February 2010 - Ramara Chronicle

Transcription

Swinging open
A new Lakeshore Road
swing bridge has been designed
and is expected to open in May
St. Columbkille Catholic Church
in Uptergrove is one of the most
architecturally significant
buildings in Ramara
10
St. Andrew’s Catholic Church
in Brechin appeals to parishioners
for money to repair the building
On ice
12-17
More people fish Lake Simcoe in
winter than at any other time of year
Voice of authority
Lagoon City resident
George McLean’s sound and skill
raised him to top level of CBC News
Whitefish for dinner
Our cover
8
An Uptergrove
landmark
Church
seeks $215,000
4
28
33
Chef Konstantine cooks up
the Lake Simcoe catch of the day
Lagoon City photographer Gail Smith shot
this winter scene from County Road 47,
looking toward Thorah Island, near
sunset. She used a Canon EOS Digital
Rebel XT, f-stop 5.6, shutter speed 1/800th
of a second.
Our first issue
The Ramara Chronicle, February 2010
Welcome to the first issue of The Ramara
Chronicle.
We are here to write about and celebrate the
life and times of Ramara Township, offering
readers a locally produced source of community news, columns and feature articles.
Ramara is all about the people who live
here, and we will seek to reflect this vibrant,
growing community in our coverage of its residents and events. Our community identity
will populate our pages.
We believe our history is an important part
of who we are today, and will bring to life stories that have been lost in time, recognizing
the people who were among the first to see the
potential of this area. We will pay tribute to
those who came before us by writing about
their challenges and triumphs.
We will blend our past with our future, and
document our township’s growth. Our best
kept secret as a recreational paradise has been
discovered, and we are on the brink of exciting times.
We will bring you up to date on plans and
projects, and do our best to keep you current
on council decisions and new developments.
In addition to publishing monthly, we will
actively participate in and cover local events,
seeking opportunities to help create new projects and community events designed to draw
people to the area and help stimulate its economy.
We would not have been able to create The
Ramara Chronicle without the broad support
we have enjoyed from local clubs and organizations throughout the township.
In assembling our network of contributors,
we have encountered an abundance of local
talent. You will see your friends and neighbours featured as local volunteer correspondents whose diverse, creative skills have
helped produce editorial content that we believe will offer something of interest to just
about everyone.
A special thank you goes to our advertisers,
who gave their support to a concept with no
Contact us
(705) 484-1576
[email protected]
www.ramarachronicle.com
The Standard Bank Building
2291 Highway 12,
Brechin, ON. L0K 1B0
Darleen Cormier and Rob McCormick
We are here to write about
and celebrate the life and
times of Ramara Township,
offering readers a locally
produced source of
community news, columns
and feature articles.
track record. Their belief in the potential of
Ramara Township and the need for a local
publication have allowed us to bring you the
Ramara Chronicle free of charge.
Ramara has stories to tell, and we are here to
cover them.
We hope to inform, entertain and perhaps
even surprise you with our content.
So sit back, relax and enjoy your read.
Darleen Cormier, publisher,
Rob McCormick, managing editor
This monthʼs contributors
Suzan Bertrand, Larry Booth, Adrienne Davies,
David Homer, William Houston, Nadir Jamal,
Sandra Joyce, Larry Kirtley, Kevin Lehman,
Konstantine Kiriopoulos, Janet Masching,
Stefani Moy-Shuster, Carol Nass, Shannon
OʼDonnell, Bob Poyntz, Pam Poyntz, Anne
Saso, Gail Smith, Brittany Van Dyk, Wil
Wegman
The Ramara Chronicle is printed
by Rose Printing in Orillia.
Website by Downtown Computers in Orillia.
Page 1
Ramona Winterfest
Airport improvements
The new Legion
Lagoon City dredging
Protecting Lake Simcoe
Youth food drive
Childrenʼs Safety Village
Buyouts for casino staff
Medical centre closes
Dogs get the point
Christmas Bird Count
Ramona Fair results
New trail proposed
Passages
Sebright
Capsule Comments
Hospital program for seniors
Profile
Two new quarries gear up
Gardening
Computers
Calendar of events
Food feature
Pick one up
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Where you can find your complimentary
copy of The Ramara Chronicle:
Atherley
Allan Byersʼ Equip., Hwy. 12
Bayshore
Postal kiosk
Beaverton
Fisherʼs Your Independent Grocer
Brechin
Ramara Township Offices
Brechin Foodland
Brechin Library
Lagoon City
The Harbour Inn
Lagoon City Community Association
General Store, Laguna Pkwy.
Rama
Rama Culture & Research Dept.
Rama Government Building
Rama Health Center
Rama Library
Ramara Centre
Township Library, Hwy. 12
Sebright
Sebright General Store
Uptergrove
Leskaʼs Meat and Delicatessen, Hwy. 12
Washago
Home Hardware
Benʼs Pharmacy
See The Ramara Chronicle online
www.ramarachronicle.com.
Page 2
Special to The Ramara Chronicle
Participants enjoy last yearʼs Ramona
Winterfest, presented by the Ramona
Agricultural Society. This yearʼs event
is on Feb. 13.
A northern Ramara tradition
Winter Olympics this year’s theme for Ramona Winterfest
Winter festivals bring back memories of mittens
with snow clinging to them, rosy red cheeks, hot
chocolate with marshmallows and being able to
see your breath. They are a great injection of fun
into a season that drives most people indoors.
“Itʼs wonderful to have
children, parents and
grandparents join us for the
all the fun and festivities.
Itʼs something the whole
family will enjoy.”
Glenn Spriggs, president,
Ramona Agricultural Society
Every year on the second Saturday of February,
the Ramona Agricultural Society holds a winter
festival.
The Ramona Winterfest, a northern Ramara tradition since the mid-1990s, is on Feb. 13 this year.
The theme for 2010 is most appropriate: The Winter Olympics.
Glen Spriggs, president of the Ramona Agricultural Society and Ramona Hall, looks forward to
this winter break.
“Winterfest at Ramona Hall is all about the
families in our community,” he says. “It’s wonderful to have children, parents and grandparents
join us for the all the fun and festivities. It’s
something the whole family will enjoy.”
By KEVIN LEHMAN
Community
Correspondent
Last year, about 120 people attended.
The $5 entry fee buys a Winterfest button that
entitles the wearer to take part in all of the day’s
events.
The main event of the day is the annual poker
run, a five-kilometre trek through the picturesque
bush around Ramona Hall. Participants cover the
course by walking, cross-country skiing or on
snowshoes.
For the uninitiated, during a poker run, the competitors start out from a starting point, in this case
Ramona Hall, where they are given a playing card.
They then proceed along a previously laid-out
track, collecting another playing card at each of
three checkpoints and one at the finish line. A lot
of the fun of the poker run occurs at the checkpoints, where participants, in many cases families,
meet to take a rest, enjoy refreshment and exchange stories about this year’s and previous runs.
At the end, back at Ramona Hall, they collect their
last card, turn in their completed poker hands and
compete for cash prizes. The camaraderie and exercise ensure, however, that everyone is a winner.
The first competitors head out at 10 a.m. and
the last at 2 p.m., with the final, completed poker
hands accepted at 3:30 p.m.
It’s not a race, but rather a chance to spend
some time in the beauty of the winter season,
greet old friends, meet new neighbours and, if
luck is on your side, win some cash.
If trekking isn’t your thing, there’s still plenty
to do at the Ramona Winterfest. At 1:30 p.m. the
euchre tournament starts and at 4 p.m. you can
take part in the darts tournament
All the events are covered by the entry fee and
all prizes are in cash. For the children, there is a
young people’s centre in the hall, offering safe,
supervised activities to keep them busy.
During the day, lunch and refreshments can be
had, supplied by the volunteers of Ramona Hall.
“At Ramona Hall,” Spriggs says, “as with most
organizations, nothing happens without great volunteers.
“Members of the community come out to the
Winterfest and they have a wonderful time. What
they don’t see are the volunteers blazing a trail
through the bush, grooming and putting up signs,
preparing the food and setting up the checkpoints
to make sure the event goes off without a hitch.
Our volunteers are the reason for our success.”
Volunteerism appears alive and well in the
north of Ramara at the Ramona Agricultural Society.
The proof is in the Ramona Winterfest, welcoming all to a family-focused, mid-winter celebration.
Attending may help change the way you feel
about winter.
Kevin Lehman is a volunteer and Washago
resident. Reach him at [email protected].
Cleared for takeoff
Page 3
Owner Mike Cogo has plans to return the Orillia Lake St. John Airport to its glory days
By ROB McCORMICK
Managing Editor
The five-kilometre drive along Airport Road to
the Orillia Lake St. John Airport in Ramara Township is much smoother these days. The road was
raised and resurfaced by the Township late last
year in an effort to deal with flooding problems,
making for a bump-free ride and improved access.
The road improvements are coincidental with a
host of projects at the airport itself, after its purchase in October 2008 by Mike Cogo and his wife,
Karen.
So far, Cogo has invested about $800,000 in
improvements, which include the demolition of
several old structures; a new roof, heating system
and second floor for the terminal building; an 11bay, 15,900-square-foot T-hangar and a new parking lot. He put a new door on an existing hangar
that houses 16 aircraft, dug new swales and
ditches for drainage, repainted buildings and is installing new fencing. There are also plans for a
restaurant. And he’s building a house on the property, a 2,200-square foot True North log home for
him and Karen.
“It’s been a tiring year,” he observes from his office.
When he bought the 230-acre property with
1,200 feet of shoreline, he took over a facility that
had been in a state of decline for years. Part of the
cleanup entailed the removal of some 40 bins of
accumulated debris. A bulldozer was discovered in
the tall grass.
Cogo, 46, is a businessman. He has owned Lotto
Sanitation, a liquid-waste trucking company in
Bradford, since 1990. He has more than 20 trucks
on the road, and employs 35 people.
But the purchase of the Lake St. John Airport
wasn’t really a business decision, he says.
“There is no business plan here,” he says. Our
love of aviation is why we want to restore the airport.
“We are not asking a lot from this business. We
want it to look after itself. We want people to use
and enjoy it.
“This facility will be clean and well managed,
and when we’re finished, I think everyone who is
here will feel privileged to be here.”
In describing his vision for the future, Cogo
looks to the past.
“There’s a lot of history here,” he says of the airport that has served as a popular stopover for fuel,
repairs, beaching, launching and parking for more
than 50 years.
“There are pilots who first got their licences
here and they remember that history...flight
schools, fly-in fishing camps...airplanes were sold
here. We’re trying to bring the airport back to its
glory days. People of the general aviation public
will be able to come here, have dinner, and watch
planes. The restaurant will become a clubhouse
where people can meet and talk.”
Cogo, a pilot who flies a C185 on floats and
Airport owner Mike Cogo with his C185 float plane.
“This facility will be clean and
well managed, and when weʼre
finished, I think everyone who is
here will feel privileged to be
here.”
Airport owner Mike Cogo
Super Cub, came upon the idea to buy the airport
almost by chance. In August 2008, he and Karen
were flying to their cottage on Kasshabog Lake,
northeast of Peterborough, when they stopped for
fuel. They got talking to staff, and Cogo remembers those conversations “really struck a chord
with me.” Shortly thereafter, the Cogos started
thinking about buying, and by October, the deal
was done.
There are nine full time employees at the airport,
some of whom have been there for three decades.
“The employees here are very passionate about
this place,” Cogo says.
At present, about 70 aircraft, mostly float
planes, are stored at the airport. Eventually, Cogo
would like to get that number to about 200, because “planes on the ground mean revenue.” He
plans another hangar in 2010, to be followed by
two or three more “on demand.”
As for the maintenance end of the business,
Cogo says the repair shop “can do anything.”
Consideration is also being given to extending
the current 2,300-foot runway to 3,000 feet.
The facility is home to two tenants: Lake Coun-
Rob McCormick
try Airways, which offers float-plane training,
rentals, scenic flights and charters, and float-plane
charter company StantonAir.
For a facility in the business of aircraft fuelling,
repair and storage, the airport is well-positioned,
Cogo says. “It’s close to the GTA, has a paved
runway and proximity to water, which is good because it means access for planes on straight
floats.”
Orillia Lake St. John, he says, “is the gateway to
the north, to cottage country, so we are trying to
give people the feeling that they are already on
their way.”
But more than just a stopover point, Cogo also
wants to turn the airport into a destination in its
own right.
A “ski fly-in” is planned for Feb. 20, “mostly to
get some winter flying in. It’s a fly-in out on the
Lake St. John Bay in front of the terminal building. We will have a fire going and have hot chocolate and chili by the lake. Last year we had about
20 ski planes come in.”
And in August, the annual “splash fly-in” is expected to attract fliers “from all over Canada and
the U.S.” for a campover under the wings.
Cogo loves everything about flying, it seems, including the camaraderie among the members of
his special club.
“Pilots are always looking for a place to go...a
destination...a reason to go flying,” he says, and
he wants the airport to be one of them
“Besides, it’s no fun if people don’t fly in.”
Page 4
Bridge work set to start
The Lakeshore Road swing bridge (above), which has been closed since August 2008. Below, rust on one of the bridgeʼs i-beams.
Bob Poyntz
Design completed; tenders for construction issued; bridge expected to reopen in May
Design of a new Lakeshore Road swing bridge
has been completed, with the bridge expected to
reopen some time in May, Parks Canada says.
The century-old bridge, which was closed for
safety reasons in August 2008, is to be removed
and replaced with the new one at an estimated cost
of $1 to $2 million.
By BOB
and PAM POYNTZ
Community
Correspondents
Natalie Austin, communications officer with the
central Ontario field unit of Parks Canada, says the
length of the closure is longer than normal because
of the safety issue.
“Normally,” she said, “the planning, approvals,
design and construction of a project such as this
one would take place over two to three years as
part of our long-term capital plan.
“In this case, however, the bridge was closed on
an emergency basis after an engineering inspection found deficiencies in the structure. We were
therefore forced to insert this project into our already existing project schedule. The fact that the
bridge was closed at the start of the planning
Bob Poyntz
process instead of during the construction phase,
as is normally the case, has made the project appear to take longer than normal.”
The design of the new bridge was completed
near the end of last year by McCormick Rankin
Corp. Tenders for construction of the new bridge
have been issued and work was expected to begin
this winter.
The new bridge will be assembled on site, Parks
Canada says, with some work completed from
barges.
The expected lifespan of the new bridge is 50
years. Its design will be consistent with that of the
original bridge, but it will be built using steel with
more corrosion protection.
The load limit of the new bridge will be the
same as the original, eight tonnes.
In April 2008, a $63-million fund was announced by John Baird, then the federal minister
of the environment, for infrastructure renewal on
the Trent-Severn Waterway. An additional $20
million was later announced by Jim Prentice, the
current environment minister, as part of Canada’s
Economic Action Plan.
“Technically, the funding for these bridges is
part of the $20-million investment,” Austin said.
“But both of these initiatives help Parks Canada
to ensure that Trent-Severn Waterway-built assets,
part of the Canada’s cultural heritage, are protected for the enjoyment, education, and appreciation of all Canadians.”
While boat traffic has not been affected by the
closure, motorists have been forced to use Highway 12 at Gamebridge to cross the canal. For residents living near the bridge, the project has meant
a detour of more than 10 kilometres.
Steve Ranger, the owner of Talbot Bait, on the
west side of the bridge, said he shut down his bait
shop over the summer because of the lack of traffic. He is still supplying bait to outlets around
Lake Simcoe, and is open for the winter ice fishing season. He plans to reopen his summer business when the swing bridge is operational again.
Bob and Pam Poyntz are volunteers and
Lagoon City residents. They can be reached
at [email protected].
We cover stories. Tell us yours.
[email protected] (705) 484-1576
Legion bucks the trend
Page 5
Brechin Mara Branch 488 constantly looking for new ways to involve the community
The Brechin Mara Branch 488 of the Royal
Canadian Legion is busy reinventing itself these
days in an attempt to buck the trend of declining
Legion membership across the country.
“Some Legions struggle because their executives are older and a bit set in their ways,” says
branch secretary Heather Shier. “This Legion is
an example of how a young executive can bring
youth into the Legion and still work well together.”
The approach seems to be working.
In 2003, branch membership was 269. Today, it
is 320.
Shier says those numbers reflect Branch 488’s
innovative outlook.
While some legions can be “pretty sticky about
having a membership card to get in,” the local
branch has gone public.
“Here,” Shier says, “we allow the bar steward
to sign people in, and hope they enjoy themselves
enough to take out a membership.” Executive
members make a point of personally greeting any
visitors they encounter.
But Shier sees Branch 488’s welcome policy as
just one important part of a wider strategy.
“We’re mainly trying to come up with unique
ideas for people to enjoy themselves while they’re
at the Legion,” she says.
Among the experiments was a Family Feud
night.
Another involved members of the executive
modelling female attire in a fashion show. Two
have been held, but future dates are undetermined, “because it takes a while to talk the guys
into doing it again,” Shier says.
Branch 488 is also among a minority of Legions
that offer youth memberships, which allow young
people into the club rooms, Shier says.
There are about half a dozen youth “sign-ins”
who play darts, pool and volunteer at Legion
events. Shier says 10 current members joined as
youths and took out full membership when they
turned 18.
Legion lunches, which began late last year and
offer soup and a sandwich, or a hot special for
Rob McCormick
Alexa Kovacs, of Winnipeg, and Shannon Ohlis, a Grade 7 student at Brechin Public School, display
a T-shirt they made for the Girl-Empowered Art Exhibit at the Mara Brechin Legion during a Canada
World Youth-ASONOG exchange program late last year.
about $6.50, typically draw 30 to 40 every Thursday and Friday.
The Legion also tried a speakers’ series that
morphed from a seniors’ health fair the branch put
on several years ago. The idea was to use the
health-fair content of the one-day fair in weekly
presentations. Those talks didn’t draw, Shier
says, so the project has been put aside for now.
The local Legion has twice played host to
young people from Honduras, most recently in
December, through the Canada World YouthASONOG program.
Participants in that exchange program staged a
“Girl-Empowered Art Exhibit” on Dec. 6, the
same day the branch hosted its annual Santa
Breakfast. The public was welcomed to both
events.
And in February, the Legion will host its 33rd
annual winter carnival, with winter events and a
barbecue. (As of The Chronicle’s press time, no
date had been set. Call the Legion at 484-5393
for details.)
The most important factor in the local legion’s
rejuvenation, Shier says, is that the executive of
Branch 488 is open-minded when it comes to new
concepts, and is constantly looking for ways to involve the community.
“We’ll try anything once,” she says. “We will
try any idea to see how feasible it is. We don’t
turn any ideas away.”
— Rob McCormick
Current council members to run
Page 6
Mayor, deputy mayor, councillors all plan to seek re-election in Oct. 25 vote
By ROB McCORMICK
Managing Editor
All seven members of Ramara Township council
plan to seek re-election in the Oct. 25 municipal
election.
Mayor Bill Duffy filed his
nomination papers in early January, and will seek a third term as
mayor.
“I enjoy being mayor,” he said.
“I like the job. I like working
with the people of Ramara. I
guess I could do a better job if
we had more money, but we
don’t. There are a lot of projects
Bill Duffy
I would like to see finished. The
key one is the Rama Road corridor and what’s
going to happen there in the future. If we get the
hotels and motels, that would certainly add to our
tax base and also help jobs in the area.”
Deputy Mayor Basil Clarke
says he’ll be back to seek another
term. “I love working for the
people,” he said. “I enjoy being
on council. It’s nice to give
back.” Clarke has served two
terms as the Ward 3 councillor
and one as deputy mayor.
In Ward 1, Councillor Bill
Basil Clarke
White will seek a second term. “I
I want to be involved in that and
think basically I am looking to
have more roads paved in the
try to keep the expenses down as
north end,” he said. “We have
much as possible.”
very little done in the north end
Erika Neher will seek a secversus the south end. Also water
ond term as the Ward 3 councilrates. We’ve got to look at that
lor.
issue. I would also like to see the
“I’ll be running again because
Rama Road developed.”
if I don’t it would be a waste of
Meanwhile, Marilyn Brooks
ratepayers’ money,” she said.
Bill White
has announced she will run
“This first term was more of a
Erika Neher
against White in Ward 1. Brooks
learning term. I didn’t accomsat on council for 15 years as the representative for plish as much as I expected but I hope to follow
Ward 1 before running for mayor in the last electhrough in the next term.”
tion and losing a close race to Duffy.
Ward 4’s John Appleby says he wants to return
“I’ve had four years to rest so I think it’s time to
for his second term.
get back to work again,” she said. “I al“Yes, there are things I would like to see
ways found council interesting. I enjoy
followed through. I’d like to stay on and see
working with people, so why not get back
some of our projects completed,” he said,
in the picture again?”
citing as examples the new municipal offices and the expansion to
Ward 2 councillor John O’Donnell says
the fire hall in Atherley.
he will seek his fourth
“I am running,” said
term, and sees the Lake
Bill Kahler, of Ward 5,
Simcoe Protection Plan
who’s looking for his
as a key issue.
“I have been quite sub- John Appleby second term. “I’ve been
saying that since June
stantially involved in that
last year. I’m running beand I want to see it
cause I still have work to do for
through for the Township,” he
the people in this community and
said. “We also have to build a
John OʼDonnell new administration building and
Bill Kahler
the township.”
Dredging plan would drain Lagoon City lagoons
By ROB McCORMICK
Managing Editor
The Lagoon City Parks and Waterway Commission is considering a proposal to empty Lagoon
City’s 10 kilometres of lagoons and dredge them.
The plan, proposed by Atlantis Marine Construction of Collingwood, includes the “de-watering” and excavating of the lagoons, as well as the
removal of fish and aquatic life, which would be
returned to the lagoons when they are filled again.
The estimated cost of the project, designed to provide a 15-to-20-year solution to the dredging problem and weed control for at least 10 years, is $1.5
million.
In November, the commission hired Atlantis to
conduct a $20,000 GPS survey of the lagoons,
which was completed in December.
At its January meeting, the commission received
the survey and decided to hold a public meeting,
probably in June, on the Atlantis dredging proposal. As well, the commission decided to go to
tender on a plan to dredge the mouth of Lagoon
City’s main harbour at an anticipated cost of
$25,000. The method of dredging at the mouth has
yet to be determined.
When he presented the GPS survey to the commission Jan. 14, Atlantis president Graham
O’Donnell described it as a “very, very accurate
topographical survey of the bottom of the channels” and the sides of the channels where the retaining walls are. The survey shows the volume of
“...if we have a resident
whose shore wall falls down
as a result of the water being
taken out, who is
responsible? Itʼs not the
property owners.”
Ward 5 councillor Bill Kahler
material that has to be removed, and would allow
Atlantis to track how much material would be
taken out of the lagoons, O’Donnell said.
At present, the lagoons are dredged by a backhoe on a barge, a method viewed as slow and ineffective. The commission spends about $100,000 a
year on dredging.
Ward 5 councillor Bill Kahler, who was at the
January meeting and whose ward includes Lagoon
City, said protection of the residents against possible damage is the most important issue.
“The concern of the residents is that a lot of the
shore walls are quite old,” he said. “If you take
that water away you are changing the dynamics of
the original construction, and if we have a resident
whose shore wall falls down as a result of the
water being taken out, who is responsible? It’s not
the property owners.”
O’Donnell said his company would not be responsible for fixing or replacing shore walls that
are already in poor condition. “Before we would
get into a project like this we would have an engineering report that would state that what we’re
doing isn’t going to affect that wall,” he said. “If a
wall falls down, it was already falling down.”
“I don’t buy that and the people won’t buy that
either,” Kahler said. “If those walls fall down we
are going to bankrupt homeowners and condominium corporations. Unless the owners have assurances, we will reject this, because if it’s one
single person, it’s one too many. We can’t bankrupt people who have been there for 20 or 30
years. If you take the water out, you change the
dynamic,” Kahler said. “You’re saying it won’t
matter. The property owners say it will, and it’s a
crap shoot. Who is going to vouchsafe them
against loss?”
O’Donnell said he would reply in writing.
He also suggested that his company demonstrate
its dredging method in one of the lagoons. “We
would plan to take a small area that’s the most
challenging, that has the weakest wall. We’ll dewater the area and show you how it’s done. There
are definitely some walls that have to be replaced.
“We’ll pre-mark the walls that are already being
undermined,” O’Donnell said. “The walls that are
in bad shape have to be replaced or fixed, and the
most cost-effective time to do it is when there is
no water in there. If there are a lot of walls to be
fixed, this is an incredible opportunity to do it.
“It’s just like roads. It costs money to fix them,
but you can’t opt not to fix them.”
Lake plan worries council
Page 7
Cost, duplication seen as major concerns with province’s Lake Simcoe Protection Plan
By ROB McCORMICK
Managing Editor
Ramara Township is concerned about cost and
potential duplication of services in the province’s
Lake Simcoe Protection Plan.
The Ministry of the Environment’s Phil Brennan, the Lake Simcoe project manager, made a
presentation to council in late December outlining the current status of the plan, which he said
“provides a geographical means for environmental enhancement and protection” of the lake. “It
requires us to put together a plan, which was approved last June. That plan contains 119 policies
that are to be implemented over various periods
of time.”
Brennan said he was unable to “specifically define” the impact of the plan on Ramara, but
“what’s coming up this winter will unquestionably have the potential to have a significant impact on the community.” Representatives of the
lake plan would be seeking reaction from municipalities this winter on a strategy to reduce phosphorous in the lake, and are also developing a
draft shoreline regulation, Brennan said.
At the December meeting, Councillor Bill
Kahler said cost is the critical issue.
“It is imperative that your ministry and all the
other ministries involved here understand that
there is only one taxpayer involved, and that taxpayer is already burdened with more taxes than
are reasonable. And what you’re saying, when
you say that the municipalities may have to come
up with more money, is that these people will
have to reach into their pockets again and do
more and give more, and there’s no more to
give.”
“People are getting fed up because it’s tax, tax,
tax,” Mayor Bill Duffy said.
“There’s $30 million (in federal funding)
promised, but a lot of that is hot air...politicians
stand up and say, ‘Oh, you’re going to get millions of dollars.’ Well, if there is that kind of
money, some of that money should filter down to
the municipalities to pay for what the government is putting on us. There should be money
there to cover that cost.”
Brennan acknowledge that cost is the chief
“... politicians stand up and
say, ʻOh, youʼre going to get
millions of dollars.ʼ Well, if
there is that kind of money,
some of that money should
filter down to the
municipalities to pay for
what the government is
putting on us. There should
be money there to cover that
cost.”
Mayor Bill Duffy
worry for municipalities that will be affected by
the plan.
“Cost is the big concern,” he told council. “We
know there will be impacts on municipalities.
Nothing is free, and there are costs associated
with storm water management and all these other
things. During consultations, municipalities have
been telling us, ‘We are worried about the cost.
We’re all for the environment, but we don’t have
an endless pot of money,’ and we’re taking that
message back. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that doing this level of environmental management is going to be free. It’s worth the trip, but
we need to make sure that we do have a balance
between costs and implementation of our plans.”
Councillor Basil Clarke said he had “a number
of concerns” about the plan, specifically duplication of services. “I don’t know how you’re not
going to have duplications,” he said. “The phosphorous strategy and the shoreline design have
been the sole purpose of the Lake Simcoe Conservation Authority since they were founded, and
they are very proud they got from 100 tonnes
down to 75 and you guys have stepped up and
said the number has to be 44, and you’re putting a
plan in place to do that. Then what do we need the
conservation authority for any more?”
Councillor John O’Donnell said he was also
concerned about duplication. “We don’t want to
have to redo things. We are going to pay once, because if we have to pay twice, as far as I’m concerned we’re getting out of Lake Simcoe
conservation. You can scrap it. A lot of these rules
and regulations the conservation authority is
doing, and since were paying them to do that anyway, I would hope that we don’t have to hire anybody.”
In an interview, Brennan was unable to provide
an estimate of the overall cost of the plan
“There isn’t one, to my knowledge,” he said.
“There hasn’t been a comprehensive costing of
the policies. As we roll out the different policies,
those figures will become apparent. I don’t have
that number at this time.”
In consultations with municipalities, he said, the
issue of cost has “come through repeatedly. Cost
has got to be a big factor in everything we are
considering, because it’s a number one driver for
success or failure. You can talk the sun moon and
stars, but if you can’t afford to do it, it’s meaningless.”
The municipalities “have a legitimate concern,”
Simcoe North Conservative MPP Garfield Dunlop
said in an interview. He is calling for the province
to match the federal funding.
“The federal government has come up with $30
million,” he said, “but there’s been really no
provincial money. There’s been money to adopt
the plan, and there’s been money to put some
money into sewage treatment plants and that sort
of thing, but no money to match the federal
money.
“That’s a concern of mine. Why would one
government offer money and the other government offer a plan?”
The province, he said, has to contribute to the
cost because “it’s their law.” The province’s share
should be “at least” 33 per cent of the cost, he
said, and “if there’s money to come from the municipalities, they would put in a third as well, but
at least 66 per cent should come from federal and
provincial governments. It can’t just be on the
back of the farmer or the business owner or the
cottager.
“The province has got to come in big time and
set an example here.”
Project manager sought for new Township building
Township council has approved the hiring of
a contract administrator to oversee the construction of a new Township administration centre in
Brechin.
The $4.2-million project was approved by
council in early 2009, and is expected to go to
tender this summer, with construction of the
12,500-square-foot building tentatively set to
begin in September.
The facility will be built next to the existing
Township administration centre in Brechin.
Once the new building is complete, the old one
is to be torn down.
The new centre will be more than double the
size of the existing 5,000-square-foot building,
and will include larger council chambers and
room for Township staff who now work in another building.
The new building will also meet provincial
standards for accessibility, and is designed to
accommodate future staff growth.
— Staff report
Chronicle file photo
The current Township building in Brechin.
When they
came in droves
to Uptergrove
Page 8
St. Columbkille Catholic Church is one of the most
architecturally significant buildings in Ramara
By ANNE SASO
Close to Home
You can’t miss it when you drive south on
Highway 12.
Glance to your left, just past Uptergrove, and
you will see one of the most architecturally significant buildings in Ramara Township.
St. Columbkille Catholic Church is a fine example of late Victorian architecture. Enthroned on
its gently terraced hill, the church sits, regally
overlooking Uptergrove and the passing crowd.
As you drive through a colonnade of maple trees
to the entrance, you are struck, most of all, by the
silence.
But that’s to-day. It wasn’t always this way.
Back in 1868, especially if you were Catholic
and Irish, Uptergrove was the place to be.
The parish at Mara was established in 1855 by
the Catholic Diocese of Toronto, its first organized parish in the north. It may seem odd that
sparsely populated Mara Township was given this
honour, but at the time there were very few
Catholics in Orillia.
Furthermore, Orillia was a derelict town in the
1850s and the bishop of the time, Armand-Francois-Marie Comte de Charbonnel, was not impressed. “This place wears a most forlorn aspect”
he wrote, describing the “crumbling antique
houses” and commenting on the apparent laziness
of the townsmen.
But within 13 years, St. Columbkille had become “the happening place” in the Catholic community.
A write-up in The Northern Lights Extra of
Sept. 24, 1868, describes the Mara Picnic of that
year. “Large numbers left Orillia for St. Columbkille’s Hill where a picnic on an extensive scale
took place...altogether there were about 1,000 persons on the grounds.”
Imagine…1,000 people! That’s pretty impressive, even by today’s standards.
The current church is the second to be erected
on the site.
Built in 1905 for the princely sum of $14,000,
the building is quite beautiful.
The belfry tower pierced with neo-gothic windows reaches high into the heavens. Its copperclad Gothic spire is topped with a Celtic cross in
honour of the first parishioners.
They were an industrious lot, those first Irish
and Scottish settlers. They had endured famine
and religious persecution at home, and suffered
horribly from unsanitary conditions on the voyage
to Canada, yet somehow managed to clear forests,
build homes and make Mara Township one of the
most prosperous in the region by the early 1900s.
Many were victims of Britain’s harsh penal
laws, which denied Catholics land ownership.
The church’s patron saint, St. Columbkille, established churches in Ireland and Scotland, so
even the name has historical significance.
The lands on which the church, rectory, vault
and cemetery sit were pieced together between
1857 and 1904 for less than $100.
Mara Township sold the last piece for $1,500 in
1964.
Just last year, Bert Van Dyke, an 81-year-old
parishioner, donated more cemetery land to St.
Columbkille.
A.W. Holmes, who designed Holy Rosary, St.
Patrick’s and other historical churches in Toronto,
was the architect on record. Constructed of concrete block, faced in brick, St. Columbkille had
no basement until Father Sheridan (1910-1917)
added one for social gatherings and brought in a
generator to provide steam heat, electricity and
water for the church and rectory.
That gently terraced lawn was created with excavated soil from the basement.
The church’s design is Gothic in detail, but
more humble in proportion than the soaring
Gothic Revival churches that define the style. The
pointed, arched windows and doors are typical,
but the curved bargeboard outlining the exterior
gables of St. Columbkille is unusual. The front
and rear facades, less adorned than their city
cousins but with massive rose windows front and
back and smaller trefoil roundels, are definitely
Gothic. One rose window was common in
churches of the time; two were a luxury. The
steeple bell, purchased for $300 in 1884, came
from the first St. Columbkille.
The entrance doors are new, but above the lin-
Gail Smith
The cross atop the steeple at St. Columbkille
Catholic Church.
tel, the original tympanum – an ornamental panel
– is sculpted with a trefoil design. Originally of
glass and stone, it has been painted and backed
with wood, perhaps to keep drafts from entering
the nave.
Rather austere and forbidding from the outside,
the interior of the church is light and warm. It’s
the arched ceiling that first catches your eye –
hand hewn wood in a unique ribbed vault style;
not supported by pillars, as is common to most
Gothic ceilings, but buttressed by carved arch
supports, each pierced with open trefoils to keep
them from feeling too heavy.
Mary Duffy, the Catholic Women’s League
community life convenor at St. Columbkille, calls
these trefoils “shamrocks,” and the clover design
fits well with the church’s Irish heritage.
Then there are the spectacular stained glass
windows everywhere you look – 24 of them – restored in 1999 to their original grandeur.
To-day the rectory is used intermittently, and
the parish priest no longer lives in Uptergrove.
But that doesn’t stop the 80 dedicated families
who form the core of the parish. In summer, numbers double.
CWL member Joanne Debreczini says a historical designation investigation, started in 2005, is
ongoing, as are quilt raffles, dinners, and the annual fall bazaar.
The church’s next project is to make it easier
for elderly parishioners to access the church hall.
To learn more, have a tour of the church and sit
down to a home cooked meal prepared by the
women of St. Columbkille, call Debreczini at
484-5737. Duffy says their home cooked pies are
almost impossible to resist.
Mass is held Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays
at 11 a.m. St Columbkille’s pastor is Father Andrew Cyruk.
Anne Saso is an interior decorator and
former instructor in architectural history
living in Lagoon City. She can be reached
Page 9
Gail Smith
Clockwise, from left: An exterior shot of
the church, showing the undulating
grounds; the view from the back of the
church; one of the two stained-glass rose
windows; the statue of Christ above the
altar; trefoils in the woodwork; and a
close-up of one of the 24 stained-glass
windows restored in 1999.
Taking a bite out of hunger
Page 10
Annual food drive at
Uptergrove Public School
collects 205,327 food items
At first, the students who packed the gym at
Uptergrove Public School on Dec. 17 were
shocked and confused.
In previous years, when the food collected in
their annual Stamp Out Hunger school-wide food
drive was revealed, there had been thousands of
items on the stage.
By BRITTANY
VAN DYK
Youth Beat
This time, there were only few.
Based on the success of past drives, the students
knew something was not quite right.
Then, as the buzz of confusion grew, Dave
Clark, Grade 6 teacher and co-organizer of the
popular local event, told the students to grab their
coats and prepare for a surprise.
When they walked outside and saw a fire truck
and three ambulances aligned in the parking lot
and stocked with food, the students cheered
wildly with excitement as they realized that the
amount was much greater than ever before.
The students, with the help of sponsors from
various local businesses and individuals, had surpassed their goal of 100,000 items despite poor
economic times and various families’ struggles.
Special to The Chronicle
Sgt. Lise Grenier, ride master for the OPP
Golden Helmets team, presented a cheque for
$1,000 to the Uptergrove Public School Stamp
Out Hunger food drive.
The ninth annual drive had produced a record of
205,327 food items, an increase of 130,000 over
the previous year.
“I was shocked at all the food there was,” said
an astonished Caylee Laughlin, a Grade 6 student
in Clark’s class.
As the students began to realize their accomplishment, they were instructed to look down the
road to see two transport trucks pull up in front of
the school to unveil their full loads of food.
Clark had contacted an organization in northern
Ontario to see if it would help with the drive. “My
mom and dad know Rodney Deforge of Faith
Charities of Ontario, based in Manitoulin,” he
said.
“Their mission is to see that food banks in the
north have food. His response was immediate,
that he was interested and he would help.”
And help they did. Faith Charities of Ontario
purchased two 40-foot trailers full of food and delivered them to Uptergrove.
The 300 students of the small school were in a
state of awe.
“I am so proud of our school for feeding so
many people,” Laughlin said.
The food was distributed as far away as Port
McNicoll. All of the helping organizations in
Orillia, such as Green Haven, Couchiching Jubilee House, Salvation Army, Lighthouse Ministries and the Sharing Place, Orillia's food bank,
were well supplied.
The donated items will keep these food banks
stocked throughout much of the year, accomplishing the goal of helping the community for more
than just the holiday season.
In addition to the stocking of all those food
banks, the drive was able to deliver food to over
100 families in the area.
Clark said having a nine-year-old shake his
hand and say thanks is worth all the hard work
that the students and organizations put into the
drive every year.
The campaign has taught students the value of
appreciating what they have and the satisfaction
in giving back to many youth within the community.
“If I can leave that kind of legacy,” Clark said,
“to teach these young people to help their fellow
man, then I've done my job. It is a big part of
what we do in the schools — help our youth learn
about life.”
The “Small School With A Big Heart” had once
again proven that when a community is brought
together and works together, they can achieve any
goal.
Church seeks to raise $215,000 for repairs
St. Andrew’s plans parish pledge drive, fundraising events
By ROB McCORMICK
Managing editor
St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Brechin has
turned to its parishioners in an effort to raise
$215,000 needed for church repairs.
The 85-year-old church closed in October because of “years of neglect,” Father Anthony Gonsalves, the parish priest, wrote in a letter to
parishioners last month.
“The current radiator heating system has been
inefficient, ineffective and leaky, which has caused
structural damage as well as a severe mould problem,” he wrote.
“The health of our parishioners as well as that of
your pastor and volunteer staff was seriously compromised, leading to the decision to immediately
vacate the church and properly restore the House
of our Lord.”
Engineering studies have put the cost of repairs
at $340,000.
Chronicle photo
Father Anthony Gonsalves stands in front of St.
Andrewʼs Catholic Church in Brechin.
The chancery of the archdiocese in Toronto will
provide the parish with a loan of $215,000. The remaining $125,000 will be paid with the church’s
restoration fund.
Brittany Van Dyk is a Grade 11 student at Twin
Lakes Secondary School she can be reached
In his letter, Gonsalves asks each of the 100
families in the parish to consider donating $10 a
week, which would pay off the loan in about five
and a half years.
The parish will also hold public fundraising
events, the letter states, but the pledge campaign is
“the main commitment to liquidate the debt from
the chancery.”
“We realize that some families may decide to
pledge a higher amount while others may find the
average of $10 a bit of a stretch on a consistent
basis. Nevertheless, we are confident that things
will even out and we will achieve our goal,” Gonsalves wrote.
“The engineers are already at work. It is estimated that all repairs may be completed within
three months. This would mean that we could be
back in our beautiful church by the end of April.”
The first event in the fundraising campaign is a
Valentine’s pasta dinner to be held at the Legion
on Saturday, Feb. 13 from 6 to 8 p.m. (See details
in the calendar on Page 32).
Page 11
It takes
a village
The portable Childrenʼs Safety Village, set up in a local school gymnasium (above). Below, volunteers with the program.
An OPP officer’s innovation makes it easier to teach children lessons about safety
By KEVIN LEHMAN
Community Correspondent
An innovative approach to teaching children’s
safety, the brainchild of an Orillia OPP officer,
made its debut at schools in Ramara Township in
the fall.
Brechin Public School hosted the inaugural use
of Canada’s first portable Children’s Safety Village (CSV) on Oct. 26.
While the concept of the safety village as a
teaching tool is not new, the Brechin P.S. display
showcased an initiative that makes the village
more accessible and efficient.
Permanent structures have been in use in various
larger communities in Ontario for almost 20 years.
These safety villages were central teaching sites
consisting of miniature structures to represent a
police station, a fire house and private dwellings
on a surface that also had painted roads, crosswalks, railway crossings and other aids used in
teaching children’s safety.
Historically, this meant that each police, fire and
utility service would go into a school at different
times and teach their subjects.
Nine years ago, Const. Gerry Dwyer, of the
Orillia detachment of the OPP, had an idea to take
the existing concept and make it portable, enabling
the messages of the safety village to be brought to
schools in Orillia and outlying areas, instead of
“What I hear, I forget; what
I see, I remember; what I do,
I understand.”
Childrenʼs Safety Village motto
students travelling to the village.
The Children’s Safety Village motto speaks for
itself: “What I hear, I forget; what I see, I remember; what I do, I understand.”
Over the years, Dwyer and his corporate and
service-club partners in the project raised more
than $85,000 to make the dream a reality. The
funds paid for the construction of the village, the
trailer, vehicles inside village and its storage and
upkeep.
Completed early in 2009, the portable CSV was
launched for public view in April at Regent Park
Public School in Orillia.
In October, the village began touring Ramara
schools. In the four weeks following its inauguration in Brechin, the CSV partners and its volunteers visited the remaining Ramara schools,
Uptergrove Public School, Foley Catholic and
Rama Central, before moving on to schools in
Orillia.
“The safety-village concept allows the completion in one week of safety training that used to
occur over the whole school year,” says Sandy
Cobbe, co-ordinator for the OPP component of the
CSV. “It really cuts down on disruption in the
school. The lessons are taught in a fun, informative way, engaging the students. I think it will be
even more successful than we envisioned.”
When a display is set up, the portable safety village is transported to a school in its own trailer,
and a five-piece mat that has all the crosswalks
and roads painted on it is placed on the floor of the
gymnasium.
Miniature structures, manufactured from the
most modern materials available, are assembled
and placed on the mat in appropriate places. The
portable CSV remains in that school for a week.
During that week, safety instruction from the
OPP, volunteers, CN Police Rail Safety, Hydro
One, Orillia Power, Ramara Fire Service (combined with Orillia Fire and Severn Fire) and First
Student Bus Transportation is presented to the students.
The safety partners involved plan to deliver their
safety messages for many years to come using the
portable Children’s Safety Village, and the youth
of Ramara will continue be among the young people to benefit.
Page 12
On ice
By ROB McCORMICK
Managing Editor
They populate the more than 700 square kilometres of
Lake Simcoe every winter until the middle of March. Their
shelters, as many as 5,000, form a seasonal community of
ice anglers who fish during the day and through the frigid
night for the lake’s abundant perch, whitefish and lake trout.
“Lake Simcoe is the sixth largest inland lake in Ontario
and the largest inland lake in southern Ontario,” says Wil
Wegman, an extension services technician with the provincial Ministry of Natural Resources.
“It’s the most intensively fished inland lake in the
province, solely due to the winter fishery, when more people fish it than in the other three seasons combined,” he
says.
In addition to the “permanent” huts, which have to be
registered with the ministry and are therefore easily kept
track of, Wegman says there is a growing trend in ice angling to use unregistered, portable huts, or to fish with no
hut at all, which adds to the population. “They are harder to
account for, but they are still a significant and growing percentage of the angling community out there,” he says.
Currently, the ministry is conducting a feasibility study
designed to lead to a “full-fledged” examination of the economic impact of the ice-fishing industry on the communities that surround Lake Simcoe, Wegman says.
“Having the feasibility study completed would enable us
to go out and get partners for the economic-impact study,”
he says. “We don’t want to do this alone. It would be of interest to the Ministry of Tourism, municipalities and businesses that rely on anglers for their income. We could
finally put a value on the amount of money that recreational
anglers contribute to the community. There has never been
a really concise study to get those values.”
(Continued on next page)
Above, ice fishermen survey Lake Simcoe.
Below, Leo Pitre shows off his catch of perch.
Gail Smith
An economic impact study ‘would be
of interest to the Ministry of Tourism,
municipalities and businesses that rely
on anglers for their income.’
“Lake Simcoe is the
most intensively fished
inland lake in the
province, solely due to
the winter fishery, when
more people fish it than
in the other three
seasons combined.”
Wil Wegman,
extension services technician,
Ministry of Natural Resources
Ice fishing ‘in your blood’
(Continued from previous page)
“Lake Simcoe is the number one ice fishing lake
in Canada,” says Rockey Madsen, tournament director of the Canadian Ice Fishing Championships
and the Georgina Fishing Series.
The Canadian Ice Fishing Championships will
bring an estimated 300 ice anglers to Lake Simcoe
Feb. 20 and 21 to compete for a purse of $25,000,
including a $10,000 first prize, as well as another
$10,000 in other prizes.
The Georgina Fishing Series brings three fishing
events to the lake each year. One of them, the Great
Georgina Ice Fishing Derby, runs Jan. 30 to Feb.
14 this year, attracting an estimated 500 ice anglers. Thirty winners in the whitefish, perch and
lake-trout categories will share $8,000 in cash
prizes.
Madsen, who is also a member of the Fish Lake
Simcoe Tourism Alliance, estimates that the sport
fishing industry generates $11 million annually in
the markets that surround Lake Simcoe. The four
events he is involved with have a collective economic impact of about $1 million a year, he says.
The best ice fishing, summer or winter, is in the
south part of Lake Simcoe, because of the topography, Madsen says, with 80 per cent of the icehut community being found below Mara Point,
north of Beaverton, straight across to Big Bay
Point.
Madsen, 63, a former bush pilot and the inventor of Fish Crisp, a seasoned mix for coating fried
or baked fish, has always been in love with the
sport.
“I was eight years old. My father and I were in
a small boat in the evening, and the water was
dark. I remember looking down and seeing striped
fish, and something happened. I knew that’s what
I wanted to go after. I can’t stop. I just enjoy
doing it.”
Madsen likes ice fishing for strategic reasons.
“You’re in a better position to catch fish in winter,” he says. “You can go out and target lake
trout. You know where the fish are going to be.
These fish tend to group up in certain areas, so it’s
an easier way to go about it. They’re a lot easier
to catch than in summer.”
For 35 years, Bill Vieveem, the 66-year-old
owner of Floyd Hales Fish Huts, has been renting
huts and providing transportation to and from his
two fishing areas, about three and eight kilometres off the shore at Beaverton. He has seven
closed-in buses on tracks that will carry 10 people
each, and he estimates his clientele at about 3,000
from January until the season ends on March 15
each year.
He has 35 huts with seating for four to six, and
five ice bungalows, which sleep four.
You need reservations on weekends and should
always call ahead. People fish day and night. The
structures are equipped with vented propane furnaces and a two-burner cook stove. The ice bungalows have barbecues. And there are propane
lights for night fishing.
Vieveem’s business is among the biggest of the
dozens of ice-fishing operations on Lake Simcoe,
serving a clientele that fishes off Beaverton and
Page 13
Ramara Chronicle photo
Bill Vieveem, owner of Floyd Hales Fish Huts, with of one of his ice bungalows.
“Some of the old-timer
fishermen would fish in the
morning and come to the
hotel every day to sell their
catch. Weʼd sell to anyone
who would come in.”
Doug Newman,
Udney
resident and ice fisherman
Ramara Township’s shores.
More people fish from the Beaverton area than
anywhere else on Lake Simcoe,” he says. Parking
is a factor, and he has lots of it, with a capacity of
about 200 vehicles.
About 15 per cent of Vieveem’s customers are
from the northern United States. He estimates 80
per cent of his clients are return customers, and
several have come back every year for 35 years.
Many stay in bed and breakfast operations, hotels and motels in the Orillia area. In addition to
what they pay ice-hut operators like Vieveem,
they buy meals and fuel in the local market.
Vieveem employs five full-time people, as well
as his wife and two children, in the operation of
Hales. In the summer, they work on landscape
construction and shoreline restoration.
Vieveem recalls fishermen selling their catches
at the Victoria Hotel in Brechin, where Coffee
Time is now.
Doug Newman, 67, born and raised in Udney,
was among those local vendors in the 1960s and
’70s.
“People would mostly just fish for the table,” he
says, “but there were 10 or 12 of
us who would sell fish. Some of
the old-timer fishermen would
fish in the morning and come to
the hotel every day to sell their
catch. We’d sell to anyone who
would come in. Some of that fish
went from here to the St.
Lawrence Market in Toronto.”
Doug
Four whitefish of about a pound
Newman
each cost $1, he recalls.
Newman, who worked for General Motors in
Oshawa and then for 26 years at the Huronia
Recreation Centre before retiring in 1997, still
gets out three or four times a week.
He fishes seven miles out. Each year he drops a
tree line, augering a hole and freezing in a small
Christmas tree every quarter mile. “It’s a trick old
timers use to get back home in a storm,” he says.
One of the things he enjoys most about ice fishing is the convenience. A car battery provides
power for the fish finder, radio, television and
lights, although he still takes candles with him,
along with, of course, a frying pan, propane stove
and extra propane. A foot-square solar panel on
his five-by-eight-foot fish hut helps power the
battery.
“I can live in it during a storm, no problem, but
I haven’t had to stay out in a few years,” he says.
The last time he got caught was in the 1970s,
when he used to start fishing about 4 p.m., planning to stay out until 10 p.m., because “that’s
when the whitefish were biting.”
Like most of his peers, Newman has no plans to
stop ice-fishing any time soon.
“It’s in your blood,” he says.
“When you get hold of that first fish...I don’t
know, it’s like golfing. What makes a golfer golf?
Love of the sport.
Ice fishing 101
Page 14
When you have confidence
or even reasonable
expectations that your
outing will be a success,
then getting pumped for
another day on the hard
water is never an issue
Wil Wegman
A Bombardier ride (top photo) is the typical
mode of transportation to and from a
commercial ice hut. Above, the writerʼs
son, Izaak Wegman, with a Lake Simcoe
whitefish.
By WIL WEGMAN
As we headed out to fish the frozen waters of
Lake Simcoe for the umpteenth time that winter,
the excitement was still just as infectious as it was
at the start of the season.
“Do ya think they’re gonna be closer to bottom
with this cold front or still suspended and chasing
minnows up higher?” my son Izaak asks as we
walk out.
“We’ll try near bottom first, but let’s watch our
sonars carefully to see if any are up higher,” I
reply. Maybe we’ll get another14-pounder that
way, like the one you got last week.”
We both smile in anticipation and quicken our
pace. Twenty minutes later, or a mile or so out
from shore, we’re ready to set up.
When you have confidence or even reasonable
expectations that your outing will be a success,
then getting pumped for another day on the hard
water is never an issue...regardless of whether the
temperature outside is a bitter -25 or a balmy zero
degrees and sunny. Of course reaching that level
comes with experience and a willingness to adapt
and keep learning. But the great thing about ice
fishing is that with a little bit of research and a
small investment in the right kind of equipment,
you can set yourself up to not just enjoy this great
Canadian winter sport but to become good at it as
well. For those fortunate enough to live close to
Lake Simcoe, the opportunities are exceptional
because of the phenomenal winter fishery that this
giant lake provides us. Let’s learn a little more
and find out how:
Ice safety
Ice fishing is one of the safest forms of winter
recreation, but any time you’re walking on water,
there’s an inherent risk that can be minimized with
a little knowledge and common sense. For all
those venturing out onto the open ice, keep in
mind that ice hut operators are still the experts to
call to find out about local conditions. The Ministry of Natural Resources always recommends
that people call an ice-hut operator closest to
where they want to access the lake to check on ice
thickness. Speaking of which, as a general guideline for clear blue ice, 3½ to four inches is required for a person on foot, eight inches for a
snowmobile or ATV and a foot or more for a light
vehicle. Double the thickness if the ice is white or
opaque and not consistently clear blue throughout.
Ice never freezes uniformly either, so testing it
with a spud bar or auger frequently when unsure
is standard practice on your way out. Ice that has
formed over flowing water, springs, pressure
cracks, old ice holes or around the mouths of
rivers and streams can be weaker than surrounding ice.
Carrying a set of ice picks is good insurance and
having a compass to rely on should you experience snowy or whiteout conditions is an absolute
must-have item.
Finally, let someone know where you are accessing the lake and when you plan on returning
home.
(Continued on next page)
Ice-hut operators can supply all you need
(Continued from previous page)
Starting out
Many first-time ice anglers opt to hire the services of an ice-hut operator. There are more than a
dozen around the lake and some of the finest are
right here in Ramara. They can supply all you
need, including bait, tackle and your basic tip up
stick. The latter may be a throwback to yesteryear
but are still a common ‘ice rod’ for many beginners and veteran ice anglers alike. Basically, they
consist of a foot-long piece of wood, not unlike a
ruler, with two notched ends on either side. Here
about 50 metres of eight-to-10-pound test monofilament line is wrapped.
Of course hut operators also supply warm cozy
ice huts and the transportation on the ice (often by
historic Bombardiers) to get you to the hut and
back. Rental huts come equipped with pre-drilled
holes, a propane heater, outhouses nearby and
benches to sit on.
Once you have experienced the rental hut route,
you might be anxious to try the sport on your own,
possibly even out on the open ice. If you do
choose to forgo the rental hut route altogther, it is
highly recommended that you at least go out with
an experienced ice angler the first couple of times.
He/she will be able to pass on basic safety precautions associated with the sport, and will help fast
track your learning curve in terms of setting up
your equipment on the ice, what to wear, and maximizing your chances of “getting bit.” Many veterans now wear floater suits, but to start out just
make sure you have good winter boots and dress
Page 15
in layers with a good outer winter coat.
Once you’re ready, you’ll need to get some very
basic tackle. You should be able to grab some right
from your summer tackle box. Lake Simcoe lake
trout love tube jigs, so borrow a couple of the
white ones for your winter box. If you have some
Williams whitefish spoons or other long thin
spoons in your box, they should work through the
ice. Perhaps buy a couple of Blue Fox Krocodile
spoons and some HT Chatter spoons for lake trout.
A couple of small jigging Rapalas and Alien Jigs
are good for perch, as well as one or two Foxee
minnows with little plastic grubs for whitefish.
The majority of ice anglers today have put their
wooden jigging sticks in storage and opted for
more convenient and fun-to-use ice fishing rods.
For perch, I prefer a medium light HT Polar Lite
rod matched with their Avantis reel and fourpound test line. For lakers and whities, you’ll want
something a little beefier, so a medium action HT
Arctic Bay rod, Avantis reel and six-to-eightpound test line will do the trick
Setting up
Drilling holes through the solid frozen water
you’re walking on doesn’t need to be a daunting
task. For many on Simcoe, a hand auger is preferred because we rarely see the four-plus feet of
ice that lakes further north do. For my money, a
six-inch Normark Fin Bore 3 is a great all round
choice for Lake Simcoe’s diversified fishing opportunities. With its offset blades, you’ll be able
to drill through ice with relative ease and be able
to bring everything from perch to lake trout
TOWNSHIP OF RAMARA
MUNICIPAL ELECTION 2010
through your hole.
A plastic scoop will clear the slush from your
hole and a five-gallon plastic pail to store your
rods and tackle will also give you something to sit
on. A sled such as HT’s Polar Sled will make hauling all your tackle out a breeze.
On Simcoe you’re allowed to fish with two
lines at the same time, so utilizing the two-hole
approach is standard procedure. In one, you can
jig an artificial lure and in the other can have a set
line with live bait or a jig and soft plastic minnow.
This set hole is perfect for a Polar or Windlass Tip
Up. When a fish strikes, a bright orange flag flies
up and you race to the hole to handline the fish in
and the fun begins.
Ice fishing on Lake Simcoe is a time honoured
tradition that can be enjoyed by anglers of all ages
and skill levels. Be sure you have an updated fishing licence and outdoor card, and that you know
the general fishing regulations for Lake Simcoe.
These can be found online at ontario.ca/fishing.
Be aware of how to prevent the spread of invasive
species and don’t dump leftover minnows down
the hole. Have a safe and great ice fishing season
and please practise catch and release and selective
harvest to help ensure a great fishery for future
generations.
Wil Wegman is an award winning outdoor
writer and avid year round angler. He is a
former member of Team Canada at the World
Ice Fishing Championship, previous winner of
the Perch Trap Attack on Lake Simcoe and has
hosted ice fishing seminars since 1987.
OCTOBER 25th
NOTICE OF NOMINATION FOR OFFICE
NOTICE is hereby given to the Municipal Electors of the Township of Ramara.
Nominations in the Township of Ramara for the offices of:
Mayor
Deputy Mayor
Councillor (5)
Member – English-Language Public District School Board
Member – English-Language Separate District School Board
Member – French-Language Public District School Board
Member – French-Language Separate District School Board
may be made by completing and filing, in the office of the Clerk, nominations on the prescribed form and accompanied by the prescribed nomination filing fee. The filing fee is payable by cash, certified cheque or money order.
A nomination paper must be signed by the candidate and may be filed in person or by an agent during regular business hours between January 4, 2010 and September 9, 2010 between 9:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. and on September
10, 2010 (Nomination Day) between 9:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.
Please note: No person who proposes to be a candidate may solicit or accept contributions for election purposes, or
incur expenses, until that person has filed a nomination paper.
Janice McKinnon, CMO
Clerk
It helps to know where the fish are
Page 16
The waters of Lake Simcoe become encrusted
with a thick layer of ice in winter that brings
changes in the behavior of the fish that live there.
The frozen lake has different effects depending on
the species, and many environmental variables determine their location and what they eat in winter.
Some fish will change their location within the
lake, while others will spawn at different times of
year, which affects their activity level. Growth can
also be affected and the ice will bring changes in
the availability of food in their diet, especially
since the open water of warmer months brings
with it an abundance of various bugs and flying insects which can be found on the lake surface.
By GAIL SMITH
The Nature Nut
Lake trout are a cold-water species and are
found in the cooler, deep areas of the lake in summer, but come winter, they spend considerable
time just beneath the ice surface. They require
cold, clear, oxygenated water, and they stay where
it’s coldest, since warm water does not have the
amount of oxygen they require.
Lake trout are fish eaters, and in Simcoe will
feed on ciscoes (lake herring) and various minnows, but they will also eat clams, leeches, insect
larvae and small crustaceans as well. They spawn
in the fall, but the time varies among lakes and depends on factors such as latitude, weather and the
size and topography of the lake.
Yellow perch are a schooling fish, and prefer
clear water, a firm bottom and the sparse vegetation which Lake Simcoe provides. They will stay
around the middle depths, but congregate in
schools near the shore in spring. The cold water
doesn’t affect their activity until March, when they
spawn and there is still ice on the lake. The females will then feed actively at this time to promote the growth of their eggs. They do not alter
their diet or behavior drastically during the winter.
Perch are opportunistic, feeding on the most
abundant food available. They will feed on small
animal material called zooplankton (especially as
juvenile perch) benthic invertebrates (insect
F E A R N O W E AT H E R
Gail Smith
Mackenzie Nossey and her uncle Mike Pasalic (left), of Hamilton, relax inside an ice-fishing hut.
At right, Brian Haver, of Durand, Michigan, catches a perch.
nymphs, larvae, scuds and pupae) and a variety of
other small fish.
Whitefish are a cold-water, bottom-feeding
species, prefering the deeper, cold areas of the lake
in summer and feeding mainly on fish eggs,
aquatic insect larvae, clams, snails and plankton.
Their diet doesn’t change drastically between
summer and winter, but what does change is their
location. They move to shallow waters in November and December, to spawn where water temperature is coldest, and they will also become very
385 West Street S., Orillia ON
705-329-4277
www.davenportsubaru.com
active at this time.
Fish don’t have ears, but know when someone
or something is near because of sound waves and
vibrations. The vibrations become more difficult
for the fish to detect with a two-foot thickness of
ice above them. A person walking on the ice surface may not create a vibration, but many fishermen will attest to the fact that someone drilling a
hole in the ice, or a snowmobile driving close by
will trigger a strike from fish. This may be a defensive reaction or it could be seen by the fish as a
signal of food.
The cold winter months and icy lake will also
affect the growth of some species, since they only
have a six-month growing season. Fish that live in
a more temperate zone have a longer growing season and will become much larger.
When it comes to fishing, no matter what time
of year, it helps to understand the various fish behavior and eating habits that change with each season, knowledge that could increase the chances of
having a more productive day of fishing.
Lagoon City photographer and nature
enthusiast Gail Smith can be reached at
[email protected].
Quite the icebreaker
Page 17
Local ice fishermen stranded on floes by ‘perfect storm’ had to be rescued by plane
You could have called it the perfect storm.
The week had seen unseasonably high temperatures, ranging from 1.7 C to 12.2 C, and a strong
south wind with peak gusts recorded at 40 to 103
km/hour by Environment Canada, followed by a
sudden blizzard and freezing rain.
It was early in the afternoon, Jan. 26, 1967,
when Ramara residents Gord Hopkins and John
McFadden headed out to the fish hut for a night of
fishing. “It was a fairly clear day,” recalls Hopkins, when asked how he found himself on Lake
Simcoe during what turned out to be anything but
an ordinary day of fishing.
By SHANNON
OʼDONNELL
Community
Correspondent
“We went out to stay the night,” he said, explaining how hours had passed before he realized
they were floating around Lake Simcoe on an acre
sized piece of ice.
A storm had blown up around 11 p.m., breaking
the ice in pieces all over the lake. The piece they
were on started to move around 1 a.m., though
they didn’t realize it at the time. Fishing in separate huts, they noticed their sticks kept bouncing
up and down, but “I thought it was crayfish playing with my line,” Hopkins laughed. Eventually,
he realized the ice had to be moving. There was
no bang, no noise, to indicate the ice had broken,
but the wind was high and loud.
“We were frantic at the house,” said wife Joan.
While she and the children were lighting candles
and praying, Hopkins “just kept fishing,” he said
matter-of-factly.
At daybreak the pair set off from their huts,
thinking they could walk across or around the
crack, but after walking a quarter of a mile to the
edge of the drift they were on, they could see
there was more than a half mile of open water between them and the shore. At one point it opened
as wide as nine miles, and eventually drifted back
to two miles before they were rescued.
The temperature dropped from 12.2 C on Jan.
25 to -7.2 C on Jan. 27, which indicated “some
very active weather was going on,” said Dave
Philips, of Environment Canada. “The strong
wind stress was pushing the water, causing it to
pile up, like water sloshing around in a basin.”
The ice had melted enough to detach itself from
the shore, and the force of the wind pushed the
water and the ice to the other shore. Just like
water sloshing to one side of a basin or a bowl, it
comes back to the other side in order to find its
equilibrium.
The moving waters, breaking ice and freezing
Rob McCormick
Gord Hopkins at home, with some of the fishing lures he collects, and a 26-pound lake trout he
caught on Lake Simcoe.
rain made rescue seemingly impossible.
Hopkins and McFadden were unaware that they
were just two of 11 men floating around Lake
Simcoe at the time. Hopkins’s brother-in-law,
Basil O’Donnell, along with Charlie Shier, both
from Brechin; James Hill, Gordon and Peter
Mitchell, and Robert Bullock of Beaverton; Ed
Peconi Jr. and Allan Nichols of Woodville; and
Orville Barkley of Orillia were stranded as well.
“There was no communication back then, so we
didn’t know if we were the only ones out there or
not,” explained Hopkins, “but what good would a
cell phone have been anyway?” Arguably, a
phone would not have helped much in the case of
an ice floe but it might have been enough to ease
the fears of people on shore.
Doug Newman, a friend, was standing on shore
with binoculars, and recalls that a few of the guys
had radios in the huts so they could hear what was
going on. From shore “we could see a group of
huts off the Fifth Concession that were falling and
disappearing through the ice. I was standing with
Alvin Madill, who was being interviewed by the
local radio station, and I remember him saying, ‘I
wouldn’t want to be out there now, boy. I think
the boys are gonners!’” That statement made for a
laugh at the celebration party at the Legion after
the rescue.
By the afternoon, Hopkins remembers that the
ice wasn’t moving as quickly, but the storm was
still so bad that a rescue helicopter leaving from
Toronto had to turn back.
Two pilots from Orillia, the late RCAF veteran
Cliff Lewis, 46 at the time, flying a two-seater
Aerocona Champion, and Paul Foster, in a fourseater Cessna 180, rescued the men that afternoon, luckily able to find stretches of ice strong
enough to land on. They could only take two at a
time and had to beat the ice off the wings after
each flight before taking off again between the
lake and Morton’s Field on Highway 12 at Gamebridge, where they were dropping off the rescued
men.
Lewis, a friend of Hopkins, rescued him and
McFadden. The two men didn’t know he was
coming until they heard the plane and it landed
beside them.
There wasn’t a lot of space to land but “Cliff
was a pretty brave pilot. He was a bush pilot and
in the war, so he wasn’t afraid of much,” explained Hopkins.
“I don’t remember a lot,” of what was said, “but
I guess we were happy to see him.
“I do remember McFadden was pretty upset because he caught 25 fish and had to leave them behind when we squeezed into the plane.”
Ramara resident Shannon OʼDonnell is a
project superviser for Canada World Youth.
She can be reached at [email protected].
More than 100 take buyout
Page 18
Casino made offer to all full-time staff; union organizing efforts continue
By CHRONICLE STAFF
About 100 employees at Casino Rama have accepted buyouts the casino offered to all full-time
staff in November. The deadline for accepting the
buyouts was Dec. 11.
Casino Rama, the largest employer in Ramara
Township, now employs “about 2,890 and
change,” said Jenna Hunter, the casino’s manager
of media relations.
“We positioned (the buyouts) as a benefit option,” Hunter said. “It was a benefit option in response to demands by staff. For a number of years
we have been hearing from our staff that this is
something they would like, and it just so happened that the business conditions were right at
this time and we went ahead and offered it to all
full time staff.”
The casino is not planning layoffs, Hunter said.
“There was never a target number,” she said.
“No matter what the participation level in this
package was, there was not going to be a layoff.”
Hunter said there are no plans to replace the
employees who accepted the offer. “There are a
few positions where they may see some part time
work and come contractual work, but...there
won’t be any mass hirings going on.”
Meanwhile, Hunter said the casino is aware of
activity by the United Steelworkers, who are
looking to organize casino employees, but does
not know the status of that attempt. “We know the
union was active, and that’s all we know,” she
said.
Brad James, district co-ordinator for the United
Steelworkers union, said efforts to organize
casino employees are continuing.
“We’re working with them to try to build an effective outreach so that they can build their own
union,” he said.
“No matter what the
participation level in this
package was, there was not
going to be a layoff.”
Jenna Hunter, Casino Ramaʼs
manager of media relations
“We’re hoping to build a strong enough level of
support so that the affected employees can take
part in a secret-ballot vote supervised and administered by the Labour Relations Board on whether
they want to have a union.”
To be certified, a union must demonstrate to the
labour board that it has the support of 40 per cent
of the affected employees, James said.
Once that support is established through the
signing of union cards, the union can file an application for certification, which could result in the
labour board ordering the vote. If that vote carries
by a majority, the union is certified.
“We’re past the initial stages at Rama, but not
near the final stages by any means,” James said,
“This is a large workforce. It’s complex. It’s a
challenge for employees to be able to effectively
communicate with each other because of the size
and complexity of the workplace.”
James would not estimate the union’s support
among casino staff.
“We don’t disclose where we’re at in terms of
our level of support, but it’s safe to say that if we
didn’t feel there was continuing support, we
wouldn’t be continuing the campaign.
“The employees are telling us that there’s interest.”
Casino Rama has been open since 1996.
Popular Lagoon City restaurant to close
Chronicle photo
By KEVIN LEHMAN
The C&C Roadhouse and Grill, a popular
restaurant and bar in Lagoon City, will close in
mid-April, its owner says.
“It’s time to retire,” said Colin Munro, who
owns and operates the restaurant with his wife,
Cherie. “Ten years is a long time in the restaurant business and we have decided we are
ready to take some time off.”
C&C will not renew its lease in the Laguna
Shores Mews plaza at 87 Laguna Parkway
when it expires April 14, Munro said.
C&C employs a staff of 12 in the summer
and six in the off-season. The restaurant has
been in business since 2001, when the Munros
moved to this area from St. Thomas, Ont.
The casual dining establishment is well
known for its varied menu and events, including entertainment from May through October,
Chronicle photo
C&C Roadhouse and Grill, in the Laguna
Shores Mews in Lagoon City.
a NASCAR pool for auto racing fans and a
themed New Year’s Eve party.
C&C serves a year-round clientele. Backing
on to the lagoon system, boat tie-ups are used
by water traffic in the summer, and proximity
to both the Carden and Orillia snowmobile
trails attracts winter outdoor enthusiasts.
“Thanks for the patronage,” Munro said.
“We are certainly going to miss the people
here.”
Nathan McLachlan, the plaza’s property
manager, said the owner, 87 Laguna Parkway
Ltd., was surprised to learn the restaurant
would close.
“I am sure we will seek another restaurant to
occupy the space,” McLachlan said.
“According to the owner’s leasing agent,
they already have interest from other parties.
Because of recent renovations and the fact that
Colin and Cherie just put in a new bar a year
ago, the location is ideal for a restaurant.”
Kevin Lehman is a volunteer living
in Washago. He can be reached at
[email protected].
Brechin walk-in clinic closes
Page 19
Board in early stages of a plan to attract a new medical professional to the area
By KEVIN LEHMAN
Patients of the walk-in clinic at the Mara Medical Centre in Brechin will have to look elsewhere
for medical services after the clinic closed Jan.
12, when Dr. Ulic Longford moved his practice to
Orillia.
Longford, who has practised in Brechin since
October 2008, will be accepting new patients after
relocation to 16 O’Brien St. in Orillia. Patients
who were previously seen at the walk-in clinic
can apply to become his patients in his new practice, as long as they do not already have a family
doctor, his office said. His new practice opened
Jan. 18. More information is available from his
office at 325-4398.
Dr. Christopher Brand, the only other doctor in
Brechin, is not accepting new patients.
Ramara residents requiring medical attention
will have to go to either the Orillia After Hours
Medical Clinic or Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital.
Meanwhile, Ramara councilor John O’Donnell,
a member of the Mara Medical Centre Board, said
the board is in the early stages of a plan to attract
a new medical professional to the area. “My longterm vision is to have a full range of medical services available at the centre,” he said. The board’s
first choice would be to bring a new, young doctor
to the centre, he said. Or it might ask Township
council to advertise for a nurse practitioner.
“A new doctor or nurse practitioner would bring
a fresh approach to the practice, help to attract
other specialists and create the kind of full-service
treatment centre this area deserves,” he said.
Ramara Township, through the medical centre
board, is represented on the Orillia and Area
Physician Recruitment and Retention Committee.
“We are called the Orillia and Area Committee,” said chairwoman Kathi Shropshire, “but as
far as I am concerned we are all one community.
We are an all-volunteer organization working to-
The Mara Medical Centre in Brechin closed Jan. 12.
“My long-term vision is to
have a full range of medical
services available at the
centre.”
John OʼDonnell,
Township
councillor and member of the Mara
Medical Centre board
ward a common goal and we are willing to support wherever we can. If Ramara follows through
with a program to attract a nurse practitioner we
will support that effort as much as we can.”
Shropshire referred to the recent announcement
that the township of Oro Medonte had obtained
provincial support to open a nurse practitioner
Chronicle photo
clinic in November 2010.
“There are a lot of horror stories out there about
people self-medicating and self-doctoring because
they can’t get any care at all, and this is a very
dangerous practice. I think nurse practitioners are
a great way to go in order to provide proper care
to members of any community.”
A nurse practitioner, states the Nurse Practitioners’ Association of Ontario, “is a registered nurse
with advanced university education who provides
personalized, quality health care to patients. Ontario nurse practitioners provide a full range of
health care services to individuals, families and
communities in a variety of settings including
hospitals and community-based clinics in cities
and smaller towns in Ontario.”
Deli stays open all winter for first time in six years
Leska’s Meat and Delicatessen on Highway 12
in Uptergrove is open all winter this year for the
first time in six seasons.
Christa Leska, who runs the business with her
son Erich, said the decision to stay open was
made in response to the market.
“Traffic has increased on this highway since
2000,” she said.
“A lot more people are coming up through
Highway 12 from Toronto, Whitby and Oshawa.
“We are always listening to our customers and
preparing to accommodate for residential growth
in the township through developments, such as
small subdivisions here and there and Lakepoint,
to be built just north of us.
“Our store hours have been flexible over the
years to support the needs of our customers,”
Chronicle photo
Leskaʼs Meat and Delicatessen on Highway 12
in Uptergrove .
says Christa, a resident of Ramara Township
since 1970.
The delicatessen has been serving Ramara and
area since 1986. It features fresh, all natural
meats, poultry and fish, as well as a range of deli
products such as cold cuts and cheeses.
Its local customer base is complemented by
shoppers from as far away as Huntsville in the
north and Oshawa, and Whitby in the south, as
well as a steady stream of summer residents and
tourists.
For February and March, hours are Wednesday
to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
During the rest of the year, the deli is open
Monday to Saturday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Closed
on Sunday.
Christa says she has made the business part of
her lifestyle.
“I couldn’t be without my business because
my customers are so nice and friendly,” she says.
— Chronicle staff
Dogs get
the point
Page 20
We have done post-mortem
examinatins on dogs that died
unexpectedly and have found quills
stuck in the heart and lungs
With the winter weather upon us, one phone
call we can expect to get is a frantic owner calling to tell us their dog has a face full of porcupine quills and what do we do?
The obvious answer is to get them pulled out
as soon as possible, and invariably, under an
anesthetic.
There are lots of rumours out there about how
to deal with quills.
By Dr. LARRY BOOTH
The Bird House
Nature Company
Larry Kirtley, Carden Field Naturalists
A porcupineʼs quills can be fatal if they are not removed properly.
Supplies and Gifts
for Nature Lovers
108 Mississaga St. East., Orillia, opposite the Mariposa Market (705) 329-3939
Cutting them off to deflate the quills doesn’t
make them come out an easier. The portion of
the quill stuck in the dog is surrounded by barbs
that hold the quill in place and tear tissue when
pulled. They must be pulled out at the same angle
they have penetrated.
Quills will continue to migrate in soft tissue
until they strike bone, and then their direction
changes. We have done post-mortem examinations on dogs that died unexpectedly and have
found quills stuck in the heart and lungs.
Once quills are under the skin, small incisions
are required to remove them, and they can be difficult to find. Quills left in the legs can lead to
chronic lameness. Abscesses showing up months
later on the face and skull area are often due to
migrating quills.
Some dogs learn their lesson to stay away from
porcupines after one encounter, but others seem
to have the attitude, “I’ll get you this time!”
Another rumour is that the porcupine can
throw its quills. That is not true, but they can
swing their tails and leave a number of quills
stuck in the dog.
Porcupines can also carry rabies, so it is important to maintain your pet’s rabies vaccination.
If your pet has fewer than a dozen quills in the
face and there are none in the mouth and no access to a veterinarian, you may be able to restrain
the dog sufficiently to pull the quills out with a
pair of pliers, but they require some force to remove, and must be pulled at the same angle they
have penetrated, or they will break off and the tip
will continue to migrate.
Dr. Larry Booth operates Pine Grove
Veterinary Hospital in Orillia. He can be
reached at [email protected].
Page 21
Taking
numbers
Larry Kirtley
Five cardinals and 40 hairy woodpeckers
were seen during the Carden Christmas
Bird Count on Jan. 2.
Low temperatures and high wind chill were factors
in the annual Carden Christmas Bird Count
When hunting animals and birds was an important source of food supply for the family larder, a
Christmas Day tradition was an activity called a
“side hunt.” Groups would gather at a pre determined spot to choose up sides and go out hunting
in a small team. This group would shoot anything
that moved, on wing or foot. At the end of the determined time, the group would assemble to determine which team had the largest quarry. Most
often, the day would end with drinks and a feast.
By the beginning of the 20th century, bird populations were in a decline, and a Frank Chapman,
an ornithologist at the American Museum of Natural History and an officer of the Audubon Society,
suggested that instead of shooting birds on Christmas Day, they count as many birds as they could.
A Christmas census ... does it sound familiar?
The first such census took place on Christmas
Day 1900. Twenty-five separate “bird counts”
were held that day, including one in Toronto.
Today the Christmas Bird Count is held in over
2,000 municipalities in Canada, the U.S., Latin
America and the Caribbean, with more than
50,000 birders taking part. The census is a one-day
event during a count period from Dec. 14 to Jan. 5
each year, the longest and most continuous
wildlife survey conducted annually on this continent.
The Carden Christmas Bird Count was initiated
by Orillia naturalist Bob Bowles some 13 years
ago. When the Carden Field Naturalist Club was
formed in 2003, the count became part of the
Club’s annual program of events. Bowles is still
the compiler of the data which is sent to Bird
Studies Canada (www.bsc-eoc.org) and used for
scientific research.
Typically with the Carden count, 20 to 30 dedicated birders from as far away as Toronto and Peterborough meet at the Carden Recreation Centre
on the designated date and time (the 2009 count
was held on Jan. 2, 2010).
By DAVID HOMER
Carden Field
Naturalists
Groups are chosen and given a map of the area
for which they are responsible. Each census, or
count, covers an area contained within a circle of
24 kilometres, broken down into manageable sections. The Carden count area covers parts of Carden and Ramara.
Participants are instructed to count as many individuals within a species as possible during the designated time. With map, species list and pencil in
hand, they depart the centre to spend the remainder of the day in car, on foot, skis, snowshoe, or
whatever in search of each and every bird in the
designated area.
The late days of December and the early days of
January can be very fickle; clear and freezing,
sleeting, foggy, blizzard-like or absolutely beautiful (most often not), but nothing deters this group.
Those who are not able to get into the field to
count supply species and individual counts from
their home feeders.
The exciting part of the day is when each group
arrives back at the recreation centre for the tally.
With Excel software already programmed on the
computer, each group supplies compiler Bowles
with the data for each species. “Ohs!” and “awes!”
can be heard as individual species totals are revealed, especially when species-high records are
set. Disappointment sets in when species lows are
recorded.
Periodically, an unexpected species is recorded:
an eastern bluebird down by the Talbot River, or a
bald eagle by the open-water narrows on Lake
Dalrymple.
The event comes to a conclusion with a pot luck
dinner ... but no drinks.
This year’s count was held on a very cold (-21
C), windy day with a wind chill of -31 C, which
accounted in some respects for low numbers being
tallied.
A total of 30 different species were counted,
down from last year’s 37. Individuals were also
down to 2,281 from last year’s 2,786. The record
number of species was counted in 2003 with 52.
The largest number of individuals ever counted
was in 1999 with 4,574.
Among this year’s most numerous species were
black-capped chickadees (779), snow buntings
(422), American gold finches (374) and blue jays
(150).
Of what use is the Christmas Bird Count beyond
a day away from other traditional Christmas or
New Years festivities?
The data collected over the past century has allowed researchers, biologists and other interested
individuals to study the long-term health of bird
populations across North America. And it is all
possible because of people like you and me … citizen science if you like.
David Homer is the president of the Carden
Field Naturalists. He can be reached at
[email protected].
Page 22
Ramona Fall Fair winners
Winners at the Ramona Fall Fair. First, second
and third-prize winners listed in order, where
applicable.
Grain
Six Ears Field Corn: Joan Carrick, Jake Carrick;
Flakes of Hay: Jake Carrick, Bill Shepherd; Six
Stock Sheaf of Field Corn: Joan Carrick, Jake Carrick; Most Points Grain; Jake Carirck.
Cattle
Bull Over One year, Bull under one year, Cow, with
Calf by Side, Jr. Heifer Yearling, Sr. Heifer Yearlling, Best Beef Female: C edar Stone Farms;
Bull, one year and under, Cow, with Calf by Side,
Sr. Heifer yearling, Jr. heifer Calf: Charolais
Belle Haven.
Sheep
Aged Ram: Jason Watt; Aged Ewe: Jason Watt,
Bobby Balkwell; Jr. Ewe Lamb: Olivia Silk, Jade
Dawson, Alyssa Deneau; Sr. Ewe Lamb: Kyle
Cranney, Taylor Roper, Jason Watt; Pet Sheep:
Kayla Hill; Best Dressed Lamb: Bobby Balkwell,
Alyssia Deneau, Jade Dawson; Showmanship:
Bobby Balkwell, JasonWatt, Hannah Balkwell; Jr.
Showmanship: Hannah Balkwell, Olivia Silk, Zack
Willis: Sr. Showmanship: Taylor Roper, Jason Watt,
Bobby Balkwell.
Goats
Lamanchas – Milkers, Sr. Kids, Jr. Kids, 12
months and over: Jane Shepherd; Toggenburgs –
Milkers, Sr. Milkers, Sr. Kids, Over 12 months: Bill
Shepherd.
Rabbits
Senior Black, Pet Rabbit, Most Points:
Jason Watt.
Poultry
Leg Horn , Brahma Cock, Brahma Hen, Pet Fowl,
Widest Variety in Poultry: Jason Watt.
Waterfowl
Pair of Ducks: Jason Watt.
Fowl
Turkey, under one year, Gobbler: Jason Watt.
Flowers
Dahlia: Joan Carrick, Barb Houston, Velma Houston; Arrangement of Miniature Flowers: Olive
Cooper, Barb Houston, Jeanne McDonald; Three
Gladioli: Joan Carrick; Artificial Floral Arrangement:
Cody Brooks, Barb Houston, Olive Cooper; Single
rose in bud vase: Barb Houston, Velma Houston;
Arrangement of Wild Things: Olive Cooper, Adriana
Sedore, Jeanne McDonald; One specimen: Jane
Shepherd, Adriana Sedore; Planter Suitable for
porch or patio: Jane Shepherd; Most points of
Flowers: Barb Houston; Most outstanding entry:
Jane Shepherd
Brittany Wilson.
Crafts
Scrap Book Memory Page: Cathy Milne, Adriana
Sedore, Stehanie Ross; Hand Embroidery on any
Item: Brittany Wilson, Heather Thompson; Stain
Glass Item: Adriana Sedore; Hand Made Scented
Candle: Adriana Sedore, Stephanie Ross; Folk Art
Decoration: Cathy Milne, Anita Sumpton, Kelsey
Sumpton; Homemade Card: Cathy Milne,
Stephanie Ross, Ann Hosker; A Twig Article: Adriana Sedore; Sketched Picture: Stephanie Ross,
Kat Sumpton; Article of Cross Stitch: Kat Sumpton,
Heather Thompson; Christmas Article:
Joanne Bolton, Adriana Sedore, Kelsey Sumpton;
Halloween Related Craft: Cathy Milne, Joanne
Bolton: Acrylic/Oil Painting: Olive Cooper, Kat
Sumpton, Barb Houston; Photos: Ann Hosker,
Cody Brooks, Anita Sumpton; Most points in Crafts:
Cathy Milne; Environmental Special: Cathy Milne.
Needlework
Lap Quilt, Pieced Applique Quilt: Joanne Bolton;
Crib Quilt: Joanne Bolton, Orma Woods, Adriana
Sedore; Quilt Made by a Group: Coopers Falls
Ladies Group; Piecework Quilt: Joanne Bolton,
Jeanne MacDonald, Orma Woods; Most Outstanding Quilt: Joanne Bolton; Afghans-Crochet: Adrianna Sedor, Cathy Milne; Afghan—Knitted: Joanne
Bolton, Ann Hosker; Knitted article: Adrianna Sedore; Knitted Socks: Adrianna Sedore,
Orma Woods, Jane Shepherd; Womanʼs Sweater:
Lois Parke, Adrianna Sedore, Orma Woods; Childʼs
Mittens, two needles: Lois Park, Orma Woods, Ann
Hosker; Knitted Baby Set: Adriana Sedore, Lois
Parke, Orma Woods; Knitted Slippers: Ann Hosker,
Orma Woods, Lois Park; Knitted Scarf: Adriana Sedore, Ann Hosker, Brittany Wilson; Cuddle Quilt:
Ann Hosker, Adriana Sedore; Crochet Baby Set:
Cathy Milne; Crochet Potholders: Heather Thompson, Cathy Milne; Crochet Slippers: Cathy Milne,
Heather Thompson; Crochet Animal: Cathy Milne;
Crochet Doily: Adriana Sedore, Ann ••• Hosket,
Heather Thompson; Crochet Christmas Item: Ann
Hosker, Cathy Milne; Article from Used Denim: Ann
Hosker; Homemade Cushion: Joanne Bolton;
Sewn Halloween Costume: Adriana Sedore, Ann
Hosker; Christmas Tree Skirt: Joanne Bolton; Unusual Sewn Article: Joanne Bolton, Ann Hosker;
Apron: Joanne Bolton, Orma Woods, Ann Hosker.
Field & Garden
Six Cooking Apples: Olive Cooper; Six Crab Apples: Joan Carrick, Jake Carrick, Adrianna Sedore;
Potatoes:Olive Cooper, Scott McDonld, Jeanne
McDonald; Onions: Scott McDonald; TwoTurnip:
Iva Break, Jane Shepherd; Three Carrots: Jane
Shepherd, Scott McDonald, Jeanne McDonald;
Three Beets: Scott McDonald, Olive Cooper;
Largest Head of Cabbage: Scott McDonald; Two
Green Peppers, Cody Brooks; Three Zucchini:
Olive Cooper, Karen White, Scott McDonald; Two
Cucumbers: Karen White, Jane Shepherd; Two
Parsnips: Scott McDonald; Largest Potatoe: Alana
Brooks, Cody Brooks, Adriana Sedore; Three Ripe
Tomatoes: Adriana Sedore, Jane Shepherd,
Jeanne McDonald; Three Green Tomatoes: Jane
Shepherd, Scott McDonald, Adriana Sedore; Three
Spanish Onions: Oliver Cooper, Scott McDonald; A
Vegetable Unusual to the Area: Cody Brooks,
Alana Brooks; Display of Miniature Gourds: Alana
Brooks, Cody Brooks, Adriana Sedore; Red Pepper
Jelly: Carroll McMillin, Adriana Sedore,
Ann Hosker; Apple Butter: Carroll McMillin; Applesauce: Velma Houston, Carroll McMillin, Jane
Shepherd; Canned Peaches: Olive Cooper, Jane
Shepherd, Carroll McMillin; Canned Tomatoes:
Carroll McMillin, Karen White; Chili Sauce: Velma
Houston, Brittany Wilson, Jane Shepherd; Pickled
Beets: Jane Shepherd, Olive Cooper, Carroll
McMillin; Dill Pickles: Brittany Wilson, Velma Houston, Carroll McMillin; Bread & Butter Pickles: Karen
White, Carroll McMillin, Olive Cooper; Dilled
Beans: Carroll Mc Millin; Salsa: Adriana Sedore,
Brittany Wilson;
Domestic Science
Crab Apple Jelly: Tammy Wilson, Olive Cooper;
Nine Day Pickles: Adriana Sedore, Carroll
McMillin; Strawberry Jam: Anne Hosker, Carroll
McMillin, Heather Thompson; One Pint Maple
Syrup: Scott McDonald, Brittany Wilson, Jeanne
McDonald; One Dozen Brown Eggs: Silvia
Cooper; Bernardin Best of the Show: Carroll
McMillin; Bernardin Jam/Jelly Award: Ann Hosker;
Bernardin Gift Basket: Cathy Milne; Raisin Bread
from a Breadmaker: Lois Parke, Barb Houston;
Zucchini bread: Silvia Cooper, Iva Break,
Barb Houston; Date and Nut Loaf: Olive Cooper,
Carol McDonald, Iva Break; White Bread: Silvia
Cooper, Olive Cooper: White Bread (breadmaker):
Cathy Milne, Barb Houston;Raisin Bread: Olive
Cooper; Dinner Rolls: Iva Break, Silvia Cooper,
Olive Cooper; Parkerhouse Rolls: Silvia Cooper,
Olive Cooper; Tea Biscuits: Carol McDonald,
Scott McDonald, Heather Thompson; Cheese Tea
Biscuits: Carol McDonald, Olive Cooper, Scott McDonald; Pumpkin Muffins: Silvia Cooper, Barb
Houston, Cathy Milne; Bran Muffins: Velma Houston, Silvia Cooper, Heather Thompson; Decorated
Cupcakes: Cathy Milne, Adriana Sedore; Oatmeal
Cookies: Silvia Cooper, Iva Break, Olive Cooper;
Tenderflake Pie Contest: Kathy McDonald, Carol
McDonald, Scott McDonald; Kendra Ross Apple
Pie contest: Lois Parke; Kendra Ross Chocolate
Layer Cake Iced: Heather Thompson; Robinhood
Banana Bread: Silvia Cooper, Heather Thompson;
Crisco Butter Tarts: Kathy McDonald, Scott McDonald; Beehive Chelsea Buns: Silvia Cooper,
Olive Cooper.
Jr. Fair
Picture using Dried Pasta: Cole Martin
Kailem McDonald; Decorated Bagel: Elora Cronk;
Potato Print Art: Elora Cronk; Fruit Creature: Elora
Cronk; Decorated Cupcake: Alana Brooks, Ayden
Sedore, Abby Cronk; Decorate Rice Krispie
Squares: Abby Cronk, Alanna Brooks; Best School
Lunch: Abby Cronk, Alana Brooks; Decorated Monster Cookie: Jake Carrick, Cody Brooks, Tyer Moxham; Vegetable Face on a Plate: Cody Brooks,
Jake Carrick, Gavin Sedore; Three Chocolate Chip
Cookies: Gavin Sedore, Tyler Moxham, Cody
Brooks;Nutritional Snack Platter; Victoria White;
Marshmallow Castle: Matilda Wilson, Graydon McDonald, Kylie McDonald; Color a Picture: Nolan
Sedore; Twelve Pretty Stones in an Egg Carton:
Nolan Sedore;Dressed Stuffed Toy: Nolan Sedore;
Pine Cone Character: Elora Cronk; Colour a Picture: Elora Cronk, Kailem McDonald; One Maple
Leaf Mounted: Elora Cronk; Puppet from Paper
Bag: Elora Cronk, Kailem McDonald; Wrapped
Shoe Box: Alana Brooks, Ayden Sedore; Painted
Flower Pot: Alana Brooks, Abby Cronk; Popsicle
Stick Article: Alana Brooks, Ayden Sedore; Decorate a Farm Hat: Abby Cronk, Gavin Lapp, Alana
Brooks; Bird House: Cody Brooks, David White;
Paper & Toilet Roll Animal: Dawson Carrick, Cody
Brooks, Kevin Carrick; Lego Creation: Cody
Brooks, Jake Carrick; Egg Carton Bug:
Gavin Sedore, Dawson Carrick, Jake Carrick;
Homemade Birthday Card: Elora Cronk, Alanna
Brooks, Abby Cronk; Scrap Book Page: Elora
Cronk, Abby Cronk, Cody Brooks; Picture: Ayden
Sedore, Gavin Sedore, Alanna Brooks; Most Outstanding Article Sec 1 - 48: Cody Brooks; Environmental Special, Ayden Sedore, Alanna Brooks
Special Musical Instrument using Rec. Material:
Tyler Moxham.
Jr. Fair Vegetables
Three Potatoes: Graydon McDonald, Cody Brooks,
Alanna Brooks; Three Onions; Cody Brooks,
Alanna Brooks, Graydon McDonald; Three Beets;
Kyle McDonald, Kailem McDonald, Graydon McDonald; Three Red Tomatoes: Gavin Sedore,
Ayden Sedore, Tyler Moxam; Three Green Tomatoes: Gavin Sedore, Dawson Carrick, Kevin Carrick; Three Carrots: Jake Carrick, Alanna Brooks,
Graydon McDonald; Two Cucumbers: David White,
Jake Carrick, Kevin Carrick; Best Pumpkin:
Alanna Brooks, Cody Brooks, Cole Lapp; One Pepper Squash: Kevin Carrick, Dawson Carrick, Jake
Carrick; Collection of Vegetables: Dawson Carrick,
Jake Carrick.
Jr. Fair Flowers
One Sunflower Head: Kailem McDonald, Kylie McDonald, Graydon McDonald; One Rose: Alanna
Brooks, Cody Brooks, David White;Three Petunias
& Three Marigolds: Alanna Brooks, Kevin Carrick,
Dawson Carrick; Still Kicking Flower Arrangement:
Ayden Sedore, Jake Carrick, Edie Davidson; Most
beautiful display of flowers: Ayden Sedore.
Horses
Horse Pull, Heavy: Peter Tingy, Dorothy McCormack, Keith Hobdon; Horse Pull, Light:
Kenny Greer, Tom Saunders, Joe Nichols; Heavy
Horses, Best Four Horse Hitch: Rob Southorn
Heavy Horses, Unicorn Hitch: Rob Southorn;
Heavy Horses, Best Horse on Ground:
Rob Southorn; Heavy Horses, Reserve Grand
Champion: Joe Hannan; Heavy Horses, Junior Single Drive: Josh Hummell, Mary Priest; Hitch Class,
Graft Team: Rob Southron, Ron Hummell; Hitch
Class, Draft Mare or Gelding: Rob Southorn, Ron
Hummell; Ladies Single Hitch: Suzanne Hummel;
Heavy Horses, Filly: Leslie Girsch; Heavy Horses,
Belgians, Brood Mare: Ron Hummell; Heavy
Horses, Belgians, Foal of current Year: Joe Hannan, Joe Hannan, Ron Hummel; Heavy Horses,
Belgian, Filly: Joe Hannan, Ron Hummel; Heavy
Horses, Junor Showmanship (up to 13 years):
Mary Priest, C. J. Williams, Sara Hummell;
Heavy Horses, Sr. Showmanship (14 to 18 years);
Nisha Girsch, Josh Hummell; Heavy Horse, Ladies
Line Class: Marcie Hannan, Susan Hummell,
Leslie Girsch.
Group promotes
new multi-use trail
Three-km stretch would link Lagoon City, Concession 7
By JANET MASCHING
In November, a small group of residents,
which I am part of, made a deputation to Ramara
Township council asking councillors to consider
building a new, three-kilometre multi-use recreational trail.
The proposed trail would take users from Lagoon City to Concession Road 7, first along an
abandoned rail bed and then following the
Sideroad 15 unopened road allowance to connect
with Concession 7.
Council listened to our submissions, viewed
photos and maps of the route and voted to receive
and refer our presentation to the township’s Active Transportation Plan.
Our group consists of enthusiastic hikers and
bicyclists.
Walking along the trail early in November, we
discovered that it passes through great scenery,
surrounded by water much of the way. It features
many birds, views of bridges (dated 1911) on a
second abandoned rail bed and even a wooden
“wigwam.”
We believe this route could create a convenient
recreational trail for Bayshore Village, Lagoon
City and adjacent cottage residents.
Bicyclists going from Atherley to Lagoon City
would find this trail a safe link, allowing them to
avoid much of Highway 12, and then continue if
they wish, south from Lagoon City to Beaverton
by Lakeshore Drive.
This route has advantages which may make it
less costly to build and maintain than other alternatives.
There is little brush to clear, and the abandoned
rail bed provides a solid base to build on.
The proposed trail is also flat, making it good
for all ages.
There are a few hurdles to overcome: an easement agreement with the rail-bed owner; building
work to be done at the trailhead on the Sideroad
15 road allowance, which is swampy; and,
provincial approval and Lake Simcoe Conserva-
SALT brings
message
of crime
prevention
Page 23
By KEVIN LEHMAN
Chronicle photo
Part of the proposed trail, near the entrance at
the Lagoon City end.
tion Authority approval for this work.
Next steps in this process are:
The township will be forming a committee to
work on Ramara’s Active Transportation Plan—
our group hopes this trail will be an integral part
of the plan;
Exploring other potential trail locations in
Ramara, to help the Township form an overall
plan;
When and if the Township approves the Lagoon City/Concession 7 trail, fundraising will get
underway, looking to both public and private
sources.
Multi-use trails provide us with great recreational opportunities and allow access to areas of
natural beauty and historical interest.
Trail-building is the modern trend in city and
rural planning. We think Ramara can benefit
from this trend, which governments are prepared
to help fund.
In addition to Ramara council and staff’s important roles, the enthusiasm and interest of Ramara residents will help make this plan a reality.
Congratulations to
The Ramara Chronicle
on the launch of your
monthly magazine
Ramara Township Council
Seniors And Law Enforcement Together
(SALT) brought its crime-prevention message to Ramara late last year in a presentation at the Royal
Canadian Legion
Branch 488 in Brechin.
On Dec. 3, Sgt. Robin
Saunders, of the Senior
Assistance Team, Crime
Prevention Section of
the OPP, delivered a
seminar on fraud prevention to an audience
of about 40.
Sgt. Robin
Financial crime
Saunders
against seniors, including theft, fraud and theft by power of attorney, is increasing “drastically” as that
demographic grows, Saunders said.
While provisions such as mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse are in place,
“there aren’t a lot of laws protecting seniors
specifically,” she said. “So the only thing we
have is awareness. That’s why presentations
like these are so important.”
SALT is a community-based program that
is made up of initiatives that target the prevention of crimes against seniors.
Originally a U.S. concept, SALT was
brought to Orillia and area by the Orillia detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police.
The local advisory committee of SALT
presents monthly seminars that address issues such as frauds and scams, driving
safety, personal safety and home security.
In the summer, Phil Brunt, chairman of the
SALT advisory council for Orillia and area,
was approached by the outreach sub-committee of the Our Ramara Coalition with the
idea of bringing SALT’s message to seniors
in Ramara Township.
Brunt’s response was immediate. Taking
the request back to his council, he was able
to report back to Our Ramara that his people
were very interested in this move.
“The Orillia chapter of SALT has always
had a mandate to serve the seniors of Orillia
and area. It is a pleasure to be able to reach
out and bring our message to Ramara Township.”
Bringing SALT to Ramara will continue in
2010, with new messages to be delivered to
our seniors in sessions planned for the
spring.
Page 24
Artist lived two years in Lagoon City
Passages
Jack Reid
students became great artists in
their own right. I asked one
why she still came to his workAcclaimed watercolourist
shops and she replied that one
Jack Reid, who died in Orillia of
can never learn enough from
cancer in September at 84, lived
the master.
two of the last four years of his
“Jack made his entire living
life in Lagoon City, and painted
painting what he knew best. He
what he saw through the winwas known as the snowman.
dows of his condominium.
Nobody painted snow like Jack.
Pat Carabine, his friend of 30
One could almost pick the snow
years and companion for the last
from the painting. He was passix, recalls Reid as “an artist,
sionate about the Canada he
author, instructor, humanitarian,
loved so much, and many of his
friend to so many. I doubt we
paintings were about Canada ...
will see his like again, not only
snow, water and mountains.”
as a great Canadian painter, but
Terry Kiriopoulos, wife of
as a gentle, giving human
Chef Konstantine at the Harbeing.”
bour Inn Restaurant, recalls
Reid, who continued painting
Reid painting scenes from the
Special to The Chronicle condo he rented from her and
until just before his death, was a
Jack Reid
self-taught artist whose works
her husband.
sold throughout Canada and in“He painted what he saw
ternationally. He was also a teacher and storythrough the window. It looked straight down the
teller.
lagoon. They were snow paintings.”
“He had so many stories,” Carabine recalls. “He
Reid ate frequently at the restaurant, she said,
could do accents like nobody I ever met. He could and always brought a book to read. “He liked
fish,” she recalled.
have been a comedian, but he always knew he
Peter Trueman, the former national news anchor
was a painter.
for Global Television, was Reid’s friend for three
“Art was his passion, and teaching his wonderful simple techniques to students was his joy. His decades.
“We met through mutual friends. I dabbled for a
workshops always had a waiting list. Many of his
“He was passionate about
the Canada he loved so much,
and many of his paintings
were about Canada ...
snow,water and mountains.”
Pat Carabine,
companion to Jack Reid
while, and my wife was a painter. We ended up
going on several painting expeditions with Jack to
Europe. He was one of the best friends I ever
had.”
Trueman says Reid came to painting “through
the back door.” Originally a sign painter, Reid
“didn’t have an academic background. He was
self-taught. Jack would have a blank sheet of
paper and wave his arms, and a tree would leap
out after a few strokes of the brush. The brush did
what he wanted it to. It was magical...astonishing.”
At one of his exhibits, Reid showed a number
of paintings he created from several pictures
Trueman had taken. “The paintings looked much
better than the photos,” Trueman recalls.
“Jack was known internationally and very well
known in Canada,” Trueman says. “He was a darn
good painter. A Jack Reid exhibit was always a
wonderful thing to go to.”
— Chronicle Staff
Volunteer, community activist
Belvia Fish
Belvia Theresa Lawrence was born on June 29,
1920, the fifth of seven of children of John and
Susan Lawrence, in Longford Mills.
Her grandparents settled in Rama Township in
1835, having emigrated earlier from Ireland.
Belvia married Alton Fish, the love of her life,
on Feb. 20, 1939 at St. Paul’s Catholic Church in
Gravenhurst. The couple had six children. In 1941
they moved to Longford Mills, where they ran the
Rama Post Office, later managing the farm of the
late J. L.Younghusband of Chicago, now the Lake
St. John Airport. In 1946, the family moved to
Toronto.
Belvia was a committed volunteer, community
activist and dedicated church member. She volunteered for the Canadian Cancer Society, Heart and
Stroke and the Red Cross. She was president of
the Catholic Women’s League at St. Edward’s Willowdale and at St. Columbkille’s Uptergrove. She
was active in Right to Life and spoke at many high
schools. Belvia and Alton cared for children from
the Catholic Children’s Aid for 15 years. She ran
for trustee for the Toronto Catholic School Board,
losing the second time by a slim margin.
In 1980, Alton retired, and Belvia, who was
working at the Redemptorist Provincial Office in
Toronto, also retired and they returned to the
Belvia Fish celebrates her 89th birthday, at
Leisureworld. More than 30 members of her
family were present.
Lawrence Family Century Farm. Belvia then became an active member in the Orillia Senior Citizen Council, participated on the Rama
Township/Library Board Committee and St.
Columbkille’s. She also wrote the stories for Old
Gramps Story Time, which were told by Alton on
Cable 10 television.
In 1989 Alton and Belvia bought a mobile home
in Florida, which they enjoyed for many winters.
Belvia died on Dec. 9, 2009.
— Chronicle Staff
Sebright’s roots in logging
By ADRIENNE DAVIES
Sometimes when you drive past a small village
you wonder…why? Why here?
Oh, it’s obvious now – there are beautiful
woods and farmland, lakes nearby; it’s not too far
to a city with its jobs and entertainment. It’s
worth the drive to get away from the hustle and
enjoy the peace, and the new residential developments in the area attest to its desirability. But
why there? What started it all?
As in many areas of the former Rama Township, Sebright’s history is linked to logging. Although used as a summer hunting and trapping
ground by the natives from newly settled Rama,
it wasn’t until the development of the lumber
trade that people began to build homes near the
great woods. Soon there were four mills for lumbering staves, planing, and shingle-making, using
the great logs that were forested in the area or
sent down the Head River by the men in the
camps farther east. With the loggers came their
families and the need for local goods and services. By the time Governor General Monck finished his road as far as Bancroft in 1873, opening
up the heart of Ontario, Young’s Settlement
housed the new Sebright Post Office and was
well established with hotels, a blacksmith shop,
goods stores and two churches, Methodist and
Presbyterian. The latter became the United
Church, now closed.
When the lands were carved up into townships,
Sebright didn’t fare well, being the area where
three municipalities met and a fourth adjoined
just up the road. Thus, the neighbours across the
road owed their allegiance to a different local
government. No matter – the mail came from
Orillia and the community clung together with its
churches, stores, and other commercial development. Community activities have always included sports, and Sebright has sponsored hockey
and baseball teams that competed with others
from the surrounding townships.
With the desire to give all children an education in spite of the formidable distance from a
major centre, a Union School was built in Rama
Township in the early 1870s, with responsibility
for it alternating between Rama and Dalton. Students attended from the whole area, regardless of
connection to other townships. Although Rama
Page 25
It wasn’t until the development of the lumber trade
that people began to build homes near the great woods
The former Sebright Presbyterian Church, later United.
An amazing community
spirit has enabled the
residents to put on plays,
stage events, and hold
regular activities that larger
areas might not attempt.
and Mara Townships belonged to Ontario
County, high school students from Sebright attended daily classes in Orillia.
Looking north on Kirkfield Road toward Sebright.
Chronicle photo
Chronicle photo
With the decline of the logging industry, Sebright began to lose its significance. Hotels
closed and declining attendance forced the closing and sale of the Methodist Church which was
remodeled into a store and residence. Rama Central School was built in 1965 and students were
bussed out of the village. However, tourists had
flocked to the area from the turn of the century
on, and the shoreline around all the lakes soon
became packed with summer residences, some of
them converted to year-round homes which increased the population of the greater Sebright
area.
In recent times, school boards have caused
controversy with their insistence on boundaries
and Sebright is finally divided – at least during
the school day. An amazing community spirit has
enabled the residents to put on plays, stage
events, and hold regular activities that larger
areas might not attempt. Community activities
might take place in Dalton Community Hall in
the City of Kawartha Lakes, at the sports field in
Ramara Township, or at the yearly church service
in Sadowa, but if you live in Sebright, you know
where you belong.
Adrienne Davies is the secretary of the Ramara
Historical Society. She can be reached
A flu too many
This is a relevant topic these days. You must see
a physician for a proper diagnosis, especially if
your immune system is compromised due to other
conditions such as cancer, diabetes, heart or kidney disease, impaired breathing, cystic fibrosis or
chronic anemia, among many other factors that
also affect immunity.
By NADIR JAMAL
Capsule Comments
Flu virus is transmitted by inhaling droplets in
air containing the virus, or handling items contaminated by an infected person. This infection cannot
be treated with antibiotics. It runs its course. Antibiotics can help ward off secondary bacterial infection. If you suspect pneumonia (signs of high
fever for three to four days, shortness of breath
while resting or chest pain), see a doctor right
away.
For suspected H1N1 virus infection, for patients
who need liquid Tamiflu but can’t find it, ask your
pharmacist to empty the powder in the capsules
capsules in a thick, sweet liquid like chocolate
syrup, or use dessert topping to make it more
palatable for children (where commercial liquid
not available). For children younger than one year
of age, do not use honey due to risk of botulism.
Also, milk, yogurt or fruit juices do not mask
Tamiflu’s bitter taste very well.
Cold/flu supplements
There will always be a demand for these supplements, despite a lack of hard evidence.
They do relieve symptoms, but in most cases do
not tackle the problem.
Nasal saline irrigation reduces nasal congestion,
sore throat and cough.
Acetaminophen, ibuprofen or ASA help keep
pain, muscle ache and fever down. ASA is not to
be given to children due to risk of Reye’s Syndrome.
Zinc lozenges may cut down the duration of a
cold, but it has a metallic taste. Too much can
lead to copper deficiency. Zinc nasal products can
cause a loss of smell.
Adequate vitamin D levels are associated with
fewer respiratory infections. There is not enough
evidence to establish that it prevents cold/flu or
cancer of the prostate. That is under study. It is a
good idea to take it in winter months due to lack of
exposure to enough sun.
Vitamin C is still controversial. Some studies indicate that it may help treat colds, but it does not
prevent them. Warning - 1-3 grams a day may
cause diarrhea.
American ginseng (Cold FX) seems to reduce
slightly the severity or number of upper respiratory infections. American Ginseng can affect
blood consistency in Warfarin patients.
Echinacea might modestly decrease the severity
or duration of a cold. Do not use it if you are allergic to ragweed.
Elderberry might modestly reduce the severity
of cold symptoms, according to a study done with
the Sambucol brand.
Lactobacillus Probiotics, with or without Bfidobacterium, might reduce the number/severity of
upper respiratory infections.
There is no convincing evidence that Asian Ginseng, garlic, astralagus, Airborne or Umcka Coldcare prevent or treat upper respiratory infections.
Do not fall for Internet scams promoting flu supplements. Especially, high-risk patients must avoid
falling for these scams.
Alternative therapies,
home remedies, prevention
Sometimes, alternate therapies can help
strengthen the ability to fight a virus and recover
from illness. There is a general lack of solid studies, but some readers may be interested in having
some awareness of this area of treatment:
Acupuncture: may help relieve coughing,
breathing difficulties.
Aromatherapy: For flu symptoms, gargle with a
drop of essential oils of tea tree and lemon in glass
of warm water. Or put only two drops of tea tree
oil in full bath of hot water to ease symptoms. For
nasal/chest congestion, try a few drops of eucalyptus or peppermint in a steam vaporizer.
Herbal therapies: To stimulate the immune system, try a half teaspoon each of tincture of goldenseal and echinacea twice a day, or raw garlic,
but not on an empty stomach.
Homeopathy: If you feel tired or weak with
headache or nasal congestion, try Gelsemium. Or
try Bryonia for cough or headache, always in very
tiny doses.
Nutrition and diet: Citrus fruits high in vitamin
C....strawberries, Brussels sprouts or foods high in
zinc such as meats, fish, whole grain breads and
cereals ae helpful.
At-home remedies: Gargle with salt water... take
acetaminophen or ibuprofen, but check with your
pharmacist in all cases to make sure there are no
serious drug interactions or side effects. As many
as 10 to 25 per cent of patients are ending up in
hospitals sooner or later due to drug-drug or drugfood or drug-herbal supplements interactions.
Prevention: Influenza vaccines remain the best
form of prevention or anti-viral medication may be
used to help allivalite symptoms.. Smoking and
drinking alcohol can lower your resistance to infection in general. Wash hands frequently. Stay
warm and dry to help your body fight off infection.
What interests you?
I am writing a column again after some time,
and of a different sort – from politics to “pills.”
My topics will vary, and I may return to them as
new information comes through. I will need your
assistance in guiding me with feedback, so Let me
know what topics interest you.
Pharmacist Nadir Jamal owns Nadir Jamal
Pharmacy in Brechin. He can be reached
at 484-0074.
Page 26
What’s it worth
to feel better?
Found primarily in sub-tropic and arid
regions of the world, Moringa Oleifera
may be Natureʼs most giving plant.
Chock full of nutrients, vitamins,
antioxidants and vital proteins, Moringa
is possibly the most amazing botanical
ever studied. In 2008 the Moringa Tree
was named the Most Promising Botanical by the National Institute of Health.
For centuries, many cultures have
looked to Moringa as a general remedy
and healing agent. Moringaʼs benefits
are both broad and compelling. Legend
has it that Moringaʼs effectiveness is
known for treating more than 300
conditions and has been heavily
utilized in folk medicine to treat a
variety of health conditions.
Natural Benefits
of Moringa
Nourishes bodyʼs immune system
Promotes healthy circulation
Supports normal blood glucose
levels
Natural anti-aging benefits
Anti-Inflammatory support
Promotes healthy digestion
Heightens mental clarity
Naturally increases energy
Contains Over 90 Nutritional
Compounds: 46 Antioxidants; 36
Anti-Inflammatories; Omega 3, 6 & 9;
All 19 Essential Amino Acids Calcium;
highest protein ratio of any plant so far
studied; Cartenoids, Chlorophyll,
Flavonoids, Lutein, Polyphenols, Plant
Sterols, Rutin, Xanthins, and more.
Give Zija a try
To learn more about our nutritinal
liquids, weight management
and skin care products call
1-800-717-5077 or visit us on line
at www.remu.myzija.com
Seniors’ program in demand
Page 27
Multidisciplinary team at Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital
helps elderly patients maintain ‘functional independence’
Demand for services offered by the Geriatric
Day Hospital program at Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital in Orillia is “skyrocketing,” with an estimated 75 to 90 enquiries each month, a
spokesperson for the program says.
The program, which has been available to seniors in an area that includes Ramara since July
2008, is “getting more and more referrals,” says
co-ordinator Joan Vincent.
By CAROL NASS
Health
Patients in the program have access to the services of a multidisciplinary team that includes a
geriatrician, clinical nurse specialist, registered
nurse, recreation therapist, rehabilitation assistant,
physiotherapist, occupational therapist, dietician,
social worker and speech language therapist.
While it is less than two years old, Vincent says
the idea for the program was formed about 10
years ago, when Soldiers’ Memorial started collaborating on geriatric assessments with the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care in Toronto.
“It’s a program developed by medical professionals who were looking for ways to serve seniors better,” she says.
Susan Barker, the program’s physiotherapist,
says the team’s goal is “maintaining functional independence” for its geriatric patients.
“Patients come to us typically a after a particular medical issue has changed their level of functioning. They come to us to see if we can help
them maximize their functioning, whether it’s
medical intervention that they need, or physical
intervention in increasing endurance or improving
balance or walking, or perhaps they may have had
cognitive changes...changes in brain function.”
Most of he program’s referrals come from
physicians, but patients can also self refer, Barker
says.
“Spouses can refer, family members can refer,
as long as it’s with permission of the patient and
as long as they agree to attend. So you don’t have
to have a doctor’s signature to come and see us.”
In order to be accepted into the program, patients must require at least two services of the
multidisciplinary team.
And while having all the team members in one
place makes it more convenient for the patient, it
also means services can be delivered more efficiently, Barker says.
“We can, literally, in an urgent situation, pull a
team member in and consult quickly. We have
weekly patient rounds where we discuss any patients that we wish to and have all members of the
team present.”
On average, patients spend about three months
in the program, coming to the day hospital twiceweekly for 2 1/2-hour sessions. Depending on the
diagnosis, some patents stay in the program
longer.
Evidence of patient satisfaction is abundant,
Barker says.
“We have had people who came in with such
medical issues, such cognitive brain function issues, that they just were not themselves. I remember one family member saying to me, ‘You’ve
given me my mother back,’ because of the
changes we were instrumental in accomplishing
in adjusting medications appropriately and participating in an exercise class and regaining function. Someone who was falling and having all
sorts of other medical issues left here fit, and
walking without a cane and quite aware of her
surroundings. A new person.”
In another case, “a family member said to me
that prior to coming to our program, her parent
really didn’t want to leave the apartment. Part of
it was just a lack of energy and a lack of mobility,
but there may have been some mood issues as
well. And this person, by the end of our program,
was insisting on coming 45 minutes before the
class started just to socialize with the other members of the class. She became a changed person.”
Barker recalls another patient, who was being
discharged from the program, saying, “I wish I
could have a lifetime membership.”
When they initially contact the program, patients receive a referral form by mail, e-mail or
fax. Admissions to the program are prioritized. If
Have you lost someone you love?
Submit their story to Passages (Page 24)
[email protected] (705) 484-1576
“Someone who was falling
and having all sorts of other
medical issues left here fit,
and walking without a cane
and quite aware of her
surroundings. A new
person.”
Physiotherapist Susan Barker
the need is urgent, a patient could be accepted
immediately. Other patients may have to wait
about six weeks.
All the program’s services are covered by
OHIP. Patients must arrange their own transportation.
Late last year, the patient roster stood at more
than 500. But with the number of patient enquiries rising, “we are taking a look at our capacity,” Vincent says.
“Demand certainly seems to be growing.”
You can contact the Geriatric Day Hospital program at 325-2201, ext. 3850, or fax (705) 3303211.
Cancer Society
seeks volunteers
Carol Nass is a volunteer living in Lagoon City.
The Canadian Cancer Society is looking for
volunteers to help with door-to-door canvassing,
as well as pre-sales and delivery of daffodils during Daffodil Days, Friday and Saturday, March 26
and 27.
“We phone and ask people if they want to order
daffodils, and they order them from us and then
we deliver them on the Thursday (March 25) or
Friday,” said Adrienne Davies, the Cancer Society
representative in Ramara.
Daffodils will also be on sale at the Foodland in
Brechin on the Friday and Saturday.
“Foodland in Brechin has hosted live daffodil
sales for the past years and the manning of the tables has been covered by Beta Sigma Phi Lambda
Lambda,” Davies said. “The Washago Post Office
also purchases live daffodils and offers them for
resale to their clients.
“We are looking for volunteers to do some presales and delivery,” Davies said. “We need some
help with pre-sales in the Brechin area, as well as
delivery of the pre-sale orders.
“We also need canvassers,” Davies said, “especially west of County Road 169 and south of the
Rathburn area.
“In Ramara, we have a really great door-to-door
campaign, over 40 years of coverage, with many
canvassers having volunteered for over 35 years.”
Call Davies at 329-2677 to volunteer.
— Chronicle staff
Voice of authority
Page 28
Lagoon City resident’s sound, skill raised him to top level of CBC News
If you don’t immediately recognize the name,
you certainly will the voice.
George McLean’s graceful, mid-Atlantic baritone was the gold standard for radio and television in this country for 30 years. The 86-year-old
Lagoon City resident's voice and skill raised him
to the top level of CBC News, where he took
turns at the anchor desk with personalities such as
Lloyd Robertson and Knowlton Nash.
He was born in Brandon, Man., where his father
worked in the banking business. But when the
1929 stock market crashed, financial difficulties
sent the family to Manchester, England to live
with six-year-old George’s grandparents.
He was educated in England and served in the
Royal Air Force during the Second World War. He
transferred to the RCAF in 1944 and returned to
Canada in 1945.
That year he was selling neckties during the
Christmas rush at Eaton’s in Winnipeg, prior to
attending university, when a radio executive
walked in, heard his voice and suggested he audition. A few weeks later, he took his first radio job,
with CJRL in Kenora, Ont., where he met and
married his wife, Marjorie, in 1947.
He and Marjorie were married for 35 years had
four children. She died in 1982. "Marjorie was a
big part of my life and we had a very happy
time," McLean says.
He became a news editor at CKRC in Winnipeg
in 1952, and in 1953 moved to Penticton, B.C. as
chief announcer for CKOK. In 1956 he joined the
CBC as a staff announcer at CBC Television in
Vancouver.
Following his transfer to Toronto in 1965, he
served as a backup to National News anchors for
the next 21 years. He was also host of Saturday
Report.
But McLean’s voice had a much more personal
impact on his life. After the death of his first wife,
he married a woman who had heard him years
earlier, but didn’t know his name.
Barbara Quick lived in South Africa in the
1960s, when there was no television, but theatres
featured documentaries, many of which were
Canadian, with voice-overs by McLean.
Barbara, now 77, remembered the voice, and,
after moving to Toronto, recognized it when she
was introduced to McLean at a party in 1970.
“I got to the door and this handsome fellow
opened it and said welcome,” she recalls. “And I
thought, ‘This is the chap I heard in South
Africa.’ ”
They were married in 1987, a year after
George’s retirement from the CBC, and moved to
Lagoon City in 1991.
“We got in the car one day and went through
this little town of Beaverton,” he said. “We decided to keep going and saw signs indicating there
would be a townhouse-condominium setup by the
lake.”
They checked out a plan for a three-storey unit
George and Barbara McLean in their Lagoon City home.
In 1945 he was selling
neckties during the
Christmas rush at Eatonʼs in
Winnipeg, prior to attending
university, when a radio
executive walked in, heard
his voice and suggested he
audition.
in Lagoon City.
“We decided right there and then to make the
move,” he said.
The McLeans have been active in Ramara, participating in the Lagoon City Follies, a song and
dance revue for charities that included Barbara
among its performers and George as master of
ceremonies.
McLean's boat is docked below the balcony of
his condo and he’s a dedicated golfer, playing
By
WILLIAM
HOUSTON
Profile
Rob McCormick
mostly at the Cedarhurst Golf and Country Club
near Beaverton.
“I golf a lot and walking the course is good exercise," he says.
He was also doing some voice-over work up
until last year, when the trip to recording studios
in downtown Toronto became "too long and occasionally hazardous."
When he retired, he received dozens of tributes
from listeners. One came from Tim Knight, a
CBC executive producer, who wrote, “CBC News
will never be quite the same without your authority, integrity and grace under pressure.”
McLean says, “I always had comments about
the fact my voice came through loud and clear,
and all the rest of it. But it was astounding when I
got all the letters and all of them talked about the
delivery and things like that. It was really very
pleasing to hear these things.”
Ramara resident William Houston is a
former columnist for The Globe and Mail,
an author of four books and he writes
regularly for truthandrumours.net.
New quarries gear up
Page 29
Commercial product expected to begin moving out of two north-end quarries in spring
By CHRONICLE STAFF
Two new limestone quarries have opened in
Ramara Township and are expected to begin
commercial extraction in the spring.
Bot Aggregates Limited, a new entry in the
industry, and James Dick Aggregates have
opened quarries of 1,000 and 900 acres respectively in the area of County Road 169 and
Concession B-C in Ramara’s north end.
The companies have spent more than $2
million on road construction as part of their licence conditions, including the widening and
improvement of Concession B-C, and acceleration and deceleration lanes.
“Bot and James Dick entered into private
agreement to share work on road improvement
requirements,” said Marlene Yakabuski, vicepresident, corporate affairs, for the Bot Construction Group, a heavy civil engineering and
construction company.
“We’re not going to be trucking product out
of there for commercial purposes until we actually start that up, and that’s really April
2010,” Yakabuski said.
In May, Bot held an open house and a draw
for 20 tonnes of gravel from the first extraction at the new quarry. The winner was
Lawrence Corkum, of Orillia.
The James Dick Group also operates a
quarry in Ramara’s south end at Gamebridge.
“We started working on the approval (for the
new quarry) back in the early 1990s,” said
Greg Sweetnam, vice-president, resources, for
James Dick.
“We’re looking forward to getting that
quarry up and running as a commercial
source. We’ve got the access basically completed and starting in the spring, we’ll start
operations.”
Two long-time Ramara staff retire
Photo courtesy of Bot Construction
Lawrence Corkum, of Orillia (left), and quarry manager Steve Zeppieri stand in front of some of the
gravel Corkum won in a draw to celebrate the opening of Bot Constructionʼs new quarry in Ramara.
Anne Corrigan, Bev Crane employed by Township for a combined 70 years
Anne Corrigan
(above) and
Bev Crane
By CHRONICLE STAFF
Two long-time employees retired in December after a combined seven decades at
the Township of Ramara.
Deputy treasurer/tax collector Anne Corrigan and tax clerk Bev Crane, with 42 and
28 years of service respectively, were honoured by about 250 friends and colleagues
at an open house Dec. 16 at the Legion in
Brechin.
Corrigan and Crane, both Ramara residents, thanked everyone who attended for
“all the gifts, flowers and best wishes.”
They especially thanked Audrey Lee, of
the Township’s treasury department, for or-
ganizing the event.
“I always enjoyed my job,” Corrigan said
in an interview. “There were certain aspects
that I didn’t enjoy, like when you had to
chase people to pay their taxes, but I still
liked my job and the people I worked with.”
“I did, too,” said Crane. “There have been
a lot of changes in the last few years. It’s
been a challenge keeping up with the
changes that are coming down through the
province in the legislation, as well as the
tax collecting itself, and the assessment.”
Mayor Bill Duffy recalled working with
both women.
“Anne worked here for 42 years,” he
said, “and she had a lot of knowledge about
Mara and the taxes and who owned different properties and numbered companies and
the whole bit. If you went to Anne, she
could just tell you, ‘Oh that’s so and so.’
“Bev came from Rama, and I know once
that there was a property owner up there
who bought property who said there was an
agreement on the property and Bev was the
only one on the whole staff who knew anything about it.
“When you lose two people who have
worked here for a long time, then there’s a
lot of history that’s gone, and that can’t be
replaced.”
By the book
Page 30
A journal can provide gardeners with a February fix
If you’ve just been winging it so far, now may
be the time to construct a garden journal. This entertaining and useful activity reminds me of going
back to school when I was a kid.
Every September my work-books started out in
pristine condition. Titles were underlined with a
ruler and coloured pencils decorated pie charts
and graphs. By December the books had degenerated into dog-eared disgraces.
By SUZAN
BERTRAND
Gardening
The same thing is going to happen to your journal, but you won’t believe how much fun it is to
flip through those muddy pages during the deep,
dark months of winter.
At first glance, February’s garden is a mournful
sight, its former splendour covered in a thick
blanket of snow. Ornamental grasses have been
reduced to scraggly stacks of grey and brown.
Lumpy, white shrouds cloak the shrubs and perennials. Gardening tools are entombed in the shed.
Three inches of ice effectively seal its door
against even the thought of getting started.
But despite the forbidding landscape, this is the
time of year that true gardeners start getting eager.
It’s been five long months without a gardening
fix, and they need to satisfy the urge.
True gardeners look forward to an exhausted
euphoria after hours of weeding, hauling, hoeing
and digging. While your journal can’t provide the
physical satisfaction that only hard work can
bring, it will make the waiting a little more tolerable.
Keeping a journal offers more than just winter
entertainment. Proof of it’s usefulness is provided
every spring, when things start popping up. Even
the most seasoned, organized gardener must confess to pondering whether yonder sprout is a weed
or a returning perennial. When in doubt, you can
simply refer to last year’s documentation.
Accidentally massacring those bulbs you so
lovingly planted last fall can be easily avoided.
Look before you dig. The diagram will be at your
fingertips once you’ve committed it to your practical garden guide.
Certain plants, such as hostas, start off small in
the spring and grow to giant proportions by mid
summer. Remind yourself that you decided to divide that gargantuan hulk while it’s still young
and manageable with a note in the “to do” section
of your handbook.
Flipping through seed catalogues is inspiring.
Remember the promises you made to yourself by
clipping and gluing a photo of the intended newcomer into the wish section of your book.
Illustration by Suzan Bertrand
True gardeners look
forward to an exhausted
euphoria after hours of
weeding, hauling, hoeing
and digging.
Decisions to rearrange perennials are easily forgotten in the spring rush. Earmark those candidates for relocation in your journal. You can even
get an idea of how they will look in their new environment by snipping a photo and superimposing
it on a picture of the intended area.
If you own a digital camera, you’re well on
your way to creating the most useful gardening
tool you’ll ever own. If not, use part of the mulch
budget to buy one and take the next few months
to learn how to use it. What a wondrous age we
live in. I attempted to keep a gardening journal in
the days before digital photography and quickly
gave up.
You’ll also need a standard size, three-ring
binder with a plastic cover. (Remember those
dirty gardening fingers.) Get yourself a package
of graph paper for making plans and notes. Add a
three-hole punch and some markers to your office
supplies and you’re ready to start.
Begin your journal by establishing the different
sections of your garden, even if it’s as simple as
front yard, back yard. Next, plan to subdivide the
sections to represent individual beds.
It might be fun to shoot some photos of the winterscape you’re faced with now, so you can compare them to rest of the seasons. Doing this will
help you establish the composition of your book.
Make a page for each bed and insert a graph
paper page facing it. Feel free to make copious
notes on your future gardening intentions. If your
binder has a plastic pocket, you can use this to
keep receipts. I don’t recommend totalling them
up unless you want to ruin your fun visiting garden centres.
So go ahead. Cut, paste, write and dream to
your heart’s content.
Spring will soon be here, and this year, you’ll
be ready.
Suzan Bertrand is president of the Lagoon City Gardening Club. She can be
Rogue software
looks authentic
By STEFANIE
MOY-SHUSTER
Computers
Page 31
The Harbour Inn
Restaurant and
Banquet Facility
Like any other scam or
fraudulent scheme, rogue
software programs are
created to scare you into
parting with your credit card
information and ultimately
harming your personal
security.
It seems that scams and fraudulent claims can
be found anywhere, but it’s always disturbing
when they appear on your home computer and
to by throwing up security warnings that prevent
threaten to shut it down completely.
There’s a nasty bit of rogue software circulating the pages from loading, or redirecting you to sites
that promote Personal Antivirus.
around cyberspace claiming to be a legitimate anLike any other scam or fraudulent scheme,
tivirus program and its main purpose is to force
rogue
software programs are created to scare you
you into surrendering your credit card informainto
parting
with your credit card information and
tion.
ultimately harming your personal security.
The cure for this
I’ve heard of people
virus is almost as bad
having
to cancel their
as the infection: Usucredit
cards
after purally the only way to
chasing Personal Anget rid of it is to erase
tivirus and realizing
everything off your
their mistake much
computer and start
later.
from scratch, or hire an
So what can be done
expert to dig deep and
to prevent Personal
remove the code that’s
Antivirus and other
strangling your system.
rogue
programs and
Personal Antivirus is
scareware from getting
also known as General
into your computer?
Antivirus or Internet
First of all, make sure
Antivirus Pro, and like
that Windows is set to
any other infection, it’s
update automatically.
picked up by contact
The main Personal Antivirus window looks
That way, you won’t
with the outside world. frighteningly legitimate. Just donʼt fall for its
miss out on important
You can be surfing the message.
security patches from
Internet, accidentally
Microsoft. If you possibly can, switch to the latest
click on an advertisement or pop-up window, and
all of a sudden a very official looking message
operating system that’s just been released: Winfrom Personal Antivirus opens on your screen,
dows 7. Its security settings are far better than
warning that your computer is under dire threat
those in Windows XP.
and seriously infected with malware and viruses.
Set your Internet browser settings to block
Personal Antivirus performs a fake system scan
popup windows and make sure to avoid clicking
that takes mere seconds (an actual scan would
on website advertisements. If a window does pop
take at least 30 minutes to an hour or even longer) up on your screen as you’re browsing, don’t click
and delivers a list of false infections. None of
on the little “x” in its corner to close it. In many
these listed viruses or malware programs exist,
cases, doing so will install rogue software. Shut
and if they do, they’ve just been installed by Perdown your Internet program completely, restart it
sonal Antivirus. Any attempt to close the warning
with a new window and don’t go back to the same
screen results in a series of popup notifications
webpage; surf elsewhere.
that appear to come from Windows’ own Security
Finally, use your common sense and pay attenCentre urging you to update your antivirus softtion.
ware and purchase Personal Antivirus.
If something pops up on your screen and claims
As the program infiltrates your computer, it
to be too good to be true, it probably is.
makes changes to your operating system files to
Stefanie Moy-Shuster lives in Ramara
prevent anything from removing it. Getting back
Township and is the retail and web co-ordinator
on the Internet becomes an impossibility, as Perfor Downtown Computers in Orillia. She can be
sonal Antivirus takes over Internet Explorer and
prevents you from getting to the pages you want
Casual, Fine Dining,
Wednesday through
Sunday, closed
Monday, Tuesday
WINTER SPECIAL
Starter, Entree and dessert
for only $20. Some blackout
periods may apply.
1 Poplar Crescent,
Lagoon City,
Brechin, ON.,
Call 705-484-5759
for reservations
Page 32
Community calendar
By SANDRA
JOYCE
Calendar Girl
Friday, Feb. 5
Pot luck: Chippewas of Rama Community
Hall, 6 to 9 p.m. Potluck followed by
traditional drumming and dancing. All
welcome. Free admittance.
Wednesday, Feb. 10
Directors sought: The Brechin Community
Center board is looking for new directors.
Anyone interested in information or volunteering is welcome to attend the board
meeting at the Township offices in Brechin,
7 p.m. Call Darleen at 484-1576 for details.
Pleasure Craft Operators Card: 7 to 9:30
p.m. at the Ramara Centre, Highway 12.
Cost is $55 for course plus exam, $14 for
manual. Open to ages 10-plus. Call 3253091 to register or for more info. As of Sept.
2009, licences are mandatory for all
pleasure craft.
Naturalists: Carden Field Naturalists Club
meets at Carden Recreation Centre, 258
Lake Dalrymple Road, at 7 p.m. Tree
Identification and Tree Characteristics, a
presentation by Eleanor Reed, local
professional forester. Coffee and munchies
follow. No charge, but $2 donation to cover
cost of hall rental would be welcome.
Contact David Homer at 833-2571.
Thursday, Feb. 11
Youth Committee Valentines Dance: 7 to
10 p.m. $7 at the door. Prizes, DJ, snack
bar. Location TBA. For information call 3253091.
Saturday, Feb. 13
Ramona Winterfest: Presented by the
Ramona Agricultural Society at Ramona
Hall. Five kilometres east of Washago on
Fairgrounds Road. Entry fee of $5 buys a
button that entitles the wearer to take part
in all events. Poker run, euchre tournament,
young peopleʼs centre, lunch and
refreshments sold. Call 689-5272.
Valentineʼs Pasta Dinner: Brechin Mara
Legion, 6 to 8 p.m. A night of fun to support
St. Andrewʼs Catholic Church in its
fundraising for the restoration of the church.
Adults $10, children under 10 $8, family
Send information about your community event to [email protected],
or call 484-0949. Listings for March
must be received in the first week of
February.
Eager Beavers
A new Beaver Group (above) has started for boys five to seven years old in Ramara. The 1st Ramara
Beavers were invested in October. The group meets Wednesdays at the Knox Presbyterian Church
on Hwy. 12 in Uptergrove from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Organizers hope the group will expand and eventually
lead to the creation of a Cub group for the Beavers to swim up to. The Beavers Group is looking for
leaders willing to spend planning time and meet once a week with the boys. Uniforms and training
are available at no cost to the leaders. As well, anyone interested in working with seven-to-nine-yearold boys and girls would be welcome. Call Erika Neher at 325-6654 or Ron Lawson at 325-1198.
$30. Call ahead to Debbie LeRoux, 4845573, Cathy White, 484-0058, or Mary Jane
Whalen, 484-0063. Tickets also available at
door.
Monday, Feb. 15
Chinese New Year: Casino Rama, 1 p.m.
Pubic welcome to a celebration of Chinese
New Year to watch a Lions Dance.
Friday, Feb. 19
Pot luck: Chippewas of Rama Community
Hall, 6 to 9 p.m. Potluck followed by
traditional drumming and dancing. All
welcome. Free admittance.
Tuesday, Feb. 23
Smart Serve Course: Learn what you
need to know to work in the service
industry. $30. 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the Ramara
Centre. For info or to sign up call 3253091.
Saturday, Feb. 27
Babysitting Essentials: One-day
workshop, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Ramara
Centre. Participants receive their Level D
infant/child CPR certificate and babysitting
certificate. Manual included. Call 325-3091.
Fee $45.
Lagoon City volunteer Sandra Joyce can be
Events celebrating First Nations Public
Library Week, Feb. 15 to 19, at
Chippewas of Minjikaning First Nations
Public Library. Call 325-3611 for more
information.
Tuesday, Feb. 16
11:30 a.m.: Opening Launch
3:45 to 5 p.m.: Language Bingo with the
youth.
Wednesday, Feb. 17
10 a.m. to noon: Traditional Crafts with
Vicki Pavis.
1 to 3:30 p.m.: Author Drew Haden Taylor
youth.
6 to 8 p.m.: First Nations Film Spirit
Island, and music videos.
Thursday, Feb. 18
youth.
5:30 to 9 p.m.: Teen music viideos and
movie night.
Friday, Feb. 19
1 p.m. to 3 p.m.: Balancing your Chakras
with Crystal Water Images – Doreen
South.
Catch of the day
Page 33
With its mild flavour and low fat content, whitefish can not stand up to over-cooking
With ice-fishing season in mind, it seems fitting
to prepare whitefish, one of the three main species
being caught these days on Lake Simcoe, the others being lake trout and perch.
By CHEF
KONSTANTINE
Whitefish has a delicate, mild flavour, and contains less fat than some others, such as salmon.
Because of this lower fat content, whitefish cannot
withstand over-cooking, so timing and the temperature of the cooking medium, in this case olive oil,
become critical to ensuring proper doneness.
The fillets should be medium to medium-rare.
Don’t forget to let the fish rest for a minute or so
after cooking, just as you would with beef, so all
the juices don’t run out when you cut into it.
I always use extra-virgin kalamata olive oil
from my orchard in Greece. I sell about $50,000
worth of this oil to good restaurants each year,
and I think it’s the best on the market.
If you can’t get any of mine, make sure to use
the highest quality extra-virgin olive oil you can
find for this recipe.
The right oil and cooking temperature will give
the fillets a beautiful, golden hue.
Lake Simcoe Whitefish
• 2 medium-sized whitefish fillets (about a 1/2inch thick)
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme
• olive oil (about 1/3-inch deep in the pan)
• Corn flour and all-purpose flour for dredging
(1 to 1)
• juice of a lemon
• 1/2-ounce dry white wine
• Salt and pepper to taste
Lake Simcoe Whitefish.
Dredge the fish in the flour mixture and
shake off excess.
Pre-heat oil in pan and sautee the fillets on
medium heat, four minutes per side.
Remove fish from pan, pour off oil and
save. It can be used three more times.
Return pan to heat, replace fish and add
fresh thyme.
Add lemon juice and wine to the pan. It will
cook off in just seconds. The wine adds
flavour and the lemon will cut any remaining
oil.
Serve with roasted potatoes, tomatoes, red
peppers and steamed asparagus.
Chef Konstantine is the chef at the Harbour Inn
restaurant in Lagoon City. He can be reached at
[email protected].
2010 Winter Escape
Rob McCormick
LCBO beverage options
Henri Bourgeois les Baronnenes
Sancerre Chablis 542548 @ $24.95.
A steel vat fermented VQA Chardonnay from Inniskillin @ $10.95 would
also work.
Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio
106450 @ $16.85, being a crisp Italian White, it will complement the
lemon and clean tastes of the fish.
Willm Reserve Riesling 011452 @
$16.95, or a VQA Riesling like Cave
Springs 233635 @ $14.25.
Holly Boudreau,
product consultant
40% off regular daily room rate. Offer expires
April 2. (1 or 2 nights only, excludes March Break)
Close to: OFSC trails in Lagoon City; ice fishing on Lake Simcoe
On site: Restaurant, indoor pool,
sauna, hot tub, whirlpool, tennis
Tel: (705) 484-5366
Email: [email protected]
www.harbourinnresort.com
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February 2010 - Ramara Chronicle

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