Smile on your brother

We like to think that every issue of this magazine helps to contribute something to our spirit of place, to shed some light on the arts, heritage and environment that define these hills we call home. But it’s become something of a tradition for our winter issue to turn our focus almost exclusively on the people who truly define the character of our community.

For five years now that focus has included our annual celebration of “Local Heroes” – a salute to just some of the people who make an often quiet, but always extraordinary, contribution to the well-being of our community.

The issue also includes our annual review of new books by local authors and illustrators and new CDs by local musicians. Year after year, the breadth of their creative outpouring never fails to dazzle.

To those lists this year we’ve added a local shopping guide. Tony Reynolds and his wife Susan came up with the idea last Christmas as they put together gift baskets for friends and family, committing themselves to include only things made or produced by people who live in the hills. The bounty was so plentiful, that once they began compiling the list of potential items, it was hard to know where to stop.

This issue also includes a feature on music producer Darryl Neudorf. The former Torontonian and his family arrived in Mono almost by accident, but quickly put down roots in the region’s fertile music community. Their story is written by Tralee Pearce, who grew up in the hills, then left to pursue her career in journalism, but like so many rural expats, has recently come back home.

Our other arts feature is an excerpt from The Quilts of Dufferin County by Shelagh Roberts. Not only is the book a visually beautiful record of some of the handmade quilts in the collection at Dufferin County Museum & Archives, it records the stories of the women who crafted them – stories of domestic creativity too often lost to history.

Finally, throughout this our 20th year, we’ve turned our lens inward. This issue includes the final installment of “Behind the Pages” – brief profiles of the very talented local folks who bring you this magazine four times a year.

We may all be “but a moment’s sunlight fading in the grass,” as Chet Powers wrote in his ’60s classic “Get Together,” but as the dark days of winter close in, we hope this issue is a reminder of what a very bright moment of sunlight it is.