Minden Hills Council, by a narrow vote of 4-3, approved planning amendments to allow Francis Thomas Contracting (FTC) to use its new septage spreading field in the township.  

Councillors Jennifer Hughey, Jean Neville and Pam Sayne voted against, while Mayor Brent Devolin, Deputy Mayor Lisa Schell, and Councillors Bob Carter and Ron Nesbitt were in favour at the April 25 meeting.  

Approval was for a rezoning and Official Plan (OP) amendments. The OP change must now go to the County of Haliburton. FTC already has approval from the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP). 

FTC controller Joe Cox told The Highlander the company was relieved at the outcome.  However, while the Environmental Compliance Approval (ECA) allowed the company to begin using the field as of May 1, it will hold off pending better conditions. 

 “We’ve still got a few weeks to go before we can really do much of anything,” Cox said on Monday.  

Cox said half-load restrictions on roads means their driver would have to dump every time he pumps out a septic or holding tank. Further, he said the road going into the site is soft.  

The field is located at 866 Bobcaygeon Rd., about 4 kilometres northwest of the village. The MECP has placed 33 conditions in the ECA, and the license is only for two years.

At the council meeting, Councillors Carter, Sayne and Neville expressed concern. Sayne said she thought the MECP had not factored in flood conditions when doing its assessment of the site. She was worried about the effect on neighbouring wells and the municipal drinking water system.  

Neville is worried about the impact on human health, both for FTC’s employees but also the neighbours. She talked about air-borne contaminants.  

“I’d like to know where the Ministry of Health is in this process,” she said. A former health care worker, she described the stringent conditions she worked under. Here, she said it’s a case of “spreading, spraying, dumping hundreds of thousands of litres of things such as feces, urine, blood.”  

Carter admitted he was “conflicted” and called for a 10-minute recess before the vote. He said he felt FTC had followed the law but had concerns about the MECP’s process.

He also wondered what they will be testing for in wells at the site. He wanted council to consider a provisional change to the bylaw and OP.  Planner Ian Clendening said if council were to make such amendments or vote down the planning changes it opened the township to an appeal.

Ultimately, he said the MECP took precedence on the matter. He added that Sayne’s concerns were not a recognized threat by the MECP. 

 “In the end, they [MECP] hold the hammer and will do what they want,” Mayor Brent Devolin said.

He added “I think the due diligence is done.”  

Cox said FTC planned to be a good neighbour.  

“From my mind, obviously we want to do the right thing … even saying that May 1 we’re allowed to spread on the field but knowingly we would be holding off until better or more conditions exist.”

The Bob Lake Association (BLA) came to the April 25 Minden Hills council meeting asking politicians to reopen the discussion about a possible public boat launch on the lake.  

Dave Roberts and Laurent Joncas made a presentation.  

They said the BLA have located what they think is a suitable site although there are complications.  

Their proposed site is on the northeast corner of the same dam property that the historical launch was on. It was closed because the private owner was worried about liability.  

Roberts and Joncas said an estimated five acres would have to be severed from a 54-acre property for a launch.

Access would be from Bob Lake Road, to Loggers Crossing Lane, then it would require 900- feet of newly-constructed road.  

They said the landowner was initially amenable to their plans but has now backed off and they’ve had no contact. They asked if the township would consider expropriating the land.

They further provided a cost estimate of all the work required to re-establish a lunch at just under $150K, including a $24K contingency. 

They’re proposing the money come from municipal tax dollars, a shoreline road allowance reserve account and a special tax levy.  

They also called on council to establish a joint task force to move the portfolio forward.  

Mayor Brent Devolin said the issue has been “complex” and the BLA had given council “lots to digest.”

He said there would be a follow-up report from staff.  Coun. Bob Carter suggested the association buy the land and own the boat launch, but the BLA said that isn’t what they want to do, nor is the land for sale. 

 It was suggested the township talk to the landowner.  

Coun. Pam Sayne wanted a task force struck to immediately deal with the issue, saying the lack of a public boat launch at the site had been going on for too long and she felt council was partially responsible for the issue. Devolin responded that he disagreed with Sayne about responsibility.

With a group 16-bicyclists strong, the Haliburton Real Easy Ryders Cycling Club kicked off from the West Guilford Community Centre April 30.  

The ride was the first of the season for the club, which has traveled along the many roads and trails in the county since 1998. The club rides together every Tuesday and Friday from May until October.  

Recent retiree Russ Duhaime joined the club just before its first ride this year and said it is cool to travel with a group of people who share his passion for the sport.  

“I love the way it de-stresses me,” Duhaime said of cycling. “Whatever problems you have in the world, they go away 20 minutes into a bike ride. People talk about meditation and mindfulness and that all comes naturally through biking.”  

President Robin Bell said the club’s membership is very strong. With more than 70 people registered, the club expects to expand to more than 100 people come the summer.  

The club welcomes all adults but its average age is in the mid-60s, Bell said. He added cycling is a good way for seniors to keep active.  

“It does exercise the big muscles for the legs, it exercises the lungs, the heart. You can go at your own speed,” Bell said.  

But the club is more than about riding bikes. Bell said it is a social experience, with members stopping at the same places to talk, eat and enjoy good company.  

Carolyn Langdon said there are always people you can find to go at your speed.  

“You make friends in the club,” she said. “You can either go for endurance, you can go for speed or you can just choose any type of group that you like within the spectrum.”  

“Some people just go on their bike and go hell-bent,” rider Joan Stoner said. “Some of us just wander around and look at the scenery and love it. It’s a camaraderie.”  

With the season getting started, Langdon said she is glad to hit the trails on her bike again. 

 “The icy snow is off the roads,” she said. “After a long winter, it’s really great to get out.” 

 Information on joining the club is available at haliburtonrealeasyryders.com

When the Abbey Retreat Centre (ARC) board was working towards holding their first cancer retreat in March of 2017, they recognized they needed some front office help.  

Chair Joy Davey wanted someone to do a little bit of paperwork. Member Barb Bolin suggested Donna McCallum, a former CAO of Dysart et al, who was retired.  

“So, I met with Joy and we just clicked,” McCallum said just before officially stepping down from her role as executive director of ARC at a reception on April 14.

New executive director, Doug Norris was formally introduced.  

McCallum, who started the last week of January 2017, said the one thing she told Davey was, “I don’t want to do meetings and I don’t want to do minutes. Guess what?” 

 She did both, and so much more in her more than two years with ARC, taking her part-time paperwork role to a full-fledged executive-director position.  

In an interview with The Highlander, McCallum said she was pleased Norris had been hired.  

“The job outgrew me. I didn’t want to spend 40 hours or more, and that’s what it was taking. In order for the centre to grow, it needed somebody full-time to take on all the extras.”  She said just taking care of the day-to-day operations of the centre did not afford time to get out into the community and that is something Norris can now do.  

The centre offers free cancer retreats for up to 10 people approximately every  two months. To help support that mission, it has added programming, including a speaker series, yoga, and other events aimed at bringing people to the back of the property, as well as revenue to support the cancer retreats.

They cost about $10,000 a weekend.  McCallum said the vision continues to be around making ARC a wellness hub.

They have also recently applied for charitable status and gotten a New Horizons for Seniors grant for their volunteer program. 

 Norris said he wants to educate people that ARC and Abbey Gardens and its food hub are two separate entities, although they both share the grounds with Haliburton Solar and Wind and Haliburton Highlands Brewing. 

He said another thing he would like to do over the next year or two is boost the profile of the retreat centre.  

“The core work is the cancer retreat. Everything else we do drives towards that. But we have to keep enough traffic in the centre, and revenue-generating traffic,” he said. “So, that’s the key mandate for me in year one and two, just to be out there in the community and helping people to understand more about who we are, even as we’re evolving and figuring out exactly what our work is going to be.”  

He said he thinks it’s great that people are associating Haliburton County with a unique program that promotes how people can thrive with cancer.

He added developing a wellness hub that supports a healthy local community also epitomizes the fight against cancer. 

Norris, a United Church minister, has been a Maple Lake cottager for about 14 years and is finishing up a house here. His wife will join him soon.

McCallum, meanwhile, heads back to retirement.  Norris commented on how McCallum’s flexibility has been part of the success story.

“To step in and respond when the need was ‘just to do a little paperwork.’ To carry it through to where the position was an emerging executive director role with that layer of responsibility. And to carry it that far and her willingness to go from that point A to that point B. And what a privilege for me to step in and pick it up on that platform.” 

 McCallum, who’s parting gift was a bursary for retreat participants, said, “I will always feel this was a special time in my life as part of the team that helped to start the Abbey Retreat Centre;   the board, the retreat team, the support staff, the volunteers … all an important part of the team that have given so generously of their time and made the work I did so much easier.”

As rain continues to fall over Minden, Kirsten Monk and Barry Cray remain confident they’ll stay dry and weather the flood of 2019. 

Following flooding two springs ago, the owners of Gordon A. Monk Funeral Home spent more than $50,000 flood-proofing their home on Bobcaygeon Road, adjacent to the Gull River. 

They hoped it would protect the property in the event of another one-in-a-hundred-year flood. However, they’ve now seen three of those in six years. 

“It’s amazing,” says Monk of the work they did with an engineer and builder. They have two concrete reservoirs that the water is drawn into via O pipes. 

The system means the couple has only had to lay a few hundred sandbags this year, compared to 12,000 in 2017. 

“It’s amazing to actually see it work. I feel very secure in what we’ve done,” Monk said. 

Not everyone in the town of Minden Hills has been so fortunate.

So far, there has been only one self-evacuation that the township knows of, but water has crept into homes and numerous roads remain closed. The latest water level management update, issued Tuesday, called for a five-day weather forecast predicting another heavy and widespread rain event with totals as high as 55 mm of precipitation.

“Water levels and flows remain high in northern areas. Most lake levels on the Gull River system are above full and expected to increase as a result of the forecasted rain amounts,” the statement said. Mayor Brent Devolin told The Highlander Tuesday, “We need to watch the 35-55 mm of rain in the next three days.”

He said the levels in Minden may rise again, but probably not to the 271.6 peak levels of last week. Nonetheless, he advises, “Leave sand bagging in place till the declaration is ended.”

More could be done

But Monk and Cray aren’t convinced everything’s been done that could be done. They spent the money to put value back into their business but also because, “We can’t keep living our lives the way we’ve been living every time this happens.”

They weren’t covered by insurance in 2013, and while covered in 2017 paid a $10,000 deductible. Another flood such as this one would have brought a $50,000 deductible. They remortgaged to do the flood-proofing.

“Until the powers that be do the right thing, no one is safe,” Monk said, pointing a finger at Trent-Severn Waterway management. Cray added, “nothing’s been done from 2013 to change the infrastructure of this town, to prevent what’s happening.”

Monk said they’d prefer $12.5 million not be spent on the arena renewal.

“They could still upgrade the arena at a reasonable cost and there would be an awful lot of money to protect people on Invergordon Avenue, Anson, Prince etc.,” she said.

Four years in the making, the new Home Hardware store in Haliburton is nearly ready to open its doors.  

Walker’s Home Hardware is hosting a preview night May 6, with the store open for shoppers the next morning.

The new location on County Road 21 is 16,000 square feet on a four-and-a-half acre property, with increased parking, more floor space and a garden and outdoor centre. 

 Co-owner Dale Walker said the community support for the development has been overwhelming.  

“We get 50 questions a day but it’s all good,” Walker said. “They’re looking forward to an improved shopping experience, better parking. We’re looking for better efficiencies in our work, more products to offer the customers.”  

The development had its challenges, Walker said.

The first phase of the project began in 2017 but hit a year-long snag with the county over a requirement to build a left-turn lane, which the two sides ultimately settled by splitting the costs.  

“With any commercial building, there’s challenges, so we’ve worked through them,” Walker said. “We like to think we’re on the home stretch.”  

New store manager Brian Nelson says it has been hectic getting the new store ready for customers.  

“It’s a big transition. The team is going from an older building with a lot of challenges to a big, bright, modern building,” Nelson said. “It’s very exciting and we want to satisfy the customer. Ultimately, that’s the goal.”  

To help do that, Home Hardware is hosting a preview night, which will offer the public a chance to wine-and-dine inside the new building.

Tickets are $20 for the non-shopping event, with all funds raised going toward the Haliburton Highlands Heath Services Foundation.  

“We wanted to do that to support the hospital,” Walker said. “Without asking for them to buy something. We hope there will be a great crowd and they’ll come out and enjoy the evening.”  

The preview night begins at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are available at Walker’s Home Hardware and the Haliburton Highlands Health Services office.

Grade 8 students at Archie Stouffer Elementary School got a taste of how to cook meals for others with the help of the Minden Food Bank.  

Students capped off a seven-week cooking class by preparing a full meal for their parents April 17.

The course, part of the student’s health curriculum, taught students about meal preparation, kitchen safety and healthy eating.  

Teacher Shannon Blanchard said the program also teaches lessons that go beyond the kitchen.  “It’s been amazing,” Blanchard said. “They’ve made appetizers, main meals, side dishes, desserts. It’s building on those leadership skills (and) team building.”  

Student Ava Allaire said the course has been beneficial.  

“I find I don’t really cook at home and I feel like this course has just given me the opportunity to cook and learn new things,” she said. 

 The Minden Food Bank has been involved in putting on the course with a grant from Feed Ontario for the past three years, according to former community kitchen manager Marilynne Lesperance.

The food bank has used its industrial kitchen to teach students.  

“They’re good. I think they’ve learned a lot and I think most of them have been killing it,” Lesperance said.  

Students did their own shopping to prepare a full meal for their parents, which featured lasagna, Caesar salad, garlic bread, broccoli with cheese sauce and cakes.  

Talus Fox said it would be his first time cooking for his family.  

“It’s exciting for me. It’s like a milestone in my life,” he said.  

Food bank volunteer Betty Mark said she used to teach a home economics class at Archie Stouffer, which is no longer offered. 

 “Since they got rid of the home-ec program, it’s kind of nice to be able to work with kids, teaching them basic life skills,” she said. “Sooner or later, they’re going to have to fend for themselves and a lot of them don’t know how to do that … what we’re hoping to do is provide them with healthy eating options.”  “Everybody needs to eat,” Blanchard said. “We need to know where our food comes from.”