Time and again, through the fictional Walt, Dan Needles pinpointed exactly our own experience as eager rural neophytes fumbling to absorb the wit and wisdom of our farmer neighbours. The letters were both a hilarious account of Walt’s feckless experiments in farming and a poignant tribute to a way of life that was slowly disappearing.

Fortunately, Dan’s career as a bureaucrat didn’t work out. And in the ’80s, he seized the opportunity to turn his original columns into a one-man play. Since then, Letter from Wingfield Farm has been followed by six more Wingfield plays, and Persephone Township and the town of Larkspur, based on Mono and Shelburne, have become iconic rural Canadian communities. The latest in the series, Wingfield: Lost & Found, opens in Orangeville at the end of this month. And a novelization of all seven plays, Wingfield’s World, was released last fall.

But it isn’t just Wingfield that has kept Dan busy. He has written other plays and novels, and in 2003 he won the Leacock Medal for Humour for his book With Axe and Flask, the History of Persephone Township from Pre-Cambrian Times to the Present. For 15 years he was also the back-page columnist for Harrowsmith Country Life. But Harrowsmith’s sad demise last year was our gain. With this issue, we are very pleased to welcome Dan’s gentle and philosophical humour as a regular column in our pages.

Dan grew up in Rosemont and still has family in Mono, including his mother Dorothy Jane Needles, and sister, Laura Ryan, mayor of Mono. But deeply frustrated by encroaching urbanization, Dan and his wife Heath moved a few miles north to raise their children on a farm in Nottawasaga. Still, we continue to claim him as a native son of these hills and regard his presence in this magazine as a happy homecoming.

Welcome back, Dan.

I am an amateur but enthusiastic naturalist in eastern Ontario. Through the years, I must admit to largely ignoring the trees as I move about among them looking for something of interest. So often our focus at the distance blinds us to what is right in front of us.

“Meetings with Remarkable Trees” (autumn 2011) had a fine selection of photos, and the smaller inserts were a great way to get to know the trees up close. We have an old and expiring tree on our property, which I do talk to from time to time. Don Scallen’s article made me feel that talking to a tree is maybe not as crazy as the rest of my family think it is. I’m guessing he too talks to a tree from time to time. It will be our little secret.

The article reminds me of the Ents (ancient trees) in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. They had a lot of slow-moving wisdom and power, and were great characters in the books. Yes, there is something slow and special about trees, especially big old trees like the ones the article focused on.

Thank you, Don Scallen, for your fine article and for a wonderful reminder to appreciate the trees.

Brian Naulls, Grafton

Energy use question

In your spring 2011 issue’s “Countryside Digest,” you said that Canada is the highest per capita user of energy – 96,000 kWh per person. (You see, we read and re-read your magazine, especially in winter!)

We bought our farm with an oil heater installed in the home, but added a heat pump to improve the environment and save on home heating costs, so we use more electricity than we once did. But the total energy consumption – oil combustion plus electricity – is much reduced.

I must therefore ask whether your figure for energy use per capita included energy generated by carbon-fuel combustion, or if it was limited to electrical energy alone. If the latter, it isn’t quite fair to Canadians with heat pumps.

It is also not fair – and yours is not the only publication that indulges in this – to compare Canadian energy consumption with that of nations with more benign climates. It costs more energy to survive in the North.

Charles Hooker, Orangeville

Editor’s reply: The figure for energy use used in the CPPA Monitor, from which the item was excerpted includes energy from carbon-fuel combustion. Yes, it takes more energy to “survive” in the north.

Tracey and long-time friend.

Spirit of Christmas

I absolutely adored your winter issue cover by Shelagh Armstrong and the accompanying short story “Spirit of Christmas” by John Denison. As a one-horse owner of 35 years (he’s a Morgan, what can I say, he’s as tough as nails!), the cover transported me back to a time when I was a horsestruck young girl still in love with Christmas. The night hues and colours, and the simple majesty of the horses evoked in me the magic of the holidays when I would spend many a Christmas Eve with my beloved friend. Thank you to the artist and author for this gift.

Tracey Holmgren, Mono
Surviving in the north

Tempting Providence

It is so nice to see the struggles of Newfoundland brought to life, and how difficult life was on the island. Being of the younger generation from Newfoundland, I have experienced hard times, but not to the extent of the earlier years. I sit and listen to the older generation talk and tell stories about how it used to be, and often wonder how in God’s name they even survived. I guess it just makes us the proud people we are today!

Peter Yetman, Brampton

Massey Chapel window

Stained glass window by Rosemary Kilbourn.

Thank you for the prominent inclusion of the window in the letter from Paul Aird (winter 2011). There is, however, a problem in his attributing the window to me. It is not an uncommon mistake in a medium where the design and execution can be done by different people.

In this case there is a plaque that states, “The stained glass is dedicated to the memory of Alice and Vincent Massey … The design symbolizing the Masseys’ love of Canadian nature was created and given to Hart House by Will Ogilvie who also painted the mural in the chapel. The stained glass work was done by Rosemary Kilbourn in the studio of Yvonne Williams.”

Will Ogilvie, who at that time was also living “in the hills,” gave the full-size drawing of the window to me, to choose the glass and paint it with the iron oxide and gum medium which is fired into the glass. This gives the lines of the drawing the tone and movement over the surface, which simply carry out and re-emphasize the original design.

My own work in glass looked quite different, and I include a picture of a small window done at about the same time. It illustrates some lines from T.S. Eliot: “When the tongues of flame are infolded / Into the crowned knot of fire / And the fire and the rose are one.”

Will Ogilvie is well known for his wonderful and unique watercolours of Georgian Bay, among other things, and the window includes some of the birds, flowers, frogs and insects that he encountered there.

Again, you have a very interesting collection of articles in a beautiful format. We are very fortunate to have this way of connecting with neighbours who would otherwise be unknown to many of us.

Rosemary Kilbourn, Caledon

Green Gravel

“Green Gravel” by Tim Shuff (autumn 2011) is a cogent and clearly written article on the issues that surround aggregate extraction in Ontario. It offers some hope for reducing the current high level of conflict between proponents and communities. The SERA principles he describes include “the environmental and water impacts and site stewardship,” but they fail to address the disproportionate impact of super-sized aggregate developments.

Highland Farms is applying to mine a colossal 2,400 acres in Melancthon. It beggars belief that the net effects of larger and larger industrial developments do not have a profound social and environmental impact on the community.

In the Town of Caledon, from Kennedy Road in Caledon Village to the town border at Winston Churchill Blvd, there is corridor of 3,800 acres of licensed quarries and pits, with another 200 acres of proposed pits seeking licences, as well as 600 acres of properties amassed by gravel operators for which licences have not yet been applied. Taken together, the collective mass of operating mines in this part of Caledon is potentially 4,600 acres.

In 2007, a study funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council reported that Caledon contained the “largest series of gravel pits in North America.” When is the cumulative impact of progressively larger industrial developments too much? This needs to be addressed before we continue adding acreage to mega sites like this.

Our community organization, REDC, People for Responsible Escarpment Development Caledon, is preparing to challenge one of the newest licence applications for a property which abuts existing operations, the McComick Pit on Heart Lake Rd, a 75-foot-below-the-water-table proposition.

In recent geological maps of our area, our conservation authority no longer bothers to distinguish between the few modest natural lakes and the numerous acres of pit lakes which result when the aquifer is permanently breached during mining operations. Nowadays, all are “lakes.” The irony of the Forks of the Credit Provincial Park dividing a wasteland of mines stripped of biodiversity is not lost on those of us who live here. Nor that our region in the Niagara Escarpment is recognized by UNESCO as a World Biosphere Reserve, a precious world resource equal to the Serengeti, but obviously not as valuable as gravel.

Size and cumulative impact need to be addressed if the SERA Green Certification audit process is to be truly constructive.

Christine Shain, President, REDC
People for Responsible Escarpment Development Caledon Inc.

Editor’s note: At the request of Councillor Richard Paterak, the Town of Caledon has prepared a map showing the Greenbelt Plan, Oak Ridges Moraine and Niagara Escarpment planning areas, as well as aggregate resource and aggregate reserve lands in the municipality. Paterak notes that the 4,800 acres referenced in this letter represent to gross acreage owned by aggregate companies; however, not all the acreage is licensed.

Online In The Hills

We welcome your comments! For more commentary from our readers, or to add your own thoughts on any of the stories, please add a comment at the bottom of any article. You can also send your letters by e-mail to sball@inthehills.ca or use our handy submission form. Please include your name, address and contact information. In the Hills reserves the right to edit letters for publication.

“A massive store of clean, renewable energy, the ‘hot rocks’ that are close to the surface in Western and Northern Canada, could generate more electricity than the country now consumes. This was the finding of a recent report on geothermal energy by 12 scientists for the federal Geological Survey of Canada.

“‘Canada’s in-place geothermal power exceeds one million times Canada’s current electrical consumption,’ the report asserts. The heat is closest to the surface in large swaths of British Columbia, Alberta, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, but exists in substantial amounts all across Canada.

“The report points out that geothermal has distinct advantages over not only fossil fuels and nuclear energy, but also wind, solar and biofuels, since the planet’s internal heat is available 24 hours a day, year-round.” From Montreal Gazette, quoted in the CCPA Monitor, Dec/11-Jan/12.

Gee Haw

“Oxen are not harnessed and guided by reins as are horses. The team of two is connected by a simple handmade wooden yoke. They are guided by voice command, the position and movement of the driver, and the occasional persuasion (or distraction) of a goad stick, a light stick with a switch at the end.” From The Canadian Organic Grower, Winter/12.

Vive Le Vermont Libre

“The Second Vermont Republic arose from the statewide anti-war protests in 2003. It embraces a left-wing populism that makes it unique among the national movements, which usually veer more toward Ron Paul libertarianism. The Vermont movement, like the Texas and Alaska movements, is well organized. It has a bimonthly newspaper called the Vermont Commons, which champions sustainable agriculture and energy supplies based on wind and water, and calls for locally owned banks that will open lines of credit to their communities. Dennis Steele, running for governor as a secessionist, runs Radio Free Vermont, which gives venue to Vermont musicians and groups, as well as being a voice of the movement. Vermont, like Texas, was an independent republic, but on March 4, 1791, voted to enter the union. Supporters of the Second Vermont Republic commemorate the anniversary by holding a mock funeral procession…” From The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress, by Chris Hedges, Nation Books, 2011.

Ig Nobel

“The literature prize went to retired Stanford University professor John Perry for his eloquent explanation of ‘structured procrastination.’ As he writes at structuredprocrastination.com, ‘the procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something even more important.’” From New Scientist, Oct 8/11.

Hello?

“According to the wireless trade group CTIA, there are now 327.6 million active phones, tablets, and laptops on cellular networks in the U.S. That compares with 315 million women, men, girls, boys, and infants populating the country, including Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands.” From CCPA Monitor, Dec/11-Jan/12.

Passing Thought

“In dutifully reconstructing past thought, I have tried always to remember a simple truth about the past that the historically inexperienced are prone to forget. Most people in the past either died young or expected to die young, and those who did not were repeatedly bereft of those they loved, who did die young. Consider the case of my favourite poet, the Jacobean master John Donne, who lived to the age of fifty-nine… In the space of sixteen impecunious years, Anne Donne bore her husband twelve children. Three of them, Francis, Nicholas and Mary, died before they were ten. Anne herself died after giving birth to the twelfth child, which was stillborn. After his favourite daughter Lucy had died and he himself had very nearly followed her to the grave, Donne wrote his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1625), which contains the greatest of all exhortations to commiserate with the dead: ‘Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’” From Civilization: The West and the Rest, by Niall Ferguson, Penguin Press, 2011.

Weather Vanes

“The simple weather vane was once an instrument of war? So it seems. ‘Originally fabric pennants were used to show medieval archers the direction of the wind,’ tells Alfred Denninger, who custom crafts modern weather vanes in Theodosia, Mo. ‘The word “vane” comes from the Anglo-Saxon word “fane” meaning flag.’” From Homestead, Winter/11.

Holy Typo

“The Authorized Version (as the King James Bible of 1611 came to be known) stands alongside the plays of William Shakespeare among the greatest works of English literature. The team of 47 scholars who produced it were let down by the royal printers only once. The 1631 edition – known as ‘the Wicked Bible’ – omitted the word ‘not’ from the commandment ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’” From Civilization: The West and the Rest, by Niall Ferguson, Penguin Press, 2011.

Young Michael Moore

“For some reason, I never found my way to the path called ‘normal.’ And it was a good thing science and business had not yet conspired to invent ways to sedate and desensitize a little soul like mine. It’s one of the few times I thank God for growing up in the ignorant and innocent fifties and sixties. It would still be a few years before the pharmaceutical community would figure out how to dope up a toddler like me and have the teachers send me off to the ‘time-out room.’” Michael Moore in his autobiography, Here Comes Trouble, Grand Central Publishing, 2011.

Sure

“No evidence exists that aliens have ever ‘contacted or engaged any member of the human race,’ nor is there evidence that life exists ‘outside our planet.’ So said the White House in response to two petitions this week calling on the US government to admit to any contact with aliens.” From New Scientist, 12 Nov/11.

This spring, she is mounting a one-day exhibition with three guest artists, on Saturday, April 21 at Monora Park Pavilion on Hwy 10, just north or Orangeville. taraimerson.ca

For the past 30 years I’ve made a living writing about rural Ontario, which is a bit odd considering I am an immigrant to this sideroad I call home. I’m an American immigrant for my sins. I am descended from two families of peasant farmers who fled across the Atlantic in the 1600s in search of free land, and spent the next three centuries roaming North America trying to figure out some way to get off the land and into some employment that offered a decent living.

My mother’s family succeeded first, in the farm implement business near Port Hope, Ontario. Hay fever drove my father’s father off an Iowa corn farm in 1912, across the border and into the tire business in Kitchener. Business was so good for both families that my parents were eventually able to give up gainful employment and turn to the theatre. Then, when we were reasonably comfortable and settled in a big house in the city with indoor plumbing and an oil furnace, my mother decided to buy another farm. It’s been a struggle ever since.

In 1955, Mother drove an hour north of the city to Dufferin County and bought a hundred acres of treeless hills that had been chewed down to the quick by sheep for more than a century. A rabbit could not have lived off that farm unless it had a job in town. The other farms on the concession road weren’t much better off. The township had been steadily losing population since the agricultural depression of the 1890s and most of the old farmhouses hadn’t seen new shingles or a coat of paint in living memory.

But there was something very attractive about that old rural community. I loved the way the neighbours worked together and played together. It had a marvellous talent for making its own fun and it had a wonderful way of pulling together in a crisis, like a death or a fire.

Theatre people are not typically much interested in children. My parents turned me out to free-range at an early age to roam the hills of Mono Township with a pony and a .22 rifle. I was adopted by a group of hard-living cattle farmers who instructed me in the ancient art of hand rolling a cigarette and driving fast on dirt roads. By the time my education was complete, the painstaking work of my ancestors had been completely undone. The city grew quickly past my powers to comprehend it. I bought my own farm, married a farm girl from the next township, and settled down to a view of Georgian Bay  and the life of a hunter-gatherer, or “freelancer,” to use the ancient Ojibway term.

Biologists tell us that edge communities, where the savannah meets the rainforest or the meadow meets the woodlot, produce the greatest diversity of species. These junction zones often contain species of each of the overlapping communities as well as some species that have become adapted specifically for living in these zones. If you’re looking for surprises in biology, this is where you’ll find it.

Living in an edge community, where the town meets the country. Illustration Shelagh Armstrong.

This publication speaks to one of those edge communities, where the town meets the country. Here we find a colourful assortment of people who, chances are, have a foot in both camps and have learned to live by their wits. They are an interesting combination of the sophisticated and the practical. They might listen to Mozart while they blow snow. They go to potluck suppers and trade seed catalogues. They use the old community hall for sustainable food breakfasts and take cappuccino makers on deer hunts.

I may be a “blow-in” myself, but my wife is as native to these hills as a hawthorn root. All the men in her family limp from some encounter with a cow. She’s related to everyone between Highway 7 and Georgian Bay. My sons complain that before they ask a girl out, they have to call their grandmother to see if it’s all right. She belongs to an extended network of women who were raised on a 100-yard diet and can amuse themselves in an open field. CSIS can only wish they knew as much about what happens in this neighbourhood.

For this writer and for this moment at least, the great migration has finally come to a halt.

I am at home.

One of the stranger events to become an annual fixture in these hills is the Great Canadian Worm Charming Championship. The day-long festivities include music, dancing, kite flying, food, and above all, a competition to entice as many worms as possible from the soil.

Each wormer and their two “gillies” have 45 minutes to charm worms from a three-metre-square plot. Methods may include fiddling, grunting, vibrating, or any other form of worm attraction, as long as no worms are harmed. All the wrigglers are returned to pursue their subterranean activities after the event.

The team that gathers the most worms is awarded the Canadian Worm Charming Championship, and the title of Great Canadian Wormer goes to the charmer who finds the heaviest specimen (the record so far is 7.o4 grams). There’s also a prize for the Most Curious Wormers, the team with the most unusual method or costume.

Charles Darwin calculated there are 53,767 earthworms per acre, aerating and fertilizing the soil as they burrow away. So this competition should be easy, right?

Hosted by the Shelburne Lions, the event takes place Saturday, June 2 in Shelburne’s Fiddle Park. To register a team, go to wormcharming.ca.

Must plant

Planting a tree is not only good for the planet, it’s also a great way get some fresh air, exercise and meet your neighbours. This spring there are several opportunities to make tree planting a communal celebration.

To launch Earth Week on April 21, Orangeville and Credit Valley Conservation invite volunteers for a morning of tree planting and cleaning up along a tributary of Mill Creek. Meet at 9am at Broadway Pentecostal Church, work hard, then enjoy a free barbecue lunch hosted by the Lions Club (orangeville.ca).

Also on April 21, in Caledon, the Bolton Horticultural Society has teamed up with Toronto and Region Conservation for a similar morning of digging and planting as part of a multi-year naturalization project on the Humber. Meet at 10am at the pumping station on Old King Rd, off King St. E.

Then on May 12, you can do it all again at the Caledon Creek community tree planting, hosted by the Town and Ontario Streams. Meet at 9am at the end of Giles Rd in Caledon Village.

And if you want to add a few trees to your own property, visit the tree and shrub seedling sale in Primrose on April 28, when the Dufferin South Simcoe Land Stewardship Council is offering a wide variety of bare-root seedlings (6-16 inches) for sale at $10 to $12 for a bundle of 10. Bring your own container and be there early for the best choice. The sale starts at 9am on a first-come, first-served basis (dufferinmuseum.com/forest).

Must adopt

If you have a barn, you may need a cat, the most reliable mouse and rat catcher there is – with no poisons involved. And Brampton Animal Services may have just the cat for you. Its innovative “Barn Program” offers neutered, dewormed and vaccinated felines to suitable rural situations at no charge (though a donation is appreciated). The cats are socialized, but otherwise deemed “poor house adoption candidates,” because they’ve previously lived outdoors. Furthermore, if the cat doesn’t work out, you can return it to the shelter. To apply for a cat, complete the questionnaire at brampton.ca/animalservices.

Must switch off

Orangeville is embracing both Earth Hour and Earth Week with a host of activities to celebrate and promote the health of our planet and local environment.

As millions of people world-over prepare to turn out their lights for one hour on March 31, the town will get into the spirit with a free swim at 6:30pm at the Alder Street Recreation Centre, followed at 7pm by various activities, entertainment and a free barbecue at Westside Secondary School. The final countdown begins at 8:29pm, followed by an hour of acoustic music while the lights are dimmed.

The town’s Earth Week festivities, April 21 to 28, include a tree photography contest, an elementary school poster contest, displays, raffles and book exchange. A highlight of the week will be the annual presentation of the town’s Sustainability Awards (nominations close March 30).

For a full list of Earth Week activities, see orangeville.ca. And for information about Earth Week celebrations across the country, see earthday.ca.

Superintendent Miss Barclay and the first class of student nurses in front of Lord Dufferin Hospital, First Street, Orangeville, in spring, 1913. The hospital had been opened in 1912 in the former Kearns home by the IODE, after five years of fundraising. They had planned to give it to the County of Dufferin, but the gift was declined, so they operated it themselves until 1924. DCMA photo P-3344.

Must celebrate 100

It’s been a hundred years since the Lord Dufferin Hospital opened in Orangeville, and as part of the anniversary celebrations, Headwaters Health Care Centre is looking back at a century of medical service with a year-long series of exhibitions of photographs and artifacts. Presented with the assistance of Dufferin County Museum and Archives, the first exhibit, now on display in the hospital lobby, covers 1907 to 1923 and highlights the work of the IODE in founding the hospital and nursing school, along with photos of some of its first staff and physicians. The second display will span the years from 1924 to 1953, with the final from 1954 to the present.

Must identify

A walk in the woods is grand, but it’s a lot more fun if you know what you’re looking at.

To help you do just that, the Dufferin South Simcoe Land Stewardship Council is hosting two walks and talks at the Little Tract of Dufferin County Forest (938130 Airport Rd, north of Mansfield). The first, on May 26, focuses primarily on wildflowers, and the second, on June 2, on trees. Both start at 9am.

And if you’re inclined to nibble on any of the plants you see, you might also want to attend the council’s presentation on edible and medicinal plants. It’s presented by master herbalist Lisa Yates, at the Mono Community Centre in Mono Centre at 9:30am on June 9. For details and to register for any of the council events, go to dufferinmusum/forest, or call 705-435-1881.

Edible and medicinal plants are also the subject of a presentation hosted by the Upper Credit Field Naturalists with Meaford-based naturalist and tracker Alexis Burnett. It’s on April 24 at 7:30pm at the Seniors’ Centre, 26 Bythia St, Orangeville.

The evening light streamed into the simple building through enormous doors that open onto the Island Lake, reflecting on the near mirror-like water. I was lucky. Normally, rowers rise at the crack of dawn to get such calm conditions. I asked Cathy if you need to be a morning person to love this sport.

“When I told my husband I wanted to row and that I had to be here at 5:45 three times a week,” Cathy explained, “he just started laughing.” But it took her only three days to become addicted to the sport. Moreover, her three sons were soon getting up early to row too – and all of them carried on to be varsity rowers at university.

Long, sleek rowing “shells” are truly sensuous boats. They make a kayak or canoe seem like an awkward second cousin. They are pretty tippy too. Fortunately, the double Cathy and I would take out was a “tubby” one, good for training because of its relative stability.

Brent said he lived in Orangeville for several years before he discovered the rowing club. When he finally did, he quickly became enamoured with the sport. “Coming out here every morning is like waking up at a cottage,” he explained. “Sunrise, nature around you. It’s amazing. It gives you a reason to go to work.”

Brent pointed out the parts of the shell, which are straightforward except the stern is the bow and the bow is the stern, because you row backwards. Riggers hold the long oars, and oarlocks keep them in place. There is a small seat that moves back and forth on slides or rails. The moving seat allows rowers to use their legs as well as their arms. “Despite what most people think,” Cathy explained, “rowing is 80 per cent legs and only 20 per cent arms.”

Brent and Cathy advised me to be very careful with the boat. Our Swift recreational was worth about $5,000, which is expensive enough, but not nearly as costly as the bigger composite-carbon-fibre racing boats that can put you back $15,000 or more.

Cathy climbed deftly aboard, fit her feet into the shoes attached to the boat and picked up her oars. In the “catch” position, Cathy was scrunched up at the front of the stroke, with her knees tucked under her chin. Holding the oars, her hands were well out in front and the oar blades back behind. As she dipped the oars into the water, she straightened her legs, the seat slid back and she pulled her hands into her rib cage until the oar blades were out in front. Then she raised both oars and slid forward to the catch position. It sounds complicated and, indeed, it does take co-ordination.

Rowing is a highly technical sport. “It’s only one stroke,” Cathy explained, “but you spend years perfecting it.” It’s all about how you use your legs, how quickly you pull the oar out of the water and feather it, how you keep time with your fellow rowers.

Then it was my turn. I put both feet in the centre of the boat and managed to sit down. Using only one oar, I tried a few strokes. By then, we were about 40 minutes into my condensed lesson, and it was time to push off. Cathy, who sat in the stern of our shell, that is, in front of me, began to stroke and I followed as best I could. “Keep your wrists flat,” Brent advised from his coach boat. “Curl your wrists when feathering the oars. Make sure you use your legs first, then your arms.”

It was a lot to take in. But I managed to get the stroke down enough so I got a sense of the rhythm of the sport. The water was dead calm and I snuck a peek at John, a rowing club member who was out on his single. Silhouetted by the evening sun, his boat skimmed the water. Quiet, calm, peaceful.

Dawn casts a golden glow on Island Lake rowers, from bow to stern, Brent Kane, Ken Norris, Bryan Corlett, Jack Lacrooy, Shane Curry, Steve Fisher, Aleks Lietz , Richard Reid, and coxie Janet Reid. Photo by Rosemary Hasner.

The club has about 250 members; 120 of them are high school students from either Mayfield or Orangeville District secondary schools. These keeners arrive early. The Mayfield students are there between 5:30 and 7 a.m., followed by those from ODSS. The club is well equipped with rowing shells, coach boats and coaches. And it has numerous programs that cater to rowers of all abilities, including people with disabilities. Its Learn-to-Row programs involve either a weekend-long course (June 23 and 24) or you can opt to attend six sessions on Tuesday and Thursday mornings or evenings during July.

Cathy noted that most of their active members are women in their late 30s and early 40s who can get away for a few hours because their kids are a little older. “They are looking for something they can do that is just for them.”

The Island Lake Rowing Club is also turning out some accomplished rowers. Cam Sylvester, the young Olympian who grew up in Caledon, began his rowing career on Island Lake. In 2011, Matthew Wortley, who rowed on Island Lake during high school, won gold in the under 23 division of the National Rowing Championships. Cathy and her crew competed in the charity program of the Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston (known as the Wimbledon of rowing competitions in North America). And women’s Olympic team member Sarah Bonikowsky trains here when she’s home in Mono,

I had a wonderful evening on the lake. The sport obviously requires technical skill, fitness and team effort. I’m not sure that I would take to the early mornings with Cathy’s zeal, but I could certainly spend long hours getting the flow of the stroke as my shell skimmed the water and the sun climbed up over a wakening Orangeville.

The house Curtis and Jane Van Dyken rented and used as the basis for their business when they arrived in south Caledon in the mid-1970s once sat next to the barn. About 12 years later, they bought the land next door, built a modest home and have lived in it ever since. Far in the distance, the sun reflects on the low rising hills of the Oak Ridges Moraine. Evening birds hop from tree to field and back again. It’s a peaceful meditative place despite the steady hum of cars charging home on The Gore Road.

“The first number of years it was pretty rough,” Jane tells me. “But since 1979, we haven’t had a bad year.” Those are unusual words from a Caledon farm family, especially one that raised 13 children (nine boys and four girls) almost entirely on the proceeds from the 40 acres they own and about 60 more they rent near the corner of The Gore Road and Castlederg Sideroad. A first-generation Canadian of Dutch descent, their 29-year-old son Paul shares the house with his parents, his wife Anita and two young sons. The only one of the Van Dyken children to do so, he farms full time with his dad during the summer and helps out on neighbouring farms when the snow flies.

“We grow vegetables on about 40 acres each year,” Paul explains. The rest of the acreage is in rotation.

The Van Dyken family, from left : Curtis and Jane, Derek, 18, Joanna, 15, Nathan, 10, Miriam, 20, Paul’s wife Anita holding Jayden, 9 months, and Paul holding David, 22 months. Photo by Pete Paterson.

Peas come up first in late May or early June. One of their early customers is Palgrave United Church. It serves Van Dyken peas at its annual Thanksgiving turkey dinner. “I know it’s pea-podding time when Wimbledon comes on,” says Palgrave resident Gail Grant, who is also an avid tennis player. According to Barb Imrie, a dinner organizer, they hold a “pea bee” during which five people spend about three hours podding the candy-like vegetables before they are frozen and stored for the fall dinner.

In addition to five acres of peas, the Van Dykens grow about 12 acres of tomatoes, 10 of beans (romano, white, cannellini, green, snap and flat green beans), five or six of rapini, four of eggplants, three and a half of peppers, one and a half of onions, and an acre of melons and watermelons, as well as some cucumbers and squash.

If there seems to be a theme to these vegetables, it’s not just a question of what will grow on their productive land; it’s what the mostly city folk who frequent their farm want. Jane says, “Eighty per cent of our customers are Italian.”

While at the Van Dykens, I run into Vito and Faelicia Crispo who are picking a bushel of late-season rapini. Pointing to the rundown barn, Vito tells me, “We’ve been picking the Van Dykens’ vegetables since they lived in the house that used to sit next to that old barn.” In response to my query, Faelicia gives me detailed instructions on how to prepare and store the bitter Italian delicacy that overflows their bushel baskets. Then she explains that while her family loves rapini, it’s the tomatoes that really draw them to the Van Dykens’.

Like hundreds of others, Vito and Faelicia arrive not long after dawn on “tomato opening day” in mid-August. “You have to come really early in the morning on that day and line up for the tomatoes,” Vito tells me. “Some days, cars are backed up right out to the road,” he adds, pointing in the direction of The Gore Road, which must be a kilometre away. “We get a whole row of tomatoes to ourselves,” Faelicia brags.

What is especially alluring about the Van Dykens’ tomatoes is their Nova variety of San Marzano tomatoes. “They make really good tomato paste,” Paul says. “The seeds are not sold commercially, so we keep our own seeds.”

San Marzano tomatoes

If you have never heard of San Marzano tomatoes, then you likely aren’t Italian. With more than one website dedicated to San Marzanos, you know they are popular. As one site puts it: “As the most famous plum tomato for making sauce, the San Marzano is preferred by gourmet chefs and cooks all over the world. Foodies and connoisseurs, to put it politely but accurately, are fanatical about certified San Marzano tomatoes.”

The Van Dykens grow about 15 varieties of four types of tomatoes, including small and long San Marzanos, romas and beefsteaks. Paul’s young wife Anita says the bushel and a half of tomatoes she processed in the fall will last her family the winter.  She’s more impressed with her mother-in-law who turned an astounding eight bushels of them into soup and juice. I wonder how Curtis and Jane could consume that many tomatoes before remembering that Paul is only the sixth of 13 children. Jane has several more still at home. In all, her kids range in age from 38 to 10. Moreover, this petite, youthful woman homeschooled them all. “We do love children,” she tells me.

I ask Jane if her family is ever tempted to sell their land. “No,” is her simple response. I ask if they have problems with their increasingly urban neighbours. Paul admits that when they spread a bit of composted manure, they are sometimes asked what the funny smell is, but that’s it.

With the Oak Ridges Moraine section of the Greenbelt cutting through only the northern tip of their land, the Van Dykens live in a strip of Southern Ontario known as the “white belt.” People figure it will all be developed one day as the Greater Toronto Area bulldozes north. Anita quips, “Pretty soon we’ll have paved sidewalks.” But the Van Dykens know that for their pick-your-own vegetable business and the largely urban clientèle it serves, paved sidewalks aren’t such a bad thing.

Constable and entrepreneur Win Hand, described as “tall enough to pick the caps off telegraph poles,” became a legend in his own time. This controversial character’s legacy to these hills still stands in Mulmur’s Stanton Hotel, but it too may disappear.

Orangeville’s weekly Police Court in the 1870s had to be the best show in town. There were the usual nefarious types of course, almost always facing charges of drunkenness or brawling. Often both. Some of them were so “usual” they even had courtroom nicknames. Two well-known regulars, for example, a pair of “Joes,” Joe Agnew and Joe Coolihan, were distinguished as “The Orangeville Bruiser” and “The Donnybrook Rooster.”

A number of different magistrates presided on the bench, but a spectator favourite was Fisher Munro, whose habit of drifting off to sleep between, or during, cases was a subject for pool betting. Police Chief Wilkins, who filled the role of court officer, was wont to summon the various accused with phrases such as, “Come forward, you blackguard!” – making clear just where he stood on the principle that justice is blind.

And looming high above all the proceedings was Constable Win Hand. At six feet, five-and-a-half inches tall, he was impossible to ignore, not just because of his unusual height and his very long arms, but because he was often the arresting officer. Except for those cases, not at all rare, in which he was the accused!

A rough and ready style

Newspaper accounts and court records suggest Win Hand’s philosophy of law enforcement did not lean to patient negotiation or citizens’ rights. Whether his dubious fame as a brawler was well earned or the result of bad luck is unclear, but somehow his arrests were rarely easy ones.

In April 1878, for example, he was sent to Ballycroy to bring in Messrs. Bloomer and McMaster, two hotelkeepers determined to resist Orangeville justice. Win himself had been a well-known hotelkeeper – much more on that later – but that didn’t secure him any favours from this pair. They set a couple of savage dogs on him, then jumped him from ambush and fought so hard that Win had to retreat. The arrest was completed only after he returned with a posse gathered up in Orangeville and Mono Mills.

A year earlier, in May of 1877, Win had collared a hobo near the railway station, normally an easy task because these worthies often welcomed a dry bed and a few meals at municipal expense. But this one fought so savagely that Win received a bloody nose and needed the help of five citizens to drag the offender to jail. Just days later Win’s uniform was torn and his arm broken as he served a warrant on one M. Leeson. Typical of cases involving Win, the allotment of blame was debatable. The slugfest arose only after Leeson, reasonably enough, insisted on seeing the warrant, a step in the process that Win felt was entirely superfluous.

Altogether, 1877 was not a great year for Win. In addition to being on the receiving end of some rough blows, he was also convicted for delivering them. He was fined four dollars plus costs for assaulting a citizen at the Orangeville Fair. According to the Orangeville Sun, when the decision was delivered from the bench, the “swarthy” chief “raised himself on tip-toe, and with his face beaming with Irish humour, whispered, ‘Bedad, Win, but ye held a loosin’ hand.’”

Not long after that, Win was twice more brought to court and convicted of abusing his role as the town’s bailiff (a co-appointment he held with constable). It seems that while discharging the prescribed duties of debt collection and court-directed property seizure, he had a habit of extorting an additional “fee” from the offenders.

All in the Family?

In a letter to the editor of the Northern Advance, dated January 9, 1868, the writer – who signed himself “Pro Bono Publico” (on behalf of the people) – stated that he went to a council meeting in Mulmur Township to see for himself if these meetings were as wild and raucous as reported. He found the rumours to be true for the meeting ended in a mighty brawl involving three brothers: Deputy Reeve Win Hand, Reeve Thomas Hand and Councillor William Hand.

Right : There are no known photos of Win Hand, but this image of his brother Thomas, older than Win by 10 years, appeared in the Shelburne Free Press in 1892. Thomas was a Mulmur councillor for three years and reeve for seven. Their father William was one of the township’s first settlers and served as a councillor for six years.

Were Win and Orangeville a “wild west” combination?

Although Win’s rambunctious arrest stories, along with his size and style, always made great news copy, Orangeville was actually generally peaceable, perhaps even more so in Win’s absence. Case in point: In early June 1878, Win left town for a few weeks. That same month, council suspended Chief Wilkins for refusing to do road repairs. Without any police service, Orangeville was theoretically vulnerable to a crime spree. Yet records show the sole disruption of community harmony was more pigs than usual wandering and wallowing on Broadway.

But the town seemed to feel more delight than censure with regard to Win’s escapades. Although the Orangeville Sun almost always described him as “ever ready to take part in a row or ruction,” when he returned that June to take up his constabulary duties, the paper literally gushed a “welcome back.”

Later that year, when he left town for good and moved to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, there was genuine regret in Orangeville at the loss of its unusual policeman. That regret turned to anguish when news came he had been killed (in a fight, of course), then just as quickly to relief when the story turned out to be false.

Ann Hand, b. Orangeville, 1871 – d. Michigan, 1956. Win’s sixth child may have inherited the colourful genetics of the family. She was married seven times and had but two children, the first of these by an eighth man she never married.

Many years later, an article on the front page of the Sault’s Evening News indicates there was a softer side to the man. In January 1910, the paper paid tribute to his 50 years of “married tranquility” (to Catherine Bradley of Mulmur, with whom he had nine children). It quotes Win as saying that in those five decades he “never had a row with the woman of his choice.”

Even in Michigan though, Win’s legend continued to build. In Sault Ste. Marie (where he lived until his death in 1913), he immediately became a policeman again. Apparently the change in venue did nothing to modify his constabulary style. Over the next many years, the Evening News was filled with enthusiastic reportage of his rough and tumble arrests and, as in Orangeville, convictions for assault.

There was something else that didn’t change. Win Hand knew how to make a buck. In addition to his policeman’s salary he earned a stipend as a fire warden, ran the city’s dog pound, and earned money on the side as an auctioneer and proprietor of a cigar store. The only thing he did not transplant from Dufferin to the Sault was his considerable experience as a builder, developer, renovator/flipper, and manager of hotels. And herein lies what is arguably Win Hand’s most interesting contribution to Dufferin County: hotels. He was involved in a number of them in Orangeville and beyond, but the one that stands out is the hotel he built in Stanton.

Win’s Hotel Legacy

In January 1871, two men were arrested at Orangeville’s Royal Hotel by Constable Hand – who also happened to be the hotel’s owner. That coincidence did not raise an eyebrow in the community. In addition to his high profile as a policeman, Win was already both well established and well regarded as a hotelman. Over just a few years in the 1870s, while employed as the town’s constable, he had bought, operated and sold not just the Royal, but the Dominion House and the Marksman, as well as the Prince of Wales in nearby Primrose.

His first hotel, however, the one that launched this side of his colourful career, was in the village of Stanton in Mulmur Township. In 1863, with the help of his family, he constructed the building that still stands today on Airport Road. And although the tales about this lanky constable with the extremely long arms contribute much colour to local history, the Stanton Hotel is Win Hand’s most important legacy.

In 1863, when the hotel was completed, Win was just 23 years old. Although Mulmur already had eight licensed establishments for a population of mere hundreds, Win was granted a liquor licence, called a “shop licence,” for his new building.

(It probably helped that the Hand family was prominent in the township. In about 1837, Win’s father, William, was one of the first settlers and later served as a township councillor for six years. Win’s older brother, Thomas, a councillor for three years and reeve for seven, held office in 1863 when Win applied.)

The new Stanton Hotel was no ordinary enterprise. Its size and potential is evident in the fact that Win’s shop licence (takeout only) was upgraded to a tavern licence (full- service inn) the very next year. Yet Win did not stay in Stanton for long. Although the hamlet was growing and stagecoach traffic increasing as the northern part of the township opened up, he soon leased out the operation. By 1870, he had made his move to Orangeville.

He sold the Stanton hotel outright in 1873 and got out of the hotel business in Orangeville at about the same time. It turned out to be a shrewd move. By the early 1880s hotels across these hills, indeed across Canada, disappeared en masse as Prohibition took hold.

The Stanton Hotel was licensed for the last time in 1876. By 1880, Mulmur assessment rolls show the building was occupied by carpenters. However, unlike the vast majority of Ontario hotels built in the 19th century, and all the 19th-century hotel buildings in Mulmur, the former Stanton Hotel still stands.

And because it does, and because it represents a history and heritage unique in Ontario, the controversial spirit of Win Hand remains in these hills. Under the mantra of “progress and traffic safety,” authorities have determined the Stanton Hotel should come down, while heritage supporters are equally determined it must be preserved.

Somewhere, Win Hand must be smiling at all the brouhaha.