On Friday, March 24, members of Places for People and their allies will descend on Head Lake Park to sleep in their vehicles, tents, or even on couches, to raise money for the non-profit. They also hope to have some conversations around the fire about what affordable housing means.
I’m acquainted with the event, having taken part in the inaugural 2019 Sleeping in Cars. Back then, a handful of us parked in the Minden Hills township lot and tried to get some sleep during a late winter-early spring evening.
We had a fire and Eric Casper of North of Seven came to play some tunes. People, including some Minden Hills councillors, wandered by to encourage those who were sleeping out.
The next morning, Marilynne Lesperance and Joanne Barnes from the Minden Community Food Centre, came to the township office with coffee and breakfast. I don’t remember everyone who stuck it out for the night, but P4P’s Fay Martin and Rev. Max Ward were there, as was then Minden Hills mayor Brent Devolin.
Others gathered that night in 2019 in Wilberforce and Haliburton.
While sleeping in one’s car for a single night is hardly equivalent to those actually sleeping in vehicles or tents for protracted periods of time in the Highlands, it did give us some insight, and some empathy.
Since then, there have been different iterations of the event, but this month’s returns to its roots.
Much has changed since 2019. COVID-19 has altered the housing landscape forever, as our population has grown by 14 per cent, and some people have been pushed out of their homes by rising rents or landlords capitalizing on a hot real estate market and selling. We have also seen a proliferation of housing converted to short-term rentals and the cost of living has only exacerbated an already difficult situation for many Haliburton County residents.
The very definition of affordable housing has changed here. It used to be about vulnerable people who could be thrown off course by circumstances. Now, even full-time workers being paid below a living wage are dealing with homelessness issues and using food banks for the first time.
The issue of housing was discussed widely in the last municipal, provincial and federal election. Many pledges were made to tackle it. With that in mind, this time around, more than ever, we challenge MP Jamie Schmale, MPP Laurie Scott and our municipal politicians to sleep out in their vehicles in the Head Lake Park parking lot March 24. If they truly want to hear about the issue and how it is impacting their constituents, they need to gather around that fire and sleep in their vehicles on a cold winter’s night. Otherwise, we can only assume they have been paying lip service to the issue and don’t really care.
In particular, we feel it is time for Scott and Schmale to come to town for something other than a glorified photo opportunity. It isn’t so much that they both make very good money, and have homes in their ridings as well as in Toronto and Ottawa respectively. It’s about walking the walk, even if it is only for one night.
MPP and MP should take part
Getting away and bringing it all
The Highlands sure is getting bigger. As we’ve reported, our County has the fastest-growing population in Ontario and fourth fastest in Canada.
Whether it’s people retiring to the family cottage, buying a second home or purchasing a property to rent to others for August weekends, this place is booming.
There’s certainly an allure in getting away from it all. This was highlighted by the pandemic, when being locked down in your city home must have felt like jail. But it’s a trend that’s gone on for decades: we want to escape our lives to somewhere in nature, in the peace and quiet.
Technology is now allowing us to do that without leaving our jobs, greatly expanding the number of people who can move here.
But here’s the big irony: many of those trying to get away from it all are bringing all of it here.
TV shows and magazines lavish hours and ink on the lakefront lifestyle, claiming you can live in a cabin in the woods, if you hire the right designers and buy the best gadgets.
So, people’s desires to escape the ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ lifestyle of the city end up importing that very lifestyle to the Highlands.
The traditional values of cottagers who respected this place and engaged with the community are getting overwhelmed.
Deep down, we know all this doesn’t make us truly happy.
Perhaps we don’t realize it, but when we ache for the lake, we’re actually aching for distance from a society that is detrimental to human flourishing.
Escaping to the Highlands is never going to work if people bring the GTA here.
And what’s more, if we don’t stand up for ourselves, we’re going to be flattened by the values this wealth brings. We’ve never been a place to judge people by the size of their house or make of their car; that doesn’t mean we won’t become that.
Perhaps they don’t articulate it, but our local governments’ moves on shorelines and short-term rental bylaws are aimed at combating this shift to selfishness.
What’s missing is leadership: the voice standing up for our smallness, for the values of being a modest place that puts people before money.
Live here long enough and you know it. The energy of Haliburton is in our service clubs and non-profits. It’s in the random encounters with friends and acquaintances at the grocery or hardware store, in the waves exchanged between passing trucks. It’s in knowing each other and in a community that treats every member as important and worthy.
It’s about place and it’s about people.
As we look at the future and plot our economic development strategy, maybe we need to think about who we are and what makes us happy.
I’ve never met a Highlander who wanted an Airbnb or monster cottage next door to them. But I’ve met plenty who care deeply about this place and the people in it.
Maybe that’s a clue as to where we should be heading next.
Zoomed out is a new column that looks at the stories behind the stories.
From oil to renewable energies
Editor’s note: This is the third in a series.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
“Less is more” is the guiding principle to reduce greenhouse gases. Less travel, less flying, less buying, less consuming, less wasting.
My parents were non-consumers. I grew up in a house made from a log barn. Our furniture was pre-used or homemade (my bed was a foam mattress on plywood and cement blocks). Clothes were homemade or refurbished. My mother made laundry soap from lye and pig fat. At mealtime it was common to hear her say, “everything on this table is from our land.” She dug food waste back into the garden to compost. My father switched his gas-burning Volvo to run on fuel alcohol.
These were lifestyle choices; my father earned a good living in the 1970s and 80s. In the 90s, a solar panel contributed to my parents’ household energy, limiting vacuuming to sunny days.
Our behaviours today decide the health of our planet tomorrow. Our homes, use of power, travel, transportation, what we eat, how much we throw away all contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. So does our consumption of clothing, electronics, and plastics.
Some people worry there won’t be enough energy to maintain our existing consumer society as we transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies. But planet Earth’s climate stabilizing systems are collapsing at an accelerating rate, dictating our behaviour, like it or not. The wealthiest bear the greatest responsibility; the richest one per cent of the global population accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than the poorest 50 per cent.
Each one of us is a participant in this journey.
• Choose items without packaging. Email manufacturers and stores; request less wrapping.
• Growing food locally saves transport and improves nutrition. Join community gardens (contact Minden Community Food Centre).
• Adjust your thermostat. Reduce heat/AC when not at home. Close doors to unused rooms.
• Install a water efficient shower head. Shorten showers.
• Fix drafty doors, windows, chimneys, floors. Home improvements can be eligible for government funding (Environment and Climate Change Canada).
• Wind, solar and other renewables minimize greenhouse gases and pollutants. Are you eligible for Ontario’s Solar Panels Program? Geothermal? Heat pumps are encouraged for new builds and retrofits.
• Don’t throw it out. Refurbish. Use SIRCH’s Thrift Warehouse Haliburton and the Repair Café.
• Be responsible for your waste using the Haliburton County Waste Wizard App.
• If it is garbage, send it to the right place. Drop old or non-usable clothing at Dysart’s landfill textile recycling program. Food waste that isn’t leftovers? Investigate Haliburton County’s FoodCycler program and composters.
• As electric vehicle battery sizes and car dependency decrease, lithium demands will drop (up to 66 per cent). Plug in to one of the County’s EV charging stations.
• Review the Community Climate Action Guide on Haliburton County’s website to reduce your carbon footprint.
• Research and reduce “vampire energy” drains in your home.
• Consider internet use. Google’s energy consumption reached 15.4 terawatt hours in 2020, prompting higher efficiency servers, advanced cooling, and AI.
• Refer to Canopyplanet.org to reduce fossil fuel uses in fashion, food, beauty care products.
• Become politically active. My father would say, “enough baby fingers can move the elephant.” Contact Environment Haliburton (EH!) and make our voices louder.
• Join thousands endorsing the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.
• United Nations Climate Change website has a “Race to Zero” page.
• Check out The Energy Transition Show, a podcast about transitioning from fossil fuels.
• Look at your investments; eliminate funds investing in fossil fuels.
• Bitcoin remains moderately coal-heavy, prompting organizations within the mining industry to launch the Crypto Climate Accord.
• Follow 440Megatonnes.ca to track Canada’s progress toward net zero by 2050. Canada committed to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 440 megatonnes in 2030.
Iozzo treasures time spent in County
Sometimes all it takes is a phone call to change the direction of one’s life.
For Haliburton County Huskies winger Marco Iozzo, that bleep came in late November while he was toiling with the Milton Menace. Struggling to find his game, the 20-year-old was frequently moved throughout the lineup as his coaches attempted to tap into the high-level skill that separated him from most of his peers at AAA.
“I was on my way home one night when my coach called and said ‘Marco, I just traded you to the best team in the league’,” Iozzo told The Highlander. “To say I was excited probably doesn’t do it justice. I looked at this as a completely fresh start.”
Born and raised in Bolton, ON, Iozzo was practically born with blades on his feet. He learned to skate just weeks after taking his first steps, on the backyard rink his dad maintained each winter. It was there that he honed his craft, developing a deep love for Canada’s favourite pastime.
As an eight-year-old, he captained his Caledon Hawks AA team to the Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA) championships. While the side came up short, Iozzo impressed at the tournament, opening doors he’s still walking through.
It was Iozzo’s pedigree as a youngster that made him such an attractive proposition to the Huskies.
After registering 13 points in 21 games with the blue and white, playing in a variety of roles, Iozzo is enjoying a breakout in the post-season. He was the standout player in a 4-3 overtime win over the Toronto Patriots in Game 3 of their first-round playoff series, scoring a highlight reel goal partway through the third. Picking up the puck at centre ice, he deked out two Patriots defencemen before rifling an unstoppable shot into the roof of the net.
“I didn’t know what to do with myself, I pretty much blacked out after scoring. It was such an out-of-body experience,” Iozzo said.
“That was such a huge goal for me, because I know I haven’t been playing my best. That helped bring the confidence back.”
No stranger to the County, Iozzo is billeting on Horseshoe Lake – a two-minute walk from a friend’s cottage he’s frequented for the past several summers.
“The familiarity has helped me settle,” he said.
There was a moment though, early days, where Iozzo admits, with a laugh, that he wondered if he’d made the right call moving north to blizzard country.
“It was the first day of December that I drove up, and there was a terrible storm. I almost got stuck on the road and I was like ‘oh my god, what am I getting myself into’,” he said. “But this has been the best thing for me. This community has been so supportive, it’s like a second home… I’ll always treasure this time I’ve spent in Haliburton County.”
Huskies prepare for second-round series
Haliburton County Huskies head coach Ryan Ramsay said his team is full of confidence as it prepares for a second-round playoff series with the Wellington Dukes.
The hometown team rubber-stamped its ticket to the next stage of the post-season with a dominant 4-2 win over the Toronto Patriots in Minden March 16, securing a 4-1 series victory.
It was standing room only inside S.G. Nesbitt Memorial Arena, with fans lining up around the boards at ice level to catch the blue and white in action. The team got off to the perfect start just 42 seconds in, sending the crowd into a frenzy after Boyd Stahlbaum tipped an Isaac Sooklal point shot past a helpless Christopher Quizi in the Patriots goal.
The Huskies controlled play through much of the period and were unlucky on several occasions not to extend their lead – Patrick Saini, Ty Collins, and Sam Solarino each getting robbed by an in-form Quizi.
The visiting side landed a sucker punch 14:35 into the first frame, captain Zach Ophoven scoring his sixth goal of the series with a hopeful shot from the blueline that found its way past a screened Aidan Spooner.
That spurred the Huskies on, with the team finding another gear in the second. Josh Currie struck early, sliding home on the rebound at 1:13 after Solarino was denied. The home side peppered the Patriots goal but had to wait until the end of the period to extend their lead. After Anthony Giacalone was sent to the box for a rare delay-of-game penalty, the Huskies wasted no time getting to work. Collins struck the base of the post with a shot from the slot immediately after the draw, with Saini the quickest to react to flick in the eventual game-winner at 17:47
Jake Mallory gave the Patriots hope with a tally 2:34 into the final frame, before Alex Cunningham made sure of the result with a powerplay marker at 9:32.
“I thought that was the best game we played as a group during the series, we came out hard, penned them in and were really impressive with our puck management,” Ramsay said.
Their reward is a second-round series with a Dukes team that won 11 of its final 15 regular season games to pip the Huskies to second place in the South/East conference.
The two teams were evenly split when matching up this year, with each taking two wins and playing to a double-overtime tie across five games.
“There’s a lot of people buzzing about this series, it’s going to be two top teams battling it out on the ice. We’ve had a week to rest up, work on our systems, and we’re confident,” Ramsay said. “We have a team that, skill-wise and speed-wise, is right up there with the very best junior teams. Hopefully, we can keep this momentum rolling and kick off the second round the same way we ended the first.”
The Huskies travel to Wellington for Game 1 March 24, before coming back home March 25. Game 4 will be in Minden March 30, with Game 6, if needed, April 2.
U15 REP Storm deliver home game win
The U15 Rep Timber Mart Highland Storm hosted the Orono Leafs in their final home game of the 2022-23 season March 17.
The crowd was buzzing with both home and away fans, and the game got off to a fast start, with the Storm applying pressure early and often.
After some strong defensive play by Jack Peters, passing the puck to blueline partner, Evan Jones, he noticed a streaking Austin Latanville. Jones fed Latanville with a stretch pass up the middle for a breakaway. Latanville, with some silky hands, dangled the Orono goalie to open the scoring in the first.
The Storm carried a 1-0 lead into the second and never let up, with four more goals, by Josh Scheffee, Deagen Davison for two, and Latanville, potting his second of the night. Goals were assisted by Jones, Gallant, Scheffee, Cox and Peters. The Storm cruised into the third with a 5-0 lead, but knew the work was not over.
The final frame saw pretty much the same action, and with some unreal goaltending by Hudson Horsely, who kept the game at 5-0. With Orono’s season on the line, they brought everything they had. By the midpoint of the third, the Leafs were able to tap into the scoring and made it a 5-3 game.
After a timeout was called, the Storm were able to regroup and play solid shut down hockey, quickly clearing the puck out of their zone and clogging the neutral zone. The Leafs scrambled and were unable to gain access to the Storm zone.
The Storm was able to shut them down and carry a 5-3 score to the final buzzer, treating their family and friends to the final home game win.
Haliburton’s golden boy celebrates perfect season
It’s been a season to remember for Haliburton curler Jacob Dobson, who struck gold with the Humber Hawks at the Curling Canada College Championships (CCCC) this past weekend.
The 19-year-old served as skip during the tournament, held in Sudbury March 14 to 19, guiding his team to an 8-1 record to secure his first national title at the collegiate level.
Dobson was in peak form early in the tournament, impressing in round-robin wins over the SAIT Trojans, Augustana Vikings, Fleming Knights, NAIT Oooks and Concordia Thunder to give the Hawks a perfect 5-0 record heading into the weekend.
On Saturday morning, Dobson went headto-head with a familiar face in his penultimate first-round game. Liam Little, playing for the Mohawk Mountaineers, led his team to a 6-1 win over the eventual champions, securing bragging rights over his former Haliburton Highlands Secondary School teammate.
“That was a nice moment sharing the ice with Liam. Things didn’t quite go the way we wanted, but he played a great game. Mohawk went on to win a bronze medal, so Liam secured a podium finish too,” Dobson told The Highlander, adding that another former Red Hawk, Jessica Byers, finished fourth on the women’s circuit with Humber.
The Hawks beat the Sault College Cougars 11-3 on Saturday evening to qualify for playoffs as the first seed. They downed the Cougars again during the semi-final to set up a gold medal game with the SAIT Trojans.
Dobson said he was quietly confident heading into the game, with the Hawks having beat the Trojans convincingly in their opening match of the tournament.
“We played a great game, everything fell into place almost exactly as we planned,” Dobson said.
The Hawks secured a 10-3 victory.
It was the second big win in as many months for Dobson, who skipped his U21 club team to gold at the Swiss Junior Cup in February.
Dobson and his teammates will face off against the cream of the Canadian crop at the PointsBet Invitation, to be held in Oakville in September. That competition will feature 16 of the best male teams in the country, pitting winners from events such as the Ontario Tankard, New Holland Canadian Junior Championships and Everest Canadian Curling Club Championships against winners from the college and university circuits, as well as the top 10 ranked squads in the 2022/23 Canadian Team Ranking System.
The tournament will be aired nationwide on TSN.
Reflecting on his near-perfect season, Dobson said he’s created dozens of memories that will last him a lifetime.
“Standing on top of the podium in Switzerland, draped in Team Canada jackets, was an indescribable moment for me. It’s going to be hard to top that… then winning a national college title is the culmination of months of hard work. You have to be at the top of your game at all times just to have a shot, so for us to go all the way is unbelievable,” Dobson said. “It still hasn’t quite set in. Honestly, it’s the stuff of dreams.”
Bunkie auction supporting SIRCH programs
The timer is ticking for people looking for a one-of-a-kind addition to their backyard setup.
SIRCH Community Services is running an online auction until 12:30 p.m. on March 24, taking bids on a custom-built bunkie constructed by participants of the organization’s basics of carpentry employment training program.
Valued at approximately $8,000, the bunkie measures eight feet by 13 feet and features a seven-foot-high ceiling. The structure boasts a large steel entry door and two high-quality Jeld Wen windows. Clad in painted board and designed batten-style with a shingled roof, the bunkie is unfinished inside but is fully-enclosed, with an insulated and sealed floor.
The top bid as of press time is $3,500.
Gena Robertson, SIRCH executive director, said money raised through the auction will be reinvested into future training programs. The organization has run three courses focusing on carpentry since January 2022, with 16 people graduating. Robertson noted many of the participants have been women.
“Only five per cent of trades workers in Canada are women… so this program is a big win for us because it’s opening doors for local women to try something they may not have been exposed to and opening the door for an in-demand career in a lucrative field,” Robertson said.
SIRCH training programs are offered year-round and provide participants with sought-after skills centred on teamwork, customer service, problem solving, and communication. Robertson noted that nearly 100 per cent of those who take part are successful in gaining employment following graduation.
But this auction is about more than just money, Robertson said.
“The bunkie auction doesn’t just support SIRCH programs financially, it is validation to the group of carpentry trainees who built it, showing them that their work is valued and the product they worked on is saleable,” Robertson said. “Sometimes lack of confidence is the biggest hurdle for people re-entering the workforce, especially if it’s in a different career path.”
The provincial grants SIRCH received to be able to offer the training programs for free is ending, Robertson noted, making fundraisers like this even more vital.
For the 2021/22 fiscal year, the organization was on the hook for raising around 77 per cent of its annual budget.
“Quite literally, we depend on the generosity of our community members, donors, and grantors to ensure three quarters of the programs and services we provide are able to be offered,” Robertson said.
To bid, visit nonprofitbidding.org.
Mill Pond set for dining room makeover
The Mill Pond in Carnarvon will be getting a $25,000 facelift later this year after being announced as the winner of the 2023 HALI Restaurant Makeover competition.
Hosted by ACM Designs, the contest saw the popular eatery beat out Truss Foodworks Smokehouse and Maple Avenue Tap and Grill for the prize. In a live video posted online March 20, Greg Luck, construction manager at ACM Designs, said just shy of 9,000 votes were registered between March 5 and 19, with The Mill Pond emerging as the comfortable winner.
“There was an amazing response to this campaign… which is another testament to the community and the love they have for these restaurants,” Luck said.
The money will be used to fund a design and décor upgrade for the dining room at the restaurant, located on Hwy. 35.
Mill Pond owner, Brad Archer, said it will be the first substantial renovation of the site in more than 30 years.
“I took over the restaurant in November 1992, and we haven’t changed a whole lot since then. This is going to be an interesting project. We’re going to have a lot of fun,” Archer said.
“One thing I don’t want to have happen is to change too much and lose the feel of the restaurant. Hopefully we can freshen things up a bit, modernize a few things… I’ve got chairs in here that people have been using for over 20 years,” he added, with a laugh.
Archer met with the ACM Designs team this week to discuss ideas. Sophie Creelman, marketing coordinator at the Haliburton firm, said she expects the renovation to be complete before the busy summer season. She noted the work will be documented, with videos to be shared online updating the community over its progress.
This is the second contest of its kind in the community following the Big Lobby Makeover held in 2020, which saw the $25,000 transformation of the front entry at Bonnie View Inn.
ACM Designs owner Andria Cowan Molyneaux said she places huge importance on these social responsibility campaigns, noting she feels obligated to invest back into the community that has supported her business for several years.
“A big part of our culture is understanding where we live and who we live with. We’ve been very fortunate over the last years to make it through COVID, grow as a company and be very successful. But it wasn’t the same for everyone,” she said. “We have chosen to reinvest in our community, care for and support these businesses.”
Other partners contributing to the makeover include Churko Electric, Kegel Heating and Cooling, Cordell Carpet, Emmerson Lumber, Yours Outdoors, Quartz Co. Surfaces, and Cambria Surfaces.
Archer said he was still coming to terms with the win and was blown away by the outpouring of local support.
“We owe the community a huge thank you. It’s great, and incredibly comforting, to know that there’s so many people behind us,” he said.
‘A pioneer for independent women her entire life’
From boarding a train to Yorktown, Sask. during the Second World War, to penning a newspaper series entitled Left to Tell at the age of 96, the woman for whom the Minden Legion is named has left few stones unturned.
Mabel Doreen Hewitt (Brannigan) passed away March 15, just two months short of her 99th year.
Mabel came into the world on May 13, 1924, and would go on to leave an indelible mark as a pioneer for independent women her entire life.
Her son, Kim, shared how as a teenager, Mabel worked with her mom, Ruth Sawyer, at the telephone switchboard in Maple Lake.
Then, after women were officially given permission to enlist in the Canadian Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, Mabel volunteered and was sent to work in a factory out west. She told The Highlander in 2016, “after living in Haliburton County all my life among the lakes and hills … when I woke up in the morning on the train and all I could see was land touching sky, I never was so homesick in all my life.”
However, she took on the “very responsible job” to do her part for her country. She would later serve in war time in Ottawa. She returned home and married Basil, who passed away in 1978.
Kim said his mom’s sense of duty was something she instilled in him and his siblings as children.
“Things had to be done and we just had to do it and that’s how we carried on in life,” he said. As a result, he feels he and his siblings were “much stronger. We all had good careers and were leaders in our professions. That comes right back to ‘just do it’.”
At the same time, while strict, he said his mom ensured her children received an education, were involved in sports and music, making them all-around people. “She was very dedicated to her family.”
A hard-working Mabel became a homesteader on the family farm, worked at the telephone switchboard in Minden, and took in boarders. She went back to school to get a teaching degree at the age of 30. That job took her up north for a couple of years, put the pull of Haliburton County drew her back. After losing Basil, she sold real estate. She then bought the Fireside Restaurant that eventually became the Minden Legion – her namesake branch. She was also president of the Haliburton Legion for a time – a job she vowed to get after initially being denied membership as a woman.
She married Keith Brannigan in 1981, living in Haliburton and Carnarvon, where Mabel took care of her elderly parents, Ruth and Elmer. After Keith passed away in 2003, she moved to Horseshoe Lake and then Minden.
“She was very active in the Legion” says Kim. “That was her pride and joy in life.” He added his mom was community-oriented, devoted in particular to the Minden Fair.
Her independence ran deep and continued until only months before her passing in her own home. For example, after letting her driver’s license lapse, she decided, at 91, to get it back. She drove herself around for the next four years. Mabel was a lifelong learner. She continued her education into her 80s, taking university courses and travelling to England and Russia with her sister, Audrey. She was also a writer, and storyteller. She did not shy away from the Internet or an iPad. And she could be seen using her walker to make her daily trip to the post office to get the mail.
“I think that’s why she lived so long,” Kim said. “She just refused to give in. That was just her mindset. She could concentrate on things and get it done.”
That applied to her decision to write the Left to Tell series for The Highlander that was published in 2020.
She wanted to honour local veterans during the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. She would go on to write a 17-part series. Mabel was also featured in The Highlander’s Veterans of Haliburton County video series.
“I have to do this to pay tribute to these boys, and a few girls, from Haliburton County,” she said of the Left to Tell series.
“No matter what their motivation, the men and women in our armed forces were willing to put their own lives at risk for an ideal. They believed in the value of what they were doing. They faced incredible hardships, witnessed events that no one should have to witness, and pushed themselves to the limit of their endurance.”
A celebration of Mabel’s life will be held at a future date at the Legion.
Go to thehighlander.ca to see the video, story and Left to Tell series.