Congratulations Dan Needles

Congratulations to In The Hills columnist Dan Needles on his richly deserved appointment to the Order of Canada. We’ve been very proud to have Dan contributing his “Fence Posts” to the magazine for the past three years, but, of course, he was already established as an iconic voice for rural Canada long before he came to us.

His seven enormously popular plays about stockbroker-turned-farmer Walt Wingfield originated in a column Dan wrote when he was editor of the Shelburne Free Press & Economist back in the ‘70s and were drawn from his family roots in Mono Township.

In 2003 he was awarded the Leacock Medal for Canadian humour for his book With Axe and Flask, the History of Persephone Township from Pre-Cambrian Times to the Present.

In 2012, Dan branched out with a new play called The Team on The Hill. Though still rich with his trademark humour, it offered a more serious take on the transitions under way in the farm community.

If you’ve somehow missed the Wingfield saga, or want to savour it again, you have a chance this year when the original Letter from Wingfield Farm is reprised at Theatre Orangeville beginning February 18. And a few months later, in May, Dan will be back at the theatre with his new comedy Baco Noir, about growing grapes and making wine in the less than conducive conditions of Persephone Township (an idea we like to think germinated in Dan’s “Fence Posts: The Year of the Grape” column in the summer of 2013).

And, of course, you can continue to savour Dan’s witty insights into rural life in every issue of In The Hills.

Thank you, Dan, for all the pleasure you have given us for so many years – long may you write!

Dan Needles with a lamb. Photo by Lindan Courtemanche.