Summer Contributors

Bethany Lee

Bethany Lee has written for In The Hills for just over a decade. She called us up one day with the idea of sharing her story of being a parent living in the hills, and her desire to share resources with others. She started as the operator of our Kids in the Hills website and has since continued her column Headwaters Nest. Bethany is an award-winning corporate communicator, currently working for the Region of Peel. She lives in Mono with her husband, Derrick, teenaged son, Adrian, fat cat Bowie, and lurcher Blixen – all of whom make frequent appearances in her column. In this issue she writes about working from her kitchen for a region hard hit by the coronavirus and wondering about when and how we’ll know we’re through the worst of it.

Ken Weber

Ken’s first Historic Hills column appeared in this magazine in 1996 and he hasn’t missed an issue since. His other regular feature, A Puzzling Conclusion, began in 2005, and the puzzle archives online have recently been one of our top pandemic pastimes. Ken’s bio includes a lengthy publication list – best-selling mystery books, textbooks, teaching kits, magazine pieces, articles in academic journals – but he insists writing Historic Hills is a favourite for letting him indulge his passion for history and connect with his community. “Over a long career in education,” he says, “I never got to teach history. Thanks to In The Hills, now I do. And there are no exams!” Ken’s summer Historic Hills column is a salve for these times. He explores the resiliency early European settlers here exhibited both in crisis and in everyday life – long before resiliency became an educational catch phrase.

Janice Quirt

Janice Quirt is a freelance writer who writes our Food + Drink and Field Notes columns and other features. She’s also a freelance social media manager. On the heels of our spring publication, as Ontario declared a state of emergency, Janice jumped on our social media feeds to amplify news about how small businesses were serving their customers and what readers could do to support their communities. Janice lives a stone’s throw from Island Lake in Mono with her son and daughter, her partner, John, and his three daughters. When she’s not writing or sampling the region’s food and drink, she’s out hiking, especially the Bruce Trail. An ardent environmentalist, she’s also been dubbed “Mason Jar Queen” at home for her continual ferreting out of sustainable living solutions. She is constantly running out of coffee.