The lead up to Remembrance Day is always a time of reflection for Haliburton’s Rob McCaig, who has compiled a running history of his family’s extensive involvement in the Second World War – including a mystery that remains unsolved today.

His parents, Keith and Nina McCaig, were each involved in the effort – the former an airframe mechanic and tail gunner with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and the latter a cook with the Women’s Royal Naval Service.

Four uncles also enlisted – Clifford, the eldest, was the first to join in 1940, signing up for the army and later becoming a member of the special forces team ‘The Devil’s Brigade’. Wally, Keith’s twin, and Arnold joined the air force in October 1941, while Norman joined the army in 1942.

“The McCaigs were a big family, eight boys and one daughter – they had a farm in St. Louis de Gonzague, Quebec,” McCaig said. “Half of them went overseas to fight and the rest stayed back to run the farm… they had a lot of adventures, the McCaig boys.”

Clifford was 23 when he enlisted, Arnold was 22, while Keith, Wally and Norman were 19. Nina was a teenager, too, though the furthest she traveled was Halifax, where she was stationed on the HMS Cornwallis until 1946.

All but one of the McCaigs made it home following the war – sadly, Arnold never returned from what McCaig described as a top-secret mission to Albania on June 28, 1944. The details of that operation remain shrouded in mystery, he said.

An eight-man crew left a British Royal Air Force airbase in Brindisi, Italy in a Handley Page Halifax bomber shortly before midnight. They were carrying out an unknown mission 10 miles north of Lake Ohridsko in Albania when their plane was shot down by enemy forces. Albania, though considered partisan in the war effort, was largely occupied by German forces.

“The interesting thing is, the Halifax usually carried a seven-man crew, but this time they had eight people. I have all the letters that were sent to my grandparents and mom, who was first married to my Uncle Arnold in September 1942. She then married my dad six years later,” Rob said. “The extra crew member was someone from the National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia.”

Military records state five members of the crew bailed from the plane before it crashed. Albanian forces stated there was no sign of Arnold during the bailout, though he could have been one of the first to jump. There were three bodies found at the crash site.

Rob said initial letters home in early July said Arnold was missing in action. A second letter arrived later in the month, saying Arnold had been found alive and was temporarily safe, but that his whereabouts could not be disclosed. The letter also advised that until further information is received, Arnold would remain classified as missing.

On Dec. 28, a third letter was received stating the other crew members who made it back reported seeing three bodies at the crash site – though the military has never confirmed that Arnold was one of them.

“Arnold is still unaccounted for and any further information of his whereabouts will be forwarded,” the letter stated.

McCaig said key details from the mission – when the plane started taking fire, how many times it was hit, and the order of men bailing from the plane – were included in Arnold’s personal file.

“How did he write up and submit this report if he died in that crash?” McCaig ponders. “I believe Arnold did die, but we have no idea when, where or how. There’s no documented proof whatsoever.”

Another letter was received in May 1945, saying Arnold was presumed dead. Seven years later, in 1952, the McCaigs received a final letter generally confirming Arnold’s death but said “due to circumstances outside British control” it wasn’t possible to send search teams into Albania to locate his grave.

Arnold was an air gunner warrant office class 1 with the 148 squadron who, as of June 27, 1944 was confirmed to have flown in over 50 missions.

McCaig said the ordeal hit his mother, Nina, hard. The McCaigs took her in after she left the Navy. Years later, once confirmation of Arnold’s death came through, romance blossomed between Nina and Keith. They were married in 1948.

A year later, Nina received a letter addressed to her but written in Italian. Rob said she took the note to a translator, who burst into tears and tore the letter to pieces.

“My mom never knew the contents of that letter throughout the remaining years of her life,” McCaig said. “Every Remembrance Day was really tough on her. She wanted to go overseas to look for Arnold.

“They were absolutely in love. They wrote over 100 letters back and forth to one another. He wrote her the day before his final mission,” he added.

McCaig hasn’t given up hope of finding out what happened to his uncle – efforts are ongoing today to locate downed Halifax bombers that have been lost or buried over time. A trip to Albania, to try and source some answers himself, is on his bucket list.

So too is a trip to Malta – an island nation in the Mediterranean Sea. There, Arnold’s name is inscribed on a memorial to all those who served in the RAF and RCAF but didn’t make it home.

With this year marking the 80th anniversary of the war’s conclusion, McCaig feels it’s more important than ever to keep these sorts of stories alive.

“There isn’t a family that the war didn’t impact, but the McCaigs had a lot of involvement. It’s important to recognize the sacrifices – they were all so young when they enlisted, and they didn’t make a ton of money. The average soldier made $850 a year, if you were an officer or special services, you were lucky to get $2,000.

“My family enlisted because they believed in our country. Unfortunately, in the case of my Uncle Arnold, that belief cost him his life,” McCaig said.

Of the approximate 1.6 million Canadians who served in the Second World War, 44,090 died, according to online service files through Library and Archives Canada. Lest we forget.

As a young girl, Minden’s Lainey Hunting remembers sneaking out of her home at night – not for fun, or to socialize with friends, but for survival.

The 97-year-old grew up in Eindhoven in the Netherlands – a city ransacked and occupied by German forces for the bulk of the Second World War. Hunting was 12 when her hometown was taken over.

“I remember waking up one night because there was a lot of noise. There were so many cars out on the road heading down the street. Not many people had a car back then, but the ones that did left Holland because they knew the Germans were coming,” Hunting said.

It was May 1940 and the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, invaded the Netherlands as part of a larger plan to conquer France and secure important airfields and ports for future use against the U.K. Hunting said the occupation was swift.

Soldiers quickly took over a Philips Electronics factory in the city, using it as a homebase for its operations. They implemented an 8 p.m. curfew for residents, took what they wanted from people’s homes and seized all existing food supplies.

Hunting said she and her family – mom, dad and six siblings – survived on scraps. Workers at the Philips factory served soup once a week, but other than that it was up to the family to scrounge up whatever food they could find.

“I’d sneak out after curfew to go to the potato fields. Sometimes there would be little ones left and I’d be so excited taking them home,” Hunting said. “It was a risk… if a German soldier had spotted me, I’d have been shot for sure.”

Hunting said she was terrified of the Nazis. After the occupation, Philips workers initially refused to make bullets and weapons for the Axis – so German soldiers took 10 each day and executed them until the workers relented. She also recalls observing the Germans rounding up Jews and sending them to concentration camps.

One of her best friends at the time, a Jewish girl from Austria, attempted to flee the city with her family, though Hunting doesn’t know if they made it. “I never saw her again,” she said.

There was no school. Instead, Hunting said the days were filled with frequent visits to the nearby bomb shelter. The sirens would ring multiple times per day, she said, signalling bombers in the sky.

“There was a woman who told jokes to try and keep all the kids quiet and distracted. But we’d always hear the whistles, which meant the bombs were coming. Then we started to pray,” Hunting said.

Eindhoven was completely levelled by the time the Allied forces re-took it in September 1944 – it was the first Dutch city to be liberated. Hunting, by then 17, remembers seeing the tanks rolling in, carrying waving soldiers. The red maple leaf stitched to their uniforms coming across like a giant beacon of hope.

“I remember everyone climbing on the tanks and singing – people were so happy,” she said.

It was short-lived – a few days later, the Germans returned with bombs of their own. Thousands died, Hunting said.

“I’ll always remember the Canadians covering as many bodies as they could. So much that seemed like nothing much, or no big deal, they did it. That meant so much to the people of Holland,” Hunting said.

Hunting married in her early 20s and, with the country still rebuilding, opted to move to Canada – first to New Brunswick, then Bronte, a fishing village near Oakville. She and her husband, Harry, came to Haliburton County in 1967, purchasing the former Big Bob Lake Lodge with their friends, William and Nellie Brouwers.

As Remembrance Day approaches, Hunting said she’ll always be thankful of the Canadian soldiers who freed her from German captivity.

“They helped us out when nobody else could… in schools in Holland today, kids learn a lot about Canada and the liberation. There’s a big connection between the two countries,” Hunting said. “The Canadians saved us.”

Six years after challenging the community to form ideas for developing and maintaining a sustainable food system in the Highlands non-profit group, Harvest Haliburton, is preparing to provide some answers and possible solutions this week.

The volunteer organization is hosting a food forum at Pinestone Resort Nov. 7, gathering a collection of County-based growers, experts from the food industry, service agencies and tourism operators together to talk about methods that have worked within our borders and beyond.

Barrie Martin, Harvest Haliburton’s co-chair, said this is a follow-up to a 2019 event and provides “an opportunity to bring everyone up to speed on food issues and to learn from contrasting viewpoints.”

Dr. Sara Epp, a professor at the University of Guelph, will serve as the keynote speaker. Jean Tyler, a longtime County farmer and coordinator of the forum, said Epp’s talk will unpack all aspects of agricultural sustainability in rural communities like Haliburton County.

Following Epp will be an hour-long talk on growing and homesteading, featuring Haliburton Farmers’ Association president Minna Schleifenbaum, Katie Metauro of Waverly Brook Farm and Godfrey Tyler from Rising Sun Gardens.

The afternoon will feature a discussion with local sellers, with vendors from the Haliburton County Farmers Market joining Abbey Gardens executive director Angela Kruger, Haliburton Foodland owner Brad Park and Terri Mathews-Carl, owner of Rhubarb and Juna restaurants, on a locallythemed forum.

Attendees will also hear from those who help people suffering with food insecurity daily – Gena Robertson from SIRCH Community Services, Tina Jackson from Central Food Network, Brian Nash from the Rotary Harvest Program and Nell Thomas from the Food Alliance for Haliburton County.

Tyler said she hopes the event will help to spark fresh conversations about food sustainability.

“The intent of the first one we did was to keep going, but COVID really knocked the wind out of our sails. We do need to regroup, to be the organization that gives answers and offers hope to people,” Tyler said. “We need to rethink what we’re doing as a community. How can we support one another to improve food security and local food production.”

Tyler said she and her husband have been growing food for 31 years and boast forestry, maple syrup, vegetable and beef operations at their farm in Haliburton. She said being a farmer is a lifestyle choice – and one she’s eager to imprint on the next generation.

“Succession planning is very important – it’s not easy to farm, there’s a lot of techniques that we know that, if young people are willing to come out and be on the farm with us, they can learn about,” she said.

While there was a surge in people establishing homesteads throughout the County during the pandemic and the years that followed, Tyler said those operations are usually single-minded – growing enough to sustain their own household, rather than growing food for the wider community.

Years ago, the Tylers were big believers in community-supported agriculture (CSA). They ran a shared vegetable garden on their farm from 1994 to 2015, offering up to 70 different crops to subscribers, who paid for what they took away. “The model is possible, but it’s difficult work,” she said.

They still offer plots on their land to people who want to grow their own food, though numbers have been fleeting. She believes the path to success for those looking to start out, no matter the size or scope of the operation, is talking to those already in the industry.

The forum is free to attend, with people being asked to register online at harvesthaliburton.com.

Hal High has been singled out as one of the shining lights of a student attendance pilot Trillium Lakelands District School Board (TLDSB) rolled out at five schools during the 2024-25 school year.

The project was designed to spark engagement in the classroom and get students with persistent absences excited about going to school. It was implemented in the County at Haliburton Highlands Secondary School (HHSS) and J.D. Hodgson Elementary School, and beyond at Parkview Public School in Lindsay, Riverside Public School in Huntsville, and Gravenhurst Public School.

“During this project, we monitored over 800 students, and we did see an average eight per cent increase in students at these schools attending 90 per cent or greater of their school days last year,” said TLDSB superintendent Tanya Fraser.

The sole high school participating in the program, HHSS saw a 16 per cent increase in the number of students boasting a 90 per cent attendance record or higher.

Last year, the Ministry of Education issued attendance benchmarks to public school boards, challenging them to ensure individual schools have an overall attendance record of 90 per cent or more. At the time, TLDSB had 68 per cent of elementary-aged students and 46 per cent of high schoolers hitting that target. TLDSB spokesperson Carolynne Bull said the board also tracks the number of students attending school 80 per cent of the time. At Hal High, 88 per cent of students are hitting that number, so too are 85 per cent of elementary-aged kids.

Fraser said the five pilot schools altered the way they took attendance, moving to tracking period-by-period with messages sent home for any unexplained absence. Each school also picked an existing staff member to serve as dedicated ‘attendance champions’ responsible for monitoring and analyzing attendance data, meeting with youth to find out what was keeping them from schools, and developing individual plans for students to improve attendance.

She said common barriers included: lack of a foundational routine (sleep, hygiene, nutrition and screen time limits); social and separation anxiety; bullying; food and housing insecurity; and parent-child conflict.

Fraser said staff would “assess the barriers and try to understand the root causes of absenteeism,” which she said turned up positive results.

“In terms of solutions, we found that understanding our communities and what an individual child needs was very important. Increasing communication, building positive relationships between home and school, and ongoing mental health promotion all helped,” Fraser said.

She talked about how students can help motivate one another to attend class – three Grade 6 classrooms in one school ran a two-week attendance contest last year, with the winning class getting a pizza party. The average attendance for the three classes was 97.5 per cent.

“As students get older, they’re old enough to set their own goals, to be motivated and know why coming to school is important. We found students started to have conversations in their morning friend circle… about going to bed at good times and coming to school in the best shape possible,” Fraser said.

TLDSB director of learning Wes Hahn said a high number of students are exhibiting signs of anxiety – he said all schools have access to mental health counsellors, who can offer some supports and refer students to specialists in their community should they need further help.

The board has expanded the pilot board-wide this coming school year, with it being implemented at seven high schools and 27 elementary schools.

“We are moving beyond the pilot because every school in TLDSB needs to address the students who aren’t there.

This is all of our work… to make our schools as inviting a place as possible for students to learn,” Fraser said.

Work to do

Hahn said TLDSB has data that shows students living in poverty and/or challenging situations aren’t achieving as much as those with more stable backgrounds.

“We have a report that looks at our student census in conjunction with EQAO (public education testing in reading, writing and math)… it looked at Indigenous students, students with disabilities, students with either one, three or four parents/guardians in the home, and students who do not have parents or guardians in full-time employment.

“We’ve been able to look at our results the way students are achieving in our system and apply to those areas in the census to see what we can do to make things better for those experiencing socio-economic difficulties,” Hahn said. “Socio-economic diversity was the greatest source of achievement disproportionality.”

He said the board is striving to help students even when they’re not at school. One way of doing that is ramping up engagement with parents – he said a new platform where parents can ask and answer questions and provide student/ course feedback went live Oct 28. You can access it at engage.tldsb.ca

Hahn said the board is also planning a series of meet and greets with parents, saying he hopes to set up meetings with school principals and parent councils from all schools this school year.

On Oct. 20, SIRCH Community Services officially launched Nathan’s Farm Project at the SIRCH Bistro & Bakery, at 49 Maple Ave. in Haliburton.

The initiative introduces 12 hydroponic grow towers inside the Bistro, producing fresh, nutritious greens year-round. The harvests will be used daily in Bistro offerings.

For the first time, produce grown from the towers will also be featured in SIRCH’s Lunch Is On Us program, where every Wednesday community members are welcomed into the Bistro for a free nutritious meal.

Guests will now enjoy salads and dishes featuring tower-grown greens, even in the middle of winter.

“This project reflects our values of levelling the playing field and creating a ripple effect of positive change,” said Gena Robertson, executive director of SIRCH.

“By investing in hydroponic towers, we’re ensuring that everyone in our community, regardless of income, can access healthy, locally-grown food in a safe, welcoming space.”

At the launch, people heard about the history of Nathan’s Farm, why the towers were introduced, and SIRCH’s future vision for food security in Haliburton.

For more information on Nathan’s Urban Farm go to www.enuf.farm. Nathan’s Farm Project is made possible through the Nathan T. Deslippe Memorial Fund and Medavie Foundation, honouring Nathan’s legacy of compassion, innovation, and community impact.