Editor’s Desk

I recently asked my 12-year-old granddaughter what makes her most pessimistic about the future.

Gardening has always been one of my greatest pleasures, but my efforts were, and remain, of the “weekend gardener” variety.

The Syrian refugee children who have settled in Headwaters give us reason to be optimistic for 2017 and beyond.

Betty Ward of Orangeville knows the responsibility of generational memory. Her father Charles Thomas, who survived the First World War, had kept a regular diary during his service.

Water springs up all around us in the streams and rivers and marshes and pools of the four major watersheds that sculpt our landscape and feed three Great Lakes.

This spring we can do something we’ve never been able to do before in these hills: Visit a local vineyard and winery.

A hometown boy makes good on his childhood dream of playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

A large part of this fall issue, as is our tradition, is devoted to a celebration of the arts.

For most of us “home” is a mythical place – constructed from a collective idea of who we are and how we live. It can be a very comfortable place and well worth celebrating.

The theme of change and renewal exemplified by Trevor Cole runs throughout this issue – not only in the re-greening of our gardens and landscapes, but in other spheres of our lives as well.

Congratulations to In The Hills columnist Dan Needles on his richly deserved appointment to the Order of Canada.

If so, the only solution is to summon the can-do fervour of a good Canadian and … embrace it.