This is shaping up to be a big year for County musician Ryan Van Lee, who has a new single dropping next month, an Ontario-wide tour lined up for the summer and a debut EP in the works.

The country singer has forged a unique path in the music industry over the past decade. Starting out as a cover artist, singing songs made famous by other musicians, Van Lee has been focusing primarily on original content since the successful launch of his debut single, Shot in the Dark, in 2023

Since then, he’s released three more songs he says are close to his heart – Christmas With You in 2024 and both Company and Born to Fly in 2025. The four songs were streamed more than 1.3 million times worldwide on Spotify last year.

“It’s pretty surreal. Last time I checked, my songs had been played in 69 different countries around the world,” Van Lee said. “Someone from Paris messaged me on Instagram recently just to say how much he loved my stuff. That was kind of an ‘I made it’ moment for me.”

His latest effort, Downtown – a collaboration with Orillia-based rock band Bleeker – is coming out March 7. It’s one of three singles Van Lee plans to release this calendar year. He said it tells the story of country boys heading down to the city to show folks how to party.

Having toured all over North America since graduating from Hal High, including popular venues in Florida and Nashville, as well as back home in Canada, Van Lee said he had no idea where the music industry would take him when he started out as kid.

While his chosen instrument is now the guitar, Van Lee started out on the accordion – an inherited love from his grandfather, Lawrence Van Lieshout.

“I was only seven or eight when I started to notice music. My opa was the only musician in the family… we’d play together at Midnight Madness in Haliburton and at old age homes in the area,” Van Lee said. “Then I was entering talent contests and competing against adults – and actually doing really well.”

His life changed when, at 14, his grandmother Sherry Blair took him to see Canadian Country Music Hall of Famer Johnny Burke. Blown away by the musician’s talent, Van Lee said he asked Burke if he’d teach him how to play the guitar.

Initially, Van Lee met with Burke weekly, but that quickly morphed into jam sessions almost every other night. A quick learner, Van Lee told Burke he also wanted to learn how to sing with the best of them.

The first song he played was Jambalaya by Hank Williams, at a local talent show. From there, Van Lee started getting booked for small venues around central Ontario. He’d travel with Burke wherever the hall of famer was playing and would often by invited up on stage. A highlight reel memory was accompanying Burke for his 50th anniversary tribute show.

“They had Little Jim Dickens and George Jones calling in. Terry Sumsion was there with his tour bus, and I ended up sitting on the bus with Johnny, Terry and a couple other music legends just playing the guitar,” Van Lee said. That led to a series of bookings on the country jamboree scene.

Years later, Van Lee reflects on that education fondly. After deciding to get into songwriting in the late 2010s, he said he could feel Burke’s influence flowing through him with each completed piece. With a body of work now behind him, Van Lee said he expects to release his first album this year. He signed with Canada’s CF Management last year to help navigate the next phase of his career.

“This is a bit of a make it or break it year, I’d say. I’m never going to quit until I get to where I want to go, but at this stage of my career this is a very important year,” Van Lee said.

He’ll be back in Haliburton this summer, scheduled to play at Rotary Summerfest Aug. 4. To listen to Van Lee’s music, search his name on all streaming platforms.

Minden Hills author Fay Martin writes to figure out what she is thinking.

The creator of the soon-to-be released Dementia Widow is asked if penning her memoir was therapeutic in the aftermath of her husband Michael’s death in 2020.

“Writing it was very therapeutic. I learned to love him again through writing it because that goes bye bye,” she said in a recent interview.

Martin said she diagnosed Michael in 2005, although it took the medical profession until 2013 to make it formal. One of the themes of her book – about being a caregiver to Michael for 15 years – is her perception of an inadequate diagnosis system.

She said she knew something was wrong because Michael was being a “jerk,” and not behaving like the man she had married. She calls it the eight bad years in the book. She described the behaviour as micromanaging, taking her ideas and adopting them as his own, and being mean to her in private. Once, he told her to shut up in public. There were arguments behind closed doors.

At one point during a stressful family road trip, she pulled the car over, planning to chuck the car keys somewhere and just walk away. It wasn’t the first time she thought about leaving.

“When I figured out he had dementia, I told myself, ‘okay, you have to decide. Are you going to hang in? If you are, you’re going to do a good job. If you’re not, bail now so he’s got time to make arrangements.”

She opted to stay, realizing he was never going to be the husband he had been before. “Kind of like Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech to the World Economic Forum, “the world order has changed. Figure out what you are going to do moving forward, then do it. That is exactly how I felt. I’m not a wife any more, I’m a caregiver. I can do caregiving. I was a mother, a caregiver when he had cancer.

“Once he was assured I was hanging in there for him, to do what was needed to have a last chapter, he settled.”

She said Michael was not completely incapacitated. There was “flickering” or times he was there and times he was not. “As a caregiver, your job is to keep them functioning as well as they can for as long as they can.” She would grieve when realizing something was gone in him, only to have it come back the next day, asking herself what she should be doing to keep that around. “Then it’s gone again. After a while, you think ‘to hell with this grieving bit. I’m just surfing’.”

Michael’s work in those years he retired to his office was to take a song off YouTube and a photo and write a 50-word explanation of what the song meant to him. “He was able to keep care of himself until the week before he died,” Martin said.

Hour of his death

Martin doesn’t shy away from talking about his death. She said Michael’s sister had urged her and Michael’s daughter to recite the Catholic Hail Mary prayer on his death bed at home. She said, as protestants, they practiced beforehand to get the cadence right.

As they said the prayer, Michael asked Fay what was happening. She told him she thought it was the hour of his death.

She said Michael, “just curiously walked over the portal” as if pondering, “what’s through that door? He let go of my hand and stepped through the portal. It was beautiful.” Her goal had been to give him that kind of passing.

Martin did her Bachelor of Fine Arts as she wrote the memoir. She said the book “was to figure out what the hell had happened. The second reason was for other people, “because caregiving for someone with dementia is lonely. I thought if I could do something that would help people who are where I have been feel less lonely, at least say ‘I see you. I’ve been there. I know what you’re going through to some extent’.”

It’s taken about five years to write the memoir. It required going through 46 years of their life together. At one point, the project’s structure required myriad Post-its on a wall.

“That kind of review of your life is cathartic,” Martin said.

As a social worker by training, she was used to writing case histories. She calls her memoir “just an excruciatingly honest single case history.”

That case history will soon be in the hands of readers. The book will be launched at Rails End Gallery March 6, 3-5 p.m.

Martin said she knew the book was ready for consumption after a life-changing trip to the Netherlands with McMaster University and visiting Green Care Homes for people with dementia. Folks in fifth stage dementia were puttering around in their life. She said the homes’ philosophies were: nurture independence, find joy and purpose every day, and live until you die.

“Have I accomplished what I was put on earth to accomplish? Have I done my job? If I have joy and purpose every day, I’m good. When there isn’t, I’m ready to go.”