Antique Hunting Would Be Much Less Enjoyable Without Nature as a Partner

 

Photo by Suzanne Currie

     It is impossible for me to think back upon the past forty-five years as an avid antique hunter, and not give credit to nature's allure especially as we have pursued this profession in and around the District of Muskoka. Like many other collectors of my era and a little earlier, Confederation year, 1967, in Canada, set loose a new and enthralling period bestowing honor on what we know as "Canadiana." Even though I was only an early teen in '67, the last year the Maple Leafs brought home the Stanley Cup, I became fascinated by all things Canadian. This would be the precursor period when I began appreciating articles that had been made in Canada, generating later in my teens to a serious obsession with regional, provincial and nationally significant pine furniture. I was among thousands of dealers and aspiring antique professionals who put heritage pine first and foremost as prized acquisitions. From pine forests that faced the earliest homestead, to the resourcefulness to build cabins and barns from the cleared timber of fledgling farms, to the handcrafts to furnish the interiors. Ah, the intoxicating aroma of historic pine cupboards, flat-to-the-walls, dressers, sideboards, Windsor and chicken coop chairs, and an amazing array of burl bowls and exceptionally crafted treen ware. I couldn't imagine specializing in anything else but Canadian pine. But soon into my inaugural antiquing days, buying old pine anything from auctions sales locally, was an expensive proposition. A lot of collectors began showing up, especially cottagers with deep pockets, and local dealers were most often priced out of the action. We were often able to pick up significant pine pieces at yard and estate sales, and on a few occasions, in the back of cars and trucks as peddled by pickers who made their rounds of our shops each month. Still the prices were high, but I don't regret having graduated this period of buying and selling Canadiana, because it put me in a better place as an antique dealer. It made me appreciate that what I was most interested in, for those years, was the pioneer period, of which our own family was deeply seeded. Suzanne's family, being the Sheas and Veitches of the Three Mile Lake area of Watt Township, in the present Township of Muskoka Lakes, arrived in the early 1860's, in part to take advantage of free 100 acre grants of land, in return for the sweat equity of clearing acreage and creating workable farmsteads. They did this and I have always felt the homestead years in this region have been an under recognized and celebrate period of our local history.

     So I can draw a clear parallel between my early interest in Canadiana as a collecting option, and pine as the choice of wood, and our family's longstanding joy of touring our region on our regular antique hunt and gather adventures. We would set out as a family early on Saturday mornings during the work week, (Suzanne was a secondary school teacher in both Bracebridge and Gravenhurst), and with Andrew and Robert in the back, we'd wind our way either to the north, to visit the Huntsville, Dwight, Dorset, Baysville areas of the region, or travel to places where we knew antiques were being offered for sale, around the Muskoka Lakes, from Bracebridge, to Port Carling, Bala, and Gravenhurst. We would occasionally drive south to Orillia and enjoy the sites around Huronia, to Midland and Penetang, or down to Beaverton, Sutton and Keswick, we never did so without many stops along the way to enjoy the good graces of the nature backdropping our outing. We have enjoyed hundreds of picnics and side trips into parks, and stops for afternoon swims for the boys, when the going got pretty hot. We've driven through some huge spring and summer thunderstorms, through rain events that forced us to stop and wait for a clearing, and in the fall and winter we have trundled along through wind storms bordering on gales, and the criss crossed country lanes in this beautiful hinterland, in the most awe inspiring sunshine and gentleness of conditions, to truly celebrate this Canadiana sprawling out in front, at no cost to us other than the fuel for our auto.

     There were many times that when we stopped halfway through our travels for the day, that we enjoyed a treat from one of the local bakeries found along dusty trail, or roadside stands offering home baked treats, from butter tarts to the most amazing pies and cakes, and while enjoying the sights and actuality of our scenic open spaces, for public use, we would haul a few of that day's purchases out to examine just how well we did that day. It could well have been some antique toys the boys had picked up at a farmside barn sale, yard sale, church white elephant event, a small auction or tiny sale of home items set out at these nostalgic rural mail boxes that line the dirt roads that wind all over the countryside in such a quaint and illustrative way of the pleasant hallmarks of rural living. We would all agree at this point about the satisfying realities of the day's travels thus far, and soon we would be packed up and off once again, raising dust along the hilly terrain the dirt roads cut across, and when we would look back, there was no road visible, except the tree line of venerable old pines and leaning birches across the roadway, until further up the road, when the dust cleared and we could see the history once again, that we were living in the contemporary sense. These were outings that tied together all the elements of being a Muskokan,  and being involved in this most storied profession, of buying and selling antiques and collectables.

     Suzanne and I will never be able to separate our love for our profession, the thrill of the hunt, and the landscape of our region of Ontario, that is so wonderfully adorned in its classic Canadiana; of historic and scenic pine and its most attractive rural properties and churches, old schools converted to modern homes, classic barns and a few remaining log structures that date back a century or more. If it was food, this vista through which we travel would be tantalizingly delicious. Best of all, of course, is that it is where we live and where we have operated our business from my own first foray, back in the autumn season of 1977, when my parents and I opened Old Mill Antiques in a charming old Manitoba Street home, that had been built in the early 1900's by Bracebridge's revered doctor, Peter McGibbon. It had been used by Dr. McGibbon as both a residence for his family and a medical office. It had gorgeous maples out front and massive gardens at one time, that surrounded the carriage house at the rear of the brick residence. The view from the third floor of the building, afforded me, the young writer in residence when not selling antiques, looked over the stately stand of Norway Maples that lined the borders of the triangular Memorial Park and the bandstand built originally after the First World War as a memorial tribute to the local citizens who had died overseas. It was an inspiring panorama for the young writer, and a naturally blessed setting for our first antique shop. It was by far the most storied and unique antique shop setting we have ever enjoyed, although our Birch Hollow name does come from the fact our settings thereafter have most typically been situated on treed properties noted for their "leaning" birches, the kind Robert Frost would reference in his poems of once, in antiquity.

     Birch Hollow Antiques is a Muskoka enterprise that has, and will always be nature-friendly, and hinterland devoted, no matter how urban our setting happens to be in terms of business location. Our sensitivities will always side with nature and its conservation, and we have been known as a family, to rear up occasionally, to protest the proposed destruction of forest and wetlands we can ill afford to lose. We are as devoted to the preservation of habitat for our wildlife population, and as of late, we have become increasingly worried about the displacement of countryside animals and birds, torn from their home forests and wetlands by new and highly intrusive subdivision developments. We have witnessed a huge influx of birds most recently, and at our home in Gravenhurst, only a few streets from the downtown, we have experienced an increase in the deer population and moose, as well as foxes and bears. It is most alarming to see the influx of birds, simply because we know they have been displaced by the reduction of their original habitat now reduced to sawdust in a pile. We love to see this wildlife but not because they have been stripped of their home environs.

     We hope that we are seen as a Muskoka friendly business, and we have always strived to represent the region's history and contemporary realities, and at any one time, we have a large collection of regional texts and related collectables gathered during our many round the lakes travels, which we still so fondly enjoy and, indeed celebrate. We hope you enjoy Muskoka's natural attributes as much as we do!