AUGUST 2024
LIVING SUSTAINABLY
Creating a green life
Duke Boats Marking a century on the waterfront
The Art of Flambé, flaming hot recipes
August 2024 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 1
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...telling the Muskoka story
Features
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In Pursuit of Self-sufficiency – A Greener Lifestyle
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Love Notes from the Soul
Article and Photography [21] by Andy Zeltkalns In Muskoka, as with many other areas, striking a balance between economic development, daily living and the long-term sustainability of the environment continues to be an ongoing challenge. Several Muskokans share how they’re going off-grid and building self-sufficiency and sustainability into their lifestyles.
Article by Bronwyn Boyer / Photography by Josianne Masseau Poet Sara Rogers shares her love for Muskoka’s wilderness and her focus on self-love in her book Elemental Magic – Poetic Chapters of Wild Self Love. A prevailing message in Rogers’ collection is that hope and resilience can be found in creativity and the natural world.
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The Early Days – Minett
Article by J. Patrick Boyer The Minett family, starting with Charles and Fanny Minett, settled on Medora Township’s peninsula between the lakes in 1869. Building their own family home and then an additional purpose-designed summer hotel, these were the foundation for the summer vacationing destination Minett is known as today.
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Going with the Flow – Stan Tait
Article by Bronwyn Boyer Photography by Josianne Masseau The creation of an angel pendant for one client became a project Stan Tait knew he needed to share with the world. A self-taught jeweller, Tait’s life experience taught him to follow his instincts in producing the pendant and the journey was worth it.
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A Brave New Era – Muskoka Arts and Crafts
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[22]
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Article by Bronwyn Boyer Photography by Josianne Masseau Since its first show in the 1960s, Muskoka Arts and Crafts has been a pillar of Muskoka’s artistic community. With a new location in downtown Bracebridge and a new executive director, the organization has big plans for stepping into the future.
August 2024 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 5
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Duke Boats – 100 Years on the Waterfront
Article and Photography by Tim Du Vernet Duke Boats is a well-recognized name throughout Muskoka and throughout the world for its finely built watercraft. Started a century ago in Port Carling, the building and the history of Duke Boats lives on and has been reimagined by the current owners, Kathy McCarthy and Jeremy Fowler.
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Summer Regattas and Fall Fairs – Muskoka’s Two-in-One Community
Article by J. Patrick Boyer Summer regattas and fall fairs can be seen as the middle ground between locals and part-time residents in Muskoka. Celebrations of summer activities and hard work, these events highlight the similarities and the differences between locals and vacationers.
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Layering Creativity – Catherine O’Mara
Article by K.M. Wehrstein Photography by Kelly Holinshead Catherine O’Mara’s egg tempera paintings use Renaissance techniques to create a richness, complexity and depth that pull you in to the scene to experience her work. While the subject may seem simple, the process is anything but. [43]
AUGUST 2024
[38]
LIVING SUSTAINABLY
Creating a green life
Duke Boats Marking a century on the waterfront
The Art of Flambé, flaming hot recipes
Departments
Our Cover
54
What’s Happened
Feature by Matt Driscoll Controversy continues with Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare’s plans for new hospitals. Muskoka Music Festival returns to Gravenhurst and the Gull Lake Rotary Park amphitheatre comes to completion. A Bracebridge man was posthumously awarded the Carnegie Medal for bravery, the historic Bala Bay Inn has been refurbished and reopened under new management and Muskoka welcomes the Canadian Raceboat Hall of Fame.
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Cottage Country Cuisine
Article by K.M. Wehrstein Photography by Tomasz Szumski It’s been a food tradition for centuries: a dish is set aflame by the table to give diners an extra thrill. Flambé may have fallen out of fashion, especially with fire safety as a critical component, but two chefs in Muskoka share their recipes and tips for flaming delicacies.
Photograph by Tomassz Szumski Deerhurst Resort executive chef Gus Gulmar prepares to play with fire to prepare Plaintain Flambé to pair with Baked Alaska.
Opinion 9
Muskoka Insights
By Meghan Taylor
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Muskoka Moments By Judy Vanclieaf
August 2024 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 7
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…telling the Muskoka story Unique Muskoka is published six times per year by Unique Publishing Inc. Meghan Taylor Publisher/Editor Donna Ansley Jennifer Montpetit Sales
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Muskoka Insights Jeremy Fowler, owners of the Duke’s building, continue to honour the history of the building and the name while evolving to meet the changing dynamic of a seasonal tourist destination. For Muskoka Arts and Crafts (MAC), a new space, new technology and new executive director have created new energy. As regular contributor Bronwyn Boyer explains, MAC is much more than its annual art shows. Executive director Nichole Kitchen is excited to build partnerships, collaborate with other arts organizations and continue to build on the many years of success the organization has seen. While Muskoka is a playground of natural wonders, limiting our impact on the environment, now and for future generations, is a necessary consideration when building homes and cottages. Using new building technologies and adopting alternative methods of powering and maintaining our homes can minimize the effects of development. Contributor Andy Zeltkalns shares how several Muskokans have built homes that reduce their environmental impact and reduce reliance on traditional energy sources. Muskoka and its residents and visitors hold onto traditions, while also making space for new growth. Summer in Muskoka often brings both. Whether it’s new adventures or old rituals carrying you through the summer, celebrate all of them. Happy reading!
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Does everyone have a favourite spot in Muskoka? It’s a place you return to regularly, whether that’s daily, weekly, monthly or once a year, that holds a special place in your heart or in your memories. It could be your cottage or dock, a beach, a favourite hiking trail or the bay on the lake that’s perfect for waterskiing or tubing. I’ll admit, I don’t have just one favourite. Perhaps that’s one benefit (of many) of living here – I don’t have to choose one favourite spot because I can visit these places any time. There are several I can immediately call up in my head, where I know I can visit and feel at home and at peace. At this time of year, there’s one stretch of Muskoka Beach Road, between Bracebridge and Gravenhurst, that has a perfect green canopy of trees above the road. Sunlight just barely dapples through the leaves and the trees that keep the temperature several degrees cooler on a hot day. There’s technically nothing there of interest – just forest and the road. And yet, every time I travel through it, I feel the need to stop and savour the moment. Thus far, the canopy-covered section of road I hold dear remains relatively devoid of construction. However, that doesn’t mean it’s unchanged. I know at one time, not too far in the past, the area would have been completely de-forested. In another 50 or 100 years, who knows what that stretch may look like. Knowing places, people and landmarks can and will change, makes the need to savour them that much greater while we can. In this issue of Unique Muskoka, contributor Tim Du Vernet shares the evolution of Duke Boats over the last century. What began as a boatbuilding company on the waterfront in downtown Port Carling, producing a variety of wooden boats, now houses retail stores, restaurants and a rowing centre. Kathy McCarthy and
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Article by Bronwyn Boyer Photography by Josianne Masseau
S
ara Rogers, also known as Wolf Ma Poet, recently found herself with a published book of poetry called Elemental Magic – Poetic Chapters of Wild Self Love. While she pays homage to Walt Whitman and Mary Oliver, Rogers says her biggest inspiration are her two daughters and a deep connection to nature. After allowing these forces to flow through her, Elemental Magic seemed to spring to life of its own accord. “I never intended to write a book,” Rogers recalls. “It just sort of happened.” Born in Toronto and raised in Oshawa, with degrees in law, education and sociology,
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Rogers ultimately found her calling as a poet. “I've always been interested in learning, social justice and the entrepreneurial spirit,” she explains. “I was also a real estate agent when my daughters were young. Landing on poetry was a surprise but it contains the essence of all the other things that I've done.” Rogers moved to Huntsville in 2021 with her husband and two daughters, where her poetic spirit found a home on the Big East River, near Arrowhead Provincial Park. But it was camping at Killbear Provincial Park and summers at her grandparents’ cottage just north of Muskoka that first bonded her to the area. “I think an early connection to the wild is so important,” she says. “I’d say it was the prelude to my poetry because it has a profound impact on the creative spirit.” Like all the great poets before her, the spark of Rogers’ writing was ignited by communing with nature.
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Sara Rogers’ poetry and connection to nature has led to a line of apparel celebrating nature, hope, resilience and self-love.
“I would go into the forest and hear little whispers of a poem,” she explains. “It was a voice of curiosity, possibility and hope.” Rogers says music also plays a significant role in her poetry. Watching The Tragically Hip perform earned Gord Downie the position of poet laureate of her heart. Carrying on his legacy, her own poetry highlights the importance of having the courage to choose love and hope in the face of chaos. Shortly after moving to Huntsville, Rogers began sharing her poetry at markets and festivals on her own line of clothing. The idea came to her like a bolt of lightning, effortless and immediate. “I always had a vision that a woman's body is a home,” she says. “So, I wanted to offer poetry in a form that women could wear as a reminder that their bodies are poetry. And then I extended that idea to everybody; I believe everybody is a poem,
the sacred vessel that we carry in this lifetime.” Rogers’ nom de plume, Wolf Ma Poet, is the creative muse she uses to detach from her identity, which helps her write freely. “It came to me while I was staring at a pack of wolves at the Haliburton wolf sanctuary,” she explains. “I just felt like the muse chose me.” The name is also fitting because Rogers thinks of her family as a wolf pack, as well as the following that arose from her poetry and apparel. “It works because we take care of each other and everyone belongs,” she says. “I
Wolf Ma Poet, Sara Rogers’ nom de plume, helps her to write poetry freely and connects to her inspiration of nature and her family, her own wolf pack. Rogers spends time sitting with feelings in order to articulate the emotions she’s experiencing so she can convey them through her words.
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really love nurturing that community online and making connections at markets.” Another important aspect of Rogers’
work is memory and how people resonate with her own experiences. “I love when people read a line on the back of a T-shirt or hoodie that evokes a childhood memory,” she says. “And then they pick up my book and thumb through it and you can see the remembering in their eyes. It just proves that our stories are more alike than different.” Rogers’ affinity with nature and the human spirit has allowed her to form a language for emotions that are otherwise impossible to articulate. “I think the poet's job is to sit in a feeling
Poetry was not something Sara Rogers’ envisioned for herself but she feels all of her education and experiences have led her to writing.
long enough for the words to surface,” she shares. “Poetry helps explain the entirety of our experience. It reminds us who we are.” Elemental Magic is divided in chapters according to elements in nature. “Fire is the heart, earth is the body, air is our voice and water is memory,” says Rogers. “And then the fifth element is magic. That’s the unseen, soulful essence that you can't explain.” The second part of the title, “wild self love,” refers to the primal, empathetic bond between people and the planet. “Wild self-love is instinctual,” Rogers explains. “It's not something to be attained in order to prove your worthiness. It’s the feeling that you belong. Love, like the Earth, is what we came from and what we return to.” A prevailing message Rogers’ collection portrays is that hope and resilience can be found in creativity and the natural world. Elemental Magic can be purchased from www.sararogers.ca or from Rogers’ booth at festivals and markets in Muskoka and surrounding areas.
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Photograph: Frank Micklethwaite
Charles James Minett, born in 1842, is seen here in his forties with his career and contributions in Muskoka reaching a stellar stage within a dozen years.
Photograph: Susan M. Sheffield, The Companion Guide to Muskoka District Post Offices Photograph: Jim Minett, Susan Pryke and Boston Mills Press
Photograph: Frank Micklethwaite
Most resorts are photographed from the water but inventive photographer Frank Micklethwaite’s 1910 picture of a seated man taking in Clevelands House was taken from an inland hilltop.
Article by J. Patrick Boyer
I
n 1869 Charles and Fanny Minett reached Medora Township’s peninsula between lakes Rosseau and Joseph where Ojibwe people were present. A mid-20s couple, the Minetts had been married in England before travelling with fellow immigrants Josiah and Louisa Callard to Toronto in 1867. When Charles developed serious bronchitis in the city’s heavily polluted air, a doctor recommended escape to Ontario’s healthier
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northern districts. With free land grants to encourage settlers, this seemed an ideal solution. That fall Charles and Josiah journeyed to newly surveyed Medora’s wilderness. Finding adjacent lots they liked, they felled trees and built a log cabin – building was second nature to Minett as a skilled carpenter and woodworker. Charles returned the following year with Fanny and their household effects – by steamtrain north to Lake Simcoe, steamship up to
Washago at the top of Lake Couchiching, on stage coach over the brutal colonization road to Gravenhurst, then aboard steamer Wenonah to Port Carling, dropped off on the Indian River’s bank (no lock yet built), to continue on their own by raft across Lake Rosseau to their homesteading adventure. Charles called the waiting cabin “Clevelands” after his English birthplace. A number of Fanny’s babies died in infancy
Photograph: Jim Minett, Susan Pryke and Boston Mills Press
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Operating a summer resort depended on dockage suitable for steamers. The Clevelands House waterfront in 1890 shows the small Maple Leaf at the wharf, as well as the resort’s boathouse and shoreline dockage. acres in Medora (half of them underwater) and 62,776 in Wood (some 5,000 of its acres also lake bottom.) Despite having good land and prospering farms, the Minetts and neighbouring Callards saw opportunity in housing and feeding visitors arriving to fish and hunt. Like other newly settled Muskokans with waterfront property, they helped erect the fourth pillar of Muskoka’s economy, tourism, alongside forestry, farming and manufacturing. They became hoteliers by first converting their homes and then building purpose-designed summer hotels.
Photograph: Jim Minett, Susan Pryke and Boston Mills Press
but by 1870 a boy lived awhile and Charles filed his land claim under the homesteader act because, if a child under 18 resided with them, he could add an extra 100 acres for each such son or daughter. With Muskoka’s land boom underway, getting all the free land possible included being savvy about timing. In 1871, Medora’s population combined with that of abutting Wood Township gave enough people for municipal organization and Medora-Wood became one of the district’s earliest self-governing municipalities. It was also certainly Muskoka’s largest with 41,619
By 1874 the Minetts upgraded their log cabin to Minett House (later dubbed Minett Lodge) at left, while the three-storey hotel became their flagship operation, both as seen here around 1900 in the winter off-season.
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Photograph: Muskoka Lakes Museum
During the 15 years after Charles died, Fanny and her sons expanded popular Clevelands House as seen here, with many guests and staff in this 1907 photo. More resorts began encircling the lakeshore and by 1875, arrival of trains direct to Gravenhurst Wharf from southern cities, the expanding fleet of Muskoka steamships, the addition of a lock at Port Carling and the Joseph River dredged, the district’s vacation
economy began to boom. In 1870, Charles first built Minett House with a large dock of crib construction at which steamers could land. By 1874, he’d added more rooms to accommodate additional summer guests. By 1880, he applied for a post office,
suggesting the name “Clevelands.” On November 1 Ottawa granted both requests, making that the community name. Operating postal service from their home, now known as Minett Lodge, reinforced its role as a gathering place for peninsula settlers. Building on success, he and Fanny planned a purpose-designed summer hotel to serve upwards of 25 guests. Their two-storey Clevelands House hotel, built during 1881 and 1882, opened in May 1883 for the summer season, with the post office in the hotel for guests’ convenience during those months. This higher building required upgrading the water system with a windmill to pump water into an elevated storage tank from which gravity flow could work. Transportation in the vicinity was improving, too. In 1876, rocks removed from the Joseph River enabled rowboats to use this shortcut around the tip of the peninsula much further south. Dynamiting “The Cut” two decades later, to a depth of four feet, allowed many steamers to transit this route also. By 1877, the Peninsula Road ran north from Port Carling to Port Sandfield and that year construction began
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Posing in front of Clevelands House as it stood by the mid-1880s – two living rooms, dining room, kitchen, eight bedrooms and a bathroom – Fanny and Charles Minett are joined by sons Bert, Arthur, and Ernest. on June 1. For the summer of 1895, on May 1, the post office was renamed Minett, with Fanny continuing in charge. Despite more infants perishing and the loss of her husband, she had surviving children who helped make Clevelands House a landmark – including son Arthur who in 1904 succeeded his mother as post master of a village bearing its founding family’s name – a position S.A. Minett would hold until 1953.
Photograph: Muskoka Steamship & Discovery Centre
extending this route to the head of Lake Rosseau. The vicinity was alive with the sounds of construction as more “homesteaders” claiming free peninsula farmland devoted effort to sculpting lakeside resorts and, if they cleared “the back forty” acres at all, it was more likely for a golf course and tennis courts than crops of barley or potatoes. Following Charles death at age 50 in 1892, Fanny was appointed post mistress in his stead
In 1869 Charles and Fanny Minett crossed from Gravenhurst to Port Carling aboard Wenonah. With no lock to the upper lakes at the time, they crossed from Port Carling to the peninsula and their homesteader’s cabin on Lake Rosseau, with all their household effects, under their own power by barge.
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Jon Vollebekk and Sara Kerrigan show off their passive home, which runs mostly off of solar panels installed on the property.
Article and Photography by Andy Zeltkalns
A
s we move through our daily lives it is difficult not to be influenced by the ways our environment has been impacted by human activity. Most notably is how the climate has drastically changed over a relatively short period of time as we see warmer winters, hotter summers, shifting rainfall patterns and a higher frequency of extreme weather events. In Muskoka, as with many other areas, striking a balance between economic development, daily living and the long-term sustainability of the environment continues to be an ongoing challenge. Protecting the essential components of nature such as wetlands, threatened species, water quality and the air we breathe is a vital goal for all. One way of minimizing our impact on the environment is to adopt alternative methods of heating and powering our
homes. Statistics Canada reported households consumed more than one-fifth (22 per cent) of Canada's total energy used in 2021 and were responsible for about 16 per cent of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. Although the numbers are trending downwards, there is still more progress to be made. Living a “greener” lifestyle is ultimately influenced by how our daily behaviours and choices effect our environmental footprint. There are many ways to attain this kind of lifestyle in addition to self-sufficiency. Some Muskoka residents have adopted alternative ways of living to help them achieve these goals. Muskoka resident Rick Zytaruk, upon his retirement from IBM, started helping his daughter design environmentally friendly homes. Through the experience he
discovered the need for creating passive homes that were properly built and could truly reduce their impact on the environment. According to the Canada Green Building Council, the building sector is Canada’s third largest carbon emitter and how we select our building methods and materials can make a significant impact on long term sustainability. Consequently, in 2018 Rick decided to start a company that factored sustainability into construction. Located near Baysville, Tooketree Passive Homes employs 12 to 15 people and manufactures prefabricated homes using S.E.E.D. panels. These are prefabricated wall, floor and roof panels that are Sustainable, Ecological, Efficient and Durable. Using natural materials to build these panels can make a big difference on how a home performs
August 2024 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 23
Jon Vollebekk and Sara Kerrigan added gardens with a solar powered irrigation system, along with chickens for meat and eggs, to further create independence and self-reliance from traditional sources. environmentally over time, explains Zytaruk. All materials leave a carbon footprint so choosing the right materials for construction is important. Cement, which requires massive amounts of energy to produce, and petroleum-based products and materials are poor choices according to Zytaruk. The use of natural materials such as cellulose, hemp and wood are used in the building panels to create a home with better air quality, lower energy costs and durability over time. These materials are also renewable. A philosophy at Tooketree is “to produce passive houses that are super-efficient, super insulated and can be primarily heated by passive solar, and heat from people and appliances.” Over time, Zytaruk is hoping to see more of the building industry move towards environmentally friendly construction methods as people opt for the use of natural materials and alternate ways of building. Fifteen years ago, when Bracebridge residents Scott Young and Martha Armstrong decided to build at their new location
they elected to take an alternate approach to construction. They were ultimately hoping to create a “net zero home” which, according to the Canadian Builders Association, is defined as “a home that produces as much clean energy as it consumes.” Choosing straw as an insulator and a modified beam construction method, which uses less wood, Young and Armstrong were able to build a highly energy efficient home with an insulating R-value of 60. Concrete used in construction was also combined with shredded hemp to make it lighter and reduce the amount of cement needed. Concrete in the floor in combination with thick walls increased the thermal mass of the building and has resulted in a steady heat distribution throughout the year. Fewer windows on the north side of the home and more windows on the south and west facing walls helps passive solar heating to occur and cellular blinds are used to keep the heat in at night. With a wood stove as a heat source and back-up electric in-floor heating, the home is easy to heat and has a comfortable and consistent temperature. When initially deciding on energy sources for the home, Young and Armstrong weighed
Tooketree Passive Homes manufactures prefabricated homes using wall, floor and roof panels.
24 UNIQUE MUSKOKA August 2024
the cost of solar panels against readily available local hydro and opted for the latter. “We decided to balance our ideals with what was practical at the time and local hydro gave us the best bang for our buck,” explains Young. “We love our location in Bracebridge and are happy that we chose to design our home like we did.” Upon finding the ideal rural property in Muskoka, Jon Vollebekk and his wife Sara Kerrigan wanted to create a self-reliant lifestyle. They loved their location but getting hydro to the home would have been very expensive. As a result, they investigated how solar energy could be employed to support their energy needs. “I had been inspired by stories from other people who had chosen an alternative lifestyle,” says Vollebekk, “and this encouraged me to see if Sara and I could make it work.” Kerrigan and Vollebekk consulted a company with expertise in solar energy that was able to walk them through the process of choosing the right system based on their budget and energy requirements. Using a special metre, they were able to catalogue the energy usage of the various appliances in their home to determine how much power would be needed. Solar panels based on these needs were set up along with a system to store the collected energy in a series of batteries. They also determined high energy appliances, like the stove, dryer and water heater, would be best powered by propane and a wood stove would be used to provide
heat when required. In a climate like Muskoka’s, it is difficult to generate enough solar power in the winter so a propane generator is needed as backup. Vollebekk estimates they require about 170 hours of propane generator use during winter months but otherwise the solar panels do a good job of meeting their daily energy needs. He also explains he and Kerrigan are tuned into the various energy requirements of the household appliances they use and can balance this use as needed when solar energy is not abundant. In the planning stages, Kerrigan and Vollebekk also hired a consultant to help them create a passive home. A south facing location, triple glazed windows, an insulated concrete foundation and extra insulation in the roof and walls created a very energy efficient home. A tiny wood stove on the ground floor is all that is needed to give them plenty of heat on the coldest days. Adding gardens with a solar-powered irrigation system, along with chickens for meat and eggs, has added to their independence as well. Kerrigan grew up on a
Bracebridge residents Scott Young and Martha Armstrong aimed to build a “net zero home” when they constructed their new home 15 years ago. A net zero home is defined as a home that produces as much clean energy as it consumes. farm and felt comfortable with the idea of growing food as part of their self-sufficiency. “Although we have enjoyed our solar energy system, our lifestyle has not been without challenges along the way,” elaborates Vollebekk.
The batteries need regular maintenance and have to be replaced after 15 years. Sometimes there are repairs to the system as well and there are not a lot of companies around with the knowledge and parts to fix things when they go wrong. Hidden costs
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Kevin Coughlin and Sarah Piatkowski wanted to be self-sufficient and opted for a passive home design combined with solar panels and a battery storage system when building their new home near Spence Lake. like higher insurance and mortgage rates are also factors to be aware of when trying to rely mostly on solar. “Going off-the-grid does change your whole lifestyle but we have no regrets,” says Vollebekk. Another Muskoka couple who have adopted an off-the-grid lifestyle are Sarah Piatkowski and Kevin Coughlin who built their new home two years ago near Spence Lake. They also wanted to be self-sufficient and opted for a passive home design combined with solar panels and a battery storage system. Using apps on their phone, they manage and balance their power needs based on what types of activities are going on in the home. Similar to Vollebekk and Kerrigan, Coughlin and Piatkowski found it necessary to have high energy items such as the stove, dryer and water heater be powered by propane. “Depending on just solar in Muskoka is difficult so other sources of energy like wood and propane are needed,” shares Coughlin. The couple further explained that going off-the-grid is not a money saving venture but they wouldn’t do things differently since they value their independence from the regular hydro grid. “We know we’ll always have power when others depending on hydro are out,” says Coughlin. Eventually Coughlin and Piatkowski plan to include gardens and a greenhouse on their property, in addition to their
chickens. When designing their home Sarah and Kevin settled on a metal roof which is ideal for setting up a rain catchment system so collected water can be used for their gardens. One of Coughlin’s regrets is the need to use batteries to store their energy from the solar panels. He acknowledges batteries have a large environmental footprint but it’s a balance between “green versus ungreen” in order to achieve an overall positive outcome. Nevertheless, Piatkowski and Coughlin are happy they chose their unique lifestyle and, with their young children, hope to continue improving on the way they live. Whether you’re prepared to build passively or go off-the-grid or not, there are many ways to adopt a greener lifestyle in our homes. Even small changes in our households can make a difference over time. There are more and more resources becoming available to make self-sufficiency possible and solar technology and energy storage systems continue to improve. Despite the various challenges, a greener way of living supports the preservation of the natural integrity and beauty of the environment in places like Muskoka for future generations.
Solar panels can create significant energy for powering a home. However, Muskoka’s climate can make it difficult to rely on solar completely and backup methods of power are a good idea.
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Stan Tait did not intend to become a jeweller but happily stumbled into it when he was looking to step away from the music industry.
Article by Bronwyn Boyer / Photography by Josianne Masseau
S
tan Tait is not a man of ambition but of pure existence. He simply allows life to unfold, knowing that whatever happens and wherever he finds himself, there he will be. Even during the lowest points, he trusts that the ride of life is a safe one. Tait was born in White Rock, British Columbia and grew up in New Westminster, Burnaby, Kitsilano and Vancouver. His creativity was fostered by spiritual influences and steeped in the unique cultural energies of the 1960s,
28 UNIQUE MUSKOKA August 2024
when he was the drummer of a touring band. When he felt the need to recharge his batteries, Tait discovered the art of designing and making jewelry. “I didn’t aspire to make jewelry,” Tait recalls. “It was just something I started doing. It was the same with music. Being a drummer was easy for me, same with writing songs. I took piano lessons as a child but I think I developed my musical ability in my mother's womb. She was a soprano in the
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Stan Tait gives credit for his musical talents to his mother, a soprano, and the time spent as young child immersed in the church choir. church choir. I grew up in that choir loft with a massive pipe organ.” Coming from that upbringing, Tait dove headlong into the dynamic west coast music scene. “We were all original players, not trying to copy anyone,” he says. “We never rehearsed, we just played. There was some kind of energetic shift that happened after World War II for us baby boomers because we were just different.
It’s hard to describe. It was like a living, breathing entity with our music and art and the connections we made. It was just life, with no affectation.” In 1974, Tait felt it was time for a change. As if orchestrated by fate, one night Tait’s partner brought home a box of sterling silver wire, a mandrel and a pair of pliers. “I didn't know what I was doing,” he recalls. “I was working in a four-foot by ten-foot Murphy bed closet in Kitsilano in a basement apartment. I wasn't trying to do or be anything, I was just allowing creativity to flow through me.” Tait prospered in this new path, no doubt thanks
August 2024 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 29
to his neutrality for the outcome. This also made it easy for him to make connections in the industry. “Luckily, I had no fear of talking to people,” he says. “I knew how to pick up the phone and introduce myself. And I always did my best to give really good service.” Tait’s first sale was to a premier gallery in Gastown called The Quest. Tait brought his jewelry to show the owner, knowing she was very particular about polishing. “Polishing is important when you make sterling silver jewelry,” he explains. “When you heat it up, copper rises to the surface and creates a film. If you don't polish that off, it creates what’s called ‘fire scale,’ which gives it a shadowy effect.” Selling to The Quest led to
Music has always been important to Stan Tait’s life, even when he stepped away from a touring band in the 1970s and began making jewelry.
Tait’s first major commission of four bracelets in 18-karat gold for Birks. Considering his only training was watching a goldsmith named Chang Sun, Tait’s path seemed destined. Tait’s blend of spiritual teachings is woven into his artwork. “I was raised Catholic and I went to a private boarding school with Christian Brothers of Ireland,” he says. “They were deeply spiritual men with a purpose, which is inundated in their faith. At the same time, I was immersed in Native spirituality as well as Eastern traditions.” Another significant turning point for Tait was meeting his second partner, from Rosseau, Ontario. She lived on a 400-acre farm outside of town, and her parents followed the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of the Waldorf School of Education. In the early 1980s, Tait moved from his home in Vancouver overlooking the ocean to a one-room schoolhouse in Rosseau in the middle of winter, with a broken foot and no firewood. But they persevered, built a log home and had three beautiful children.
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Meanwhile, Tait had an opportunity to Crafts and took part in his first craft show, The shine of Stan Tait’s sterling sell at the Ontario Crafts Council store in Art in the Park, and never looked back. silver jewelry is something he’s taken care to polish ever since he Yorkville, called the Guild Shop. “I phoned “They were very supportive,” he recalls. began making and selling pieces. that store when I first arrived, and they took “Muskoka is an absolute breeding ground Without polishing, copper that rises everything I had,” Tait recalls. “Then they for creativity. They wanted us to expand, to the surface when the silver is asked me to make larger and more expensive grow and develop. It’s a fabulous place to be heated creates a shadowy effect. pieces. It was like getting a record contract as an artist.” and having to write and record three albums Despite Tait’s easy success, he is no heirloom gold pieces that can no right away. Ontario opened up a whole new stranger to the dark depths of tragedy and longer be worn. By melting a field of opportunity for me.” loss. “I've had phases where I feel I can't ring down, for example, he In 1992, Tait established his first very move,” he shares. “That’s when I would can add it to a whole new own studio gallery in Rosseau, in a small just sit and make stuff, like little piece to keep the senaddition to Hilltop Interiors, now owned by pine tree pendants and earrings. timental value alive Lena Patten. At that time, it was owned by I'd make hundreds of rings while giving it a Audrey Tournay, founder of Aspen Valley and hundreds of earrings – modern design. Wildlife Sanctuary. Two years later, he just repetitive production “There are so moved his gallery and family to Port Carling work.” many jewelry to qualify for the Muskoka Autumn Studio These days, Tait is focused pieces inheritTour and the One-of-a-Kind Art Show. on custom, one-of-a-kind ed from those “I'm now celebrating 50 years as a pieces. “I still have my iconic who have passed jeweller,” says Tait. “And Muskoka has been THE pieces that I make and designs COLLECTION RIOBEL MOMENTI™ on,” says Tait. “And AT KNOWLES the most incredible, fertile landscape for me AVAILABLE from the '70s when I got my start,” PLUMBING! they’re just sitting creatively. The galleries and clients here are he says. “But my inspiration could come around because they’re too excited about work that’s new and innofrom anywhere. Creativity is about keeping delicate to be worn. So, I'm turning them vative. I couldn't do this in most places in things moving. It flows like a river, and you into beautiful wearable art. It’s inspiring to Canada.” can try to dam it up, but it doesn’t stop.” have someone bring me a something that’s BATH &joined KI TC H EArts N and SH OW R O OTait Mis repurposing family In 1988, Tait Muskoka Currently, meaningful to them and give it new life.” DESI GN. INSTALLATION. REPAIR S E RVI N G ALL OF M USKOKA 279 MANI TOBA ST, BR AC EBR ID G E
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One of the most notable career highlights for Tait was in 2009 when he signed a licensing contract with Zales Jewelry Corporation for his angel pendant design. The angel pendant was designed for a client whose best friend was recovering from surgery. After nursing her friend for six weeks through a devastating health crisis, she wanted to leave her with a guardian angel as a symbol of her love and care. “She asked me to design an angel,” Tait recalls, “And as I was talking to her on the phone, I sketched it out. I've still got the drawing. She wanted it in gold, which I didn’t have and she needed it quickly. It weighed heavily on my mind, not just the logistics of fulfilling the order but also about the intention behind the angel. It had to be something that immediately tells the recipient, ‘I love you, I’m here for you, and I will be your guardian angel. When I can’t be with you physically, I’ll be with you in spirit.’” That’s when the angel pendant was born. Tait soon began making the pendant for families and friends. He introduced them into his showcase and they become quite popular, so he launched a website to raise money for various charities.
Stan Tait's angel pendant design was born from a client wanting something to give to a friend with health challenges, so the friend would always know someone was with her. Tait made the first hundred by hand and then he had a mold made for production in Toronto. He then handpolished them and mailed them around the world. “I realized I had something that could touch a lot of lives,” Tait says. “So, I started searching for a company that could make, distribute and sell the pendant. I phoned everybody I could think of. Finally, I was looking at a jewelry magazine, and I read about Zales Jewellers in the US. They were the second largest jewelry retailer in North America. I managed to reach the CFO and I told him about my angel. He told me to send a package to the executive vice president. I spent a week writing a letter to introduce the philosophy and the intention behind creating the angel, explaining that it's not just a product but a sincere connection between people.” Tait’s heartfelt presentation was successful. A couple of weeks later, he got a phone call from the executive vice president of merchandising in Dallas, Texas. She loved the idea and had never seen anything like it before. She flew Tait to Texas for a meeting with the de-
partment heads. They all loved it and offered him an exclusive licensing agreement. “All I wanted was the royalties on the design,” says Tait. “So, they were very amenable to working with me. We developed a trademark and a copyright, which led to a complete line of display cases for each store. My pendant ended up in 1,400 stores across America, front and centre. An Olympic athlete was even wearing one during an interview on ABC television. It was pretty surreal.” Once again, Tait’s sincere and authentic attitude proved advantageous. His vision for the angel pendant was not to make a lot of money but to be a vehicle to celebrate the powerful connection between loved ones. The financial success was just icing on the cake. “For me, the success of the angel pendant is in the fact that people come to my gallery and say they need one,” Tait explains. “Not, ‘I want one,’ but ‘I need one.’ It just felt like the angel came to me for a reason and I did something with it.” Currently, Tait’s gallery is in Bracebridge where he lives with his wife Sue, who is also an artist. Visits to the gallery are by appointment through his website. Whether he’s single-handedly producing a song in his recording studio or designing a unique piece of jewelry, it’s effortless – he’s not doing, he’s just being. “Life is the ultimate unfolding experience,” Tait says. “It's trusting that if you meet life, life will meet you back.”
Whether making jewelry or writing songs, or anything else he sets out to do, Stan Tait allows life to unfold, letting whatever happens guide him forward.
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Nichole Kitchen, executive director of Muskoka Arts and Crafts, is excited about the organization’s new space in downtown Bracebridge and the many opportunities it provides for members and the community.
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Article by Bronwyn Boyer / Photography by Josianne Masseau
I
n 1963, Bracebridge librarian Betty Reid polled the town in her newspaper column “Library Corner” about the possibility of a summer arts sale. “What would you think of having an arts and crafts sale during the summer when visitors are looking for something to take home to remind them of their holiday?” Reid asked. “Properly organized, this could develop into an annual highlight of the summer season.” Although Marge Donaldson was the only one who responded, it was enough to get the ball rolling. She hosted a meeting at her home to brainstorm ideas for the show. The handful of people who attended became the first committee for Muskoka Arts and Crafts, including Mrs. Douglas Howie, Mrs. Audrey Hammell and Mrs. Margo Paterson. The first show that year was held August 16 and 17 at Memorial Park. Artists were asked to submit their wares for an entry fee of one dollar but initially only one application was received. The committee doubled their efforts to get more participants and they were able to secure fifty artists. The show was attended by an estimated 3,000 people, making it a success. A decade later, when the show had grown large enough to require a bigger space, it was relocated to Annie Williams Park, where it’s been each year since. The only exception was
in 2020, when it had to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fast-forward to today, the not-for-profit arts conglomerate is seeing many changes to update its operations into the modern age, using new technology to stimulate growth and expansion. In 2021, Elene Freer retired from her 31-year career as executive director, bringing a significant turning point to Muskoka Arts and Crafts (MAC). Freer’s torch officially passed to Nichole Kitchen as the new executive director in 2022. Kitchen moved from Toronto to Bracebridge in 2020 but growing up in Elliot Lake gave her a familiarity with small town life. With a background in interior design, Kitchen was the project manager for many large construction projects in Toronto. “I was on building projects for hotels, restaurants, offices and retail stores,” Kitchen shares. “But when the pandemic hit, everything changed. I grew up going to the cottage in Dorset, so the Muskoka area has always felt like home.” After their son was born, Kitchen and her husband wanted to raise him in a small town that was accessible to Toronto. She worked remotely for the first two years on the Royal Hotel in Prince Edward County.
August 2024 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 35
MAC on Main, the new space in downtown Bracebridge, gives Muskoka Arts and Crafts a place for members and new faces to drop in, as well as a space to host shows and events. The beloved Chapel Gallery will still be used for art classes and even a residency program in the future. After that project ended, Kitchen felt a need for a career change. “I really wanted to do something more community oriented,” she says. “And my sister had sent me the job application for Muskoka Arts and Crafts, so I reached out to them. I think I had an interview the next day and got the job offer the day after that.” The timing couldn’t have been better for Kitchen’s arrival. “I think at that point MAC was at a crossroads,” she recalls. “The executive director had just left and they were still recovering from the pandemic,” she says. “The board was faced with the question of whether or not the organization was worth saving. And they decided in the end that it absolutely was.” Kitchen’s experience as executive director has been a full-time undertaking to revitalize MAC and develop innovative ideas to ensure its longevity. “I’m trying to rebuild and modernize our operations to make us more visible in the community,” she explains. “I want to offer exciting new exhibitions. This is a big year of partnerships.” In February 2024, MAC’s new gallery space at 63 Manitoba St., called MAC On
36 UNIQUE MUSKOKA August 2024
Main, had its official opening, and held its first exhibition on March 1st. One of the first issues Kitchen wanted to solve was their lack of visibility and accessibility. “As adorable as the Chapel Gallery is, it was hard for even some locals to find,” Kitchen explains. “We had gone as far as could in terms of marketing it but we needed a spot downtown, to be able to participate more easily in community events.” Recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic has been a significant challenge for the organization. “Having things shut down really affected visibility because there wasn’t a huge online presence,” Kitchen explains. “It was hard to keep people engaged while they weren't able to gather. So, we’ve been trying to figure out how to pivot from that. The first task was to overhaul our website and social media presence.” Over the past year, Kitchen has been working to access grants to help upgrade MAC and expand membership. This spring saw the launch of the digital version of the Muskoka Arts and Crafts guidebook, last published in 2019. “It’s a beautiful guidebook,” Kitchen says. “But really
expensive to print. And now it would be double the cost. Making it digital also makes it more environmentally friendly.” To that end, Kitchen launched a new app, where all MAC resources can now be found. “It’s a new piece of technology I’m really excited about,” she says. “It’s where people can purchase our summer show tickets this year at a discounted rate, as well as the guide with all of our featured artisans. We also highlight our member directory, our Shopify
All resources and information previously found in MAC's annual show guidebook can now be found on their app, launched earlier this year.
site, all of our calls for entries and all the other new things MAC is doing. It's also nice because I think most people are tired of email newsletters. Being able to send out notifications about events through the app is a better way to keep people informed.” Creating new partnerships is also important. “This year, we’ve partnered with the Prince Edward County Art Council for our spring members show,” Kitchen explains. “They're going to be bringing their spring member show here in September. And then we're going to be taking all of our members’ work to their beautiful new gallery in downtown Picton.” MAC will also be doing an art crawl in September, along with an arts and crafts market for youth in partnership with the Rotary Gardens. “Anybody 18 and under can apply,” Kitchen says. “Whether you're a musician, a visual artist or maybe you just want to sell lemonade, we want to provide opportunities for young entrepreneurs.” In October, MAC will be collaborating with Craft Ontario, an arts organization out of Toronto to jury the show. The winner will
get a spot in downtown Toronto on Queen Street for the end of November, which leads into the holiday market at MAC on Main. MAC’s regular programs at the Chapel Gallery will resume in the fall, where a new residency program is also in the works. Kitchen emphasizes the importance of partnerships with youth organizations to have student shows at the gallery. “We want to get more young people involved in the arts,” she states. “Shows for teens that focus on mental health issues, for instance, could be beneficial.” Kitchen is also working on managing a mural project with the District of Muskoka. A new mural is currently underway in Gravenhurst and another will be installed in the new arena in Bracebridge. Pop-ups at Hospice in Port Carling and the Muskoka airport will also be happening this summer. Kitchen’s task is overwhelming but connecting with a creative community keeps her inspired. “I just keep thinking, we're in this amazingly beautiful place where people come to escape the city and seek solitude,” says Kitchen. “My hope is that as MAC
Muskoka Arts and Crafts’ shows and exhibitions have come a long way from the first show in the 1960s. Under Nichole Kitchen’s leadership, the organization is stepping into a new space, with new partnerships and ideas to carry them forward.
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Art produced by Muskoka Arts and Crafts members covers a wide variety of styles and mediums. grows, we find more platforms where like-minded people can create a tight-knit support system. I think that’s really important right now.” Mixed media artist Col Mitchell became a MAC member in 2008, while she was the president of the Huntsville Art Crowd, which is now the Huntsville Art Society. “The Huntsville Art Crowd was talking about disbanding,” Mitchell recalls. “And I had just become a member, so I didn’t want that to happen. I got talked into the position and I had no idea what I was doing. It was really helpful to be able to connect with Elene Freer as somebody who was in a similar position. It was a very exciting time and it was very educational.” The workshops MAC provided about becoming a professional artist, from how to do radio interviews, to merchandising and
setting up booths gave Mitchell a lot of confidence for her first solo show at the Chapel Gallery. “I was so particular about all the details of the show,” she recalls. “All their feedback and guidance gave me pretty high standards. That’s why I told Elene that she created a monster. I was the monster that MAC created.” Mitchell grew quickly as an artist thanks in large part to the influence of MAC. “I attended a very inspirational workshop on working with paper on canvas,” she recalls. “That's where my own technique sprung from.” According to Mitchell, being a member of MAC is a constant learning experience. “Artists share a lot with each other,” Mitchell explains. “They’re generous with tips and tricks about places to go and shows that are happening. We have opportunities to teach, as well as to show and sell our work. We’re not doing all the footwork to convince a business to display our pieces. Having MAC clear that path is a tremendous benefit because we can focus more time on being creative. It also creates jobs in the arts, which is great too.” Another longtime MAC member is Bracebridge painter Wendie Donabie. “MAC is a wonderful, welcoming and very diverse organization,” she states. “And now even
more so, primarily, I feel, because of Nichole. Of course, Elene did an amazing job for over 30 years. But it needed to move into modern times to attract a younger and broader range of artists. Now our membership isn't limited to Muskoka - anyone can join.” Donabie is excited MAC now has members from Toronto and outside the province. “It's brought a different kind of energy,” she says. “And a different type of work too. Also, moving to the main street is very forward thinking. A lot of people who live up here don't even know that we exist. MAC on Main is also larger and allows for a variety of presentations, whereas the Chapel Gallery is limited to small-scale exhibitions.” While some members may struggle to adapt to the modernization of MAC, Donabie is all for it. “Some older members are kind of resistant to the new app,” she says. “But to me, it's exciting. I'm 73 and I love this technology because it means that people can easily access the artists. If they're interested in paintings, they just search for painters or if they want pottery, they can search potters. They can easily find what attracts them to the area.” If Betty Reid could see what she started with her question in her newspaper column in 1963, she would be incredulous. MAC has become so much more than a smalltown summer craft show and it will surely continue to reach new heights.
Sacred Strength is a celebration of Indigenous ribbon skirts. The exhibit on display at MAC on Main shares detailed descriptions of each skirt and a QR code to learn more about the Hope Rises Project. 38 UNIQUE MUSKOKA August 2024
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The Duke Marine Services building has stood for decades in Port Carling, although the original building burned in 1931 and was rebuilt thereafter.
Article and Photography by Tim Du Vernet
A
century ago, Charlie Duke and Ernie Greavette formed a partnership under the name of Duke and Greavette. The partnership lasted until 1926, when Duke took over the shop and formed Duke Motor Service. Over time, the name Duke’s became a marker of a well-built,
handsome watercraft. In the beginning, boats were first built in a shop that Ernie Greavette had taken over from John Matheson, located just below the locks in Port Carling. In 1931, a fire ripped through the village and destroyed many of the buildings in town including the boat shop
and storage shed. While many wooden boats were destroyed in the fire, some were saved by being pushed out of the burning shop into the water below. After the fire, a new building was constructed, which has been a fixture of the Port Carling waterfront landscape since. The most common and best-known model
The Playmate is the most well-known model of wooden boat constructed by Duke Boats.
of boat constructed by Duke’s was the Playmate. These were designed and built beginning in the 1930s. Duke’s also built a number of custom launches, particularly in the 1920s, which still ply the waters today, such as Osprey II. As the Second World War broke out, the boat builders of Muskoka were building craft for the navy, such as mine sweepers. The cycle of life in Port Carling is very much tied to seasonal changes and the wooden boatbuilding industry flourished at a time when roads had yet to give convenient access to the shoreline. There were also no alternatives to wooden boats until fibreglass started to replace wood in the 1970s. At various times throughout its years, many members of the Duke family were involved in the boat business as well. The traditions of boatbuilding at Duke’s continued essentially unchanged for about 80 years until Ed Skinner retired from managing the shop and the building was put up for sale. In 2011, Kathy McCarthy and Jeremy Fowler purchased the historic building. “The name Duke's is already established and has been around for over 100 years in wooden boating history,” says McCarthy. “Some of the most famous boat builders in Muskoka have worked in this shop, and currently, most of the boat builders out there have worked at Duke's.” Initially, McCarthy and Fowler were convinced that Duke Boats Ltd. would continue as a 'Wooden Boat Centre of Muskoka.' Offering boat sales, brokerage, service and, of course, new boat construction and restoring and refinishing of old boats. They continued to manage the restoration of wooden boats for nearly a decade with Eric Marr and Sam Diller in
the shop. “There isn't a better location to build boats in Muskoka,” says McCarthy. “Port Carling is the hub of the Muskoka Lakes and we're situated right on the Indian River; it's incredible. It's the perfect match, perfect location, amazing boatbuilders – it's a winning combination.” Jeremy Masterson, who worked at Duke’s back in the late 1980’s remembers some of the historic boats that came through the shop such as MTP5, a Toronto Police boat. “The restoration was very extensive,” says Masterson, “made more so by a previous repair in which the boat builder had insisted on carving his initials into the back of every single piece he put into it. We had to replace all of these pieces whether or not they were actually bad but because the carvings were visible on the interior and were not appropriate for the type of restoration we were doing.” It doesn’t take much of a stretch in time to remember when the Duke Boats building was a busy boatbuilding and repair shop. Ed Skinner took over the boatbuilding business from the Duke family in 1977 and, in partnership with Rick Terry, formed Duke Marine Services. From that point, new boats were no longer built but nearly all aspects of wooden boats continued to be serviced. The old building was filled with ancient hand tools, machines and hardware for addressing all the functions of a wooden boat: machining, shaping wood and refinishing. The arrangement of the pulleys and machines dictated what stages of repairs and restoration would happen in one part of the building or
Most of the boat builders in Muskoka worked at Duke Marine Services at one point and some of the most famous boat builders learned or honed their craft there.
When Duke Marine Services operated as a repair shop, boats made their way from water-level to the second floor hoisted by pulleys. The floor covering was then replaced and a boat could be moved around on dollies or ceiling rails through the repair shop. another. “Working at Duke's was a unique experience,” explains Masterson. “The old boat house had a certain ambiance that could be had nowhere else. Especially in winter. I remember there was still a section of line shaft that powered the metal lathe on the ground level with pulleys and wide belts. When the big electric motor was turned on to run the lathe, the entire building shook with the unbalanced shafts. The varnisher would take a week off afterwards to let the dust settle.” One of the most entertaining aspects of the Duke building was the process by which boats found their way from the water level docks to the second floor. A boat would come into the lower-level dock and then be hoisted up to the second floor. When the second floor covering had been replaced, a boat could be pushed around either on dollies or ceiling rails that supported the hoists. These lingering
August 2024 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 41
Since Charlie Duke was constructing boat models with wood and paper glued together in the 1920s, Duke Boats has become a name synonymous with wooden boats. memories of Duke Boats are a key part of the character of the building. Despite the passion for wooden boats, Duke Boats Ltd. has been transformed, bit by bit, into separate spaces that offer retail, dining and Hatchets Rowing Centre. Now, the Duke building is preserved as a structure but serves a vastly different role in the community. “I feel like Duke’s was a huge opportunity that came into our lives,” shares McCarthy. “We were already looking for a place to call home, a place to build boats. We live in Port Carling already. We can walk to work now and we want to raise our family here.” Looking back after owning the Duke building for 13 years, McCarthy explains how some aspects of their new vision evolved. “In 2009, Jeremy and I had started a rowing centre and also gotten involved with Butson’s Boat Shop,” shares McCarthy. “These were both in Minett at Wallace Marine. We were leasing space for both of these businesses and wanted to purchase a location so that we were building some equity in real estate.” On a spring day in 2011, while walking together in Port Carling with their newborn child they found their wandering had taken them to the Duke’s building. Fowler introduced McCarthy to Ed Skinner, owner of Duke’s at the time. In conversation, they talked about the building being for sale. An offer was pending completion. “We ended up buying one of his old work
42 UNIQUE MUSKOKA August 2024
boats, saying goodbye and continuing on our wanderings,” says McCarthy. “Next stop was the Muskoka Lakes mMuseum. At that point we weren’t thinking of purchasing the building but as we stood reading the history of the Duke’s building in the museum, it started us thinking that it would, in fact, be a great location for both a rowing centre and boatbuilding business and instead of the Duke Boats story ending in tear down and redevelopment, we could
keep the building alive.” When the pending offer Skinner had told them about didn’t firm up, McCarthy and Fowler put their own offer in and purchased the Duke’s building in September of 2011. “We also purchased the Duke Boats Limited name with the building,” explains McCarthy, “and we were excited to merge Butson’s Boat Shop with Duke Boats and move Hatchets Rowing Centre into the building too.” What has emerged since their purchase of the building is a blend between the commercial and historical value of the structure and its name. “We love the building and love the history,” shares McCarthy. “We love having our family right here in town and biking to work every day in the summer to teach people to row. We love contributing to the downtown community in Port Carling and being right on the water. We love hearing about all the different people who have been involved in the history of the building over the years and love supporting the wooden boat community. Really, our 13 years here has been a small portion of the history. I don’t believe it’s an official heritage site but
Hatchets Rowing Centre makes use of the slips at the Duke Boats building to coach rowers in everything from training boats to 30-foot racing singles.
we definitely want to preserve the history of the building.” Adapting to and with an existing structure like the Duke building clearly offers challenges and opportunities. McCarthy explains that “when we originally purchased the building, we envisioned a great café downstairs where the old store was and we actually opened that up as the Bent Rudder Café. We filled in one of the slips at the far end of the building to be used for Hatchets Rowing Centre. And the rest of the building was kept for operating Duke Boats. But then lots of things started happening.” A restaurant, retail fashion and a “general store” of products that would leverage the Duke Boats heritage and logo filled in where the slips once were as well as the original store, office and more. “In 2019, we decided to close down the wooden boatbuilding and restoration part of the business,” explains McCarthy. While not an easy decision to make with the history of the building, they could now focus on their passion for rowing and pull all the other unique features and services of the building together. The second floor also offers “a beautiful little, short term rental apartment so that guests can have a quiet escape, but still be right in the middle of the action,” shares McCarthy. The businesses operating from the retail spaces recognize the special heritage of the building and try to honour it as they can. Fate may have spoken to Fowler and McCarthy in the way the use of the building space has unfolded. “We did not envision exactly how things have grown but by partnering with so many different individuals on ideas, we are really happy with how the building is being used today,” explains McCarthy. A new generation has taken over the building and it seems to feel right. For anyone who remembers the comings and going of wooden boats, the former slips are now the stage for the hustle and bustle of retail stores and restaurants. From the docks of Hatchets Rowing Centre, McCarthy offers coaching in rowing in a variety of boats from 30-foot racing singles to more forgiving training boats. While not the sleek wooden boats the Duke name is famous for, the docks and the building serve a new purpose that honours boatbuilding history.
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AUG
02
YUK YUK'S ON THE ROAD
Stand up Comedy at Canvas Brewery
AUG
MOVIE ON THE DOCKS
AUG
CLASSIC ALBUMS LIVE: LED ZEPPELIN II
03
08
AUG
09
SEP
MATTHEW GOOD & HIS BAND
SEP
21
Festival FavoUrite Offers a Solo Show
SEP
Juno Nominated Female Duo Brings a Night Harmony and Beautiful Songs
19
FREE Outdoor Movie Experience
Note for Note, Cut for Cut Covering This Legendary Album
DREAMING OF THE 80'S
A Nostalgic Reimaging of Hits from the 80's
28
Multi Platinum Selling Rock Artist at the Algonquin Theatre
DANNY MICHEL
Part of the Nursery Nights Concert Series - Sandhill Nursery
MADISON VIOLET
Part of the Nursery Nights Concert Series - Sandhill Nursery
ANGELIQUE FRANCIS
AUG
10
AUG
17
AUG
17
CANDLE LIGHT CONCERTS KYUNG-A LEE
Local Piano Vituouso Offers an Intimate Solo Performance
CHOIR! CHOIR! CHOIR!
Epic 80's Singalong. Matinee at 2pm
CHOIR! CHOIR! CHOIR!
Hallelujah! An Epic Anthems Sing-Along Evening Show at 8pm
OCT
05
18
AUG
30
AUG
31 SEP
1-30 SEP
14
THE JIM CUDDY BAND
06 OCT
24
A Stripped Down Duo Show Full of Tom's Favourite Songs and the Stories Behind Them
DONOVAN WOODS: LIVING WELL TOUR
Masterful Singer Songwriter Returns to the Algonquin Theatre Stage
MATT DUSK: THE BEST IS YET TO COME
02
Platinum Award-Winning Crooner Matt Dusk Pays Homage to the Legendary Tony Bennett
NOV
08
An Intimate Solo Concert with one of Canada's Premier Country Stars
NOV
SUE FOLEY: ONE WOMAN GUITAR SHOW
A Hot Ticket!
YUK YUK'S ON THE ROAD
Part of the Nursery Nights Concert Series - Sandhill Nursery
TOM COCHRANE: SONGS & STORIES OCT
NOV AUG
An Exciting Mix of Blues, Soul, Folk, Americana, Jazz, Gospel and Rock
GEORGE CANYON
Stand up Comedy at Canvas Brewery
MOVIE ON THE DOCKS
21
Celebrating the History of the Guitar and the Women that Changed the World
NOV
THE NUTCRACKER: A CANADIAN TRADITION
FREE Outdoor Movie Experience
SACRED STRENGTH
Exhibition of Indigenous Ribbon Skirts at HfA Studio
ELLIOTT BROOD
Alternative Country & Roots
23
NOV
27
Holiday magic is made year after year by Ballet Jörgen’s traditional treasure
GLASS TIGER: THIS ISLAND EARTH A Retrospective Celebration of One of Canada's Most Iconic Bands
Part of the Nursery Nights Concert Series - Sandhill Nursery
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Photograph: Frank Micklethwaite / courtesy W.F. Micklethwaite Archive
As the Roaring Twenties were getting underway in Muskoka, this engaging image captures the state of regattas with the annual one at Bala.
Article by J. Patrick Boyer among others. However, the gulf was real and generated successive conflicts, which is often still the case today. The urban-rural tension endures because the two communities became mutually dependent and, indeed, successful partners. Reliance on skilled and knowledgeable locals by well-off and well-connected outsiders produced more long-term gains than setbacks.
Working together, many full time Muskokans earned their livelihoods doing the things seasonal residents needed – from construction to retail to maintenance services – an exchange that incrementally made the vacation economy more of a year-round operation. With permanent residents enjoying Muskoka’s four seasons, part time residents began extending their time in the district,
Midway attractions and sometimes exotic animals became added features of Muskoka fall fairs, like these tamed elephants parading along Gravenhurst’s main street in 1900. August 2024 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 45
Photograph: Gravenhurst Archives
M
uskoka’s dual society formed organically, not the result of a conscious plan. From the opening of district settlement, people had been adjusting to a great many differences in their outlooks and actions. The gap between those with metropolitan expectations arriving from southern cities for vacations and the hinterland values of those living full time in the northland seemed just one more problem
Photograph: Robert Ironside, Toronto Postcard Club
During the First World War, the Honey Harbour Ladies’ Tandem Canoe Race became more popular as women, stylish in their summer whites, were taking greater roles in the war effort. too, discovering more benefits beyond summer months by winterizing cottages, building full-service homes, enjoying winter sports and the altered landscape when lakes resembled snow-covered farmers’ fields, even providing escape from cities when fleeing COVID-19 for northland security and enrolling their youngsters in Muskoka schools – patterns of ever-increasing mingling underway since the 1860s.
The vacation economy arose opportunistically to become the district’s fourth pillar alongside agriculture, forest industries and manufacturing. The watershed draining through Muskoka to Georgian Bay created conditions which caused people entering the district to form two communities, one pragmatically engaged in farming, lumbering or industrial work, the other attracting visitors to the escapist
pleasures of woodland adventure and water-centred activity. The expression “Muskoka’s tourism industry,” which began circulating in the 1970s, misrepresented the permanently embedded vacationing phenomenon that emerged in three distinct patterns. “Tourists” arrived to see both the natural and built attractions of the district and mostly have a transitory or touring
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Photograph: John Boyd / Library and Archives Canada
The hinterland sport of loggers entertaining themselves atop a waterborne log they got rolling faster and faster without toppling off – explaining the odd foot positioning of these two contestants at a 1913 Muskoka regatta – was not one many summer cottagers attempted. A theatre for witnessing Muskoka’s two cohabiting communities is their respective centerpiece performances – the yearly summer regattas and fall fairs, each district institutions from earliest settlement days and still holding centre stage. Watersport competitions organized by cottager associations, resort hotels and summer camps blend intense competitive spirit with social companionability at the height of vacation season. Some year-round Muskokans have cottages and participate, yet more as on-lookers than social equals, while most locals remain hard at work providing the goods and services needed for the vacation economy to keep functioning smoothly.
Agricultural societies of the district hold fairs in the fall when crops are harvested and most city-dwellers have returned south, although a number who extend the season enjoy the musical entertainment and rustic, countryside contact with the scent and sight of showpiece livestock and fowl and the wide-ranging exhibits for winning entries of fabric work, baked goods, floral arrangements and crafts. Like regattas, fairs are community reunions. Many venerable boathouses are lined with winning ribbons from generations of canoe, swimming and sailing competitions that trace the athletic primacy of families as surely as pencil lines and dates on cottage doorframes track the rising stature of the next wave of
Photograph: Frank Micklethwaite / courtesy W.F. Micklethwaite Archive
relationship with Muskoka – one more locale on their bucket-list to check off. “Holidayers” came to stay at the district’s summer resorts, campsites and motels to enjoy a good time and send “Wish you were here!” picture postcards in the days before they could dispatch selfies as they now do. Third, the most enduring drivers of Muskoka vacationing are the battalions of part time residents owning all manner of seasonal homes in the district. To all – tourist, holidayer or cottager – the district offers a place when those freed from other people’s demands and schedules at work or school can unwind by breaking from routine. As the southernmost of the province’s northland districts, Muskoka’s potency resides in the stark difference from those regions. With the Canadian Shield’s primordial display of ancient rock, swaying pines, fresh air and clean waters, a Muskoka zeitgeist takes hold of one’s ever-active mind. For instance, capturing many a professional person who’d jammed a briefcase with “must read” documents only to pick it up, unopened by the cottage door, when returning to the city. Muskoka’s two-in-one community is distinct because socially, culturally and economically, seasonal Muskokans are products of urban living and embrace expectations of the metropolis while the district’s full time residents reflect country living and hold more closely to hinterland values.
By 1905, the Beaumaris Hotel of Edward Prowse hosted a full-scale regatta on its front lawns and Lake Muskoka harbour, with sleek steamers arriving from points all over the Muskoka Lakes, delivering spectator attendees still dressing in the Victorian Age style – styles that would also be displayed at the era’s warm weather fall fairs. August 2024 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 47
Photograph: Frank Micklethwaite / courtesy W.F. Micklethwaite Archive
Muskoka children got a holiday in early autumn for Fair Day. Pupils from various schools massed and marched to fairgrounds. The well-dressed students pleased parade-watchers as they stretch down the unpaved main street, wending their way onward to the Jubilee Park Fair Grounds.
48 UNIQUE MUSKOKA August 2024
became a model, yet proliferation of cottager associations, lakeside resorts and summer camps on the extensive watershed gave rise to all manner of regattas reflecting the greater diversity of Muskokans. At Sparrow Lake in the south, with more than a dozen resort hotels, there was no end of organized boating and swimming contests. In central Muskoka the formally organized Mary Lake Regatta Association’s officers and directors of respected locals and prestigious summer residents ran the yearly water competitions at Port Sydney’s sandy beach. Over on the district’s northwestern border with Haliburton County, summer regatta competitions at Kawagama Lake between Camp Otter and Camp Inawedawin featured city youth excelling in canoe racing like full-blood sons of the hinterland. On the southwest, the Honey Harbour Association sponsored annual summer regattas from its early existence.
Photograph: Boyer Family Archives
athletes. In tandem, district barns and garden sheds display winning ribbons for best-inclass horses, cows, sheep, goats, chickens, ducks or sheaves of wheat, barley, and oats. Summer regattas and fall fairs both open with speeches and ceremony, have internal rhythms long familiar to regular attendees and provide an enjoyable outlet for accomplishment, companionship and budding romance. Each has steadily evolved with changes in styles, technology, social practices and activities emblematic of their respective communities. Early regattas of the Muskoka Lakes Association included such hinterland sport as logrolling and walking a greased pole until both slipped off the roster as too bush-like for sophisticated city folk. No better talisman for this sort of evolution exists than events of the MLA, holder of North America’s record for longest-running summer regatta. The yearly accounts of its competitive events, stellar athleticism and prominent personages officiating – such as Canadian prime ministers giving an opening address – document social, cultural and athletic shifts through time. “Regatta Day” became a social showcase centred around watersport athletics. However, it was also the runway for the most recent fashion – attractive young people in “bathing costumes” that became skimpier as Victorian prudishness yielded to the Roaring Twenties and, ever since, to less fabric and more flesh. Because the Muskoka Lakes Association dominated the district’s prestigious central lakes for so long, its standards and classiness
Fall fairs, too, have also been a focal point in Muskoka since earliest settlement days for the district’s farmers and their allied community of full time residents. When a land boom erupted in Muskoka with the Free Grant Land program, it filled the district with pioneer farmers. By 1877 central Macaulay Township, out of which Bracebridge grew, was all taken up except for five of the most marginal lots. One of the earliest steps to organize Muskoka homesteading operations was formation of agricultural societies. The societies began holding fairs so their members could compete displaying their livestock, poultry, vegetables, fruits, baked goods and fabric work for others to see. Fall fairs began through the 1800s at Severn Bridge, Gravenhurst, Germania, Bracebridge, Utterson, Port Sydney, Baysville, Port Carling and Huntsville. “Fair Day” was not confined to a community’s fair ground with its dedicated display buildings, livestock pens, stables, poultry cages, racetrack, viewing stands, Ferris wheel and merry-go-round, and midway prizes to be won. It included dining on hotdogs, cotton candy, ice cream waffles and candied apples. Schools closed so well-dressed local pupils could assemble with banners and march through the streets lined with adult well-wishers cheering their offspring as they snaked toward the fairgrounds where hundreds and hundreds of townies and country folks also streamed. A general policy held that no liquor should be available on Fall Fair Day. In 1916, Bracebridge’s Dominion Hotel was slapped
A racetrack rimmed Bracebridge’s Fair Grounds and harness racers not in the lead on the dry course ate a lot of dust rounding their sulkies in 1920. The barn-like buildings are display halls.
Photograph: Frank Micklethwaite / courtesy W.F. Micklethwaite Archive
In 1907 the MLA regatta was held in Port Carling where spectators lined both sides of the Indian River below the locks on boats and docks. Vessels at the right, displaying a variety of flags, reflect the vital summer presence of Americans in the district and the Anglo-American culture of Muskoka. with a $250 fine for selling it. With the town full of starry-eyed youngsters from the rural schools and its own public schools roaming everywhere, the policy was to protect them from men emboldened by drink. The notion that bountiful crops were impossible in Muskoka all depended on the farmer, the farm and the produce in question. Some settlers, winners at land grant roulette, located pockets of fine Muskoka soils in the district’s scattered valleys and flats. Priding themselves on good farming practices, their crops and produce compared advantageously
when put on display locally and at major fall fairs in the populous southern parts of the province. Muskoka Agricultural Society officers displayed prize-winning produce from fairs in all sections of the district at Toronto’s Canadian National Exhibition, Ottawa’s Central Canada Exhibition and fairs at Owen Sound and Barrie. “It was difficult,” wrote Agricultural Society president James Boyer to his wife Hannah from Toronto, “to make some of the CNE visitors believe that grapes (Lindley or Rogers No. 9), some
bunches of which weighed 1¼ pounds each, were grown in the open air of Muskoka.” One of the samples of wheat grown on light, sandy soil in Macaulay was sold at the CNE’s close to an American for $1, “a very good price.” He described praise for Muskoka’s exhibits. “Our Duchess apples are not beaten by any that are exhibited prizes. Both the Globe and the Mail wanted to be paid to puff our exhibit but we refused to pay them one cent.” Muskoka also suffered from a narrow idea
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August 2024 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 49
Photograph: John McQuarrie
From their inception in the 1890s, the Muskoka Lakes Association’s summer regattas rotated annually through different locales, with villages and resorts keenly competing to be the chosen venue. In 1920, creation of the Muskoka Lakes Golf and Country Club provided a permanent home for the MLA’s centrepiece event. of what constituted “agricultural production.” By adapting to Muskoka’s potential for crops, homesteaders outdistanced farmers on the fertile rolling hills and flatlands of southern counties with bountiful yields of maple sugar, maple syrup, cranberries, wool, lamb and mutton, tan bark, logs and mixed-farm production of vegetables, fruits, chickens, eggs, pork and dairy products, including butter and cheese, as you’d find on any mixed farm in eastern Ontario or Nova Scotia.
Formation of agricultural societies in Severn Bridge, Gravenhurst, Bracebridge, Baysville, Huntsville and Rosseau helped develop better strains of crops, newer techniques in animal husbandry and improved yields. Their fall fairs, by establishing well-attended public venues for farmers to display their animals and produce and farmwives their garden flowers, baking, knitting and sewing, encouraged higher quality produce and better-bred livestock. Fostering competition, the fairs also
advanced household arts in baking, pickling, making preserves, churning butter, sewing, quilting and knitting. Summer regattas and fall fairs can be seen as the middle ground between locals and part time residents. The synergy of lake dwellers and inland folk is possible because everyone involved shares the unique Muskoka experience, whether as part time or permanent residents, with interactions and co-operation producing a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
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Article by K.M. Wehrstein / Photography by Kelly Holinshead
Y
ou might be familiar with her landscapes from studio tours. Small or large, her paintings have a richness, complexity and depth that pulls you in to experience the scene. Colours are organic, natural and gentle, lines and shapes are multifarious. A tangle of branches is depicted cherishingly, freezing the moment in appreciation. And every now and then you see a lake whose reflective golden surface changes as you move, giving a sense of aliveness to it, like a portrait whose eyes follow you around the room.
52 UNIQUE MUSKOKA August 2024
Catherine O’Mara is strong in work ethic and meticulous at every stage – necessary traits for her Renaissance-rooted medium, egg tempera paint with gold leaf – and has come to a turning point in her life. Born in Huntsville, she comes from an artistic family. Her sister, potter Susan Colavecchia, has shared in every show or tour. Her great grandmother was an artist and craftsperson right up until her death at age 105. Her mother paints. “When I was a kid, I liked to draw,” O’Mara says. “My first day in school, I drew a picture of
a horse and the teacher held it up to the class.” She was assigned by teachers to make drawings as teaching aids. Once grown up, however, she didn’t start painting until she was in her thirties, her time until then taken up by stay-at-home mothering. Self-taught, mostly through books, she says, “I had an old artist’s handbook and looked up egg tempera when someone mentioned it. It sounded very daunting and complicated, so I read about it for years before trying it.” From experience, she recommends The
Artist Catherine O’Mara creates layers of depth and complexity in what could be simple scenes of the natural world using her talent and techniques. The application of gold foil to her egg tempera paintings adds an even greater sense of movement in her scenes. Egg tempera, used by the Renaissance masters to paint, mixes egg yolk and water in equal parts and then adds pigment powder.
Luminous Brush by Altoon Sultan for beginning egg tempera painters and Egg Tempera Painting: A Comprehensive Guide by Koo Schadler for a thorough source. In the early 1980s, when her neighbour Orla Irwin ran a framing business, O’Mara would help out while their two-year-old kids played together. “That’s when it twigged with me: maybe I should be painting those pictures,” she recalls. Around 1985, she started painting watercolours. Soon Irwin was putting them up in her store and they began to sell. Then, after seeing a home-based art show by famed American painter Trisha Romance, O’Mara
thought, “I think I could do this,” and held her first home show in 1988. For about 10 years she continued solo shows but began collaborative ones with neighbouring artists Brenda Wainman-Goulet and Jeff Miller. In 1999, O’Mara was accepted into the iconic Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour, which vastly increased her exposure. By 2005, four artists on or near Limberlost Road, west of Huntsville, were part of this tour: O’Mara, Wainman-Goulet, Brian Markham and Susan Higgins. Along with other artists in the area, they decided to create their own shorterdistance studio tour, easily doable in a day. The
For Catherine O’Mara, the pandemic helped her to learn to take her time. Taking a year to complete her painting Winter’s Rest, working on it day by day, brought her to the realization she could take the time she needs to create and not rush the process. Artists of the Limberlost Studio Tour launched in 2007. After a 17-year run and struggle during the pandemic years, this may be the final year of the tour. If it does continue it will be in a different form. But this year is definitely Catherine O’Mara’s last in the tour, she says. “Life changes and things come to an end,” O’Mara explains. “I’m going to start a new course. I’m getting older; in the time that I have left, I really want to do what I want to do.” The pandemic had a silver lining for her: “It taught me that if I take a year to do a painting, that’s okay,” she shares. Her year-long work, called Winter’s Rest, depicts a thicket of berry bushes crusted with snow and somehow makes this ordinary sight into a magical world of its own. “I learned for myself that I don’t need a deadline,” she says. “I love the fact that I have this, that I’m working every day. I feel compelled, I have to do it, if I’m not painting I miss it. You need to be doing it. My brain is always thinking about it even when I’m not doing it.” Egg tempera is what the Renaissance masters used to paint. Very simply, you mix egg yolk and water in equal parts, then add pigment powder. Things get much more complicated from there. “I work from photographs. I’m not a realist,
54 UNIQUE MUSKOKA August 2024
I’m not an impressionist, I have my own style,” O’Mara says. “When I first get up in the morning, I might sit and look at that painting for an hour before I do anything. I mix my paints – you have to make the paints every day, sometimes by the hour. Eggs are the most amazing thing; if you cook you know that. There’s natural oil, which is what cures that paint.” O’Mara paints on wood, and has refined her board preparation over the years, adding portrait linen, painting the back to control moisture and making her own gesso out of calcium carbonate and rabbit-skin glue; the full process lasts a week. Most often a painting starts out with a charcoal drawing; then she starts painting. Same as the Renaissance masters, she creates depth of colour by applying layer upon layer, since the paint is
The inspiration for Catherine O’Mara’s art comes from noticing the details all around her. Whether it’s the weeds in her yard or a stunning scene of frosted tree limbs and fall colours, her focus on the details and complexity of the world around her create an aliveness in her paintings.
translucent. “20 layers is not out of the question,” she says. “Because it’s translucent, those under-colours are affecting the top ones. You can’t blend paint on the board like with oils.” Once done, an egg tempera painting takes no less than three months to dry. “They’re soft,” she says. “You can feel them get harder and harder.” Once the painting is dry enough, she polishes it with a plain cloth to bring lustre to the surface. She is currently experimenting with expensive fixatives, the key feature being they don’t alter colour. “You love the look of your painting and you don’t want to change it,” she says, giving a nod to a product by Lascaux. “You’re always learning; you have to be. I feel like every time I do a painting, I learn something about egg tempera or colour.” A few years ago, O’Mara decided to add gold leaf to her palette. “I was five years with a painting before adding gold leaf,” she shares. “I did a lot of dreaming and thinking.” So far, she uses the gold to depict the surfaces of water. “When you look at it from different angles and light, it changes, like real life,” she says. “I find it magical, find it very enchanting.” The process of adding the gold leaf is anything but simple and can take hours. First you apply adhesive, and when it gets dry enough to be tacky, you painstakingly smooth on the gold. “I have a special tool, a gilding tip,” O’Mara explains. “You touch it to the gold leaf carefully, lay it smoothly. No breezes; you can’t have it move around. I take a brush the next day and brush over it, to firm it and give it a direction. It takes on the texture of every little thing on that board. I’ve learned that it adds to it really. You don’t want it to be like a mirror. I feel like it’s almost alive.”
The inspiration for her pieces and her drive to create, somewhat unsurprisingly, come from noticing the details all around her. “I need reference,” she shares. “I’m an observer, always was. My mother, my sister and I, we like walking in the woods and noticing every little thing. I often paint things that are outside my back door. A painting doesn’t have to be grand; it can be the weeds in my yard. I think of myself as someone who loves the littlest things. When you really look at things in nature, you see how intricate and complex and wonderful they are; you’re in awe of it.” Art, she feels, comes out of the subconscious mind, and she does it in something of a zen state. “I don’t think about what I’m doing on a good day, I just paint,” she says. “The theory of it doesn’t come into my mind. It’s in your subconscious mind. It just has become instinctual. Not a lot of thought goes into technique or theory; it’s just the doing. All these things, my dishes, my garden, my flowers; these things are all in my subconscious. You’re gathering in all that information, over many years, and it comes out in your painting.” O’Mara treasures the other artists who inspire her, especially egg-tempera specialists such as Gary Milek, Koo Schadler, Claire Basler and the best known, Andrew Wyeth. Painters must have a great interest in their own work, according to O’Mara. “Especially with egg tempera,” she says. “For months and months, you’re living in that painting.” She shares with Wyeth the tendency to spend more time thinking and dreaming about paintings than actually painting. It’s part of the process, as is insecurity. “You have highs and lows, you get frustrated or tired or bored of a painting and you’re afraid that you’ve put all this time into this and it’s not going to turn out the way you dreamed it would be,” O’Mara shares. “But you can’t stop; you look at that painting and it’s asking for more. Your artistic conscience is telling you, you must do it. I know now that if I stick with it, I will be rewarded with a painting that I like.” There are no underlying meanings to O’Mara’s paintings. “At a tour, if I hear people say ‘Doesn’t that remind you of’ whatever – this is what makes me the happiest,” she says. “I’ve made something they can relate to. When someone who has bought from me says ‘I look at your painting every day,’ that makes me happy.”
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Whats Happened
Photograph: Matt Driscoll
The debate over the future of Muskoka’s two hospitals has reached new heights following a recent decision by Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare (MAHC)'s board of directors. During their July meeting, the board of directors voted to move forward with a new plan for healthcare in the region by giving direction to their consultants to proceed with detailed planning for the redevelopment of the hospital sites in Bracebridge and Huntsville. Unanimous approval of the motion came even though Parry Sound-Muskoka MPP Graydon Smith had urged MAHC to withdraw the motion before the meeting. “Many in the medical community, primarily in South Muskoka, are wary or outright unsupportive of the plan,” said Smith just hours before the MAHC meeting. “To be frank, too many physicians in Bracebridge and Gravenhurst have serious concerns with the current proposal. I have met with several of them and heard their concerns first-hand. Their wariness has extended deep into the general community. Not surprisingly, residents are looking to their doctors for guidance on whether the
proposal is sufficient in meeting the needs of the community.” MAHC’s decision to proceed with the plan was strongly condemned by the Town of Bracebridge, where councillors at the planning and development committee threatened to pull $10 million in funding already pledged for the project. Councillor Don Smith and Mayor Rick Maloney introduced a two-part motion in response to MAHC’s recent decision to move ahead with their proposed model of care for Muskoka. Part one of the motion stipulated that a representative from MAHC come before a special committee to answer questions about the model. Part two was that Town staff reevaluate the $10 million in local funding already promised and come back with some possible stipulations and conditions for releasing the funds. The Town of Huntsville has issued a statement in support of the proposal. “As the deadline for submission approaches, it is critical to recognize all of the efforts our stakeholders have made to date to advance the future of healthcare services in our region, resulting in a proposal that goes beyond bricks-and-mortar and focuses on sustainable healthcare support for the entire catchment area,” said Huntsville Mayor
Community members recently held a rally in Bracebridge protesting Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare’s proposed redevelopment plans for the hospitals in Bracebridge and Huntsville. 56 UNIQUE MUSKOKA August 2024
Nancy Alcock. For their part, MAHC says despite approval of the motion the plan remains flexible. MAHC has confirmed plans will not be submitted to the provincial government until November. They said they continue to receive input from the community and doctors.
Bracebridge man posthumously awarded Carnegie Medal
Photograph: The Schell Family
Controversy continues over new healthcare plans
Kevin Schell was posthumously awarded the Carnegie Medal for bravery by the Carnegie Hero Fund; the highest honour for civilian bravery. A Bracebridge man who lost his life trying to save a stranger who fell into the Muskoka River has been recognized with North America's highest honour for civilian bravery. In June, the Carnegie Hero Fund awarded 18 people with the Carnegie Medal. Among them was former Bracebridge resident Kevin Schell. On August 24, 2020, three men in their 20s were on a recreational pier in Bracebridge that extended over the Muskoka River, when one of them accidentally entered the water. The man was a poor swimmer as he struggled to stay afloat in 30 feet of water, with dangerous, unpredictable currents caused by a waterfall and a man-made dam upriver from the pier, according to the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission. Several onlookers witnessed the man struggling, including corrections officer
Photograph: Muskoka Music Festival
Muskoka Music Festival returns to Gravenhurst with a different format. Broadcaster and author Grant Lawrence, accompanied by several other artists, will share stories and songs at the Gravenhurst Opera House.
Muskoka Music Festival returns with a change of venue
A popular music festival with deep roots in the community is set to return to Gravenhurst. The Muskoka Music Festival will take place at the Gravenhurst Opera House this year on Saturday, August 24. This year's edition will be a change of pace from the typical music festival as the evening will feature songs and stories from acclaimed broadcaster and author Grant Lawrence, along with the music of several artists. Lawrence will be joined by special musical guests Matthew Barber, Hannah Georgas,
Muskoka welcomes Canadian Raceboat Hall of Fame
Some of the most storied watercraft ever to hit the water now have a new home in Muskoka. The Canadian Raceboat Hall of Fame is located on Highway 118 West between Port Carling and Bracebridge. The new facility boasts all manner of watercraft ranging from sea fleas to unlimited-class race boats. The exhibition space will also feature notable engines and hulls from throughout the history of Canadian watercraft racing and it includes hands-on interactive displays. More than just machines, the museum will also provide exhibitions and information on those who drove, built and designed the watercraft.
Photograph: Canadian Raceboat Hall of Fame
Kevin James Schell, 51, of Bracebridge, who was on a nearby bench with his adult daughter. One of the bystanders entered the water and swam to the man and attempted to calm him but he continued to panic. She attempted to calm him once more before she disengaged and exited the water in search of a flotation device. During that time, Schell and his daughter searched for the life preserver from a nearby life preserver rack but it could not be found. Schell told his daughter to call 911 before he ran 60 feet to the end of the pier and entered the water. He swam about 10 feet to the man and was reportedly within an arm’s length of him. Two more bystanders who also witnessed the incident entered the water immediately after Schell and swam to the man. At some point, Schell submerged. The two bystanders guided the man to a nearby buoy before they placed a life jacket on him and swam him back to the pier and first responders. The man had inhaled water but he recovered. Divers searched for more than six hours before they located Schell’s body some 30 feet south of where he was last seen. He had drowned. The Carnegie Medal has been awarded to 10,440 individuals since its inception in 1904. Each of the recipients or their survivors will receive a financial grant.
Clerel and event organizer and acclaimed musician Miranda Mulholland. Inspired by legendary radio personality Stuart McLean and his CBC broadcast The Vinyl Cafe, Grant Lawrence brings his songs and stories touring show to the historic Opera House for the first time. The acclaimed bestselling author (Adventures in Solitude, Return to Solitude, The Lonely End of the Rink) and longtime national radio host from Vancouver will share his hilarious stories from his West Coast upbringing in Desolation Sound, British Columbia, often described as “The Beachcombers meets The Shining,” as well as his many years as a goalie in the beer leagues.
The Canadian Raceboat Hall of Fame, located on Highway 118 West between Port Carling and Bracebridge, is an exhibition of storied watercraft and those who designed, built and raced them. August 2024 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 57
Granite amphitheatre seating installed at Gull Lake
Following significant renovation of the hotel rooms, restaurant and bar, the historic Bala Bay Inn has reopened its doors.
Historic Bala Bay Inn refurbished and reopened under new management
The historic Bala Bay Inn recently reopened its doors with a new purpose and some serious upgrades. Originally opened in 1910, the historic Muskoka hotel reopened at the end of June after being closed for several years. “We are thrilled to welcome our community back to the Bala Bay Inn,” said Greg Knight, the founder of Muskoka BeerSpa and the Clear Lake Brewing Company in Torrance, as well as the proprietor of the rejuvenated Bala Bay Inn. The building had previously been owned by Niagara Resorts, who owns the JW Marriott in nearby Minett. It was purchased by Knight at the beginning of
2024 with an eye towards a complete revamp of the venerable building. The Bala Bay Inn was originally opened as the Swastika Hotel, a symbol of good fortune which can still be seen faintly on the exterior of the building. When The Second World War cast a pall over the meaning of the swastika, the hotel was renamed. Over the years the hotel has played host to such illustrious guests as United States President Woodrow Wilson and legendary musician Louis Armstrong, who was a regular performer at nearby Dunn's Pavilion. The hotel rooms, restaurant and bar have all been renovated and a spa is now located on the premises run by Wink and Wave. A shuttle service connects the Bala Bay Inn with Clear Lake Brewing and the Muskoka Beer Spa just down the road in Torrance. The hotel also plans to feature live music and events throughout the year.
Feature by Matt Driscoll
Photograph: Gravenhurst Rotary Club
It took years of hard work and planning, a small army of volunteers and nearly $500,000 in funds raised from the community but the dream of Rotary Rocks the Barge organizers is now a reality. The project to install granite amphitheatrestyle seating at Gull Lake Rotary Park was first conceived by the Gravenhurst Rotary Club more than three years ago as a way to celebrate their 85th anniversary. The hillside where the seating has been installed has been used for many years to view the Music on the Barge summer concert series at Gull Lake Park. The new seating will accommodate roughly 500 guests. The Music on the Barge concert series runs throughout the summer on Sunday evenings and admission is by goodwill donation.
Photograph: Bala Bay Inn
The crown jewel of the boats on display is undoubtedly Miss Supertest III. The Canadian-designed and built hydroplane was only ever entered in four races between 1959 and 1961 but won them all. She’s the only three-time Harmsworth Cup winner and has been inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame. She’ll be joined by her former nemesis Tempo VII, which will be on loan from the City of London, Ontario. Tempo was built for legendary bandleader Guy Lombardo and raced several times against Miss Supertest III.
The Gravenhurst Rotary Club recently completed the installation of granite amphitheatre-style seating at Gull Lake Rotary Park; a project to celebrate the club’s 85th anniversary. 58 UNIQUE MUSKOKA August 2024
Thanks to everyone who made the event a huge success! We raised over $90,000 for nature conservation in Muskoka!
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Flambé: Playing with fire for cuisine Article by K.M. Wehrstein / Photography by Tomasz Szumski It’s been a food tradition for centuries: a dish is set aflame by the table to give diners an extra thrill or fire is used in the cooking process to produce distinctive effects. Perhaps you first tried it as a kid – every time you left a marshmallow over the campfire long enough to turn it into a torch, then ate the sticky, black-crusted result. Of course, these methods carry a certain risk. You could end up with singed eyebrows, hairless forearms or your Muskoka paradise reduced to ashes. In these safety-conscious times, flambé has gone somewhat out of fashion in
restaurants as a result. In respect of the necessary care needed with open flames, we will give the first word to fire prevention officer Kevin Plested of the Bracebridge Fire Department. “You’re dealing with liquid on fire, which is dangerous in and of itself,” Plested warns. “The flame is basically on top of that liquid and motion causes bigger fire; if it spills, it’s all on fire.” He therefore urges you to never carry a pan or dish aflame. In fact there are laws, he says, that prohibit restaurants from transporting burning dishes except in certain ways.
Deerhurst Resort executive chef Gus Gulmar shares his take on the contrasts of heat and cold; Baked Alaska with Plaintain Flambé. 60 UNIQUE MUSKOKA August 2024
“Always keep a metal lid on hand in case the flambé gets out of hand,” Plested says. Clamping the lid down on the pan or dish starves the fire of oxygen, putting it out. “Don’t throw water on it, same as a grease fire; that’s also a flammable liquid.” In fact, Plested would rather people didn’t attempt flambés indoors at all. “Never start a fire in your home,” he says. “You are playing with fire.” You will notice the chefs quoted below performed their flambé feats either outside in a wide clear space or on a stove under an industrial-sized and professionally maintained range hood.
To begin our fiery journey with a main dish we go to Chef Dan Kozluk of Water’s Edge Restaurant at the Lake Joseph Club, near Port Sandfield. “My mom always said, ‘Don’t play with your food’,” he says. “I still play with it. And get paid for it.” And sometimes that
involves playing with fire, too. Growing up in Caledonia East, Kozluk took a job at an Italian restaurant in Bolton at the age of 14. “I loved the high energy, fast-paced atmosphere,” he reminisces. “I love sports and the idea of working in a team drew me in, as well as the ability to
be creative with food.” As he worked his way through high school he also worked his way up the kitchen ranks. He then moved to the Caledon Woods Golf Club. For two years he attended Niagara College for culinary management, then returned to Caledon
Grilled Pork Chops with Maple Whiskey Hunter Sauce and Brussels Sprout Hash
remove from pan and set aside. • Meanwhile grill the chorizo sausage until fully cooked, about three to four minutes per side. Cool down sausages and set aside for the hash. • Grilled chops: Take the pork chops out of the fridge 20 minutes before cooking. Grill on high heat for four minutes on each side then move to a cooler part of the grill to slowly finish cooking. • Brussels sprout hash: In a cast iron pan add two Tbsp of canola oil. Lightly crush potatoes by hand (keeping them whole, just softened) and add to pan. Add in halved Brussels sprouts and cook on a medium high heat until golden brown on both sides. Add cooked chorizo, caramelized onions, chopped parsley, lemon zest, lemon juice and butter. Stir until combined and turn off heat. Season with salt and cracked black pepper. • Hunter sauce: In a medium sized sauté pan heat up two Tbsp of canola oil, add in the sliced mushrooms and sauté at high heat until lightly browned. Add in shallots and garlic. Sauté for an additional minute. Deglaze and flambé with your favourite whiskey. Cook until the flame dies down and then add in remaining sauce ingredients. Simmer sauce for five minutes or until it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. • Garnish artistically with microgreens (optional).
thermometer. 145F is serving temperature; take chops off the heat at 140F, let them rest and then return them to the grill for a bit before serving. • Why canola oil? “Olive oil has a lower smoking temperature.” (We’re looking for fire, not smoke.)
– Dan Kozluk
Ingredients
4 bone-in pork rib chops For the sauce: 2 Tbsp canola oil 2 cups mushrooms (of any type or several combined, sliced) 4 cloves garlic (minced) ½ cup shallots (sliced) 8 ounces whiskey ½ cup maple syrup ¼ cup Dijon mustard 1 cup heavy cream (35%) ½ cup beef stock 1 Tbsp thyme (chopped) 1 Tbsp rosemary (chopped) For the hash: 4 Tbsp canola oil 2 lbs Brussels sprouts (halved) 2 lbs mini red potatoes 2 cups onions (sliced) 2 chorizo sausages (cooked and sliced) ¼ cup parsley (chopped) Lemon zest and juice of one lemon 2 Tbsp butter
Method
• Day before prep: Season your pork chops the night before with salt or your favourite dry rub, cover with plastic wrap and place in fridge overnight. • Boil your potatoes in salted water until tender, about 15 minutes. Strain and set aside to cool. • In a large cast iron pan, heat up two Tbsp of canola oil and add the onions. Season with salt. Stir every couple of minutes on low heat until caramelized (translucent). Once caramelized,
Chef Dan Kozluk of Water’s Edge Restaurant at the Lake Joseph Club was inspired by local nature and foods with his flambé main course.
Chefs Tips • How not to overcook pork chops: use a meat
August 2024 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 61
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Woods for a season as a sous-chef. He then spent three years cooking at Toronto’s most famous swanky hotel, the Royal York. Wanting to branch out again, Kozluk joined the staff of a whole animal butcher shop, Heather Lea Farm. He learned the ins and outs of cuts, sausages, smoking and curing, “a skill not every chef has,” he says. “It was experience you wouldn’t get in a restaurant.” In 2019 he moved to Calgary and a job at the Sheraton Suites Eau Claire as a chef de partie but was then laid off due to COVID-19. His aunt came to his rescue, hiring him to make pub-style food such as pizza and wings at her nearby restaurant, also synchronistically called Water’s Edge. At his next workplace, a new brewery in Calgary, Kozluk paired beer with dishes, designed menus and met his future wife, Serena, to whom he proposed by placing
Baked Alaska with Plantain Flambé – Gus Gulmar
Plantain Flambé
Ingredients
1 ripe plantain, peeled, halved, cut into quarter-inch thick slices 2 oz unsalted butter (cold, in cubes) 2 oz brown sugar (or to taste) Cinnamon and nutmeg to taste (a pinch) Seeds of half a fresh vanilla bean (cut the bean in half lengthwise and remove seeds) 2 ounces rum
Method • Warm up pan on medium heat, add butter, melt. Quickly add plantains, flip after about a minute (takes longer when greener). • Add brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla. • Let everything emulsify together – another minute. Crank heat up and prepare rum (put in smaller container). Pour rum over plantain and it will catch fire. (If you’re using an electric stove you
the ring in a glass of beer. Even though the beer was more cloudy than clear as he had planned for, she said yes, and they decided to move closer to home, including the family cottage in Kearney. “I love Muskoka, love the outdoors, love being so close to Algonquin and Arrowhead,” Kozluk enthuses. “In winter there’s snowmobiling, snowboarding, outdoor hockey… there’s so much to do here.” His recipe, Grilled Pork Chops with Maple Whiskey Hunter Sauce and Brussels Sprout Hash, was inspired by local nature and foods. “I like to switch it up once in a while and I love using local and seasonal ingredients,” Kozluk explains. “Every mushroom is different, which is why I like a variety. It’s playful.” The version of the dish he served up had three types of mushrooms: oyster,
might have to use a barbecue lighter. You can do this on the barbecue; use a cast iron pan.) • Keep on stove until alcohol burns off (the fire goes out) and serve. Serves two; double the ingredients for four. Baked Alaska
Ingredients Nanaimo Coconut Crust: 50 g chocolate cookie crumbs 5 g cocoa powder 20 g coconut, shredded 10 g sugar 6 g butter 10 g melted dark chocolate Pinch of salt
Method • Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl. Shape into four circular patties one quarter-inch thick, or if making single dessert rather than portions, spread on a baking sheet to quarter-inch thickness. Ice cream and meringue: • Lay vanilla ice cream on crust, two inches thick and shape into a rectangle
Fire safety is an important factor in any kitchen; home or commercial. Unless you have an industrial-sized, professionally maintained range hood to contain the open flames, flambé is best tried outdoors.
for one dessert or domes for four servings. • Mix together 4 egg whites and 2 Tbsp fine white sugar, beat until it forms stiff peaks (or if you turn the bowl over it doesn’t fall out). • Spread over the ice cream and crust, decorating as you wish with spatula, spoon or piping. • Place in freezer to harden up. • You can torch the surface for brownness, using a kitchen torch or household torch set low – as with a marshmallow over a campfire. • To flambé: Warm up 1 ounce of rum in a small pan until it’s simmering. Ignite with a barbecue lighter. As soon as the flame is on, pour it over dessert.
Chef's Tips • You can substitute the vanilla seeds with 1 tsp of vanilla extract. • For Baked Alaska done as a standalone, any flavour of ice cream can be used. • When pouring rum on a dish to flambé it, do not do it from the bottle, for very good reason. “If you do it from the bottle, it’ll be a Molotov cocktail.”
August 2024 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 63
chestnut and honey. “Mushrooms soak up the flavours,” says Kozluk. “I add the maple syrup and Dijon just to accent the flavours in the whiskey and it works beautifully with the pork.” However: “If you don’t flambé it, you’re eating a shot of whiskey,” Kozluk warns. Burning off the alcohol, he says, brings out the liquor’s true flavour. Incidentally, according to him, any beverage that is over 30 per cent alcohol, even a strong white wine, can be used for flambéing. “I think it’ll be a staple,” Kozluk says of adding the dish to the Water’s Edge menu. Next, we pass the kitchen torch to Deerhurst Resort’s executive chef Gus Gulmar, originally of Hungary and a 21-year Deerhurst veteran. His Baked Alaska with Plantain Flambé will be on the menu of The Antler Steakhouse in fall, which, incidentally, has on its current menu an asparagus bisque whose presentation includes goat cheese torched tableside. The plantain part of Gulmar’s dessert was inspired by a tried-and-true recipe: butter, brown sugar, rum and fruit, spiced up as you like. It’s the plantain part that’s different. When shopping for plantains, note that despite their similar appearance, they are different from bananas, not only in taste and texture. A plantain that’s pure yellow, like a ripe banana, is too green and one with lots of dark brown on its skin, is ripe. “I go to the store to buy plantains,” says Gulmar, “and people wonder why I’m shopping for rotten bananas.” Baked Alaska is perhaps cuisine’s greatest study in contrasts. According to one origin story, the name “Baked Alaska” was coined in 1876 by a New York City restaurant, Delmonico’s, in honour of the United States’ acquisition of Alaska from the Russian Empire in 1867. Another origin story, however, says the recipe was originally called “Alaska Florida” as an allegory on the extremes of cold and heat. “When I was an apprentice, we made it on baking trays for weddings,” Gulmar recalls. “It was popular in Hungary. Instead of torching, though, it was put in the oven.” Enjoy your flaming delicacies – safely!
64 UNIQUE MUSKOKA August 2024
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Muskoka Moments
My paradise, my backyard, my playground
Photograph: Danielle Vanclieaf
I grew up on the outskirts of Baysville where our home was surrounded by nature and my siblings and I were always playing outside. Our backyard was a field of ferns, surrounded by deep forest. We made forts, explored the bush and found caves. I am grateful for those days, as I see how much my childhood influenced my adventurous soul and my love for the outdoors. I have met a lot of like-minded people who love hiking, snowshoeing and kayaking just as much as I do. When you do what you love, opportunities for an adventure seem to present themselves. I find living in Muskoka is like participating in our own adventure reality show. This past winter, I was introduced to cold-water plunging by my friend Christine Ellard. This was a winter game changer! The first time I went into the river, it was only -7C, so there was no ice on the water. Upriver, we could see two swans hanging around. It was 8 a.m. when we walked down the snow-covered path into our first plunge. As we all submerged ourselves in the icy waters, I found it surprisingly easy to get in. Getting out into the brisk air wasn’t that bad either. I was hooked!
66 UNIQUE MUSKOKA August 2024
Photograph: Danielle Vanclieaf
Article by Judy Vanclieaf
The next time wasn’t so easy. Going in at -17C, proved to be more challenging but we made it in. Only this time there was no standing around chatting. I was surprised how exhilarating and alive I felt during the days we did the cold-water plunges. Christine has been cold-water dipping at Muskoka Falls for years and has built the trust of the nearby swans. We all stood on shore watching in awe. Christine was huddled on the dock, softly singing a song the swans seemed to understand. It was truly a breathtaking moment when those beautiful creatures swam right up to her. Muskoka really is the best channel to watch. My daughter Danielle and I have a tradition where we snowshoe under the light of the full moon. Through the years we tried out different trails but our favourite is the Huckleberry Rock trail in Milford Bay. Once we make it to the top, we sit there and take in
the silence and the beauty of the night landscape. The full moon usually brings on minus double digit temperatures and a few times we have had icicles on our eyelashes. The cold never stopped us from enjoying ourselves. Our winter full moon hikes have turned into summer full moon kayaking on Lake of Bays. We launch just before dusk and head out to the middle of the lake with our kayaks covered in reflective tape. As we paddle out, we watch the sun go down, as it floods the skies with brilliant colours. Once the sun disappears, we turn our kayaks around and watch the night sky show while we wait for the moon to peek over the tree line. Sometimes we are blessed with shooting stars. Then comes that exciting moment when the moon finally shows its beautiful face and continues to crawl across the sky. This is one show we are willing to watch over and over. These are only a few highlights of my favorite moments while I am out exploring my beautiful home – Muskoka. Whether I am swimming in the rain, cold-water plunging at -17C, exploring old rock foundations in the bush or chasing waterfalls in my kayak, I know there is so much more of Muskoka to discover and many more adventures to go on. I'm excited to see what is around the next bend. Judy Vanclieaf is a fifth generation Muskoka girl, born and raised in Baysville. She is very active in her community and is often found on the volunteer side of events, doing her part to help make Baysville a great place to live. When Judy is not volunteering, she enjoys her time playing with her grandchildren Cali and Lilly and her grand doggies Walter and Betty
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