupid….stupid?” Good times! When I opened Birch Hollow Antiques, in our livingroom, stuffed like a pimento into a tiny olive, my new partner Suzanne and I agreed to make this a life-long enterprise from the beginning. It was a business that needed to be worn like a skin. It was as much a part of our lives as home and family, pets and hydro bill. Our mission early on, was to make it work-in with our life and times, not falling victim to what can easily become unwieldy free enterprise. This was in the fall season of 1986. We have moved numerous times since and had a mainstreet Bracebridge storefront during one insane period of our lives, when we thought this would bring about stability and in tow, prosperity. Gads, how could we have been so wrong. My Thule started acting up after the second week. I was trapped like a rat and although business wasn’t bad, I needed my freedom.
I can remember so clearly penning out future plans for our business, sitting behind the counter watching the clock tick my life into a thin, failing vapor, attempting to sculpt a simpler, more adaptable retail enterprise that would concentrate business, lessen daily costs and of all things, reduce hours of operation. Long before I knew about the possibilities of online auctions like ebay for example, I had actually become quite visionary; a business model well ahead of its time. As I was still using an antiquated Smith Corona typewriter, and longhand to compose my newspaper submissions (I hated computers more than being confined), it was laughable to even suggest that one day our business would become by and large “virtual,” employing every dynamic and reduction of in-house labor, I planned a decade in advance.
What about this Thule thing?
As we are amongst the cyber-space business community now, with flexible time and adaptable agenda, I’ve never been happier (except if I was allowed to have a motorcycle to go along with my favorite book, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”) On weekends my wife and I (the boys after years of traveling have settled down into a guitar shop in Gravenhurst), grab up our traveling supplies, and make the destination contingent on our mood at the time. In our overly structured, robotron lives, what a true pleasure it is to set out at sunrise with no particular place to go, just an open road ahead and a passion for sightseeing. I like to linger at hole-in-the-wall country shops, and do not feel at all compelled to live up to any schedule that isn’t of our own unique design,
I have always appreciated that antiquing was a means to an end. I have been a lover of history from childhood, a Viking in spirit, and a collector by obsession, and each time I set out from our Muskoka home here at Birch Hollow, the world unfolds at our beck and call. There are times when we strap the canoe onto the old family truckster, just in case we pass a particularly alluring lake or river, and opt to enjoy a hiatus from one adventure, to paddle another. When we were actively camping in Algonquin Park, I used to make many stops along the way north and east. I’ve got pictures somewhere of our campsite adorned with antiquities purchased at the two or three shops between Gravenhurst and the West Gate of Algonquin Park. I’d have paintings propped up against the campsite evergreens, artifacts, crocks, treenware lined up on the picnic table, as if a pioneer cabin exploded and this was what was left behind. I always had a vintage oil lamp or lantern to add light to the evening’s nature vigils. I have traditionally put my interests into one lump enterprise; each adventure comprises elements of historical education, antique investigation (and possible purchase), and outdoor education. I’ve enjoyed the Muskoka and region at every time of the day, every month of the year, and in rain, snow, or heat of day. I’ve seen Muskoka in the midst of storm, in the warm glow of autumn sunset, sculpted in drifting snow, and dazzling with the morning dew. I’ve stared with profound awe at the hilly miles of country lane stretching ahead, and been held spellbound by the painted woodlands of late Septemeber.
Many times, as we settle at a scenic roadside park, such as the picnic area at the locks on the Muskoka River, near Huntsville, we dine for a wee bit, lounge according to our prevailing exhaustion, and possibly we will read aloud for entertainment, from one of the antique books we have just acquired between here and there. We have set out pieces of crystal and ruby glass, old platters and bone china cups and saucers on those picnic benches, examining our finds in the best possible light. There is no separation for me now, between the historian, the collector, and the gad-about nature lover, because it all comes to play the moment we commence the next greatest adventure into the hinterland. And while, by necessity we run into the protocol of good business, and must set aside time for the routine exercises of cyberspace enterprise, it makes our escapes all the more celebrated. Each trip to unknown destination, is an exercise in discovery, a treat for the senses, and no matter how many times we travel down these regional roads and country lanes, we never arrive home without having witnessed something spectacular, something out of the ordinary, or met up with someone quite extraordinary.
Associate antique dealers ask me if I miss the person-to-person contact of the old storefront we had in uptown Bracebridge. They wonder how we could ever muster enough business operating on-line only. And my historical cronies, hunched over their research challenges, wonder how I ever get any work completed traipsing all over the place. As for those who read my environmental editorials, they ponder where I gather all these observations about the toll of progress on the hinterland. I have always worked longer and harder in an environs I consider encouraging, gentler, and kinder. This is a case in point. I’m more productive than ever before but none of it seems like work. It’s a joy to get up in the morning and think about the interesting travels ahead.
It all comes down to this uncontrollable, unyielding but to-be-cherished “Thule thing.” I might not be a Viking by ancestry but by golly I’m a convert none the less. I’m living the life of the antique dealer-collector, the historian, the environmentalist, by simple, uncomplicated, uncompromised “immersion.”
Where am I headed tomorrow morning? Honestly, I won’t know until I get back! Every day’s an untold, unfolding adventure. Every day brings enlightenment. Sure, I could re-open a storefront again. Gads, I’ve got enough stuff. But all I’d think about is that ever alluring length of open road and so much expectation left unfulfilled. I have, without regret, chosen a semi-gypsy, half Viking, part W.C. Fields lifestyle, and there are too many adventures yet to come to close out this chapter before every word is spent.
Good luck with your own antique collecting. If you should choose to follow the same road as I have taken, bring along a picnic and we’ll meet-up for lunch.
Thanks for taking the time to read this blog. Feel like a drive some place?

The vision, the spirits encountered along the way
The message, “You shall become a writer.”

During my fledgling days as an antique hobbyist, circa 1975, my girlfriend at the time, Gail Smith, hauled me to an estate auction in Bracebridge one summer afternoon. Her father had only recently introduced me to antique lighting, and I have to admit that it didn’t impress me initially but then I’m as fussy and peculiar as any collector. Oil lamps fueled by coal oil. I used to watch Gord take great care with his small but significant collection of both plain and elaborate lamps, and it was around Christmas that he would engage several different ones each night. On Christmas Eve he might employ the majority, and I was amazed by the heat these old lamps could generate. What really impressed me was the sparkling vintage glass, the original glass shades, and the colored glass fonts appearing with striking beauty as might church stained glass, backed by such soft illumination. It was a tantalizing and brilliant glow that provided a wonderfully historic patina to everything in that parlor. Gord was fond of antiques generally and expertly restored many charming furniture pieces from chairs and tables to sideboards. A piece had to be pretty badly damaged for Gord to give up on its future potential
. When Gail pointed out an old farm lamp, coming up next for auction, I confess to having no idea how to bid and frankly I wasn’t sure if I even had enough money to make bid-one. Gail told me not to worry about that and encouraged me to “cut my teeth” so to speak, on the country auction circuit. I did buy the old and very plain farm lamp, and it was the first item I had ever purchased at auction. Gail loaned me the money to back up my liberal bidding, and I couldn’t wait to see her father, and get some advice on how to upgrade the lamp to ignition standard. When I saw that lamp aglow, let me tell you, an obsession was about to be born. I have never been without oil lamps since. During the Christmas season I always like to reflect on that beginning interest in historic lighting, watching Gord carefully ignite those twenty charming oil lamps. The Currie family will have our own lamp lighting ceremony on Christmas Eve, and drink a toast to Gord Smith, for his tutorship of the young lamplighter apprentice. My partners in oil lamp lighting today are wife Suzanne, and lads Andrew and Robert. Actually, I always ask Santa for a lamp accessory each Christmas, and he has been particularly generous to the “collector-me.”
As I write these blogs, particularly during the cooler seasons of the year, I always have at least one oil lamp ignited. I adore the scent of burning coal oil and I’ve employed it as a mood-setter for decades. Of course when I first began writing historical tomes, I used an old Remington manual typewriter, and I must have appeared quite antiquated to my family, huddled over that machine in the modest, wavering light of the oil lamp…, in a cluttered office Scrooge himself would have found creature comfort. Not quite Charles Dickens or Washington Irving am I …..hopelessly committed to preserving the old and dear ways of times past.

A Christmas Discovery of Once Long Ago

It was shortly before Christmas, in December 1977, when the spirits took issue with my post-graduate indifference. Here I was, history degree in hand, operating a small antique business on Bracebridge’s Manitoba Street, and the recently appointed fledgling columnist for a brand new community newspaper. The short lived column was about antiques and collectables, and I’m pretty sure I expected to win the Pulitzer Prize for writing excellence. It was the first barb of many realities to come, as a writer who can boast a lifetime record of never winning an award. Not one! Even as a stalwart goaltender in local minor hockey, I never got the silverware. Ah well. It’s not in the cards, so I move on!
It was by all means a typical early winter day in Muskoka, and I thought it was the perfect occasion to don the cross country skis, and head out on a wonderfully scenic trail, running parallel to the Muskoka River on its slow, snaking flow to Lake Muskoka. I had travelled this trail numerous times before but on this occasion I brought along a camera, in order to take some photographs of an abandoned farmhouse, a considerable distance along the well defined trail.
The mood-in-tow, when I started out on the day’s ski trip, was typical of the baggage of indecision I had been toting around every day since I graduated York University, in the spring of that year. I was having quite a time figuring out what I was going to aspire to, diploma in hand, eagerness in heart but few job offers being extended. None! Although I kept a junior partnership with my parents in our fledgling antique business, situated in the former home of Dr. Peter McGibbon, across from the Norwood Theatre, it wasn’t earning enough at the time, to justify full time engagement. So it’s fair to say I was having a few doubts about survival and the net worth of a degree in Canadian history alone. I was accomplishment driven, so even in this time of uncertainty, I was plotting and planning for a future in Muskoka. I had already organized the preamble meetings to establish the Bracebridge Historical Society, the conservation authority that would eventually save an octagonal home, built in the 1880’s, by Bird’s Woolen Mill founder, Henry Bird, for future use as a community museum.
Despite feeling I was putting some of my newly gained knowledge and credentials to work, I was still on the brink of financial disaster. So what should a starving graduate do to improve his lot in life? Sure, become a writer! In fact, just shy of becoming a hobo and hitting the rails to the very next hobo jungle, deciding to become a full time writer was a binding, strangling declaration toward lifelong poverty. I read a story recently about a young person in our region embarking on a writing career with great hope and expectation. Well, I still possess great hope and a little battle-worn expectation, but there’s no more confusion about the “prosperity” part. And when someone casually talks about an artist “sacrificing for the craft,” geez, I get a palpitation and a lump in my throat at the same time. I want to tell this young writer about all the hardships, disappointments, discouragement, and unfulfilled expectations. I want to lessen the burden the new author will experience, and let her know about the periods of depression and the dashed jubilation when yet another rejection arrives in the mail, reading “Thank you for your submission…but.” As one expects a carpenter to be minus at least one finger, the carpenter in counterpoint undoubtedly anticipates our creative venues to be wall-papered with rejection notices. While I want, even now, to take this poor soul under wing and protect her from the onslaught of reality, alas it is an inherent part of any worthy writer, to have rejection and heartache as an equal partnership in creative enterprise. It’s the weathering of the artist that must not be denied its ravages; the glacial ice etching its retreat upon the hardest rock.
On my soon-to-be attempted late afternoon ski, cross country toward that abandoned homestead, I clearly recall my raging mental debate endured over that first snowy mile; should I listen to my girlfriend and go back to Toronto and find “a” job, work harder to build the dynamic of our present antique shop, seek a writing job in Muskoka, or pan-handle on the steps of our post office, to pay-off the most anxious of my fetters. The further along the trail, the more enclosed and darker it became, as the snow laden evergreens at the sides, blocked out the last fading glow of daylight. The newly fallen snow made it much lighter of course, so I wasn’t fearful of being enclosed entirely by the gloom of nightfall. As the night before, I expected to trail home by moonlight. The only condition I was concerned about, was if a snow squall off the lake arrived unexpectedly.
There was a point on this venture when I finally stopped contemplating life and times and bank account numbers, and let the countryside dictate the train of thought. The prevailing mood seemed to change every hundred yards or so, and I can remember the wind against my back, which at times felt as if there was a hand pushing down on my shoulder, propelling me faster down the trail. When the wind set free one or more of the tree boughs, it was an invigorating experience skiing through the spiraling mist of crystal ice. It was like they have used in movies, like Dickens a Christmas Carol, to inspire chill feelings and sudden mysterious turns of plot and mystery.
The light of day was nearly exhausted by the time I arrived in the lowland, situated just below the old house, perched in a guardian wreath of cedars upon a small elevation of land, now a short ski west from where I’d stopped at a junction of trails. The only sound other than my rapidly beating heart and the rustle of my jacket with the snow-clad collar, was the deep wash of the wind tumbling through the valley to my immediate left. It was a lonely scene, and when I got my first glimpse of the farm trail up the hillside that was the point where my vigil was no longer solitary. I might have been in fact alone, in so much that I was the only skier left out on the trail this afternoon, but I was amongst others. After years of writing about paranormal occurrences in Muskoka, I can attest that this abandoned farmstead, where I stood in awe of a family past and indeed lost, was the most haunted place I have ever known. Having published dozens of true experiences with the spirit-kind in our district, I’m familiar with most of the local haunts. This one was my first paranormal experience in the great outdoors, yet as most of my encounters have been, it wasn’t at all frightening. Instead I found it to be both invigorating and inspirational.
The first account of this stop in the woods on a snowy evening, to borrow a plume from poet Robert Frost, was published in a book I wrote in the early 1980’s with well known Muskoka and region photographer, Tim DuVernet. It was as memorable then as it is now, and whenever I find myself in a similar setting, particularly our woodland here at Birch Hollow. I can recall that strange, initially smothering embrace of history, past lives and Christmas, as if time has been frozen into a photographer’s carefully framed study It all comes back with a warm flood of sentiment. It was a lovely, enchanted experience being out on that trail, looking up at the remnants of homesteading labors, and seeing the twinkle of light from within, as if a lantern had been placed there to guide me along. As a haunt, it was overflowing with inmates. There was a great deal of activity and clatter, from windblown shutters smashing against woodwork, to creaking hinges and clanging tin. At least these were the sources imagined because darkness was limiting visibility, as was the snow beginning to drift against the ruins.
As I continued to ski along the lowland trail and then up the lane, compromised from its heritage by overgrown cedar and pine, there was a very great expectation that I was in company of a plethora of wayward ghosts. At times I’d stop in my tracks, take off my cap, to try and hear what I believed were voices (particularly noticeable by the time I arrived on the crest of the hill), only a few feet from the fallen-in porch, close enough to extend a hand to rap on the half open door. Listening intently I could, at that point, only hear the soft settling of new snow and the wind sculpting through the evergreens up the hillside. At times the near vapor of windblown snow appeared as drifting apparitions. This was not as much the degree of unsettling condition or haunting, as it was the profound feeling I had inadvertently discovered a portal from my time, this moment, to the days of full vigor and life for this farmhouse. Despite its lowly condition, there was a feeling of “homestead,” as if at any moment the keeper of the hearth would come through that open door, and beckon me to warm by the fire. It still appeared as a home, a family abode, and it reminded me in a glance, how many Christmases past had been celebrated here; the crackling hearth and steaming pudding “singing in the copper,” as Dickens might have penned for the benefit of absorbed readers. Possibly a winter tale, a Christmas revelation or two was read, and prayer, beside the humble crackling cedar fire, as wee ones shivered beneath the covers in anticipation of the visitation from old St. Nick. There was a spiritual presence on this hill and it may have been that I was a liberator of emotion, pent-up historical realities of another era, and the chosen one to carry forth a living testament in the anecdotal, personal history of Muskoka.
I remained on that hillside for about an hour, at one point having gained entry to a lower bedroom and then, in a crouch halfway into a seriously compromised parlor, most recently suffering a fallen-in ceiling. There was only enough snow-reflected light to make out the larger details of the interior and once again I could hear what appeared to be whispering all around me. I don’t recall ever feeling nervous about the strange sounds and shadows moving about me, as the wind was vigorously whipping all the tree branches against the building, scraping against the wood siding and remaining panes of glass. If you’ve ever, even once in your life, felt in the presence of something spiritual, a tad paranormal from everyday fare, then you will appreciate what it must have felt like, to be isolated in this homestead, hearing and witnessing first hand, a varied amount of interaction not of my own imagination. I had no interest in fleeing but rather consuming as much of this pleasant haunting as possible. I knew it was important to let this sensation envelope me, not in the quest to be frightened evermore but to understand all this confluence of energies, memories, events, tragedies, life and death, as experienced in this house over decades; the overwhelming feeling that I was there to represent this family history; to make sense of lives invested here that otherwise would be forgotten and grown over, like the family cemetery without a single surviving tombstone. Just the silver-iced barren stand of bending lilacs that will now only bloom half as brilliant come May.
It was on this snow graced hillside, in company of someone else’s legacy, some other family’s history that I understood the great relevance of being an historian. The rolled up diploma had meant practical accomplishment and a passing average. This consuming vigil, the footsteps, the actuality of wood and shingles, hearth and kitchen, lost souls and found, was the seeding of fertile thought for an apprentice historian with so many miles yet to explore. I could never betray the trust of this place, bestowed on the guest, the story-teller. In good faith I have written about this homestead often, and from the first paragraph to the final exclamation, it’s always as if I’m again standing on that peak of land again, in snow and sudden moonlight, consumed by the company of those guardian spirits. I vow to return in thought evermore.
When I strapped on my skis for the adventure back to the park chalet, I knew by the unclenching of strong emotion, I would never forget this visitation as long as I lived. As I passed quickly and with a subtle slash of ski on ice, along the frozen, barren stands of dead trees in the lowland, and towering pines along the rock ridge to the south, the last look back toward the homestead revealed that same twinkling light, as I had casually witnessed upon arrival. In the winter darkness it was hard to understand what caused that single spark of light and whether the work of spirit or imagination, it has been a source of enlightenment and expectation ever since.
Racing down the icy slopes, and pushing hard along the narrow trails between rock outcroppings and cedar, I composed poem after poem in my mind, as if suddenly there was no other mission on earth than to pen poetic. I didn’t become a writer or an historian because of any one thing that happened on that innocent ski into the hinterland. As a recollection however, it has influenced me continually for all these years, and I’m so pleased to be haunted by such a wonderful scene as that old Muskoka farmstead, amidst a beautiful, spirit-full winter.
There are people, some I call my friends, who have long criticized my romantic, nostalgic, idealistic way of looking at both Muskoka and history; and at least one of my critics was right many years ago when he told me bluntly, “You can’t live in the past,” and “Nobody wants to read this sentimental stuff; there’s no such thing as legends, ghosts, Ted. Reality, raw emotion, excitement, adventure, now that’s what sells books!” Well, I guess my problem for all these decades is that I never followed the critic’s sage advice. I’ve always been a dreamer and the possessor of an abundant imagination. Yet if I had to do it all again, I would re-visit that old homestead, as a rite of passage, because it was the engagement of all that was important to me….much as I would imagine Tom Thomson, revered Canadian artist, felt standing in the bitter cold, consuming the sheer enchantment of northern lights over an Algonquin lake. He was impressed to hear from a viewer of his painting, admiring one of his art panels depicting the Northern Lights, that the image evoked feelings of cold and loneliness. The shiver, the ecstasy experienced by discovery, is as much the eternal flame of creative thought, as it is proof of a warm soul’s existence. It’s true I have suffered for my craft but it has, in my own estimation, been a modest, fulfilled, contented life in close company with both history and nature; the true and honest parallels and coincidences of my venture to the homestead, the harmony struck poetic by a heartbeat in solitude re-visited..
Ask me if I will continue to defend the conservation of nature and history in Muskoka to my last mortal breath?
Have an enjoyable, festive, merry Christmas season wherever your homestead is, and don’t be afraid of penning a few memories for posterity. As is a tradition at Birch Hollow, I shall spend these winter nights, in the charming glow of a restored oil lamp, and be heartened to find the words to describe such a wonderful life……until, like the Walton’s, my family members bid me a final sojourn to the realm of sweet slumber! “Good night John-boy!” “Good night Grandpa!” And to all a good night.

Washington Irving, William Dawson LeSueur and Bracebridge, Ontario

The association some would prefer buried in the quagmire of Muskoka archives

When I give the occasional museum lecture these days, and it happens to be on the topic of town names in the District of Muskoka, instead of explaining how, for example, Bracebridge was honored with its Post Office title, in 1864, the theme of the talk instead becomes a detailed description of “why Bracebridge felt dishonored” by a postal employee’s unwelcome intervention.
One of my all-time favorite research projects, I began this mission, first as a high schooler, to discover the truth about the naming of both Bracebridge, and Gravenhurst, located in the south-central region of Ontario’s District of Muskoka. It was back at Bracebridge and Muskoka Lakes Secondary School, during a research jag for a Canadian history course that I first discovered my hometown “Bracebridge” was named after a book written by well known American author, Washington Irving, creator of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” The book was “Bracebridge Hall,” (circa 1822) and was set at a countryside manor in England, belonging to Squire Bracebridge. This would have probably been okay except for one, possibly two details.
In 1864 the residents of the hamlet unofficially known as “North Falls,” made a request of the Federal Postal Authority to endorse and register the same name, to adorn the newly granted post office. Having their collective hearts set on North Falls, a chap by the name of William Dawson LeSueur, the postal authority at the time, decided that “North Falls,” wasn’t significant enough, and instead granted the name “Bracebridge.” Local historians of the time and for many years after were fond of noting that he borrowed the name “from a book he was reading at the time.” This wasn’t quite true but close. It’s likely a copy of “Bracebridge Hall” was in his well stocked personal library but it is most likely fiction that he happened to be in the middle of the story when the application was stamped “approved!”
So the naming of Bracebridge got off to a bad start. Believe it or not, to this day (I know this personally) there’s a grudge harbored about the unanticipated name change. I found this out within a month of research into William Dawson LeSueur’s grossly misunderstood honor to the community, straddling the 45th parallel of latitude. Several well appointed folks in the town discouraged my plans to reveal more of the story but as I’m well known for kicking over stones, for the thrill of discovery, every criticism brought forth new ambition. What I couldn’t understand was how such a great tribute to the community, 1864 to the present, could ever be viewed as unwelcome intervention. I believed then, as I do now, that the association with Washington Irving, one of the best known authors in the history of literature, and being named by one of Canada’s intrepid, undeterred, brilliant historians, is nothing short of provenance extraordinaire. As a footnote to the above, there is very little evidence, if any actually exists, in publications etc. in the years immediately after the re-naming incident, to illustrate this apparent outrage regarding LeSueur’s liberality. I was led to believe this but nothing has been found in local archives material to suggest there were rallies or even letters of protest submitted, to the federal authority, protesting the name change, suggesting the majority of citizens couldn’t have cared less. They were just pleased to have a federal postal facility in their pioneer settlement.
While there was immediate chagrin about the nerve of this guy LeSueur, it took until the year 2000 before Bracebridge, and Gravenhurst, got their first in-depth glimpse at the man who made it all happen. I presented a full profile of the postal authority-author-historian in a book I published that year. I turned over a biographical text about LeSueur’s life and work, I had purchased, to the Gravenhurst Archives Committee, along with an 1880’s copy of the book LeSueur used to name the hamlet, entitled “Gravenhurst; or Thoughts on Good and Evil,” by William Henry Smith. By and large the response from Gravenhurst historians was both welcoming and appreciative of the reference material.
Another problem area, was in the fact Bracebridge historians had committed an early and continuing error whenever they would discuss or write about, by happenstance, the naming of Gravenhurst in context to LeSueur. For whatever reason or misunderstanding, the long held belief was that Gravenhurst was a name used by Washington Irving in the text of Bracebridge Hall. I had to prove this as fact. First I asked for the assistance of Washington Irving historians and scholars. I read both the earlier Sketch Book, when the Bracebridge family is first introduced, and then Bracebridge Hall. Not only didn’t the title “Gravenhurst,” appear anywhere in the book “Bracebridge Hall,” but there’s nary a mention in any other of his many texts published over a lifetime. What we did find out however, in the next stage of research, was that LeSueur had access to a copy of a philosophical text recently published (prior to the town’s naming in 1862), by poet William Henry Smith, using as a title, “Gravenhurst.” The problem in large measure was that all historians to date had misunderstood the interests and accomplishments of the chap behind the post office desk. LeSueur was a highly skilled author, historian, literary critic, and Canadian man of letters, who was revered for his contributions to some of the most prestigious publications in North America and the United Kingdom. He was friends with many of the most talented writers of the time period. The fact he was a Postal Authority, was a day job. The confluence between the role of civil servant and author-historian, occurred with his honorable meddling with post office names. Bracebridge and Gravenhurst are the only two at this point I’ve studied. He certainly wasn’t cavalier, as some historians have suggested, about pulling a name out of the air for a town commencing its future. Instead he selected important names penned by important authors. It is however, quite truthful to say, he selected names of books he liked. If he had disliked Irving’s work, he simply would not have even considered the name Bracebridge, let alone Smith’s book, “Gravenhurst.”
Call it a lack of communication, consultation, negotiation but the failure was quite simply, LeSueur’s lack of full disclosure. Offering the citizens the reason why he felt his “titles” were better than ones put forward by respective hamlets. He never fully offered an explanation of this although he did answer a local newsman’s question about the naming of Bracebridge, in the 1920’s, a short time before his death. LeSueur admitted the name came from Irving’s book of the same name. He never afforded the same explanation for Gravenhurst, although this information was known and published several times before I got to the story in the late 1990’s. The difference with Gravenhurst was that I was able to quash the Irving connection, and give William Henry Smith the full marks deserved.
William Dawson LeSueur was a brilliant man and certainly one of the country’s important historians, his work still referenced in this new century for its insights and accuracy. Knowing the full measure of LeSueur’s accomplishments, the town has ever since, missed the true significance and honor of association with his name. I believe the town has equally failed to fully recognize and celebrate the great tribute bestowed upon it, to be kin to the name of Washington Irving, and his famous Sketch Book, of which the Bracebridge family is penned within.
One of the great traditions of the Bracebridge Hall story, as told by Irving, is the elaborate Christmas celebration. Irving was particularly concerned that Americans were severing important motherland connections and traditions following the Revolutionary War, and he made it a mission to study the “old ways and customs,” by spending time traveling in England, and Scotland with fellow author Sir Walter Scott. Irving lodged at Scott’s estate known as “Abbotsford.” As a matter of interest, it has long been assumed Abbotsford was the model Irving used to create the fictitious Bracebridge Hall. In literary context, the description of Christmas festivities at Bracebridge Hall, is as well known as Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol.” Many communities with a vested interest in Washington Irving, have annual Bracebridge Hall Christmas dinners in commemoration of the author’s bid to save historic and cultural traditions. There have been Bracebridge Hall dinners held in Bracebridge, Ontario but only a few times in the past century.
Most recently I submitted a letter to the editor to the local press, which contained a small but significant section about William Dawson LeSueur, and the importance of being respectful of our historic connection officially recorded in July 1864. When it was published, every mention of LeSueur was unceremoniously hacked off the submitted copy without my permission. Could it have been the letter was too long, and LeSueur unworthy of inclusion? It was at any rate a poor way to treat this local historian who has a pretty fair memory. Yet it was an example of how difficult it has been to sell the good graces of the town’s link to not only LeSueur but to both an internationally acclaimed author and a hell of a good story.
The full text of the above history is available in the Muskoka collection of the Bracebridge Public Library.
One day I believe the town chamber of commerce, or the local municipal politicians, possibly even for commercial gain, will find some greater significance to fully recognize the provenance attached to LeSueur and Irving, and a hometown named with affection, “Bracebridge.” Thanks for joining this historical blog by Currie.

The Bibliomaniac and the apprentice – honed their craft in Muskoka
What led to this house of books?

It’s fitting I chose David Brown, a legendary bibliomaniac as my mentor. I’ve always gravitated toward the eccentrics amongst us. Be they poet, historian, philosopher or artist, I’ve enjoyed many moments in company of wild thinkers and visionaries extraordinaire.
Instead of getting a hand-up from a bibliophile, who acquires books on a moderate, sensible, proportionate level, my apprenticeship with Dave Brown, was like trying to read a book while running to catch the open door of a whizzing-along freight train. Dave Brown did nothing without careful planning. He knew what to expect after pounding a square peg into a round hole. He’d scoop up the splinters and demonstrate how to make the peg square again. Everything was a demonstration. When he was toppled into the brine while trying to ferry a wood stove in a small boat, over to the mainland of Muskoka’s Wood Lake, he blamed everyone else but himself for the mishap. If Dave had made it to the other side of the lake, he somehow would have taken credit for inspiring the mission in the first place. Not because he was a glory hound. He just didn’t like being wrong. Or second fiddle. He spent a half hour that day, telling me about all the wrong moves everybody else made on that ill-fated stove-moving voyage, while bleeding all over my shop from a nasty gash on his leg. Did I mention that this outdoors expert, book collector, historian, was deathly afraid of hospitals and dentists?
I loved this guy. He was the kind of character you watch in life not because he does everything right, but because he’s so amazing doing everything opposite to convention. The only protocol Dave understood out on the old-book hustings, was the “bull-in-the-china-shop” strategy. You know, the “take no prisoners,” “smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em,” attitude. Like landing a helicopter in a mature hay field, everything would hit the fan when Brownie cut loose at an estate book sale. It was like watching a Jackson Pollock painting in progress. For the robustness of frame, Dave was agile when need arose. Except when trying to balance a three hundred pound iron stove in a runabout.
I wrote the biography of the now deceased Mr. Brown. Shortly after he was diagnosed with a life threatening condition, he asked me if I’d be interested in co-authoring the biography. As it turned out he didn’t live up to his part of the deal. I was left alone to write a story about a character I doubt even Dickens could have dreamt up. I was as close to him as anyone for our few precious years together, when he taught me about the gall and tenacity required to out-play competing book collectors and dealers. When we weren’t talking about old books, we were discussing outdoor education. He was one of the early movers and shakers in the provincial outdoor education program for Ontario Public Schools, and his classroom in Hamilton, was legendary for its massive collection of live things, pickled things, and all things large and curious gathered from the woodlands. Any kid that visited his classroom, situated within a hair’s breadth of the Botanical Gardens, will have memory of Mr. Brown for the balance of their lives. He was to some contemporaries, an alchemist, in the way he held spellbound an audience. A medicine show peddler. A mad hatter, an enchanter! A story teller! The kids loved the show, indoors and out.
Believe me, that’s a good thing. You simply couldn’t have Dave Brown as an instructor of anything without it imprinting forever. I traveled on many nature walks with Dave here in Muskoka, and I never arrived home that I wasn’t making another play date with my burly book loving guru-guide.
The reason Dave and I got along so well is that we had a mutual, deep-seeded hatred for both complacency and restriction. I was kicked out of Cub Scouts in my first month for insubordination. I didn’t see eye to eye with the leader and I made a few suggestions about the group’s dynamic he didn’t particularly like. So out the door I went. Dave thrived in his incredibly diversified outdoor education centre, and in the wilds, whether on a trail or in a canoe. When he was ordered back into a regular classroom, due to budget cutbacks, he began to falter within days of the new posting. If illness hadn’t forced him to retire, the phobia of a closed, restrictive, uninspiring workplace, would have hastened resignation
As an editor with the community press, here in Muskoka, I, on the other hand, was the spitting image of “good, controlled, steadfast management.” Until that is, I felt the publisher’s chin on my shoulder, watching me compose an editorial. Which isn’t cool in any newsroom, I’m sure you can appreciate. To get his attention I’d slip in a few words, rather directives onto the typed page (back in those days) that might have, for example, read as follows: “get your lips off my neck unless you’re the woman of my dreams!” Usually got their attention but generally I’d just start growling and muttering dangerous eventualities, until finally my overseer would sense the danger of the editor with a pounding hangover, and a nearing deadline.
I heard more than one disenchanted publisher suggest I was a “tempest out of the teapot,” and “quite incorrigible that Mr. Currie.” I always worked hard for my employer, and I turned out copy in volume, without error, and always, always on schedule. I was one of few staff members who actually loved the work…..for what I might suggest was the crappiest pay. The problem was I couldn’t find a publisher I actually looked up to, and believed had any modicum of writing wisdom to bestow an apprentice. Most were “fops,” and I was forced to make up for their constant shortfalls, by working longer and harder, with greater resolve that, one day……one day I’d strike out on my own in this writing game. All the underlings worked in pretty much the same fashion, so the big wheels could keep on turning. I don’t now how many times I was kept from attempting some form of strangulation on a publisher or managing editor, who would take a compliment about the week’s newspaper, sometimes even in front of us, and never once say…..”well,… all the credit goes to my hardworking, accomplished staff.” I worked with many exceptional writers, photographers and graphic artists back in those now hazy, easy to forget newspaper days, many who have gone on to prove themselves tenfold in a more appreciative environment.
When Dave Brown and I met up, it was a brutal collision of irreverent, somewhat worse for wear souls. Dave had a lot of disenchantment for much of the same reason I felt short-changed by my profession, and the more miles through the hinterland we walked, the more we recognized our problem was simply a matter of dysfunctional interpersonal skills. His compassion and work relationship was with the kids. He couldn’t stand manipulators and glad-handers around him, who liked to take full credit for things they only played a minor role in creating. Just as I felt about upper management swiping my personal milestones, as their inherent property, Dave concurred. It was in free enterprise, beyond the grasp of our fetters, that we were destined to thrive.
As Dave Brown was known for being tenacious yet persuasive to get into the inner sanctum of anyone who had a large collection of books potentially for sale, I was the “sleeper,” who found sources and collections where Dave had assumed nothing of interest would prevail. Out on the old book trail he and I were critiqued on more than a few occasions by our competitors, as a couple of crusty old codgers, who wouldn’t know a valuable book if it bit them on the respective arse.
The day a new managing editor told me that he was, to quote, “going to nurture us reporters as his special flowers,” I began planning immediately for career number two. I launched “Birch Hollow Antiques,” in 1986 and spent a lot of time preparing for the day I’d take a watering can myself, and nurture the boss proactively…..and frankly, if it hadn’t been for the calming influence of my new bride, Suzanne, I might have watered myself out of a job a lot sooner. It had become almost a fantasy how I would one day soon water this guy into unemployment. As it turned out, upper management liked his style, and the “nurturing” analogy. I had no choice but to get away from these knobs….before I started talking to my mates the same way.
The asset I brought to my new business, moreso than a large volume of antiquities to sell, was that I was used to doing a lot “with a little;” simply meaning that I had survived the newspaper business with a shilling to spare on a pint per week, so building my own business by scrounging the flea market circuit to get inventory, was an acceptable, affordable, workable means to an end. When my associate antique dealers today critique our business, “cause they’re flummoxed by our survival,” and our “nose in the air,” arrogant demeanor, they’ve actually fallen for the trap Dave and I used to employ on the book hustings. Let them preoccupy trying to figure what we’re going to do next, and the philosophy of why, and we shall just load our purchases in the car for the celebratory trip home. While we’re being studied, overviewed, dissected and analyzed, I guess we just didn’t have cause to bother ourselves with the focus of limelight. Afterall, we had work to do, books to scout-out, antiques and collectables to box and ship, and deals to shake on before dinner. Dave and I were pretty set on the Canadian standard of meal-time as the essence of true contentment and good humor, after a successful, fulfilling day’s work. He wouldn’t eat vegetables. Can you believe it?
Dave Brown was what the antique business would call “the phantom” of a sale. The “dark horse!” The person you would least expect could be smarter than you! I remember Dave arriving at my former antique shop in Bracebridge and asking me if he could stay over at our house, so that he could attend the next day’s charity book sale at the Anglican Church, in Bracebridge. He realized by my startled look that I hadn’t known about the sale in advance. He let out a Homer Simpson “Doa!” and already the competition between mates had turned up a notch. Of course he came to view this as an acceptable loss of insider’s information because afterall he was getting a warm bed and all the books he could fondle overnight, as our house guest. All night he kept emphasizing that we should get to the sale at well before ten a.m. the next morning, as the minister had warned him to expect a long line of eager book buyers. I did twig to the fact he had already jumped ahead of me by meeting with the sale host, and undoubtedly picking up some details about books included in the sale. Dave by the way would only buy non-fiction. In the morning my wife was looking out the window, as Brownie did a hop-skip and jump down the driveway toward his truck, and seemed gleeful as he poked his head out of the window to back out of the lane. “I wonder where Dave’s going,” she said, as I arrived at the breakfast table for the first sip of coffee…., where by the way I expected to see Dave sitting, “book pressed to face.” He had terrible eyesight but wouldn’t get glasses.
When I arrived at the Bracebridge sale, sure enough there was a large crowd. I stood in line for about twenty minutes and when the door was finally opened, I was the occupier of the 41st position from the arch into the sale. So imagine this scene if you can; the ever boastful Mr. Brown emerging with the minister’s assistance, and I think a package of cookies as a bonus, carrying two substantial boxes of old books. Ones obviously he had selected and purchased with the minister’s blessing, before the sale had officially begun. “See you back at home Ted….got the books I wanted!” Now how could you get mad and stay mad when you’re beaten-out so effectively by the friendly competition. I should have jumped into the car and trailed him all the way to the church door, if I wanted to be his equal. As the church achieved success for their part in the book sale, Mr. Brown got some exceptional Canadiana, Americana, and natural sciences. I got a badly needed lesson, and a few interesting biographies he’d blown by in his haste.
On another occasion, at an estate sale in the community of Bala, I watched Dave meet his unexpected equal, while trying to barter for some “not for sale” books. We had gone together that summer morning, and Dave already had some books reserved. I had been approached by the family earlier that same week, interested in selling off a considerable amount of furniture, collectables, glassware, china and of course books, from their father’s cottage on the Moon River. The family was tremendously obliging in every way, and were prepared to meet whenever I could attend to make an initial appraisal. I offered Dave a sneak preview and that generated into a solo visit due to a situation that had arisen at our Bracebridge shop. Dave was going to get a list of items we would both be interested in, and then visit together the next morning to make the purchase offer on the contents. As Dave was the expert at friendly skullduggery, he came back with ninety percent of what “he” wanted, and informed me there were still “a few things you’d be interested in Ted,” meaning “fat chance” anything of significant value remained in that cottage. He even scored some baked treats offered by the family. Without question Dave was one of those likeable sorts you initially felt sorry for….because he was always dressed like a hobo and looked as if he hadn’t enjoyed a good meal in years. Even my wife always gave Dave the last tart, the last brownie, the list goes on!
As I was compelled that evening to listen to Dave’s coup at the Bala estate, he obsessively plotted out a plan to secure some titles of western Americana that a grandson had refused to sell. If you refused Dave’s offer, first he would, as a matter of “theater-wins over-the-audience,” put on an academy award performance, the role of “injured party,” as if denied the right to the holy grail itself. He had it all worked out and rehearsed, how he would up the stakes to get those half dozen books from the reluctant sale host. No sooner had we arrived at the sale, and Dave was already spinning all kinds of warm-up tales about his life-long passion for histories detailing events on the American frontier. It didn’t matter from what angle he approached, or how sad his game face, nothing unsettled the young lad and his determination to take his inheritance home to the city. Dave even spent a little time dismissing the books as lesser or “popular” issues and not actual “first editions,” thus being more of a burden to the family than of value. While Dave wound himself into a tight knot negotiating for the books, I found six or seven better books he’d missed the night before that were not on the host’s restricted list, along with a deer head and a dinosaur bone from a sale table outside being prepared for the next day. When we left the property that morning, Dave had a package of home-made butter tarts and I had about thirty wonderful pieces. He buried his anger in food but for the rest of that day he mumbled about those coveted books; and the plan to make a counter attack the next day. That never unfolded and here’s the second part of this Dave Brown misadventure.
We got back to Gravenhurst just in time to attend a fundraising book sale being held by the Public Library as part of a wider street sale. My wife and our wee sons Andrew and Robert, got to the sale moments before it was opened to the public and had pulled off some great Canadiana, one being and 1880’s pristine copy of “Toronto Re-Visited,” a well presented regional history of the city up to the publication date. Suzanne waved that book under Dave’s nose, and I’m sure she wanted to do the “beat you on this one dance,” but was short changed by Dave’s immediate snit, and statement to me, with arms full of books by this point, “I’m going back to the house to get my stuff; see you later!” What my wife should have done, in retrospect, was (a) don’t wave a good find in a bibliomaniac’s face unless you want to lose an arm, and (b) be a good host and give the guest the big find for the sake of harmony. Dave was famous for his snits. He had a lifetime of them. But his was an eccentric life, and I learned to accept his hard lines, as he adapted to mine. I benefited above and beyond from his mentorship. I was at the right hand of a major Canadian book collector. Let there be no mistake, Mr. Brown was of considerable acclaim in the old book trade. Some times it was his eccentricities that people knew best. I respected him for his vast knowledge about what was historically important and what was a waste of a good tree from the forest.
Dave was a bibliomaniac because he couldn’t stop acquiring books. Even on his deathbed he wanted to be let out to buy more books. Even though he was told in no uncertain terms his life was soon to be concluded, he worked as if he’d never heard an adverse word. And when he passed away and it was revealed by the estate stewards just how many sacrifices he regularly made for his books, which had by volume become his master, arguably some of his friends questioned his sanity. I never once doubted his sanity but I was very much aware of his loneliness, and it was in books he found his greatest company. Other than, of course, when he was conducting an outdoor excursion for his students during his day job with the Hamilton Board of Education.
Dave Brown chose a relationship with books over the last request of his wife for a normal, sensible co-existence between hobby and lifestyle. Whether he was disappointed by the failure of marriage or not, he never talked about those personal details of a cluttered life. One person suggested to me, after the biography was published in the year 2000, that it appeared Dave Brown had experienced a “tortured” existence with his book obsession. I think instead Dave led a busy, active, almost enchanted life, immersed in the history of the world. He was a positive, forward, innovative chap, who very much deserved his face imprinted on a toby mug. Yet he was the genuine article in all his eccentric charm. I am in the old book business because of the influences of mentors like Miles David Brown, who always made our time together interesting while at the same time teetering precariously toward impending misadventure. It wasn’t as if we were getting our jollies riding the rails to the very next hobo jungle, or seeking new and profound discovery in polar climes. We were just a couple of gnarled old book sleuths with an unyielding passion for all adventure between venues. I work solo now but nary a day or event passes that the good Mr. Brown hasn’t advised me in that heartfelt, spiritual way, something like, “hey, look in that box under the counter.” I hung off every word he said to me during life, and he’s still mouthing off from the other side. I always ask him, as a spirit that is, where he might commence a book hunt, or what end of the sale table to start. Only problem is, he always leads me to the book he wants, not what I came to buy. What a character!
When my wife and business partner admonishes me for buying too many books, I just dart and weave between the stacked and wavering piles in our house, and hope she’ll mellow by time I’m eventually found. I’m not so different from Dave Brown these days, and she has warned about the consequences of just one book crossing the threshold of the kitchen…..that by its nature doesn’t having something to do with culinary arts. While she guards the kitchen, I’ve found time to lodge another two dozen books in the family room undetected.
If at times these vignettes, stories, reminiscences weave irreverently against established thought and accepted protocol, I blame it on the curious company I’ve kept for all these years…..but how thankful I am to have been the beneficiary of non-complacent teaching, with the best intent of course.
Thanks for joining this blog-site, and being patient with the story teller.

Muskoka Winter –

Spending my time this Christmas with the memory of Tom Thomson

Back in the mid-1990’s, during a writing hiatus, I found myself by strange and coincidental circumstance, delving into the mysterious death of Canadian landscape artist, Tom Thomson. The legendary painter perished in July 1917, the victim of apparent drowning in Algonquin Park’s Canoe Lake.
It began after I read a biographical column written by well known Algonquin region guide, and trapper, Ralph Bice, published in a Muskoka weekly newspaper. As a long time admirer of Tom Thomson’s art, one column caught my attention moreso than the others in the series. It was a latent rebuttal of a theory put forth many years earlier by Judge William Little, in the text of his then controversial book, “The Tom Thomson Mystery,” alleging the artist had been murdered. Mr.Bice, revered for his tales from the bush, contended the artist, who may or may not have been intoxicated at the time, simply fell out of his canoe, possibly while relieving himself mid-lake. He believed it was most likely, as other researchers have similarly concluded that Thomson simply whacked his noggin on the canoe as he fell, being knocked unconscious before hitting the water.
It wasn’t just Bice’s column alone that inspired years of preoccupation to find the murderer. It was the collection of strange coincidences that continued to happen during those first two years of research. (Many that still occur today while I continue to delve into reference material about the artist’s life and times) It was one particular coincidence and its spin-off that hooked me early in the Thomson story. It happened shortly after reading Ralph Bice’s column regarding his theory the artist’s death was the result of misadventure. Within an hour of reading the column, I found an autographed copy of Judge Little’s book, The Tom Thomson Mystery, on the shelf at the local Salvation Army Thrift Shop, here in Gravenhurst. Add to this the fact William Little had only recently passed away. It was from this point that coincidence made up a weighty portion of my work, which has led to numerous feature series in local publications, as well as other papers in Southern Ontario, including online sites. What really generated interest above all else, was that Ralph Bice had written the column about Thomson’s death being finally resolved, at a time when Judge Little could not offer a counter point. After consultation with several members of Judge Little’s family, I let them know that I wanted to defend the “murder” theory put forward by their family, and respectfully re-submit information contained in the Tom Thomson Mystery, to balance, at least locally, what Mr. Bice contended was accidental drowning without the shadow of doubt.
After the first collection of columns I wrote for the local press appeared, I began getting a significant number of letters, envelopes stuffed with old news clippings about Thomson, offers of Canadian art books for reference, and many words of advice both supporting William Little’s murder theory, and just as many on the side of Mr. Bice, convinced Thomson, an unskilled canoeist had simply drowned. There has been considerable debate whether or not Thomson was a skilled paddler. Over a two and a half year span of time, I spent hours each week reading and re-visiting editorial material submitted, and other documents I found on my scrounging missions to libraries and old book shops. I can’t remember the final tally of articles I had published but it added up, by the pound and the hours spent, to be the most I had ever researched or written continuously on one subject. As an editor-columnist for the local press for many years, I was pretty much set on short pieces and summary histories, versus lengthy, over-written and ink burdened chapters “beating about the bush” to get to the bottom line. The Thomson story didn’t have the satisfying feeling I had anticipated, at the conclusion of each one of the specially prepared series; the sense of successful completion a writer normally experiences when the paper, as they say, is “hot off the press,” finally hitting the public domain. It has haunted me in the same way ever since. The job isn’t done yet! I told my wife Suzanne, in an historian’s typical frustrated rant and resignation, (while one day staring over the pile of Thomson clippings and research notes), that “it’s as if Thomson himself is asking me to carry-on and resolve the circumstances leading up to his death.”
If there’s one over-riding reason I haven’t abandoned the project, in nearly a decade of on-again off-again research, it is the troubling reality Thomson’s death was a clear instance of “justice denied.” While there was evidence he was murdered, a poorly run coroner’s inquest, (without the body…. which had already been buried) hastily ruled the artist had drowned accidentally. His tragic death is entrenched in the history of Canadian art, whether critics care to believe this or not; a mystery, a legend that in many ways, has and will continue to influence impressions of his art work. I would challenge my critics with this question……is there anyone, any art buyer since Thomson’s death, who hasn’t been influenced even to the smallest degree, by what has long been considered a mystery and tragedy rolled into one biographical overview. An exceptional painting, a death unresolved. Even days after the discovery of Thomson’s body in Canoe Lake, those close to the artist made claims about foul play, so the hearsay of murder is, as his death, at a 90 year anniversary.
One of the nation’s best known artists, his work having influenced so much of the national art consciousness of the past century, remains the shade of unresolved demise. I have always be perturbed by the fact so little has been done, with the exception of research by William Little and before him, Blodwen Davies, the first Thomson biographer, to properly address the inconsistencies surrounding his death that were covered-up and ignored by so many authorities and historians ever since. Maybe as some mediums claim of unresolved, discontent spirits, it’s the case Thomson can’t rest in peace until the exact cause of death is determined. I’ve certainly felt like a conduit over this past decade, and I feel it’s important to keep, in front-line consideration, the important findings of both Davies and Little, both revered for their attention to detail and their characteristic reliability to treat fact reverently, and use the critical approach to prove or disprove a theory.
As Tom Thomson’s art work continues to attract higher prices at auction, with more record prices anticipated in the future, I’m of the stubborn belief Thomson’s memory deserves as much respect, and as a researcher I believe Canadian art history would be shaken to the core, if it was finally, and totally accepted our most revered artist was murdered, and not the victim of death by peeing (overboard) misadventure, as it prevails today in most of the authoritarian biographical texts.
The point of this lengthy little preamble, is to let readers know that I will be spending the Christmas season and most of the frigid Muskoka winter, holed-up here at Birch Hollow (our Gravenhurst home), preparing editorial copy for a lengthy series to recognize the 90th anniversary of Tom Thomson’s death 1917-2007, which will be published initially, as an exclusive in one of my favorite publications in Ontario….”Curious – The Tourist Guide,” available in many shops in Southern Ontario, and into the Muskoka region. You can subscribe to the publication. Information about the publication is available on-line. I hope to commence the series beginning with the February 2007 issue.
It will be the most thorough investigation into the artist’s death to date, and hopefully it will enlighten readers about the inconsistencies of the “accidental drowning” theory. Hope you can catch the series. Thanks for reading through this rather meaty blog submission.
From the snowy woodlands of Muskoka, farewell for now!