When Doug Tindal told his boss he was going to retire in a year’s time, the Algonquin Highlands writer says, “literally, the next day, I started having a creative outpouring. I would wake up early with ideas that had to be written down.”

Although he had a degree in journalism and had written magazine features, fiction was a relatively new foray.

Sitting in the living room of Oakview Coliving, he adds that he wrote all kinds of things; plays, started novels, poetry, short stories. He was in a writer’s group.

When he presented the first Wine on the Porch short story, the group told him he had found his voice.

After a while, he wrote another one, and another one. “Eventually, it occurred to me there might be a collection there.”

He had about eight stories, 35,000 words in total, and went to a writer’s conference. He spoke with editors and agents and received advice on how to proceed. He left the conference with a goal to pen another 50,000 words and have a manuscript ready in a year.

“That was February of 2020,” he says with a chuckle. “I kept writing, but I couldn’t write another Wine on the Porch story for four months because I had to decide, ‘is this a universe in which COVID doesn’t happen, or has it not happened yet, or has it already happened?’ And we didn’t know what we were dealing with.”

Instead, he wrote dystopia. In the end, about one-third of the stories are pre-COVID, one-third during, and one-third after.

The manuscript was completed by August 2022 and published in February 2023.

“The basic setup is, this is a group of seniors, and a couple of seniors-in-training, who have decided to set up a coliving situation.”

He and his wife were attempting to do that in Toronto. So, he used that as a model for the stories. The characters are fictitious. “It’s the adventures of this group of seniors living together.”

He adds the easiest way to describe it is for people who remember Stuart McLean’s The Vinyl Cafe on CBC radio. “The kind of stories Dave and Morley might have told, if they’d had the chance to grow old with their friends.

“They have the kind of challenges that you might imagine of a whole bunch of people who are mostly strangers, making a decision to live together, and then having to figure out how to make that work.”

He said the feedback he gets is that readers laugh out loud. That being said, there are serious topics. For example, one story involves a discussion about natural burials.

He said people do not always think about their older years. “They have a vision of themselves in vigorous retirement, and then they cut to an image of themselves drooling in a wheelchair, and they don’t think anything about how they’re going to deal with the interim.”

He is passionate about the coliving model. He wanted to show in the stories what it might look like to help people imagine it.

He is now working on volume two, with six stories complete. He is also working on a play, and acting.

The paperback is available from Master’s Book Store. Paperback plus ebook are available from Amazon.

Highlands East mayor Dave Burton and councillors Angela Lewis, Ruth Strong, and Cec Ryall, visited the Haliburton Highlands Outdoors Association (HHOA) fish hatchery May 1 for a tour of the facility.

Burton had met with HHOA president, Dan Smith, during a recent fish stocking on Paudash Lake and wanted to learn more about efforts across the County.

The team from Highlands East donated $5,000 to support various HHOA activities, including its community hatchery program, which has seen volunteers stock County lakes with more than 800,000 fish over the past 30 years.

As part of this year’s efforts, through April HHOA stocked approximately 26,000 fish into 12 local lakes.

The Haliburton County Snowmobile Association (HCSA) held its annual general meeting at the Haliburton Legion May 12, with members reflecting on a down year.

President Neil Vanderstoop said that while an unusually warm winter ran roughshod over HCSA operations, the club still had plenty to celebrate.

He noted $50,000 was spent on trail improvements throughout the season, including to TOP B112 and Trail 9, while $2,000 was donated to Haliburton Highlands Health Services as part of HCSA’s ongoing commitment to support health-related projects in the community.

Vanderstoop said he was proud of the work his small but mighty team had accomplished. HCSA wrapped up its 2023/24 season Feb. 27.

A new 10-year stewardship plan for Glebe Park has been finalized and will focus on felling dangerous and hazardous trees, maintaining existing trail routes, and upgrading mapping at the 175-acre property.

JJim Blake, chair of Dysart’s Glebe Park and museum committee and curator of the Haliburton Sculpture Forest – located within the park – told Dysart et al council April 23 volunteers had been working on the plan since 2019. It replaces a previous strategy that had been in place since 2010.

“An enormous amount has happened since then – it feels like a completely different park now,” Blake said. “The introduction of mountain bike trails, the expansion of our snowshoe trails that now traverse the entire park, the new residence buildings for the college… it’s a fantastic space for the community to explore.”

The plan features three stewardship objectives – promote the space for recreational and cultural use, maintain the park’s ecological integrity, and ensure visitors are safe.

One of the biggest projects, Blake said, will be bringing down trees that are dead, or dying, due to beech bark disease. The ailment is an insect fungus caused by a beech scale bug, which feeds on the trees, causing cankers that spread and eventually kill the trees.

Blake said beech bark disease has been prevalent in the park for years but is now becoming a major problem, with most of the impacted trees now dead.

“We are dealing with them – we’re taking the trees down and then the recommendation is they be left where they are. We don’t want the wood taken out of the forest because that just transfers the disease somewhere else,” Blake said.

Deer looking for food in park

He noted volunteers assess trees regularly throughout the year and make note of any that could be hazardous. Blake said one of the committee members, a retired forester, then makes a final assessment. If a tree needs to be felled, Blake said he works with a local company who completes the job “for a very reasonable price.”

The environmental makeup of the forest has changed over the years, Blake said. An increased presence of deer has seen some native species, such as eastern hemlock, almost completely eradicated. With the township passing a policy outlawing deer feeding in Haliburton village, the animals are frequenting Glebe Park more often looking for food.

Blake said the park’s increased deer population could be partly responsible for declining maple tree regeneration, with sugar maple seedlings a go-to snack.

After seeing other native populations like Canadian Yew and ground hemlock take a hit recently, Blake said a key part of the plan is developing permanent sample plots throughout the forest, to be monitored and inventoried regularly, to track changes and trends in forest structure and composition.

In terms of trails, Blake said there are 13.5 kilometres dedicated for cross-country skiing, 7.66 kilometres for snowshoeing, 12.5 kilometres for hiking, and more than 10 kilometres for mountain biking.

“We have an enormous amount of action in the forest… it’s also incredibly popular for dog walking,” Blake said, noting a second garbage can specifically for dog waste will be installed this year.

He said Glebe Park is “maxed out” for double-tracked wide trails and told council development of any new trail loop is unlikely in the near future. There is a plan to improve signs and mapping to help people move around the property.

Blake said there’s also a recommendation to replant some white pine trees at Glebe to help the forest get back to its roots.

“Originally, the forest would have been all white pines with some maples growing under them, but at some point all the white pines were taken out… we want to fix that,” Blake said.

Council endorsed the plan, which is to run until 2034.

A new emergency department physician at Haliburton Highlands Health Services (HHHS), will reduce its dependence on Health Force Ontario locum physicians, CEO and president, Veronica Nelson said.

A locum is a physician who, on a temporary basis, fulfills the duties of a doctor who is absent, or who fills a role required by a hospital or practice that is short-staffed.

Nelson added Dr. Ali Bohra, who started May 2, also offers “a breadth of clinical skills from which our patients will benefit.”

County physician recruitment coordinator, Wendy Welch, explained Dr. Bohra is an emergency room specialist, not a family doctor that also does emergency. “And he’s been practising for many years.”

The County of Haliburton, in a joint press release with HHHS, said Dr. Bohra responded to a physician recruitment advertisement last fall and visited the Highlands in February with his spouse.

“Thanks to his visit, interactions with the team, and the warm welcome Dr. Bohra and his family experienced, he is excited to join HHHS,” the County and HHHS said.

Warden Liz Danielsen added, “the addition of Dr. Bohra will result in improved access to local health care for our residents and visitors to the County.”

Danielsen further said his commitment as an ED physician will have “a profound impact” on the Highlands. “His passion for healthcare, calm demeanor, and excitement to contribute positively to the community will no doubt leave a lasting impression.”

The Highlander requested an interview with Dr. Bohra, but was told HHHS and the County wanted to give him time to settle into his role before speaking with media. He was quoted in a press release as saying, “I think it’s high time for me to serve the community with respect and dignity, the same way I would wish for myself.”

Danielsen said the successful recruitment is the result of a team effort over many months between the chief of staff at HHHS, Dr. Keith Hay, and Welch.

Welch said recruiting physicians is complex at the best of times and having them come from overseas involves an added dimension, looking into immigration and visas, and the resulting red tape.

“It can be very frustrating. It takes a lot of patience. But it is so rewarding when it works out. When he started, he was just so happy to be here, so appreciative, and just so thankful.”

Welch said Dr. Bohra is staying in a County-leased property for likely two months, providing time to find something more permanent. The County also incentivizes doctors as posted on its website.

She said there will be a learning curve for him, coming from a different country, and to a rural hospital, from an urban health care facility.

She added she has a few other leads, including some from the U.K., Canada, and some U.S.-trained. “So, I’ll just keep working wherever I get the leads from.”

Danielsen said, “as we know, physician recruitment is very challenging in this current competitive market, thus ensuring we take a collaborative and innovative approach helps to bring incredible talent like Dr. Bohra to the Highlands.”

Nelson said as part of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) requirement to onboard Internationally-trained physicians who are exam eligible, there is a component where a supervisor is assigned until the physician has had the opportunity to pass the exams within a three-year period.

“HHHS is fortunate to have supervisors available to support Dr. Bohra on his journey to receive his independent practice certificate,” she said.

On the HaliDoc Facebook page, Debbie Wales welcomed Dr. Bohra.

“I had the pleasure of meeting you tonight at the ER and was very impressed with your compassion and thorough explanation in layman’s terms, in treating my sister’s broken leg. Thank you for joining the Haliburton team and welcome to Haliburton. I hope you will love it.”