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SPRING 2019

P R I N C E E D W A R D C O U N T Y A N D Q U I N T E R E G I O N

INSIDE: Tyendinaga’s artists, Orland’s OMG!, Loyola’s first steps to our new world ... plus so much more.

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4 COUNTY & QUINTE LIVING SPRING 2019 countyandquinteliving.com

IN THIS ISSUEEach issuE availablE onlinE at: countyandquinteliving.comPRINCE EDWARD COUNTY AND QUINTE REGION

ON THE COVERZach and Luhana Littlejohn at their farm south of Picton. Photo byDaniel Vaughan.

8OMG!Gerald and Pamela McLaughlin’s Orland Mill Galleryby Vic Schukov

16The FirsT sTeP in The JOurneyLoyola’s english as a second Language communityby Lindi Pierce

26Zach and Luhana’s LiTTLeJOhn FarMby Catherine Stutt

38Mrs. B ceLeBraTes 20 years OF quaLiTy cOnFecTiOnsby Jennifer Shea

44The arTisTs OF TyendinaGa by Cindy Duffy

54ceLeBraTinG The 20Th anniversary Kente Tomahawk and Knife Throwing clubby Vic Schukov

62@ hOMe wiTh aLan GraTias James and suzanne wrightby Alan Gratias

65siGnPOsTsin search of sheba’s islandby Lindi Pierce

66dave Bidin’s GraviTas by Alan Gratias

5countyandquinteliving.com COUNTY & QUINTE LIVING SPRING 2019

PublisherPeter bishop

editorCatherine stutt

[email protected]

Photo editordaniel Vaughan

PubliCation CoordinatorOlivia Rose • 613.532.6661

design/graPhiCs editor: Kathern blydesign & ProduCtion: Monica Mctaggart

sKbailey Marketing & design

Contributing Writers

Cindy duffy Vic schukovalan gratias Jennifer shealindi Pierce Catherine stutt

Contributing PhotograPhers

alan gratias sam simonePat Kane daniel Vaughan

lindi Pierce aynsley Wright

hoMe deliVery subsCriPtionsSharon LaCroix • [email protected]

613.966.2034

distribution inquiriesMitchell Clarke

705.742.8450 • [email protected]

adVertising inquiries613.966.2034 • [email protected] Johnston • Tim Sheppard • Tracey Perry

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HOW 85% OF PATIENTS ELIMINATEDNUMBNESS, TINGLING OR SHARP PAINS

If you’re suffering from nerve problems in the arms and legs, you must read about a clinical study that

shows an answer for pain relief.

Numbness, tingling, and pain is an extremely annoying problem.

It may come and go...interrupt your sleep...and even make your arms or legs feel weak at times. Maybe you’ve even been to other doctors and they claim all the tests indicate you should feel fine.

MORE PILLS ARE NOT THE SOLUTIONA common treatment for many nerve problems is the ‘take some pills and wait and see’ method.

While this may be necessary for temporary relief of severe symptoms, using them long term is no way to live. Some of the more common drugs given include pain pills, anti-seizure mediations, and anti-depressants – all of which have serious side effects.

THE LIKELY CAUSE OF YOUR PROBLEMChiropractic has been helping people with neuropathy and nerve problems for more than 100 years.

Often neuropathy is caused by a degenerating spine pressing on the nerve roots. This can happen in any of the vertebral joints from the neck all the way down to the tail bone.

The good news is that chiropractic treatments have proven effective in helping to remove the pressure on the nerves.

By using gentle techniques, we are able to release the pressure that has built up on the nerve. This allows the nerve to heal and the symptoms to go away.

COULD THIS BE YOUR SOLUTION?It’s time for you to find out if chiropractic will be your neuropathy solution.

For a limited time, $35 will get you all the services that normally cost new patients $120!

What does this offer include? Everything. Take a look at what you will receive:

• An in-depth consultation about your health and well-being where we will listen to the details of your case.• A complete neuromuscular examination.• A full set of specialized x-rays to determine if a spinal problem is contributing to your pain or symptoms. (note: These would normally cost you at least $85).• A thorough analysis of your exam and x-ray findings so we can start mapping out your plan to being pain free.• Answers to your most probing questions about nerve problems and how chiropractic can help.

Until June 30, 2019 you can get everything listed above for only $35.

WHY NOT GET HELP BY THOSE TRAINED TO CORRECT THE MAJOR CAUSE OF PERIPHERAL NEUROPATHY.See the chiropractic clinics below offering this nerve evaluation.

Call the location closest to your home or office. We can get you scheduled for your consultation, exam and x-rays as soon as there’s an opening.

COBOURG - Heron Family Chiropractic, Dr. Peter HerronFleming Building | 1005 Elgin St. W, Suite 206 | 905.377.0555

BELLEVILLE - Chiropractic Generations, Dr. Stephen Lippitt100 Bell Blvd., Suite 230 | Quinte Mall | 613.966.4725

TRENTON - The Chiropractic Centre, Dr. Craig Cocek455 Dundas St. W | 613-392-4008

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Catherine Stutt, Editor, County and Quinte [email protected]

There we were, in the flannel pyjama section of LL Bean in Freeport, Maine, fresh from our pilgrimage to cousin George’s place in Kennebunkport, revisiting the scene of the crime, where we were married.

Three ladies were checking out the corduroy jackets, as I was. I commented on their fashion sense and asked if they could help me decide. They were very helpful, and I asked if they were Canadian. St. Louis, turns out, and they asked where I was from. Canada, I said, thanking them for their help, apologizing for the intrusion.“Oh, Canada,” they said without a blink

of irony. “Is your health care really that good?” they asked. “It is,” I answered with pride. A month later, Darryl would test that health care system with great appreciation and relief, confirming my answer.

We had a lovely chat, I chose the royal blue over the Cape Cod, and we parted company. Darryl and I continued our drive through New England, loving every minute of it. Our highlight was a repeat trip up Mount Washington. Take an accident-prone guy 6,288 feet up the side of a mountain on a 100-year-old steam train in the fog, what could go wrong?

Fast forward several months and Darryl and I were at a local nomination meeting, helping chose a candidate for the upcoming federal election. We are not politically active, not aligned with a

single party, but one nominee is a friend. We see how he respects his constituents, and we said we would support him, so off we went.

There were paid-duty police officers there, and Darryl had a good chat with one of them. “I don’t expect much of a problem,” the officer smiled. “It’s a pretty tame crowd.” There are few places in the world where a political gathering would be an easy assignment.

Almost 1,000 people were part of this afternoon event. There were lineups, a long wait, differences of opinion. Monitors in the voting area ensured no one displayed campaign material. When a couple in front of us was asked to cover their t-shirts showing a candidate’s name, they didn’t stage a protest or call the Supreme Court. They zipped up their vests, apologized, and waited patiently for their turn to mark their ballot.

More than a polling station, it was a celebration, a chance to say good-bye to that horrid 28 days known as February and hello to a new candidate. It was a peaceful contest with well-intended participants. Looking around the room, seeing hundreds of people waiting patiently for their turn to be part of democracy made me feel very thankful for being born in Canada. The stories in this issue provided a good perspective.

We have serious issues ahead of us, but universal health care, strong borders, access to education, and free speech are

not up for debate. While rural Internet is still a challenge, it’s a technological issue, not a political one, and our grocery stores are stocked, our infrastructure solid. There is always room for improvement, but the need is not based on political precincts, just frost heaves and funding.

In this issue, Lindi Pierce spoke with a woman from Kazakhstan who lived in a refugee camp for two years, cooking in iron pots over an open fire, fleeing from who knows what to hope for a future in Canada. She is here. She is learning English. She survived, and by the luck of the draw, by a happy accident where we were born, as Lindi says, we have absolutely no idea what that all means.

I wonder what those nice ladies from St. Louis would think of our Canada. I think they’d like it. I think, after the polling station controversies in their country, they’d appreciate that when it was my turn to vote, I exchanged pleasantries with the scrutineer, my friend Stephanie Campbell, the editor of Watershed. We’re not enemies, we’re not rivals, we’re both simply grateful for the chance to share these stories.

We hope you enjoy them.Thanks for turning the page,

Mr. Underwood, painted by Lynn VanderHerberg

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Story by Vic SchukovPhotography by Daniel Vaughan

Gerald and Pamela McLaughlin’s Orland Mill Gallery

Some people never have to reinvent themselves because they fall upon their passion at a very young age. Such is the case with the gifted artist Gerald McLaughlin.“When I was four, I discovered I could write

on a bedroom wall with a crayon. I did a mural encompassing my room. My parents were not impressed. My Mom scrubbed it all off and I never did a wall painting until I got older,” laughed Gerald. “I have been an artist my whole life. My father had the foresight to enroll me in some art courses when I was nine, and I was the youngest in the class. I put a lot of classical drawing techniques in my head while learning, without much formal training.”

In high school in his home town of Oshawa, he maxed out his credits in art. Upon graduating, he backpacked through Europe for nine months, visiting museums in such art meccas as Rome, Florence, Amsterdam, and Paris. “Seeing all this


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classical art I had only seen in text books was an eye-opener.”

During a class tour he had a life-affirming experience. “I saw an amazing painting done in airbrush. I kept wanting to go back to the painting, and then I read an article on a fellow from Windsor who painted all these crazy vans. One of his hood murals hung in the Louvre. I was instantly impressed with the technique of airbrushing because of the vibrancy of colours you can use compared to the palettes of conventional oils or watercolour or acrylic. You use a suspension of dyes we call candy colours in clear resins. In airbrushing, you don’t physically touch the canvas with a brush. For that reason, some art purists don’t consider it a true form.”

One look at his paintings and many would immediately beg to differ.

At 19, he enrolled in Graphic Arts at Durham College in Oshawa. At the same time, he was introduced to a fellow named Custom Ed and started to work in his shop airbrushing. “After school hours, I worked at Ed’s. At Durham, it would be like going to kindergarten because I was already in the real world doing cool stuff. I didn’t finish the year but stayed long enough to learn some missing pieces of the puzzle.”

A bit nomadic, Gerald became the sound man for the popular Oshawa rock band Sphinx. He toured Canada with them for six years, while upping his game in the art biz.

“I took an airbrush kit on tour and painted things on the side like bike tanks, t-shirts, and drum skins. I soon got notoriety. I left in 1985 to start VooDoo Airbrushing.”

At 24 years old, Gerald exhibited a solid work ethic. “If something is not important now, don’t waste time drilling down on

it. You have to concentrate on what is very important first.”

In one year, his fledgling company sold more than 4,000 painted goalie masks. It was not long before he became renowned for the Canada (elephant) mask – a giant painted goalie mask. “A lot of people laughed when I told them what I wanted to do, but I ended up selling more than 300, mostly to Canadian Tire. I got bored of the small ones and thought of the big one. Artists will paint on anything,” he chuckled.

In 1987, he met his soulmate Pam, also from Oshawa.

“In the beginning, part of what intrigued me about him was he thought outside the box,” smiled Pam. “It took him into a different realm than oil painting. He pushed the envelope. When someone tells Gerald he can’t do something, he pursues it even further. I kept him at arms-length for two years. When I was in grade eight, I had a dream about meeting an artist when I got older. Maybe that’s what scared me when I first met him. Then one day, after our first official date, he came to my apartment, all decorated with pictures of exotic cats. Gerald, being Mr. Debonair. said he would paint me one.”

She pointed to the massive art piece and said, laughing, “Look at the date on the painting: 1996. I was a very patient girl. We have now been married for 29 years. Gerald likes to interrupt and say 58 years, doubling it because we have worked together every day, ever since.”

After the couple moved to Ajax, Gerald asked Pam to work with him in VooDoo Airbrushing.


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“I was always creative, with an eye for design. He showed me how to do hand drawings and cut-outs for signs. Over time, I got into fibreglass, sculpting folksy whimsical stuff for him to paint. Together, we have that sense between us to know when things are right and wrong. Gerald has great intensity. He is the balloon and I am the string that keeps him grounded so he doesn’t float off. His mind never stops. He can’t stop. But he has a very good sense of business.”

In October 2017, the McLaughlins moved from Pickering to Brighton. “For a long time, we had been looking for one location as a home and a studio,” said Pam. “We found it by accident in July 2017. Gerald prepared an itinerary of 18 properties to look at from Prince Edward County to Warkworth. Many had outside structures like barns with only single-phase power, but we needed three-phase power for VooDoo Airbrushing. The realtor told us there was an old idled mill in Orland. Property 19 was the charm.”

Gerald remembered that famous artist Ken Danby had bought a mill, near Guelph, and converted it, so he was sold from just an external viewing. After two more visits and due diligence in the details, they bought their dream property.

Gerald said, “We were told by Lower Trent Conservation the structure sat on environmentally protected wetland. It might have been a deal killer for most buyers; we thought it was awesome.”

Part of the building is a magnificent, eclectic gallery Pam brightly named OMG! (Orland Mill Gallery). It features the original wood floor and exposed timber support beams.

Another related company the couple incorporated years ago is Smoke & Mirrors Publishing.

Pam said, “The company was formed to market Gerald’s limited-edition prints. We had a mobile art exhibit we took across Canada to big consumer shows with up to 75,000 visitors, but our dream was always to have a bricks and mortar gallery.”“Gerald is a photo surrealism artist. He can make

inanimate objects look real. It doesn’t matter the subject matter, he paints it beyond well,” shared Pam.

After hours from VooDoo the couple work on Smoke & Mirrors, building Gerald’s career. Approximately 30 per cent of OMG! displays are Gerald’s masterpieces. In the last few months, they have featured local artists from Brighton to Marmora to Cobourg. OMG! also offers full custom framing for any type of artwork.“We have met wonderful people here in Phase 1,” said

Pam. “Our goal – Phase 2 – is to convert the upper floor into a licensed café with local craft beers and wine, a place to go. Phase 3 is an event space with a stage for live entertainment, maybe even catered private events.”“With 8,000 square feet of floor space, we could

become the biggest art gallery in the area,” Gerald predicted. “My philosophy is, never give up. If you believe in something and it comes from the heart, you just do it, and people will rally around you. Surround yourself in excellence and beautiful things will happen.

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Our focus here is to make OMG! a hub, uniting local artists, promoting art in general. People need to support local artists because that’s how they make their living, plus art can inspire them and beautify their living space.”“We did a lot of research on Northumberland,

and liked the support for the art community,” said Pam. “We are close to everything, in the middle of like-minded artists of all kinds including musicians and writers. At OMG! everyone can feed off each other and create amazing energy instead of going off into their

corners. These hills hide and cradle artists of all kinds. At OMG! we have created a place people will want to embrace, bringing our vision to life.”

The journey to Orland took many turns.

In 1997, the couple was flown to Bahrain, an island kingdom in the Persian Gulf. For three weeks, under the auspices of the sheikh, they set up a custom paint program for his boat manufacturing facility. “It was a trip of a lifetime. We painted seven boats,” said

Gerald. “The last was for the Crown Prince who is now King. I told him if you ever want an ambassador from Canada, make me it. He never took me up on it, and I’ll have to remind him.”

Back home, some of VooDoo’s creations are featured at the prestigious Tom Thomson Art Gallery in Owen Sound under a special exhibit entitled, saving Face: art in Front of the hockey net, from December 7, 2018 to March 30, 2019, honouring the art of the goalie mask. Gerald, with the help of his


Stephen Bletcher Newcomb (1816-1868) moved his family from Hope Township in the 1840s, maybe as early as 1843, and around 1851 built a grist mill at Concession 7, Lot 8, Brighton Township. This is the area where the Goodrich-Loomis Conservation area is today. In the next few decades, there would be as many as five or six other mills in this area due to the good prospects for water power on Cole Creek (later changed to Cold Creek since the Coles moved in the 1870s). I like to call this an industrial mall, mid-1800s style.

The Brighton and Seymour Gravel Road was built between 1853 and 1856, going from Harbour Street in Brighton, north of Codrington to meet the road from Campbellford. This new road replaced the Old Percy Road and much of it in the area we are discussing was located a mile or two east of the old road, on easier ground. As a result, people moved from the old road to the new road in order to be near the traffic.

By the later 1860s, Joseph Bletcher Newcomb, a son of Stephen Bletcher Newcomb, decided he needed to move his milling operation to the new road. He leased and then purchased a small bit of land at the intersection of the new road, called The

Gravel, and the creek, about a mile east of his old mill. He built a mill in that new spot. There are stories of the old mill being moved to the new location, but most likely he used many important parts of the old mill to build the new one but would have wanted a new structure for the new business.

When the mill proved to be successful in this new location, Joseph B. Newcomb purchased the land and added more as he built up his business. As often happened with mills on main roads, people gravitated there, and a small village grew up around the mill, called Newcomb’s Mills. Makes sense. One of Stephen’s uncles, Thomas Newcomb, was miller at this mill until his death in 1897.

Joseph B. Newcomb owned the mill for less than a decade. In 1877, he sold it to Chester and Cowell Loomis, who were from the same area west of today’s Orland. The first mill was destroyed by fire in 1892 or 1893. A new much larger and more modern mill was built at that time, and what we see in pictures taken in the 19-teens and later.

Editor’s note: an unverified story has the original waterwheel resting in the pond. absent authentication, Dan was reluctant to include this detail, but has heard the rumour.

fellow artist Steve Houston, completed an elephant mask for the exhibit, complete with an airbrushed portrait of Tom Thomson.

Heather McLeese, the Curator of Contemporary Art at the Thomson Gallery, has nothing but praise for Gerald’s contribution. “As the namesake gallery of Canada’s most iconic artist, we house the fourth largest collection of Thomson’s work. The exhibition illustrates a modern form of artistic story, bridging the gap between sports and art. It celebrates the airbrushing of the goalie mask as a work of art.”“This exhibition started with former NHL

goalie Curtis Sanford giving us 10 of his masks, and Gerald enhanced the show with another 15 masks. With the large-scale piece, the show is incredible. Part of what makes me excited is we sent out a form to schools for a template for kids to design their own goalie masks and have received back just under 1,000 submissions. All these unique pieces have filled the gallery space.“The show brings a completely different

audience into our gallery; a hockey crowd I don’t think we would ever get here. It’s our most successful show from a visitors’ standpoint and it feels like our summer traffic with a constant pace of new visitors, it is a remarkable show.

Gerald’s giant mask is re-engaging everybody, and there is a big hype in the community and we’re quite excited. Gerald has been great to work with, and after the show is over, we will relocate the mask to our local arena where it will be a public art piece for years to come. The mask will definitely have longevity in our community. I think it will become a landmark.”

From Gerald’s perspective, it is a huge milestone in his artistic career. “I think, to achieve true success as a visual artist, the creation of an iconic – or timeless – image solidifies this success. Whether this happens accidentally, was premeditated, or chosen by the general public for whatever reason. Think of Leonardo da Vinci’s vitruvian Man, or William Blake’s The ancient of Days, or Katsushika Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa. More contemporarily Canadian, Tom Thomson’s The West Wind, or The Jack Pine, have definitely reached this successful level of timelessness.”“I am very honoured to have my work

associated with the art gallery that bears his name, and I only hope over the course of my artistic career, one of my creations may be deemed worthy of this type of success Tom Thomson and other great artists have achieved.”

To view more of Gerald’s art or for gallery hours, visit www.voodooair.com.

A History of Newcomb’s MillCourtesy Dan Buchanan • www.danbuchananhistoryguy.com

Photography courtesy • Brighton Digital Archives

The First Step in the JourneyLoyola’s English as a Second Language community

Story by Lindi PiercePhotography by Daniel Vaughan

The turn of a new year or those September back-to-school days challenge people to try something different, take on improved habits, turn over that new leaf. It’s exhilarating. Exhausting. Sometimes discouraging. But empowering.

Consider what new beginnings entail for some. New country. New culture. New

language. Quinte Immigration Services reports more than 400 new clients in the past year. These new arrivals come from countries many of us may not have heard of, some torn apart by conflict. Most have experienced the loss of a familiar way of life, separation from family members, friends, and colleagues, social, financial, and professional upheaval.


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Despite these huge challenges, new arrivals bring a determination to succeed in a new place, to further their education, to take care of their families, to create a better life for their children, and make a contribution to their new country.

One of the first needs of many of the Quinte area’s new arrivals – understanding, speaking, reading, and writing English – has been met for 25 years by the Loyola School of Adult and Continuing Education at its campuses in Belleville and Kingston. Classes are funded by Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada, the Ministry of Community and Social Services, and the Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board.

Loyola offers non-credit day and evening classes in English as a Second Language (ESL) at beginner and intermediate levels. Numbers vary as students come and go, but in the 2018/19 winter term 77 students were in attendance.

Loyola is more than a language school however; it is a hub of inter-related learning opportunities. Loyola offers an Adult Day School high school credit program, and a certificate for Personal Support Workers. Loyola’s motto is ‘Every Journey Has a First Step.’

Job one for many new arrivals is to learn English. How does one go about learning English from scratch? Children seem to have a knack, picking up vocabulary from the playground, the classroom, and ESL instruction. Recently arrived Syrian children, for example, are assimilating so quickly some are losing their heritage language. Arabic is fast becoming the language of home only, so Loyola has organized a Sunday class to teach reading and writing. Anula and Edith


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In the ESL program, Canadian cultural norms are part of the teaching. So many attitudes and beliefs need recalibrating. In some countries, for example, police are greatly feared. One of Loyola’s many guest speakers is Community Policing Officer Dan Joly, who explains the serve-and-protect mandate of Canadian police work.

The school is a microcosm of the world; occasionally old tensions and divisions surface. Diversity is a key value. Program principal Rob Gilmour explains the expectation. “In Canada, this is what we do.” It’s a directive the world might do well to follow.

Michelle Lingard, coordinator of non-credit programs, checks the registration list. In January 2019 it contained names from 26 countries: Syria, Cuba, Chile, the Philippines, Turkey, Vietnam, Angola, Iran, Brazil, Egypt, Congo, Kazakhstan, Korea, Colombia, Afghanistan, Togo, Pakistan, Morocco, Mexico, Indian, China, Portugal, Venezuela, Burundi, Russia, Bolivia, Sri Lanka, and Poland. Students are referred by Quinte Immigration Services (QIS) – a government-funded assessor – sponsors, or members of their own community. Many of these students are experiencing peace and safety for the first time.

For the past 13 years, the Belleville Loyola program has been located in the old (1914) Queen Mary School on Octavia Street. It was constructed in the days when schools were formal and a bit daunting: three storeys tall, of dark brick with classical detailing, and tall entrance steps. Inside, steep wide staircases, high ceilings, echoing wide halls with gleaming floors – an aging elegance. It’s a busy place, a rainbow of nations, a bustle of students, families, and teachers, with Cheryl the secretary providing a warm welcome.

Instructor Michele Dean leads her ESL class at Loyola.

Out front, a sign proclaims Community Resource Centre Quinte. Until last year, Loyola shared the space with other support agencies – QIS, Sexual Assault Centre, Community Partners for Success, and Canadian Mental Health – all part of the circle of assistance available to new arrivals.

During the winter of 2018/19 new premises were under construction, and a move planned. The modern accessible premises are housed in the former Rexcan Building on Bridge Street West.

Michelle describes a possible pathway for a new student at Loyola: attending to pick up English, then taking a few Loyola high school credits before enrolling in the on-site Personal Support Worker program or moving on to Loyalist College.

Students arrive at Loyola at different points along the continuum; there is no typical student. Many will have had some exposure to English, perhaps as an elective at high school, others none at all. Educational background plays a role, also. A few students are university graduates, other have had very limited opportunities for formal education.

Student Ahmad arrived in Belleville from Syria three years ago, just before Christmas, and was attending Loyola by the end of January. He was amazed at the speed; he’s heard of waiting lists in larger centres. He remembers his Level 1 teacher, Anu. She was a great encourager – he acts out determined but gentle pushing, with a smile.

Where to begin when one speaks not a word of English? Loyola ESL teachers start the same way we all began – naming things. Days of the week. Numbers. The confidence with which Ahmad entered a number into his smartphone speaks to the success of the approach. “Belleville is good, have to learn English.” Because not too many of us have a host of other languages up our sleeve with which to greet our newcomers.

The Loyola program is about applying language skills in real life settings. Michelle explains, “We try to teach students everything about Canada and its culture.” The ESL

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North Star has earned an enviable reputation for producing high-quality and energy effi cient windows and doors.Tested and certifi ed by both the Canadian Standards Association and American Architectural Manufacturers Association, all of North Star’s windows and doors not only meet or exceed all industry standards, they meet our own high standards. And we back them with a transferable, limited lifetime warranty to prove it.

A QUALITY GUARANTEE THATLASTS A LIFETIME

DEALER INFORMATION

QUALITY WINDOWS & DOORSGREAT SERVICE. EXCEPTIONAL VALUE.

©2016 North Star Manufacturing (London) Ltd. All rights reserved.

CLIENT

SIZE

Metroland – One-Quarter-V(5.145” x 5.71”)

North Star Windows & DoorsJOB DESCRIPTION

Co-op Print Advertising

– Overall

PRODUCTION NOTES

This ad scales at 88.67% to fi t a 4 column broadsheet size (4 column x 71 agates = 284 lines = 4.5625” x 5.06”)

COLOUR

CMYK

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April 7/16 5:30 cf SL/NG

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129-301

519.439.8080 866.439.8080 TMD.CATHE MARKETING DEPARTMENT 457 King Street London, Ontario, Canada N6B 1S8

REVISIONS

FNL

VERSION

A-5

North Star has earned an enviable reputation for producing high-quality and energy effi cient windows and doors.Tested and certifi ed by both the Canadian Standards Association and American Architectural Manufacturers Association, all of North Star’s windows and doors not only meet or exceed all industry standards, they meet our own high standards. And we back them with a transferable, limited lifetime warranty to prove it.

A QUALITY GUARANTEE THATLASTS A LIFETIME

WHY NORTHSTAR?• Best -in-class Manufacturing Technology• High Quality Workmanship• Lifetime Transferable Warranty• Energy Efficient

“Research indicates it takes approximately 13 years to become

a fluent English speaker,

”explains Michelle.


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“The school for me is like

a family.”

”teachers and their students take a lot of field trips, from market shopping to Frink Centre snowshoeing, from the recycling centre to City Hall. Community organizations like the Health Unit and Quinte Immigration Services explain local supports.

Ahmad continues the list, “We learn Canadian seasons and celebrations. We learn things Canadians talk about: the weather, going to Tim’s. The school for me is like a family.” The teachers are kind, reassuring; students learn from each other. And like all families, the students and staff often share meals, an opportunity for informal learning and building community.

But it’s not all food and fieldtrips at Loyola.Teaching is sometimes described as a balance

between a science and an art. The science at

Loyola is in the planning and evaluating of student learning using standardized tools. The Canadian Language Benchmarks, developed through Citizenship and Immigration Canada in 1996, create a consistent standard across the country by which to measure language competency. Another measure, Portfolio-based Learning Assessment, evaluates students’ progress from initial assessment, through the levels from beginner to Level 8.

The art of teaching is making classwork relevant to daily life. Writing assignments consist of completing an OHIP card application or writing a letter to a landlord. Speaking tasks could involve stopping people and asking for directions or learning to use the 911 system. All aspects of Canadian life are on the list, from Internet safety to winter safety, from navigating the health care system

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to preparation for the daunting citizenship exam, and soft skills, like how to cope in unfamiliar social situations. Students maintain a portfolio and are evaluated on their work samples, not by paper and pencil tests.

The art is also teaching to several levels within each class; continuous intake means new students (at whatever level) can enter the program (at any time.) It takes genius to meet individual needs in large classes despite differences in students’ ages and background. The personality of the teacher is part of the

art, and it is priceless. A teacher makes the weather, creating a learning environment that is warm, risk-free, stimulating, and fun.

Sherry Archer has taught ESL at Loyola for 25 years. The Loyola ESL teachers make a difference in many lives, and their students remember. There’s a photo on the wall of a recent visit from two former students from Hong Kong who attended Sherry’s class 22 years ago when they were students in Canada. The sense of accomplishment students experience at the school’s annual Celebration of Achievement is not soon forgotten and is something worth revisiting.

Students’ stories are so different. Edith, a French speaker from Togo, has been here for eight months with her Canadian husband. She began English at Level 3 and is now reading and writing at Level 6. Lyailya, a young mother from Kazakhstan, has been in Canada only a few months. Her English is strong – she began English studies in Grade 2. Her next step is to find somewhere to learn French, so she can assist her child when he enters French immersion in a few years.

Nver, a multi-lingual student, is improving her English for her retail work, and wants to continue with French. Bader from Jordan

hopes to continue to college for jewellery design. Vasily from Russia wants to be able to communicate with his neighbours and grandchildren; he and wife Galena have joined their daughter who immigrated 20 years ago and became a doctor.

Bilal and Intisar arrived in October 2016. “When I came, not one word of English.” Bilal proudly shares the results of his recent evaluation, English skill at Levels 3 to 5. The couple echo others’ deep gratitude for the staff and the school – and for the city. Their three sons love school in Belleville, a

change from the harsh system in Syria. They appreciate the kindness of their sponsors, the neighbours who attempt a bit of Arabic. Their advice? If you need English, come to Loyola.

Teacher Michele Dean is an 18-year veteran at Loyola. She values the friendships that form, and endure. “We’re the first real contact, after the settlement agency. We’re a safe place to start in a new country. And life is not so scary when you have the language.” She admires the students’ openness to every new experience, describing their eager participation in a recent unit on Indigenous culture with drumming demonstrations, mask-making, and a trip to the Museum of History in Ottawa.

So many new experiences. How does one go about explaining Hallowe’en pumpkin carving?

Michele sums up the life-changing nature of the school. “Loyola is not just about language, but about culture and life in Canada. We teach the students to adapt to Canadian ways, the things that make us all the same despite differences in home culture or religion. We find out we’re not so different. We all want peace, safety, and a soft place to land.” Loyola is one of those places.

Principal Loyola School of Adult and Continuing Education, Rob Gilmour and Coordinator of Non-credit programs, Loyola Michelle Lingard.

Zach and Luhana’s Littlejohn FarmStory by Catherine Stutt

Photography by Daniel VaughanIt’s the middle of the night, in a deserted

train station in southern France, in a town on the Bay of Biscay, just a short ride from the Spanish border. A young man arrived late. Not wanting to spend 60 Euros for a

pension for a few hours, he headed for the train station, planning on taking an early train into Spain. For a while, he was alone at Gare de Bayonne, until another train came in. A young woman disembarked,


arriving later than she planned, and she also made the decision to wait for an early train rather than take a hotel.

Two strangers in a train station, so far from home; many lines leading to the same point.

Zach grew up on a 25-acre farm in Stouffville, Ontario, just outside Toronto, one of six children. His father is a veterinarian, his mother a therapist. A competitive hockey player, Zach helped his father with the gardens and hobby farm, until the family moved to Toronto. He studied food and wine across Canada and around the world. He worked the front and back of the house in restaurants while customizing his culinary diplomas. He would work, save, travel, repeat.

After earning his sommelier papers, he treated himself with a trip to the wine harvest festival on the Isla Madeira, where he saw the old-school techniques, pergola-trained vines, and tasted the wine. “One flight

started in 1867. It was like drinking history,” he explained.

Before Madeira, Zach travelled through Portugal. His ultimate destination of this trip was southeast Asia, but first there was Spain. Zach wanted a culturally rich reasonably priced experience and chose the traditional route of Camino de Santiago. He was registered, and had his scallop shell, which identified him as a Jacquet, a pilgrim. The scallop shell is highly symbolic for participants of the Camino – many paths leading to one point – and highly practical. Iconic and ubiquitous along the routes, it gives comfort to hikers, assuring them they are on the right path, pointing the way to Santiago.

Luhana grew up in Salvador, Brazil, an ethnically diverse city in the coastal region. It has a large Afro-Brazilian population integrated for generations with the Portuguese. “There is a lot of mixed culture,

and it shows in the cuisine,” noted Luhana, in her charmingly accented perfect English, one of several languages she has mastered fluently. One of three children, her parents still live in the city. Luhana has fond memories of visiting her father’s citrus groves in the countryside as a child.

After earning a degree in International Relations, with a long-range goal of politics, social projects, and diplomacy, Luhana moved to Brussels. She worked with a Non-Government Organization (NGO) for five years, specializing in social projects in Peru and Africa. She was rewarded by seeing the impact of the NGO’s work. She pursued a master’s degree in Micro Finance, and again saw the difference a small investment could make. “Putting that power, that instrument in their hands is life-changing.”

Switching careers, she worked in Microsoft’s finance division in Belgium. “I loved it, I learned so much how the culture of


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the company matters. Microsoft makes you feel empowered. They make a community and we loved going to work every day. There was a huge sense of pride, and we felt the employees mattered more than anything. Maybe part of it was a European culture, and part Microsoft culture.”

With encouragement from her father, who had also walked the Camino, Luhana decided to treat herself after her master’s degree, and embarked on her personal journey. She registered, she had her scallop shell.

Two young professionals from separate American hemispheres, sitting alone in a train station in the south of France, each about to embark on a very personal, very spiritual journey, days of walking, reflecting, alone with their thoughts.

Except there were only two of them, and one was from a small Ontario town.

“It was his Canadian politeness,” laughed Luhana.“I’m Canadian,” smiled Zach. “There are

two people in a train station in the middle of the night. How could I not say hello? I walked up to her and noticed the scallop shell. We didn’t know it, but that’s when our journey started together.”

Luhana disagrees. “He introduced himself, and when he shook my hand, I felt something special.”

Two scallops and a handshake started a 34-day walk on the Camino de Santiago, and both speak of the highly personal experience.“The Camino is like life,” explained Luhana.

“You walk at your own pace. You pass people and they pass you, and sometimes a group walks together for a long time and gradually disperses. Often you walk alone. The Camino is a very special journey – it’s


very magical in how you meet and connect. People are there for a reason. It’s a mind, body, and soul experience. You’re walking every day with your thoughts, it makes you live in the present.”

Zach concurred. “This is a spiritual journey; it is very intense. There are a lot of first dates,” he smiled. “I didn’t want to intrude on Luhana’s Camino experience with romance.”

It showed up, regardless.

“We spoke of our dreams and found they were so similar,” Luhana remembered. “We spoke of Littlejohn Farm, and by the time we were finished the Camino, we had so many details finalized. It just flowed naturally.”

At the end of the Camino, Luhana had planned to return to Brazil for a two-week visit with her family. She had her return flight to Brussels booked and projects to finish at Microsoft, the company and job she loved. Zach was continuing his global adventures,

heading to southeast Asia. Instead, Luhana invited him to come with her, to meet her family for the two-week vacation.

They stayed four months. Luhana finished her Belgian project from Brazil. Zach fell in love with the country and the family. They found more common ground. Luhana spent a year in high school in Winnipeg as an exchange student, her family joining her for travels, and they fell in love with Canada.

“We enjoyed the Canadian culture and felt


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more Canadian in Winnipeg than in Toronto. Maybe it was the winter,” she laughed. “I always felt raising a family in Canada would be wonderful.”

Zach’s travels had led him to the southern hemisphere, where he spent time on an organic farm. “I learned a ton about gardening, small scale homesteading, and off-grid artisan production,” he said. “There is a necessity in New Zealand to be practical and figure out solutions without just throwing


money at a problem. New Zealanders are more resourceful out of necessity. They have a simple way of life; it’s less complicated and very refreshing. That impacted me the most.”

Farming is in Zach’s blood. Before the family sold their property in Stouffville to move to Toronto, he helped on the property.

“Dad tended the gardens and animals and then would go to work in the city. I saw the structure and the commitment necessary, and realized weather and nature dictated the days. My first job was haying. We had our barn to fill, and then I’d work for the neighbours. You work because it needs to be done and you take pride in the perfection of the property. There’s a beauty in doing it right.”

Although Toronto was his hub from his teenage years, “The idea of raising kids on a farm stuck.”

He lived in Whistler for three years and fell in love with the food and beverage world. He studied culinary arts in Vancouver, started his sommelier papers, studied cheesemaking in Guelph, and breadmaking at George Brown College, always with a focus on the craftsmanship of cooking. His education inspired him to become an avid food traveller.

In Brazil, Zach and Luhana talked about where they would live, where they would

raise their family. Zach had his apartment in Toronto, Luhana had hers in Belgium. “In Belgium, you need at least two languages to work,” she explained. They chose Toronto, and in 2015, she applied for an international internship and was offered a job.

The idea of life in the country pulled at the young couple. Zach wanted the land and animals, Luhana wanted a spiritual retreat, and both knew they wanted to raise their children outdoors. “Toronto let us figure out the details,” explained Zach. “We were looking for a place for agri-tourism and had three places in mind – Guelph, Prince Edward County, and Creemore Springs/Blue Mountain. The County checked all the boxes. It all made sense. We knew we wanted to be close to town on a main route, near Sandbanks, and have good soil for vegetables.”

They found a place online but didn’t think it was right for them. It was a group home run by an elderly couple, and Zach and Luhana dismissed it, but it kept coming up in their search. “Finally, we realized it was a sign,” recalled Zach. “We convinced ourselves to look at it as a blank canvas. We knew it was great location with great soil, and a strong well. We looked at positives, even though we saw it in the winter, and everything was so stark.”

Pieces of the puzzle just came together. “As first-time homeowners, there were things not even on our radar, but we found them. The County can mess you up with directions. We didn’t realize the sunset is right through our dining room windows.”

They put in an offer in February and it was accepted. Zach and Luhana’s Littlejohn Farm was now a reality.

The farm, located just south of Picton on County Road 10, boasts 3.5 very efficient acres, and the couple dove into the new challenge. Sustainability, low impact, and permaculture are more than goals – they are a lifestyle, reflected in the business plan.

Littlejohn offers a true farm-to-table experience, including accommodation for six guests, workshops, and wine tours. Zach and Luhana want their guests to enjoy as much of the farm life as they want, whether it’s collecting eggs for breakfast, picking produce for dinner, or just watching the sunset with the goats and ducks.“It’s so peaceful when we sit in the backyard

and the goats are relaxing,” shared Luhana. “They are our alarms. If anything is amiss, they’ll tell us, so when they are calm, we know everything is okay.”


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Littlejohn Farm started very modestly, with a few chickens, then some ducks. They bought Abby, a nanny La Mancha goat, last spring. She was already bred to a Nubian and they were hoping for twins, which they received. They added a billy and are planning their dairy goat herd. They figure it will take about three years to establish, and this year

hope to have goat cheese workshops, where participants can milk the goats and make the cheese.

The two pigs – a Berkshire and a Tamworth – add to the permaculture aspect. “They are very efficient composters,” said Zach. “They get our table scraps plus some eggs and

cheese, and we bring in spent grain from a local brewery and augment it with corn mash. It’s a very clean diet, and we make sure they get lots of exercise. When we want an area cleared of grass and weeds, and turned over, they’re very good at that task. We are raising happy animals and see them as part of the team. Everyone has a role to play.”

The ducks are a joy for the couple and their guests. “They bring a lot of fun to the farm experience,” said Zach. “They are truly free range, but they stick close because they know who feeds them. They’ll greet us in the morning and follow us during the day.”

The goats have supervised freedom, redefined after displaying a knack for knowing exactly when the raspberries are perfectly ripe, and several temporary absences to visit neighbours.

The property itself is ideal. A gentle slope from County Road 10 leads to the house, and just beyond sit the barn, the chicken tractors (moveable coops and enclosed runs), the duck house, and a tranquil seating area with a pergola (and that fabulous sunset). A large vegetable garden grows between the house

and the road (far from wandering goats), and supplies produce for group guest meals, wine tour picnics, and workshops.“We want this to be a unique agricultural

tourism experience at a peaceful retreat,” shared Luhana. “We want families or groups of couples to experience the County from the perspective of Littlejohn Farm.”

Zach’s workshops have proven to be very popular. This year he added charcuterie and cheesemaking workshops, and last year he had rave reviews on his pickling and preserving, and sourdough workshops. Participants get a lesson plan, a sample, and farm-to-table meal, all from the farm.

Last year, they grew Italian polenta corn, and ground it and wheat on-site. They took


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children to the chicken coop and let them collect eggs, and they welcomed gardening enthusiasts. Their concierge services sent guests on adventures throughout the County, and their wine tours included a picnic lunch. Zach is the chef for several exclusive winemaker dinners and shares his extensive knowledge of local wineries and wines. This year, they are planning a dinner series including a terroir tasting menu and backyard family style cookout, aligned with specific harvests.

“Growing up, travelling, and here on the County we see entire communities coming together for a harvest, and we want the dinners to have that atmosphere,” promised Zach.

Guests comment on the compact scale of the farm, marvelling at all it offers, and Luhana glows.

“We wanted to combine tourism and agriculture, and someone said to us, ‘You are the County.’ That made us so happy. We’re putting our souls into this and that feedback is rewarding.”

From a childhood in a busy city, to working in Brussels, and living in Toronto, Luhana is very social, and worried about being connected to the community. “We have a busier social life here than in Toronto,” she smiled. “There is a huge sense of community here. Everyone is working together and happy for their neighbours’ successes. There is still old-school integrity; we’re looking forward to raising our children with County values.”

The thread of raising their family in Canada, outdoors, on a farm, specifically on the County, morphed from theory to reality in mid-January, when Zach and Luhana welcomed Flora to Littlejohn Farm.

She is another happily ever after moment for a story starting in a train station in France, on the Bay of Biscay, when two travellers found their single point from many paths.

Mrs. B celebrates Twenty Years of Providing Fine

Quality Treats to Brighton and Beyond

Story by Jennifer SheaPhotography by Daniel Vaughan

Walking into Mrs. B’s Country Candy store in Brighton is a delight to the senses; there’s the smell of sweet chocolate, the colourful seasonal decorations, the shiny display cases and shelves full of treats, and, of course, the bright and welcoming smile of owner Lorie Boychuk. At 64, Lorie has short, silver hair and an enthusiasm for making and sharing quality sweets.

Her nickname, Mrs. B, was furnished by the children in the military housing neighbourhood in Gander, Newfoundland where Lorie and her husband, an officer, resided. Lorie was an avid baker and frequently had cookies available to share with the neighbourhood children. “We had a puppy. Fresh cookies and puppies – the kids were always in our house or yard. They named me Mrs. B and it just stuck.”

Lorie and her late husband, Wes, both worked as radar technicians in the Canadian Forces. Lorie was one of the team responsible for making repairs to radar equipment on CFB Trenton. She reminisces about a time when something had been dropped into the bubble that houses the radar equipment and needed to be retrieved.

“We were all hunched over trying to get in and the guys just couldn’t because they were too big and could hardly get one shoulder in, whereas I could get my head and one shoulder in. They


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figured if they grabbed me by the ankles I could get even further. It was a joke for a long time. I was smaller then,” she chuckles.

Relocating from Gander to Alabama for Wes’ NATO posting, Lorie and Wes eventually made their way back to the Quinte area in 1997. Lorie befriended a woman who held regular craft shows in her home. Leading up to one Christmas show, this woman had lost her supplier of baked goods at the last minute. Lorie offered to help her out. “I went home, and I made two kinds of brittle, I think I made up caramels quickly, sugar plums, and a mulling spice. She sold out every day. Then she was getting phone calls after Christmas, ‘Where can we get more?’ The writing was kind of on the wall.”

At that time, Lorie was in her 40s. She had back-to-back knee surgeries and hadn’t worked in some time but wanted to get back into the workforce. “For the first time in my life, it was to the point where I couldn’t even get an interview,” she recalls. “I just said, ‘There are other people in this position too. I’m going to start my own business and I’m going to hire older people, and I have.’” Lorie has two full-time employees (mature women like her) who help with manufacturing and running the retail store, as well as bookkeeping, scheduling, packaging, and shipping. Lorie hires summer students who also work part-time during the school year.

Mrs. B’s Country Candy began as a home-based enterprise. Lorie made brittles to start, then added caramels. She sold her goodies at craft shows and fairs initially, trying to get a feel for the market. “I started selling it from my home, because people

“We use excellent chocolate. We

don’t use melters. Some places that

manufacture chocolate just use

a melter; they don’t go to the trouble of actually tempering

chocolate.

”


kept phoning, asking for more between show seasons,” says Lorie.“I thought I would just do shows and that

would be it, but the demand made me go into a store. I’ve always been customer driven, so if they want something, I’ll find a way to get it to them. This business is very, very customer driven.”

When a little shop came up for rent, Lorie thought she’d try it for a couple of years. Mrs. B’s moved into its current Prince Edward Street location about 11 years ago.

When Lorie decided to start making chocolate, she was able to purchase equipment from a supplier in Prince Edward County, who also provided a few recipes. She then went for two weeks of training at The Chocolate Academy in Montreal. “By that time, I had been doing chocolate for about 18 months – the basics – they put me right into the advanced part,” says Lorie. “They train an awful lot of chocolatiers in this country. There’s only one level over where I am. It’s all the sculptures and things like that, which I don’t have time to do.”

Lorie’s goal is to make chocolate the old-fashioned way, by hand, on-site, in small batches for quality and freshness and using no salt or preservatives. “We’re still very artisan

and we like that because everything’s done by feel and touch,” says Lorie. “We use excellent chocolate. We don’t use melters. Some places that manufacture chocolate just use a melter; they don’t go to the trouble of actually tempering chocolate. These (pointing to a selection her truffles) look shiny, but there’s no wax on them. It’s just proper tempering techniques.”

Lorie’s eyes light up when she describes the chocolate making process and the attributes of the different chocolate truffles on offer at Mrs. B’s. “Our centres are unique. For the crème brûlée truffle, I take the caramel dark, so it almost has that torched flavour from the top of the crème brûlée. This one (pointing to another truffle) is much lighter; it’s a caramel cream. This one is a salted caramel, and this little guy mostly has a milk chocolate ganache, but it has some caramel in it, too. We make all those caramels right from sugar, so I can make them all different and unique.”

Mrs. B’s most popular items are the surprise inside products, chocolate truffles and, particularly, the “silly little” chocolate mice

– the ones containing the milk chocolate ganache with caramel. Asked which product is her personal favourite, Lorie responds in shock, “Really? You’re asking me that question? Which one’s your favourite child?

You know what I mean? When you develop the recipes and invent new things, it’s difficult to choose a favourite.”

The most challenging recipe to develop was a licorice truffle dipped in white chocolate and enrobed in dark chocolate. The difficulty was largely because Lorie is not a fan of licorice “Much to my father’s dismay,” she says, so taste testing was quite unpleasant for her. This particular truffle is no longer offered, but fans can still find chocolate-dipped licorice offered in the store.

Mrs. B’s sources as much supply as possible from the region. “Like the humbugs and the rocket and candy canes at Christmas, we get from a fellow in Verona – Bell Candy. The Turkish delight and the chocolate-dipped sponge toffee and our fudge is from Ontario

– from St. Jacob’s. If I can find things locally, I use them,” says Lorie.

Over the years, Lorie has seen an evolution in her customers’ tastes. “I’m finding people are starting to understand chocolate more. They understand the difference between a mass-produced commercial bar and quality chocolate. It’s just a matter of exposing them to it. That’s what I’m noticing. The Internet has really helped. People are starting to educate themselves.”


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Last Valentine’s Day, Sandbanks Winery in Prince Edward County began pairing Mrs. B’s chocolate truffles with their wines. “They did a romantic wine and chocolate pairing,” says Lorie. “Then they did a few more during the summer. We have a box of five chocolates there that go well with five of their wines.”

Adds Lorie, “You know what’s amazing to me? Chocolate and beer; that is the newest thing that’s being explored. I find more of the rustic flavours go with beer, like peanut butter or other nuttier flavours. The lemon and the orange flavours pair well because there’s that fruitiness to a beer. I should talk with John (Graham) up at Church-Key Brewery.”

In addition to the Brighton retail store and manufacturing site, Mrs. B’s products can be found at various retail stores throughout Ontario. Stores in Kingston, Port Perry, Trenton, Belleville, Napanee, Verona, Port Hope, Westport, Unionville, and Markham carry them. More recently, Lorie added an online ordering option on her website so people can purchase her products without going into a store.

Lorie is proud of what she and her team have accomplished at Mrs. B’s and she’s quick to acknowledge the people who helped it happen. Economic development representatives in

both Belleville and Cobourg have helped Lorie to access low-interest loans and other financial supports. Lorie has been impressed with the networking opportunities offered as well. “If I have a need for something, I call them up and they’ll help us find it. They connect businesses together.”“Lorie has built an incredible business

with Mrs. B’s Country Candy and Bellissima Chocolates,” says Chris King, CEO of the Quinte Economic Development. “Her commitment to quality is evident in the products she creates. It’s a pleasure promoting her brand as part of the Proudly Made in Bay of Quinte program.”

As Lorie starts to plan for retirement and passing the torch of the business to someone else, the economic development team in Cobourg has set her up with an advisory board of business experts who will provide guidance.

Mrs. B’s Country Candy will be celebrating its 20th anniversary in March 2019, around the same time that their popular homemade gelato starts being featured in the store (along with Kawartha Dairy ice cream) for the season. Asked about anniversary plans, Lorie mulls it over. “Maybe a birthday cake-flavoured gelato. Everybody loves birthday cake!”

Take a Closer

Look

“Chocolate and beer; that is the newest thing that’s being explored. I find more of the rustic flavours go with beer, like

peanut butter or other nuttier flavours.

”

Story by Cindy DuffyPhotography by Daniel Vaughan

The Artists of Tyendinaga

While prominent cultural institutions like the Art Gallery of Ontario and the National Gallery of Canada have improved and continue to engage in discussion about ways to better represent art produced by Indigenous artists, recent initiatives a little closer to home connecting local Indigenous artists to the broader community have been very successful.

Belleville’s Gallery 121 exhibit featuring local Indigenous artists has become so popular it is now a biennial event. Last summer, spearheaded by Mohawk artist Narda Julg, Macaulay Heritage Park in Picton had more than 700 people visit its inaugural local Indigenous art exhibit and sale. The Stirling Library Art Gallery’s fall 2018 exhibit featured five local Indigenous artists.

Internet and social media have helped facilitate this outreach, too. The Artists of Tyendinaga website features 19 painters, plus sculptors, carvers, musicians, and photographers. Some are graduates of university fine arts programs, many describe themselves as self-taught. One thing they have in common is being part of a cultural history rich in artistic expression.

Janice Brant, also known by her Mohawk name Kahéhtoktha, is an artist and educator from Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory. She says the vibrant artistic community there is not surprising. “From a historical perspective, because we (Mohawk peoples) enjoyed an abundance of food, as agriculturalists, it created a lot of time for personal and artistic expression, so we’re very evolved in terms of our art. With a B.A. in Indigenous Studies from Trent University, and two post-graduate degrees in education, she laughs as she says, “And I think…yes I could get an anthropologist to back me up on that.”

We visited Kahéhtoktha and three other Tyendinaga visual artists to get a glimpse of their lives and their work.

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KahéhtokthaThe garden by Kahéhtoktha’s front door is

filled with giant zinnias, still brilliant orange, pink, and yellows even in the dusk of early fall. Once inside, the significance of the zinnias’ showy abundance for this artist is obvious. The coffee table in the living room is covered with boxes of seeds, painstakingly harvested with the help of her husband Ken. The seeds are their contribution to a worldwide, albeit small, network of people committed to preserving the world’s biological diversity and food security by saving seeds. On the walls surrounding the seeds are larger than life paintings of traditional plants, among them a Hubbard squash, and a mammoth sunflower in the style of an early vintage seed packet, with the addition of the Mohawk name. Both plants were developed and first cultivated by Mohawks. There are also paintings depicting traditional agricultural practices, such as women cultivating the Three Sisters – corn, beans, and squash.“For a lot of my paintings I come to the canvas

full of joy, full of excitement, full of wanting to tell the story of this Hubbard squash or to tell the story of The Great Tree of Peace and what it means even today, that the message is still alive.”

Busy with her teaching career, Kahéhtoktha has been showing her work publicly for less than a decade. “I’m always glad when people ask me questions and that way, I can share the story. We live day to day without knowing the contributions Native people have made to our society and especially to our food ways, the food we eat, and medicines we have.”

One painting few have asked about is titled The Telling Jail. “I think they look at it and go ‘whoa’ because it’s a little hard to look at.” Kahéhtoktha painted it to process for herself and to tell others how she felt about her treatment, as a victim of childhood sexual assault facing the accused perpetrator in an unsuccessful prosecution. She says the experience, “Was like being abused all over again, maybe even worse.” The painting shows a young girl, modeled from a childhood photograph, standing in a locked jail cell looking out. “This is sort of a Sisters in Spirit painting for me. I hope people will see it and ask me what it’s about.”

Kahéhtoktha is one of a number of artists commissioned by Macaulay Heritage Park for its new permanent exhibit launched November 2018. She provided a framed print and was there recently to see the exhibit. “What a wonderful job they are doing incorporating the works of contemporary Indigenous artists with historical artifacts to demonstrate we are still here.”


Allison LynnWe met at the Stirling Public Library

where Allison Lynn’s work was on exhibit, along with four other Indigenous artists – Debra Vincent, Doug Brant, AJ VanDrie, and Sue Wade – titled Cultural Richness Revisited. She had driven directly from her job at Quinte Mohawk School in Deseronto where she teaches grades two/three and brought her own children with her, Buddy, three and Daisy, one, with little time to catch her breath, she distracted them with library toys, dealing with their minor interruptions with ease while she talked about her art.

Allison’s prints reflect influences from her Indigenous heritage and her days as a fine arts student at York University and the Ontario College of Art and Design. They include finely rendered black on white images of the four sacred medicines – sage, tobacco, sweet grass, and white cedar, taken from photos of plants grown in her own garden. While a fine arts student she developed an affinity for art nouveau and includes elements in these highly stylized prints. They are labeled

with their Mohawk names reflecting her passion for learning, teaching, and preserving the Mohawk language.

The second piece combines three lino prints of women in traditional dress, dancing. She has filled the prints in with watercolours and positioned them in horizontal and vertical rows within a single, large frame creating the illusion of movement, as though they are actually dancing.

Allison is working on some new lino prints and collage pieces for exhibits this summer. “They’re kind of developing in tandem, which is nice because the lino print involves some very dedicated sit-down carving work, whereas the mixed media collage pieces feel a lot more impulsive, I suppose; more choices, a little less planning. I like that right now.” Meanwhile she is grateful for local exhibits like this one. “It’s an exciting time to be a part of this artistic community and to watch some of the seeds that have been planted really start to blossom.”

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Above: Cindy and Allison with Kanhiote Tyendinaga Territory librarian Kelly-Anne Whalen

Cindy Loft knew from an early age she had some artistic talent. “I was a kid when I realized I could draw, when I realized it was something I was good at. I wasn’t good at academics, I wasn’t good at reading, I wasn’t good at math… but I could draw.”

She has arranged her paintings on the walls of the kitchen and living area where she lives with her husband Kenneth Loft. The couple met as teenagers while playing baseball on a nearby field, with four children and six grandchildren they celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary this past spring. “I just love colours, you can tell, my kitchen is orange. I love colour everywhere, I always have, and the older I get the brighter my colours get. I’m not as worried about what

people think. I’ve always liked bright colours.”Besides the use of bright colours, many of

Cindy’s paintings have southwestern themes and images. “I love Arizona. I was able to go to Arizona about eight years ago with my husband and youngest boy. I just feel like I should have been born there,” she laughed. “The very first painting I ever did, even before I went there, had cactus in it.”

One of her paintings has a desert landscape background, and two horses rearing up and fighting in the foreground, within each horse’s frame is a man. “I was going through a tough time I guess, struggling to decide whether I was going to stay in nursing or change careers. Some of the Aboriginal beliefs say when we die, we come back as animals. This

painting shows two warriors coming back as stallions, it shows struggle.”

Busy with her nursing career and raising a family, she somehow found time to keep working on her art. Over the years she has taken art courses at Loyalist College and she gets inspiration from others. When asked about her favourite artists she doesn’t hesitate, “Emily Carr, Michelangelo, and Mary Claus.” Mary Claus is a well known Tyendinaga artist, friend, and neighbour. “Mary has been a godsend. I go to her studio to paint. Mary taught me shading and just to go for it…not to fear it because you can fix it. Mary keeps me on track.”

Cindy Loft


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Mary ClausWith her critical eye and dry sense of humour it is

easy to see how Mary Claus would be a good mentor. Teaching is in her blood. Both parents, Ella and Leslie Claus, were teachers getting their start when there were four one-room schoolhouses in Tyendinaga. Mary, too, had a long career in education, after getting a B.A. from Western University in the ’60s, she earned a Bachelor of Education and worked in various capacities in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario. Whenever she had the chance, she read art books, went to galleries, and took art classes. It was then she was exposed to the Impressionists, a style she says has influenced her own work, and it was in Saskatchewan where she first took printmaking classes.

Retired from teaching, Mary has moved home to Tyendinaga, and now lives, along with her dog, a Corgi-cross named Piper, in the house where she and her brother grew up. Then a small mixed farm she remembers driving a tractor, feeding the pigs, and milking cows. It is a cozy bungalow right across the road from what was her grandparent’s farm, where her Dad grew up on York Road. “Treading this land is nice, because I know they did too,” she said.

She recalls they encouraged their childhood artistic pursuits, “Right on the kitchen floor here. Mom and Dad would bring home the groceries and we waited anxiously so we could have the brown paper bags and they’d cut them open and spread them out on the floor and we could do our creative thing with crayons.” Her father, Leslie Claus was an artist too, often accompanying bedtime stories with illustrations.

Many of his paintings hang on Mary’s walls. “Dad was a watercolourist, basically. I mean he did oils and other things too, but I think watercolour was his first

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love. I’ve done some of that, but I consider it the most difficult of all the mediums. It’s unforgiving. If you make a mistake you have to live with it. Dad was very delicate in his approach, very meticulous. I’m more slap dash, I’m afraid.”

Accompanied by Piper, she ventured across the driveway to her studio, a converted garage, comfortable even on a blustery winter day. Her latest prints are hanging to dry, taking longer than expected; experiments with new ink she found out about on YouTube. If her approach is slap dash, she is very self-critical after the fact. She critically analyzed each painting, mostly oils of the local landscape so familiar and inspirational to her.

When asked how she thinks her Indigenous culture has influenced her art, her response is matter of fact. “As far as culture, it’s who I am, and what I like to paint are things that have significance to me. I couldn’t do a picture of the Rocky Mountains and care about it. It’s a relationship to the environment, and a respect for it, an appreciation of its strength and history. I’ve found what I’ve painted, I don’t know if it’s the kiss of death or what, but often what I’ve painted gradually disappears, progress comes along and destroys it. I’m kind of desperate to get those things recorded before they’re just buried under our interpretation of progress.” On an easel in the middle of the studio is a painting of a nearby marsh she hopes to soon finish. A sense of urgency creeps into her voice, “I hope it’s not going to soon disappear, too.”

To see these and other artists’ work, Macaulay Heritage Park Museum will host its second annual exhibit and sale, July 19 to August 5. In November, the Quinte Arts Council’s downtown Belleville Gallery will host an Indigenous art exhibit and sale, and the Loyalist College Indigenous Resource Centre will hold its 24th annual Indigenous arts festival.

Visit artistsoftyendinaga.ca for a full gallery.

Celebrating the 20th Anniversary

of the Kente Tomahawk and Knife Throwing Club

Prince Edward County resident Roger Redner is passionate about local pioneering history, with very good reason. He is the seventh generation living on the same

land, same farm, settled in the 1700s by his ancestors, United Empire Loyalists.“The land was deeded from the Crown,

about 1,000 acres,” said Roger who just celebrated his 80th birthday. “Rednersville was incorporated in late 1700s. My ancestors were mostly flatlanders, while I became a

professional trapper of fur-bearing animals like muskrats, racoons, and beaver, shipping pelts to a North Bay auction house. We originally started with the Ontario Trappers Association; that went under, and the trappers all regrouped and formed the trapper-owned Ontario Fur Managers (OFM), with support

Story by Vic SchukovPhotography by Daniel Vaughan


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from First Nations trappers. The OFM sells more than a million dollars of fur a year.”

Closer to home, 25 years ago, Roger started participating in pioneer day re-enactments at Ameliasburgh Pioneer Village every Victoria Day weekend. “The games always included throwing tomahawks and knives, as one of their fun activities. Everybody was looking for tomahawks and couldn’t find any, so I started designing them.” Different from a hatchet, the tomahawk has a 20-inch handle with a one-degree taper onto which a four-inch (maximum) blade is swaged. The blade is precision cast, guaranteed within 1,000th of a millimetre. The design is traditional, Roger owns the mould and makes 50 at a time.

Immersed in the sport, Roger formed the Kente Tomahawk and Knife Throwing

Club 20 year ago. “We get together every Tuesday night at the other end of my farm, at my daughter’s place on Victoria Road. It costs five dollars for two hours. We have five different throws from right and left handed, and underhand and backwards. We give trophies for a high score, and 50-50 scores also. Then we throw knives. I own the moulds for them too.”

The target is a log cut eight inches thick with a playing card placed sideways on it. Participants get five throws from 12 feet away. If they nick the card, that’s three points. Cutting the card in half is five points, and one point for sticking it in the log.“I enjoy it because it is so much fun, and

someone is always digging the other guy, like ‘Why did you throw it that way?’ he laughed. “When it leaves your hand, you don’t have

“

Everybody was looking for tomahawks

and couldn’t find any,

so I started designing them.

”


any control. It’s gone. It’s a good, clean, fun night, and what can you do for five bucks for two hours?”

It’s good practice for The Gathering of Friends re-enactment on Victoria Day weekend for the opening of the Ameliasburgh Museum. “We’re all dressed in buckskin, you bet,” assured Roger.“We have 35 prospector tents and

usually a teepee. We have traditional games like atlatl – a tool that uses leverage to achieve greater velocity in launching a five-foot giant arrow. We also have hoop races, sling shot, peanut toss, and rabbit sticks. The settlers played along with the Aboriginal People because they didn’t have their own games. In those days, you made your own. We also have trading tables covered with red blankets, like olden times.”

“

The First Nations

started the games,

teaching and helping

the pioneers a lot. If

it wasn’t for the them,

the settlers would

not have survived the

first few winters.

”


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Club member Rick Hamilton of Brighton, a former paratrooper and retired RCMP officer studying to become a pastor, met Roger while they were members of a blacksmith association.“We are all re-enactors of the

War of 1812 at the Village. To stay true to the period, we can only wear buckskin, no modern day anything, dressed as hunters, trappers, farmers, all pioneers. We have quite a few First Nations people in the group honouring their heritage. In the long bow competitions, the arrows must be old, and hand made by a fletcher. The First Nations started the games, teaching and helping the pioneers a lot. If it wasn’t for the them, the settlers would not have survived the first few winters. We owe them more than we can even say.”“What I value most in the club

is the camaraderie. We all laugh and kid each other. Get a bunch of guys together, and they give you a hard time,” laughs Rick. “In a good way, they try to get you

going. I get a wall of trophies and fresh air and it’s great fun and excellent for hand/eye coordination.”

The club’s youngest member is Roger’s daughter, Kelly Dolihan. “It’s such a good time, it’s recreational and social with a great group of friends. You are wielding a (formidable) weapon, and not everyone does it. I have been doing it since I was 13, so it’s kind of second nature.”

Member Ken Scherk, in his late 70s, throws while holding a cane. “It gives me a night out with a mixed bag of people. It’s something different from bowling. I have always been interested in western history and was in the Upper Canada Rifles an early re-enactment group. Some of the club’s fellows are bringing their grandchildren, and they are getting good at it.”

The Kente Tomahawk and Knife Throwing Club welcomes new members. For information, call Roger at 613.969.8139 or Rick at 613.475.9970.

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At home with CQL’s Alan Gratias James and Suzanne Wright

The end of January is a good time to throw a dinner party, that is if you can track down friends who haven’t snowbirded south. Post-Christmas cabin fever was setting in when Suzanne and James Wright invited Joanie and me to dinner at their rambling red-brick farmhouse on the Quaker Road. The Quaker Road runs west of Picton and north off County Road 1. Many of the early United Empire Loyalist pioneers in Prince Edward County were Quakers, also known as the Society of Friends, from New York’s Duchess County on the Hudson River. That included the Morden family who built the brick Italianate house that currently stands at the end of the road.

The Wright residence is private, almost secluded, the last home on the dead-end road. Offset by a magnificent dairy barn painted green, the house sits on a knoll, strutting its bay windows and imposing height. The home has been an ongoing renovation project since the Wrights moved here,

but now James has retired, the pace of restoration has picked up. All the windows have recently been replaced by German-engineered airtight black steel frames that shout out their precision and snug fit.

James is in the courtyard adjusting lights on the pergola, which doubles as an outdoor dining pavilion, as we pull to a stop in a scrunch of packed snow. Always cheerful and gentlemanly, he guides us gingerly across the shovelled path. Suzanne has the email moniker ‘designwiz’ for a reason. She has had a flourishing design consultancy in Toronto for years, and now is masterminding the Quaker Road house as a 100-acre country estate in the English style. James is all hands-on, hammer, saw, and sweat, with Suzanne as the guru of finishing details, interiors, and textures. Everywhere you look bears testimony to a partnership in sync with each other’s sensibilities. The farm has not been worked since the 1950s and much of the land, except for

30 acres currently under cultivation, is now covered in dense bush teeming with coyotes, turkeys, and deer.

“We purchased the property on June 23, 2002, exactly 25 years after our wedding,” James explains to my insistent questions. “The house was built in 1864 by Richard Morden and is depicted on Tremaine’s map of the County as Pleasant Green with Lucy Morden named as the owner.”

Suzanne picks up the thread. “The house had never been modernized. There was no running water, a three-holer outhouse attached to the back of the drive shed, plaster was falling off the walls, putty off the windows, and paint off the trim. The house had been uninhabited for 30 years and was host to many birds and bats.”

“What a mess,” she exclaims, “but an exciting project for an optimistic couple, somewhat naïve, who could see the bones of the structure.”

Amos, their young Airedale Terrier, barks our arrival from the back room,

Above: Photo by Sam Simone


caged for the moment, then liberated to make the sniff rounds of the visitors. “King of the Terriers,” James pronounces. “Brilliant, mischievous, and energetic.” “My cardiologist is very happy,” James boasts, “I have dropped 30 pounds since taking charge of Amos.”

Suzanne greets us in the new kitchen, gleaming, tiled, and polished in every corner. Pretty and country chic in a dark top over black trousers, she waves her hand in salute to the new kitchen. She has blonde good looks and a flawless English complexion.

“How do you like it?” she enthuses. What’s not to like? Pale grey cabinetry, charcoal interiors, black slate countertops, and a centre island of quartz. All appliances are hidden behind panels.

Suzanne studied art history and worked for the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative before setting up her own IBIS Interiors, a Toronto based interior design company. She still spends about half her time each week in Toronto where the Wrights maintain a small pied-a-terre.

James introduces the other dinner guests, long-time friends Jack and Veronica, and Michael and Ursula, then ushers us into what can only be called the Great Room, a cavernous converted driveshed which James has finished single-handedly in barnboards, hand-hewn beams, and stone. He stands tall and dignified by the huge airtight fireplace at the far end of the room, the only source of heat for the Great Room, to take our drink orders.

While I do not think of James as a clothes horse, he is always smartly turned out, tonight in a pink cashmere turtleneck over comfy cords. This tailored presentation is probably a habit of his 30-plus years as a teacher and counsellor at Crescent School in Toronto, a much-loved figure of wisdom, integrity, and advice. I have insider knowledge of his legendary status from my nephew Chris, who spent eight years at Crescent. He assures me Mr. Wright was a revered Mr. Chips-like father figure to generations of lads. James comes by his nurturing ways honestly. His brother is an Anglican minister and his father, Canon Wright, presided over a thriving parish at St. Cuthbert’s on Bayview Avenue in Toronto. All three of Joanie’s daughters were baptized by Canon Wright, followed by lunch and pink champagne at home.

We move next door to another long and beautiful room where a dining table is set in glittering service for eight. On route, the guests stop in astonishment in front of what I thought was an oversized abstract painting but turns out to be a traditional pull-down classroom map with a dated colour delineation of Europe. A birthday gift from Suzanne, the actual map from James’ math classroom (he was head of the math department before coming Academic Dean). Michael, who knows of such matters

as a long-time teacher and administrator at Upper Canada College, explains, “The boys often taped Playboy centerfolds, Miss April being a favourite, in the centre of the map to muffled laughter when the map was pulled down from the ceiling bracket.”

At one end of the room sits a traditional rib roast of beef the size of which I haven’s seen for years. After grace, intoning thanks for, “Our blessings, good friends, and good fortune,” James, a skilled carver, distributes slices of perfectly cooked pink beef with Yorkshire pudding, carrots, and potatoes to a table of bubbling conversations. Suzanne has made a mocha cheesecake for dessert. The cold, the snow, the prospect of two more months of winter, recedes in the collective

moment of camaraderie and shared County living. There is the inevitable talk of political turmoil and the angst of Generation Z and millennials. The Wrights have two children who make regular visits to the Quaker homestead, occasionally getting hijacked for some heavy lifting on the renovation front. Aynsley, married with two children, lives in the Beach area of Toronto and works for Toronto Hydro, and son Christian lives in Charlottetown doing energy conservation work with Energy PEI. “When they come,

it’s work in the morning and play in the afternoon,” James says. “A winning strategy for everyone.”

We retire back to the Great Room with the roaring fire for more conversation and classroom stories. Joanie and I excuse ourselves in anticipation of a five o’clock start the next morning to drive to Charleston, South Carolina. Swirling snow and a storm forecast make me wonder if we will be able to get away. On the way out I ask our hosts what secret of a successful marriage they would like to share, theirs being manifest tonight of a magic formula. “Luck and shared vision,” wise James jumps in. “And endless patience,” Suzanne adds, giving her husband a knowing glance.

Photo courtesy Alan Gratias


signpostsSheba’s Island

Story and photographyby Lindi Pierce in search of sheba’s island

This 60-acre scrap of land has seen a lot of changes. Volcano. Glacier. Wind, water, and driven sand. Sheba’s Island sits in West Lake in Prince Edward County, itself an island in a larger lake.

A causeway built on a sandbar bordered by marsh and open lake connects Sheba’s Island to the West Lake shoreline. In the 2017 high water year, residents rediscovered island living, when access was cut off. Winn’s Road crosses the causeway and climbs a hill shaded with cedars and cottonwoods; a loop road circles the island.

Island resident John Moore explored local history in his 2004 publication, Winn’s Island, alias Shebas’s, Tubbs’, Macdonald’s Island (the spelling changed in the 1930s). The island changed names under several of its 13 owners; family names which appear even today in phone books, on road signs, or on the stones in old churchyards. Joseph Winn owned the island from 1809 to 1816. The Tubbs family (as in Isaiah Tubbs Resort) were owners from 1816 to 1875.

Albert and William Henry McDonald owned McDonald’s Island from 1900 to 1932. William operated a muskrat farm in the marsh during the 1920s (occasional sightings persist) and built a practice track, part of today’s road, for his fine trotters.

The island was agricultural for much of its history, farmers driving their cattle over for summer pasture. John noted evidence of orchards and a sugar bush. By the 1930s and ’40s several businessmen-owners used the island for a hunting and fishing preserve, and a private cottage enclave.

Perhaps surprising to anyone visiting the busy spot today, the island was privately owned until 1956 when it was purchased by investor Mike Sheba, who subdivided and

sold the first summer cottage lots, creating the summer community on Sheba’s Island. Astonishingly, the purchase price was said to be $16,000 and, “People thought he had rocks in his head.”

Mike Sheba’s unique 1974 retreat boasted 50-foot wooden beams and hand-built doors, and a moat. Today two large suburban homes face the westerlies there, on the open point.

Long-time residents John and Margaret Moore have watched many changes from their private wooded acre in the centre of Sheba’s Island. “It’s been a construction site since 2000 – now only a few empty lots remain.” A handful of original cottages still stand. Those which do are typically demolished and replaced by large showplace homes filling the lots to the edges. Cedar bush surrenders to construction. The willow-draped pond the Moores once shared with nesting little green herons is now occupied by a striking modern home built for entertaining.

Perhaps the biggest change is in the community. With the proliferation of weekend homes and short-term rentals, old-time residents feel they’ve lost touch with neighbours. Weekenders bring their community with them; they may not share the day-to-day connections which characterized the former tight-knit summer cottage community. “We hardly know anyone anymore.”

The island keeps on changing.Despite it all, some things are immutable.

A canoe can still slip into the glassy smooth water at dusk, a great blue heron can fish, wind rustles in the bulrushes, and mallards court on Sheba’s Island.

About Dave Author and musician Dave Bidini is the only person to have been nominated for a Gemini, Genie, and Juno, as well CBC’s Canada Reads. A founding member of Rheostatics, he has written 10 books, including on a cold Road, tropic of hockey, around the World in 57½ Gigs, and home and away.

He has made two Gemini Award-nominated documentaries and his play, The Five hole stories, was staged by One Yellow Rabbit Performance Company, touring the country in 2008. In 2010, he won his third National Magazine Award, for Travels in Narnia, and in 2014, he was nominated for a Toronto Arts Award and published his iBook, Keon and Me.

His third book, Baseballissimo, is being developed for the screen by Jay Baruchel. His latest book, Midnight Light, has been called, “The bright illumination of the new North and an under-the-hood illumination of today’s journalism.”

He is currently the publisher of the West End Phoenix community newspaper.

With many friends in Quinte, Dave has been playing the County for some time.

Sa itarg’SG r a v i t a s Q u o t i e n tG r a v i t a s Q u o t i e n t i s a m e a s u r e o f o n e ’ s r e s e r v e s o f i n n e r w i s d o m .

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Discover your Gravitas Quotient at www.gravitasthegame.com

By Alan Gratias

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M E TA L RO O F I N G & S I D I N G | S O F F I T, FA S C I A & T R I M | R A I N W A R E

LIFETIME NON PRO-RATED LIMITED WARRANTYIncludes Material & Labor

LIFETIME HAIL & IMPACT PROTECTIONWarranted against perforation resulting from Rust or Hail

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