The lead of a new peer support drop-in service covering Haliburton County says personalized programming is intended to meet people where they’re at, offering hope to those in the Highlands dealing with mental health and substance use challenges.

The Coming Full Circle program has been running out of the Halco Plaza at 83 Maple Ave. Unit 7A since early September. A grand opening event was held Nov. 4.

David Barkley, program supervisor, said the two-year pilot is a partnership between Point in Time, the Canadian Mental Health Association Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge (CMHA-HKPR) and the Haliburton County Connections Committee. It was announced last spring, as part of an $800,000 investment from Canada’s Substance Use and Addictions Program.

Barkley, who has 22 years of experience working in peer support, said uptake has been slow. He said two-to-three people are utilizing the space when it’s open, on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Services are also offered at the Minden Community Food Centre at 24 Newcastle St., Fridays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Tuesdays will soon be added to the schedule in Haliburton, likely in late November, Barkley said. There are also plans to expand to Wilberforce and offer programs in the evening.

“The goal is to be doing something somewhere at least once per week,” Barkley said. “Drop-ins are meant to be low barrier. There are no expectations. This is a person-centred space. We want to get to know people, what their goals are, what they’re passionate about, and how we can help them on their path.

“If all people are looking for right now is a warm place to go for a cup of coffee, we can be that place. If you’re not quite ready to talk, but want to be around other people, this is somewhere you can do that… we want to be a spot people can feel welcome, even if they feel like they have nowhere to go,” he added.

The service boasts six staff members, trained in things like crisis intervention and conflict management. All of them draw from their education when helping to get people back on track, with some also boasting lived experience – a key component to truly connecting with people suffering, Barkley said.

Alongside counselling-type peer supports, the drop-in can also be a fun space. There are games, arts and crafts and musical instruments available most days.

Coming Full Circle doesn’t have any quotas, Barkley said, saying they will measure success on the differences they are able to make.

“Helping one person is success to me… though, we do have broader goals. We’re funded for two years, so we want to showcase what a successful peer support model can look like. I want the community to see the benefits of peer support, so that if time is eventually up for us in terms of being here, there is a lasting legacy,” Barkley said.

“At the end of the day, it’s just community activism. People helping others through difficult circumstances and experiences.”

For more information about the program, email dbarkley@cmhahkpr.ca.

Haliburton’s Barry Hart told a theatre full of high school students on Remembrance Day that he still shudders when considering how fortunate his father, William Hart, was to survive a plane crash that killed the rest of his crew during the final months of the Second World War.

A tail gunner with the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) 582 Squadron, Hart and the rest of his seven-man crew took a Lancaster bomber on an 18-hour round trip from London, England to Chemnitz, Germany on March 5, 1945. Their mission was to be a pathfinder, marking enemy targets with magnesium markers. They had just returned to British airspace when disaster struck on March 6.

“They’re coming down to land, and the plane just blows up,” Hart said, noting that some of the leftover magnesium markers hadn’t been set properly and, upon the plane descending to 3,000 feet, inadvertently went off.

One of the soldiers called out the fire right away, with the pilot saying he would try to hold the plane steady and directed the rest of the crew to bail. Hart said his grandfather was in the tail gunner turret while this was
happening and, with the plane jolting, fell out. He managed to recover and quickly pull his parachute, Hart said.

“Miraculously, he survived the parachute drop. The plane nosedived and the other guys, unfortunately, didn’t make it out. They were all incinerated in the crash,” Hart said.

He told how his father only became a tail gunner after losing a coin toss with his comrades – the position was widely
considered to be the most dangerous on the Lancaster, as it’s the first target for enemies.

In September, he visited the crash site near Oxford, saying there’s a memorial stone and plaque there to honour the crew. His dad wasn’t named though, being a survivor, so Hart had another plaque made and installed. William died in 1992.

While not quite as death-defying, Pat Casey said his grandfather, Earl Casey had many horror stories from his time fighting in the war. He was also a tail gunner, serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force’s 428 Ghost Squadron, which flew nighttime bombing missions.

“Flying at 20,000 feet, the glass cover that protected tail gunners from the elements would get frosted over on lengthy flights.

The soldiers couldn’t see, so nine-times-out of-ten they would kick the panel out and fly in the breeze at the back of the aircraft,” Casey said.

His grandfather was 17 when he enlisted, one year younger than the minimum requirement. Casey said he must have lied on his application. Earl was the youngest in his flight crew, with the oldest being 23.

After a successful bombing mission over mainland Europe, Casey’s Lancaster was struck by shrapnel over the English Channel on the return flight home. The crew ditched the plane in the water and spent 14 days with limited supplies on a rubber dinghy.

“They ran out of food and water pretty quickly. They got to the point where, to survive, they had to drink their own urine,” Casey said. “They didn’t think they could go on much longer – then they got picked up by a German patrol boat and became prisoners of war (PoW).”

Earl sustained a broken shoulder and leg in the crash, which didn’t heal properly given the poor living conditions PoWs were exposed to. He wasn’t sure how long his grandpa spent in captivity, but knows exactly when his time as a prisoner came to an end.

“He told me the Germans lined him and his crew up in front of a firing squad. The Germans loaded their guns, my grandpa and the other boys all said a teary goodbye to one another – they were pretty worn out and beat down by this point,” Casey said. “But as they waited for the trigger, a German captain stopped everything. The war was
over.”

The soldiers were all transported back to England and returned home to Canada within weeks.

“If you want to talk about luck – that’s how close my grandfather came. His luck was in at the most critical time,” Casey said.

This year’s Heat Bank dinner and auction entered a new chapter – with a new venue, The Bonnie View Inn, and chefs joining forces from the County’s top restaurants: Rhubarb, Juna, The Post House, and Dimensions Retreats.

Moving from Rhubarb, the event nearly doubled in size, hosting more than 100 dinner guests.

Tina Jackson, of Central Food Network and Heat Bank’s executive director, said they raised more than $43,000.

She said, “Sunday night was grand. It was a beautiful showcase of the collaborative
spirit of the Haliburton Highlands community … with chefs, musicians, staff volunteering,
businesses and community members all coming together in generosity and spirit to
support Heat Bank and ensure that no neighbour is left cold.

Our hearts are so filled with gratitude.”

It’s a frosty morning as genealogist Adele Espina climbs out of her pick-up truck on one of the internal roads at Evergreen Cemetery in Haliburton.

She knows exactly where she is going thanks to cemetery records.

She stops at one gravesite, marked only with a small Canadian flag she had placed there the day before. No gravestone. But that is something Espina is working to rectify.

Her research has unearthed that the man buried beneath her feet is Harry Adams, who served with the 109th Battalion in the First World War. Adams was born in 1864 in England, but moved to Canada. He enlisted at the age of 50, giving a false birth year, and died in 1948 at the ripe old age of 84.

He is buried in a McKnight family plot, since his last wife was a McKnight. For some reason, perhaps financial, there was never a marker of any sort erected.

Espina has found out quite a lot about Adams, partially through Ancestry.com, including that he married three times. She later opens a folder over a hot drink at Castle Antiques in Haliburton and reveals gems such as service records, death certificate, and photos of Adams with his regiment taken outside the Dysart et al municipal office and elsewhere.

She has submitted the necessary paperwork to the Last Post Fund, a national non-profit organization that provides grave markers for veterans. Espina said it might take a couple of years before Adams gets his.

‘Who more to be remembered than our veterans’

The genealogist estimates there are approximately 50 veterans requiring grave markers across Haliburton County. She’s on a quest to get them all one.

“There’s plenty of soldiers or veterans who are buried here and do have military markers…and a lot of family markers that veterans are attached to, and then there are veterans who, for whatever reason, slipped through the cracks and have no monuments whatsoever,” Espina says while standing at Adams’ grave.

Espina said part of her niche in the Haliburton Highlands Genealogy Group is cemeteries. She has access to burial maps. She jokes there is a name for that: taphophile; a person who loves cemeteries, gravestones, and funerary art and history.

“Well, I don’t think any of us want to be forgotten … and who more to be remembered than our veterans,” she says of her journey.

For each vet she researches, she builds a tree on Ancestry.com and gathers all the information she can. She’s also now using the recently-released Haliburton Highlands Digital Archives of newspapers. “I’ve just been vacuuming up any details that I can find and it’s been helpful.”

Her dad was in the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Second World War, seconded to the U.K.’s Royal Air Force, just 19 when he went on his first bombing mission.

Her maternal grandfather had been with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the First World War, but never got to France, as he came down with the Spanish flu, but recovered, and worked in a hospital. Library and Archives Canada have records of him, right down to his sickness temperatures. Her daughter went to Royal Military College, serving as a combat systems engineer in the Navy before going to medical school.

Espina’s interest began when she worked for the Minden Museum, on a sesquicentennial project, looking into military personnel records. She came up with over 500 people in Haliburton County who were born in the Highlands and served, or lived there and served. She did an exhibit at the cultural centre in 2009. “I plastered the walls of the Welch room … with all their attestation papers and the exhibit was really well received. That’s what got me going on the people who had served.”

She talks about a vet who had a military grave marker until 1991, but it’s gone now. “So, I can get him another one.” All she has to do is prove the person is dead, buried in that particular cemetery, and that they served in the military.

She added, “this is something concrete that I can do. I think the reward for me will be the day that those markers are put up.”

The new detachment commander for the Haliburton Highlands OPP said she is committed to holding more town halls in the County in future – despite a disappointing turnout for an event Oct. 29 in Minden Hills.

People said they only found out about it after seeing a post on the County website that day. OPP said they had advertised the event on X (formerly Twitter) on Oct. 10. Minden Hills Coun. Tammy McKelvey suggested it would have been better to have advertised in local newspapers.

Staff Sgt. Deb McClure said it was a learning opportunity for them, and they would review marketing in future.

“I think these community outreaches are very important, and it gives me an opportunity to hear from you and vice versa. Collectively, we are a team in this community,” she told a sparse crowd.

She said she planned to hold similar events in future in all four Haliburton County municipalities. She would not commit to how frequently the town halls would be held or when the next one will be.

McClure said the town halls are about education, safety and conversation. There were officers talking about traffic and road safety, being safe on the water, preventing property crime, school safety, and the Mobile Crisis Response Team.

She added, “we’re working hard to increase our presence in schools, and build stronger relationships with youth; to make our roads and neighbourhoods safer places. We know that real progress does not happen in isolation. It happens through partnerships. It isn’t just about hearing from you, but about working with all of you. We need you to be the eyes and ears in our community. When you see something, please say something. When you have concerns, share them with us. Your insights help us respond more effectively to keep the community safe together.”

Audience participant Krystal Shannon said police follow-up on investigations is a problem.

She talked about a recent incident in Gooderham involving some “sketchy” people who appeared to have stolen items in a vehicle and were canvassing a property. She said police were called, and did come, but the complainants were never interviewed and OPP never contacted them afterwards.

McClure said while arrests were made in connection with the incident, Shannon’s point about follow up was “fair” and “valid.” She noted police often cannot tell community members much during investigations.

The chief was asked about a concern about the number of cruisers during a shift in Haliburton County and a perception there are not enough.

She said, “they’re the same concerns across the province. There is never enough. Unfortunately, it comes with a cost and we do what we can with our resources as best as we can based on so many factors.”

She noted they always have back-up across the region, and those officers may not be as visible to the general public as they use unmarked cars and wear civilian clothing.

Officer Isaac Austin spoke to property crime, saying it is “a huge issue in this community because it is so relatable.” He said everybody had come to the cottage to find a broken window, a stolen piece of equipment, or siphoned or stolen gas. However, he said the community street crime unit is very active in the Highlands.

He had some prevention tips, such as writing down VIN numbers, or putting your driver’s licence number on property, so it can be identified and returned. He told people to keep shed and garage doors locked, and have security cameras.

Minden Hills coun. Pam Sayne asked, “what is driving crime here? Addictions, poverty, crime syndicates? I think we have to get to that in order to turn things around.”

This is a banner year for the Haliburton Legion.

This week, flags commemorating 24 of the community’s military veterans were hung in the downtown – part of an effort to bring more awareness to and honour the sacrifices many have made defending their country.

The project was spearheaded by legion president Mike Waller, who started looking into getting banners made last fall.

“I’m surprised it’s taken Haliburton so long to do this,” Waller said. “I think it’s important that we honour the people who came before us, show respect for what they had to do. If they didn’t give what they did, we wouldn’t be here today.”

Waller said he approached Dysart et al township and the Haliburton BIA earlier this year and was given the green light to proceed. There are 12 banners, with a service member honoured on either side. The bulk are men and women who served during the First and Second World Wars, with some from the more-recent excursions in Afghanistan.

The banners state the veteran’s name, which war they participated in, the year they were born and the year they passed. Waller noted only one of those included is still living.

This is the second display to debut in Haliburton County recently after Irondale Church had banners made up for its ‘Service, Courage and Sacrifice’ series in 2023. The church honoured 40 people associated with the hamlet who served Canada in various aspects of war.

Waller said he wanted to bring something similar to Haliburton after hearing about the Irondale display and seeing new ones released in Bancroft and Apsley. He said there was an effort about eight years ago to bring banners to Haliburton, but it didn’t get off the ground.

Each side of a banner costs $150, which is covered by the families of those featured. Waller said he opened nominations in the spring, with all those that applied making the cut.

He said Gerald Sharp, who installed the pieces, and Dysart et al coun. Pat Casey, who assisted with research, were key contributors to the campaign.

Casey has three family members featured, his grandparents Earl Casey, Holly Sisson and Sylvia Sisson. He told The Highlander that he believes more needs to be done to remember those who paved the way for future generations.

“I think Remembrance Day activities have started to wane over the years… I thought this was a great way to commemorate the bravery our forefathers had in putting their lives on the line for freedom,” Casey said. “The freedoms we have today didn’t come by chance. These people had to work and sacrifice for it.”

Casey and Barry Hart will be at the Haliburton Legion Nov. 10 and Hal High Nov. 11 to tell tales about their grandfathers, who were both tail gunners during the Second World War. Presentations at the legion are open to the public, running at 1:30 and 6:30 p.m.

Waller said he’s hoping to grow the banner collection, saying anyone with a military background can be included.

“As long as they were in the service, that’s all that matters,” Waller said. “Next year, I’m hoping to get them up in mid-October, that way they can be up for a month and people can really take notice.”

Anyone interested can contact Waller at 705-854-9237.