Haliburton writing collective poem

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August 1, 2019

MS - HAlls island1 — Photo by Meagan Secord

Toronto based artist Brooke Manning is encouraging the community to write down their thoughts as part of a county-based poem for her Halls Island Residency.

“I like the idea of randomness that this provides, and I really enjoy seeing different perspectives from different humans move in flow with each other,” she said.

Six journals are placed in libraries throughout the county for people to write their own poetry, thoughts and anything else.

The journals will be moved to new locations at the beginning of August and then collected so Manning can write a community poem using the material.

“When brainstorming ideas for my Halls Island community project, this one came very quickly and naturally,” said Manning, one of 11 artists coming to the island this summer.

As part of the residency, artists must hold a community session to share their art or poems with locals to give back for the two weeks they’ve spent here.

“Several years ago, I did a few projects that were similar in nature (to the journals) though for one evening only, and only in galleries,” she said.

The final poem will be Manning’s community session.

“Each artist comes up with their own idea for the community sessions,” said Joan Duhaime, arts administrator for the residency. “So, I’m not sure what the poem will look like when she’s done and in book form.”

The program invites artists to the Highlands and encourages them to recharge their creativity and get inspired by the location.

“We want to give artists an opportunity to expand or reflect,” said Duhaime. “Use the time to attempt, whatever their artistic practice is, and also give back to the community and make that connection with Haliburton.”

The guests stay at a cottage on Koshlong Lake’s Halls Island that was donated by a local family.

All types of artists, writers, painters, musicians, sculptors, poets, etc., are welcome to apply.

“The nature was idyllic and very moving. It felt very powerful to be creating work with my partner, Viktor Cahoj,” said Manning about her time in the residency program. “We used the residency to create a book of poetry and photographs that speak to one another.”

Red Wolves carry spirit of Special Olympics

By

Joseph Quigley, Local Journalism Initiative Repoter

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July 30, 2019

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The Haliburton Red Wolves showed their fire is still burning strong through the annual Law Enforcement Torch Run for Special Olympics July 20.

Haliburton Highlands OPP and red wolves team members paraded through Haliburton, Kinmount and Minden as part of the national campaign, raising funds and awareness for the local Special Olympics.

“The day was very fantastic. Very good people who always support,” athlete Trevor Bauer said. “It’s a great opportunity for them to come out.”

Team members carried “the flame of hope” throughout the parade, symbolizing courage and a celebration of diversity, according to the run’s website.

“Anybody that partners is blazing the way to help (people) be included,” Red Wolves bowling coach Rick West said.

Const. John Fountain said it was wonderful to support a great cause.

“It’s good to give back to the community,” Fountain said. “We had a great time, we collected lots of money for the event planning they’re doing. It was a good turnout.”

The Red Wolves had plenty to celebrate and fundraise for at this year’s run. The group’s bowling team – composed of Casey Healey, Kim Buie, Andrew Bourgeois, Marianne Stammers and Lucas Anderson – won gold in their division at the provincial 5-pin bowling championships June 6-7.

They earned a chance to play at nationals in Thunder Bay next February.

“All they want to do is practise,” West said. “We practise really hard and on the day of … everybody just took turns bowling really well.”

Now, the group is raising money for the trip. But West said he has little doubt they will be able to, given they were successful when the team last went to nationals in Prince Edward Island in 2018.

“This area is fantastic for giving,” West said.

He added it is meaningful for the athletes to compete and be successful.

“It’s the best,” West said. “It’s just seeing them with a smile on their face, it makes everything worthwhile … when they’re successful at it, they just want to do the best they can.”

Cats, memories and the world of film

By

Joseph Quigley, Local Journalism Initiative Repoter

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July 30, 2019

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All summer, Highlands Cinemas owner Keith Stata walks through the theatre he built to turn on projectors and bring the world of film to hundreds of patrons.

It is a journey with as much character as the building itself and the 72-year-old does it solo. He stops in at part of his cat sanctuary to manage air conditioning, pausing to pet some of his 42 felines surrounding the facility. There is another stop to check his facility’s security cameras. He pauses there to let out a werewolf call into a microphone, laughing as he delivers a scare to visitors surveying his hall of movie monsters.

Stata is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the five-screen Highlands Cinemas. The structure is filled to the brim with history, with a built-in museum featuring thousands of items highlighting film, popular culture and Stata himself. It’s world-famous, one-of-a-kind and has stayed situated in Kinmount, a village which has historically had a population of around 300 people.

The man paused when asked if anybody had ever called him crazy.

“I think everybody thinks I’m crazy,” Stata replied. “They’re entitled to.”

The theatre has run since 1979. Stata said he had a passion for films and initially sought to get into filmmaking, but went into construction to do something “practical.” That led to him building the cinema. Nestled in a forested area, the exterior was designed to resemble a house, which Stata said was needed to get a mortgage. What started as a one-screen theatre slowly expanded to five throughout the 80s and 90s.

Stata’s business partner, Roland Hamilton, credited the business success to that willingness to expand.

“There’s a lot of people’s effort that went into that building,” Hamilton said. “We’ve had challenges with the building department, but it’s always been fun to solve.”

Highlands Cinemas has achieved a lot of notoriety, with dozens of news articles over the years, tens of thousands of visitors and celebrity appearances. A documentary film about it is in the works. Well-wishes and compliments from the likes of the actor Rick Moranis and the Barenaked Ladies are preserved in the museum.

“The Highlands Cinemas is simply the coolest theatre in the world,” the famed Canadian rock band wrote with an autograph.

The museum is also filled with dozens of historic projectors dating back decades, which Stata said connects us to the past.

“I don’t look at them as rusty pieces of metal. I look at those as memories. You stop and think of all those machines, millions of people sat in the dark and had that special moment with that special movie,” Stata said.

But running a small-town movie theatre is difficult, Stata said. Although he and Hamilton utilize summer students, the workload is still heavy.

“The biggest problem is here we are and I’ve got less energy, less physical ability and still the same amount, if not more, work as when I was younger,” Stata said. “The maintenance on this building is massive.”

Cat Sanctuary

Adding to the workload is something even more important to Stata than the cinemas; his cat sanctuary. Stata has 42 cats across 11 custom houses, nestled together around the facility.

With local shelters overflowing, all of them were bound for death. Stata took them on as a last resort.

“I don’t look at animals or people any differently,” Stata said. “Just because the animal may not be as smart in our eyes as we think it is, maybe we’re not thinking right.”

He is outspoken that owning a cat is a lifelong responsibility. He believes there should be a licence to own a pet, with $1,000 fines for abandoning them.

“Stupid people,” he said. “I’ve had cats here because the boy had a girlfriend who was allergic to cats, dump the cat. Well, that’s not the way it works. You dump the girlfriend. You figure out what you’re going to do and you make it work.”

Looking after the animals is demanding, taking up 42 hours a week, Stata said. When it comes to succession planning, he said they come first.

“The cats are the priority. The business is secondary,” Stata said. “If I live long enough, maybe most of them will be gone … but there’s no guarantees. You get a one-way ticket, and nobody knows when you’re going to punch it.”

Whenever the day comes, Stata has entrusted the cats and the theatre to Hamilton, who has worked there since it opened.

“I want to run the theatre as a theatre,” Hamilton said. “When I go to leave it behind, I want to leave it with somebody who’s going to run it as a theatre. I don’t want to just see it all sold off, because then what was the point of what we did?”

But despite age and the occasional injury, Stata is still going strong, trekking to take care of movie-goers and felines alike. He even tries to take care of local wildlife, tossing out food for a neighbouring family of bears.

As the facility recognizes its 40th anniversary, Stata said he has had some discomfort with the praise heaped upon him.

“Getting a little much. A lot of people are coming up to me and saying, ‘thank you for building this place.’ It almost makes you think, ‘okay, am I going to die tomorrow or something’?”

But he is satisfied looking back at what he has accomplished with the Highlands Cinemas and the people it still brings in year after year.

“It’s gratifying it has done what it has done. It’s gratifying that people enjoy it. It’s gratifying that some people have been coming here for 34 years.”

Closing landfill the right decision

By

Lisa Gervais

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July 29, 2019

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Since I was writing about it in today’s Highlander, I took a trip to the Hawk Lake waste disposal site this week.

It’s on Hawk Lake Road in Algonquin Highlands.

Council voted last Thursday to close the landfill at its end of life in 2021.

The four councillors in attendance had a robust debate and in the end made the right decision.

Coun. Jennifer Dailloux was initially worried about cutting any services to taxpayers when the tax levy increases annually in the township, albeit slightly.

Coun. Lisa Barry was also concerned about cuts but also wondered about the impact on good recycling in the township.

Coun. Julia Shortreed listened intently as Mayor Carol Moffatt basically facilitated the conversation. She then recommended the closure with the move from Hawk Lake to Maple Lake landfill.

Moffatt, quite correctly, asked whether the township was going to make a decision based on convenience to its taxpayers or one in the best interests of the entire municipality.

The ultimate decision was to close the landfill or open a seasonal or year-round transfer station.

Convenience-wise, the larger Maple Lake WDS is only about 10 minutes from Hawk Lake. Pine Springs landfill is also not far away.

Further, since Hawk Lake is a small operation, it only takes household waste and recyclables, not all of the other items that people have been taking to Maple Lake anyway.

While I was at the dump, a woman drove in who wasn’t overly phased by the decision. She said her biggest complaint was the illegal dumping of things at Hawk Lake, such as chairs. She commented that if there were more eyes on the dumpers, there would be better recycling practices.

We’re not entirely sure how the Halls and Hawk Lakes Property Owners Association feels about the decision since they declined comment in today’s paper.

The township has five landfills, so will still be well served by four: at Maple Lake, Pine Springs, Dorset and Oxtongue. There won’t be job losses since the minimal staff at Hawk Lake will be needed at Maple Lake. The decision was also the most costeffective for ratepayers.

While no one said it at the meeting, we also see the closure as a message that we need less household waste dumped in our county. We need people to become better recyclers and hope the already strong diversion rate in AH continues.

I came across an article on line this week, entitled ‘China puts small-town recycling in dumps.’

It makes it clear that our goal should be zero waste since there isn’t much of a worldwide market for our recyclables anymore. We should stop with single use plastics, plastic produce bags, and consider bulk buying to cut down on packaging. We are seeing more materials, such as soap bars that can be used to shampoo and condition one’s hair, to cut out plastic.

While that may not have been the intent of the AH decision last week, closing one of five landfills in a small township, necessitating the public to drive an additional 10 minutes, is the right decision. It was democratically made in the way government is supposed to work.

Host honoured for riding free on the airwaves

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Meagan Secord

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July 26, 2019

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MS - Davis Mais2 — Photo by Meagan Secord

David Mair, host of Tuesday Night Sessions on Canoe FM, said he’s always put a lot of effort into his radio show, so it’s nice to win an award for it.

The best indie/rock show award at this year’s National Campus and Community Radio Associations Conference, was accepted on Mair’s behalf by Canoe employees Ron Murphy and Roxanne Casey.

“The recognition that you get keeps me going but also the recognition for the radio station,” says Mair. “There are plenty of really dedicated and talented people putting out shows and it’s nice that they might get more attention from it too.”

Murphy, Canoe FM’s studio engineer, submitted a montage of clips from Tuesday Night Sessions to the association for Mair to be considered for the award.

Mair has been hosting his show every Tuesday night from 9 to 11 p.m. for six years.

He came to Canoe after retiring to Haliburton with his wife.

The idea for Tuesday Night Sessions came from Mair’s love of session players and record producers. He said he would scour the records for names of bass players, producers and more and noticed the same names kept popping up.

He decided to follow their careers and play the songs they’re affiliated with.

“I thought, I don’t know about anyone else who’s doing this. I’m sure someone is but not that I know of and I just thought that it would be a good idea for a show,” said Mair. “You’re going to play songs that are familiar anyways, but, why not come at it from a different angle.”

Mair hosted a show at a station in Oshawa when he finished school. He said he loved the free radio era when DJ’s had the freedom to play what they wanted and host unique and interesting shows.

This is one of the reasons he likes hosting for Canoe. “

It’s credit to Roxanne, who can keep the reins on when you need, but also encourage and foster that enthusiasm for doing what you do,” he said. “Ron in the same way, helping with production and making it go to air. Both of them have been very supportive of me over the years.”

Cyclist to ride Minden to Sarnia for Special Olympics

By

Meagan Secord

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July 26, 2019

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MS - Bruce Fisher3 — Photo by Meagan Secord

One could say more than $15,000 is a lot of money to be raised for a charity. But for Bruce Fisher, it’s just a couple of bike rides.

The 79-year-old retiree begins his ride to Sarnia on July 30.

He said the seven day, seven-stop trek is in support of the Haliburton Red Wolves Special Olympic Team.

Why does he go on these long bike trips?

“Actually, I don’t even like cycling,” said Fisher. “Since I started, I decided I wasn’t really stuck on it. But I decided it was a good way to raise money for charities and that’s the only reason I ride.”

In 1998, he and his wife Judith retired to Minden and that is when his cycling career started. He’d never cycled professionally or for sport before the move.

Some of the rides he’s completed are from Minden to London, twice to Newfoundland and once from Thunder Bay to Minden.

Over the past 10 years, Fisher has raised $15,868 for the Red Wolves. He’s had to take breaks from his cycling, though.

In 2012, he was diagnosed with colon cancer and Judith said he finally got the all-clear last year.

“He’s survived cancer,” said Judith. “If he wants to ride his bike to Sarnia, he’s going to do it.”

The two of them only worried about his sleeping arrangements for his trip.

Originally, Fisher was going to cycle the seven days with his tent and sleeping supplies on his back, like he did on his second trip to Newfoundland. But he says he was “71 years young” on that trip, so the pair decided he would stay in hotels and bed and breakfasts for this trip.

“I had my concerns when he was camping but my logic for it is that this is his 10th year anniversary that he’s done fundraising and he wants to have one more good bike ride,” said Judith.

The Fishers ask anyone looking to pledge money to Fisher and the Red Wolves to email Judith at judefisher3474@gmail.com for more information.

Exploring the computational sublime in Minden

By

Meagan Secord

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July 26, 2019

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MS - ART EXHIB1 — Photo by Meagan Secord

Steve Hudak has brought the worlds of abstract art and computer coding together for a new exhibition at the Agnes Jamieson Gallery.

The installation is not what people would expect when they walk into an art gallery.

Two large projector screens and televisions bursting with colour give a new look to the space for Pattern, Process and Procedure: Exploring the Computational Sublime.

Hudak said he started coding in 2012 and has worked on this specific exhibition for six years.

“I started to see this role of media and how I wanted to know that material,” he said. “I didn’t want that material (coding/design) to be a mystery to me.”

The program Hudak uses is called processing. It allows him to draw the designs for the art, assign colour palettes and then the computer takes it from there.

He said the art on the screen will never show up the same way twice and the computer is always changing the design to make it its own.

“That’s the fun of it,” said Hudak. “When you build an algorithm, things can happen and change it.”

The crowd at the opening watched the different patterns, colours and movement the computers created.

The event even featured a piece that creates designs using sound in the room. Laurie Carmount, curator, said the gallery likes to explore different avenues of art a few times a year through exhibitions and Hudak’s work does just that.

“We go from something that is quite traditional and jump right into something that is very modern and digital,” she said.

Although Hudak also explores art through painting and sculpting, he said coding allowed him to find a voice in the digital material he was working with and really focus on abstract ideas.

The show continues to Aug. 3.

Halminac: new guide for gardeners is growing

By

Meagan Secord

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July 25, 2019

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MS - DIANNE WOODCOCK — Photo by Meagan Secord

Local gardening enthusiast Dianne Woodcock said there are many amazing gardening resources in Haliburton County, but they are hard to find.

She decided to track them all down and put them in one place: My Haliburton Highlands Gardening and Environmental Guide, or as she likes to call it, “The Halminac.”

“There’s a lot of resources out there but no one knows how to find them,” she said.

The guide will feature information and links to experts on subjects such as composting, organic gardening, flower gardening, native species and more.

It will be split up by season and talk about the geography of Haliburton County and how to grow in it.

Master gardeners and local environmental organizations jumped on the chance to be a part of the book, according to Woodcock.

“People get nervous because there is a lot going on in terms of geography in Haliburton and experts can help if you can find them,” she said. “I haven’t had anyone uninterested in helping the project.”

She hopes the guide will make people more inclined to give gardening a chance because the information they need is readily available to them.

Woodcock said she is hoping to have all of the information and links put together by the end of October so she can move onto the publishing phase of the book.

She is currently working on getting the community involved by asking people to send her stories and pictures of their gardening successes to be featured in the upcoming book.

Anyone interested in submitting can do so by email at mhhgeg@gmail.com.

The Outsider: Ice creams from the dump

By

Will Jones

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July 25, 2019

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It’s been a tad warm the last couple of weeks, wouldn’t you agree?

While I am definitely not complaining, it has made working on construction projects rather exhausting. Every movement means another pint of sweat, every exertion, another wipe of the brow, every 10 minutes or so another glug of water just to stop ourselves from melting away completely and enable us to sweat some more.

As if this wasn’t hard enough, we almost always work right next to a lake, where more often than not, the cottage owner or their near neighbour are enjoying summer by the water in the correct manner. They are lounging on the dock with a beer. They are diving in the lake to cool off and then clambering out again to crack another one straight from the cooler.

My colleagues and I wince at the sound of a beer can being opened, at the fizz of bubbles as a bottle top is twisted off. Our mouths hang slightly open, our dry lips dampen with saliva as we drool at the thought of a beer. But work is pressing and so on we toil dragging our thoughts back to the job and away from the taste of that beer, of anything cold and refreshing.

Every now and again, a cottage owner catches sight of us drooling and comes to the rescue with an after-work drink for us but for the most part we finish, pack up and go on our thirsty way. And, it was on one of these days, one of these scorchers of a day, that I’d sweated more than a sumo wrestler in a sauna, finished a job, packed tools into the trailer and crammed a giant pile of garbage into the truck. There was one last job, one final stop at the landfill before I could go home for a beer and a splash in the river.

We got to the dump, unloaded our garbage, and, dripping in sweat, went over to the cabin to sign out our load. The inside of the hut was cool, almost cold; the two dump employees sitting contentedly behind the desk. I ‘ahhhed’ at the frigid haven in which they sat and commented on their luck.

“Yup,” said one, “it’s kind of’ nice in here. Want a glass of cold water?”

“No, thanks,” I smiled, and then joked, “but an ice cream would be great just at this moment.”

“OK,” said dump guy. And, to my utter amazement, he reached behind him into the tall fridge freezer and tossed me a chocolate ice cream sandwich.

“Your buddy will want one too,” he said with a grin, tossing me another.

I was gobsmacked. “Err, thanks … thank you so much, this is wicked, ice cream at the dump. Wow. Thanks.”

I marched triumphantly to the truck, threw my buddy his surprise ice cream and waved mine in the air as we drove off.

“Ice creams from the dump. Oh yeah!” he said and for that moment we thought we were the luckiest fellows in the world.

That is how little it takes to make someone’s day but sometimes it takes an unexpected benefactor to remind us.

Thanks, dump guys. See you again soon

Learning to love your lake the right way

By

Joseph Quigley, Local Journalism Initiative Repoter

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July 25, 2019

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The Lake Kashagawigamog Association (LKO) sent a message about how to best protect our waters through its first-ever Love Your Lake seminar at the Minden Hills Community Centre July 20.

More than 40 people attended the event, which featured exhibitors and speakers discussing topics related to lake health. The seminar promoted best-practices for protecting the environment.

Minden Hills councillor and LKO president Bob Carter said the organization wanted to better educate people about the subject.

“The reason that we’re all here is because of these lakes,” Carter said. “If we want to continue to have these lakes as something we can enjoy into the future, everybody has to play their part.”

Seminar speakers addressed topics such as invasive species and naturalized shorelines. EcoEthic owner Rob Davis and home inspector Mike Rahme talked about how to best manage your septic system.

“The misunderstandings we come across in regards to tank, tank placement and what the important aspects of it are vast,” Rahme said in during his presentation. “If it’s a case you know how to maintain it properly, then the likelihood of problems start to decrease significantly.”

Botanigal owner Rebecca Krawczyk showcased an array of plants to help with naturalizing a shoreline. She complimented the presentations on their depth.

“They dug into their topics and they actually investigated,” Krawczyk said. “It was an event with some great, diverse thoughts.”

Attendee Larry Grigg also praised the seminar and said he would like to see it continue. But he added there is a need to attract a wider audience.

“Most of the folks here are the converted. We just got to get some of the other folks in,” Grigg said.

Carter said he felt good about the attendance considering it was a first-time event. But he also said he would like to see it grow.

“We at the LKO, any new thing that we start we like to commit to it for a few years,” Carter said. “We’ll probably do this for the next couple of years and hopefully we can continue to grow and make it a successful event.

“Let’s get everybody to love their lake.”