Part 3 Algernon Blackwood on Wistowe Island, Lake Rosseau

Photo by Suzanne Currie

BRITISH HORROR WRITER WAS ENCHANTED BY THE BEAUTY OF LAKE ROUSSEAU CIRCA 1892

By Ted and Suzanne Currie

     I have never once, even under the influence of a couple of lubricating drinks, entertained the idea of becoming a writer of horror stories. I admire the work of authors of horror stories and novels, but don’t have the creative juice or background to compose anything of the horror genre. I wish I did but I’m too long in the tooth, as they say, to change directions now. But I am intrigued about what British author, Algernon Blackwood found in the Muskoka lakeland, that may have inspired him to write several significant stories that may have had a root in the wilds of Canada, and potentially Lake Rosseau where the famed author resided for three months before the turn of the 1900’s. Two decades later nearby Tobin’s Island and the Muskoka Assembly at Wigwassan Lodge, would bring together dozens of internationally acclaimed writers for an annual retreat, of about ten consecutive summers, to discuss contemporary issues in literature at home and abroad. There were authors such as Sir Gilbert Parker, Marshall Saunders (author of Beautiful Joe), poets Charles G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carmen and Wilson MacDonald. Earlier than this, indigenous poet Pauline Johnston paddled these same waters of Lake Rosseau and connecting Shadow River. Johnston was the author of the poem “The Song My Paddle Sings.” Obviously, Lake Rosseau offered its mystique to writers and artists, and in the case of Blackwood, the experience in Muskoka remained a fond memory until the end of his life.

     A couple of venerable old crows are perched in a scraggly pine at the water’s edge, watching and cackling as the sound of the paddle, dripping with dark water current, can be heard from just around the rock face of the island. The canoe glides along the rocky shoreline, fading in and out of the small inlets and coves, disappearing into the bosom of evergreens, growing from small pockets of soil cradled by the craggy landscape. There is a gentle rocking of the watercraft, as the lone canoeist paddles in and out of the shadows of the late afternoon. The lapping of small waves against the rocks makes a rhythmic gurgling sound, as the action turns down upon the sand bottom, re-sculpting the environs as it has done since the beginning of time.

     The color of the water in this stirring channel changes with the positioning of the sun toward its setting in a few hours, in this clime of late October. It can appear silver one moment, dark and precarious when cloud cover distorts the sun glow temporarily. It will appear quite different, in reflection, when the sun gives up on this day, and after the orange and red tint upon the rippling tide, the water will soon appear black and cold, despite the fact the weather betrays this attitude. It is still quite warm for this time of the autumn, the trees having avoided heavy frost to this point. The trails of colored, fallen leaves smooth over the water at this time of day, as if they are floating down through the sky. There are many optical illusions in this haunted lakeland, and it is not surprising that British Horror writer Algernon Blackwood found his stay on this Muskoka lake so remarkable, such that he never forgot his five month camping experience on Wistowe Island for the balance of his life, which, as a matter of interest, extended into his 86th year.

     The white canoe is only a dot on the waterfront at this point, as the channel opens into the wider Lake Rosseau near the Village of Windermere. The old sun is not long for this day, and the encroachment of heavy clouds suggests the voyeur might soon wish to seek cover from the coming rain. There is the eerie shrill of a loon, still residing in this lakeland, and the sound of wheezing wind rising from the west, singing through the border evergreens, in a most beautiful and haunting refrain, as the gentle first stage of inclement weather pushes across this storied lake. It was the kind of scene that played out for the young Algernon Blackwood, standing out on the shore, in the embrace of autumn twilight, thinking about the spirits dwelling within. The spirits identified by poets and philosophers who attended the Muskoka Assembly of Writers, on Tobin's Island, in the 1920's, almost three decades after Blackwood's initial stay on Wistowe Island.

    "By far the strongest influence in my life, however, was nature;" asserted Algernon Blackwood in his 1923 biography, "Episodes Before Thirty". Adding, "it betrayed itself early, growing in intensity with every year. Bringing comfort, companionship, inspiration, joy, the spell of Nature has remained dominant, a truly magical spell. Always immense and potent, the years have strengthened it. The early feeling that everything was alive, a dime sense that some kind of consciousness struggled through every form, even that a sort of inarticulate communication with this 'other life' was possible, could I but discover the way - these moods coloured its opening wonder. Nature, at any rate, produced effects in me that only something living could produce; though not till I read Fechner's 'Zend-Avesta,' and later still, Jame's 'Pluralistic Universe,' and Dr. R.M. Bucke's 'Cosmic Consciousness,' did a possible meaning come to shape my emotional disorder. Fairy tales, in the meanwhile bored me. Real facts were what I sought. That these existed, that I had once known them but had now forgotten them, was thus an early imaginative conviction."

     The author recalls that "This tendency showed itself even in childhood. We had left the manor house, Crayford, and now lived in a delightful house at Shorthands, in those days semi-country. It was the time of my horrible private schools - I went to four or five - but the holidays afforded opportunities.

     "I was a dreamy boy," writes Blackwood, "frequently in tears about nothing except a vague horror of the practical world, full of wild fancies and imagination, and a great believer in ghosts, communing with spirits and dealings with charms and amulets, which latter I invented and consecrated myself by the dozen. This was long before I had read a single book. I loved to climb out of the windows at night with a ladder, and creep among the shadows of the kitchen garden, past the rose trees and under the fruit-tree wall, and so on to the pond where I could launch the boat and practice my incantations in the very middle among the floating weeds that covered the surface in great yellow-green patches. Trees grew closely round the banks, and even on clear nights the stars could hardly piece through, and all sorts of beings watched me silently from the shore, crowding among the tree stems, and whispering to themselves about what I was doing.

     "I cannot say I ever believed actually that my spells would produce any results, but it pleased and thrilled me to think that they might do so; that the scum of weeds, might slowly part to sow the face of a water-nixie, or that the forms hovering on the banks might flit across to me, and let me see their outline against the stars. On returning from these nightly expeditions to the pond, the sight of the old country-house against the sky always excited me strangely. Three cedars towering aloft with their great funereal branches, and I thought of all the people asleep in their silent rooms, and wondered how they could be so dull and unenterprising, when out here they could see these sweeping branches and hear the wind sighing so beautifully among the needles. These people, it seemed to me at such moments, belonged to a different race. I had nothing in common with them. Night and stars and trees and wind and rain were the things I had to do with and wanted. They were alive and personal, stirring my depths within, full of messages and meanings, whereas my parents and sisters and brother, all indoors and asleep, were mere accidents, and apart from my real life and self. My friend the under-gardener always took the ladder away early in the morning."

     Blackwood adds to his biography, noting, "Sometimes an elder sister accompanied me on these excursions. She, too, loved mystery, and the peopled darkness, but she was also practical. On returning to her room in the early morning we always found eggs ready to boil, cake and cold plum-pudding perhaps, or some such satisfying morsels to fill the void. She was always wonderful to me in those days. Very handsome, dark, with glowing eyes, and a keen interest in the undertaking, she came down the ladder and stepped along the garden paths more like a fairy being than a mortal, and I always enjoyed the event twice as much when she accompanied me. In the day-time she faded back into the dull elder sister and seemed a different person altogether. I never reconcile the two."

     In his most profound declaration, about his spiritual connection with nature, Blackwood writes, "This childish manifestation of an overpowering passion changed later, in form, of course, but not essentially much in spirit. Forests, mountains, desolate places, especially perhaps open spaces like the prairies or the desert, but even, too, the simple fields, the lanes and little hills, offered an actual sense of companionship no human intercourse could possibly provide. In times of trouble, as equally in times of joy, it was to nature I ever turned instinctively. In those moments of deepest feeling when individuals must necessarily be alone, yet stand at the same time in most urgent need of understanding companionship, it was nature and nature only that could comfort me. When the cable came, suddenly announcing my father's death, I ran straight into the woods....This fall sounded above all other calls, music coming so far behind it as to seem an 'also ran'. Even in those few, rare times of later life, when I fancied myself in love, this spell would operate - a sound of rain, a certain touch of colour in the sky, the scent of a wood-fire smoke, the lovely cry of some singing wind against the walls or window - and the human appeal would fade in me, or, at least, its transitory character becomes pitifully revealed. The strange sense of a oneness with nature was an imperious and royal spell that over-mastered all other spells, nor can the hind of comedy lessen its reality. Its religious origin appears, perhaps, in the fact that sometimes, during its fullest manifestation, a desire stirred in me to leave a practical, utilitarian world I loathed, and become - a monk!"

     One can imagine, in this light, the silhouette of the young Mr. Blackwood, standing out along the shore of Wistowe Island, after sunset, admiring the vast embrace of the nature he so adored. What did he perceive or see of this 1890's scene, in a still pioneering era region, that enforced his opinion, nature abounded with spiritual energy, compelling him to be its interpreter. When he was engaged in this five month retreat on this island in Lake Rosseau, he hadn't given much thought to engaging himself as a writer, though it is known he jotted-down stories the natural environs, at the time of a particular vigil, inspired him in the creative sense. Which, according to his biography, were filed away for some later posterity. It fact, a friend of his, borrowed some of these early stories, and without Blackwood's permission, gave the folio to a publisher for consideration. He was therefore, quite shocked when he got a letter from this same publisher, wishing to talk further about his company's willingness to put them in book form, for the reading public's benefit. He agreed that it was a financially interesting development, being still of modest income, to have such work, he originally thought unworthy of a publisher's attention, on the bookshelves of England. The rest, as they say, is history.

     Please join us tomorrow, for part four of our series of articles, on the relationship between Muskoka and internationally acclaimed horror writer, Algernon Blackwood.

Part 2: Horror Writer Algernon Blackwood's late 1800's stay on Lake Rosseau

Birch Hollow Photo by Suzanne Currie

INTERNATIONALLY RESPECTED HORROR WRITER, ALGERNON BLACKWOOD, AND HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH MUSKOKA, ONTARIO

     By Ted and Suzanne Currie

     I had to stop typing today’s post for a few moments, while our cat Chutney adjusts herself on my lap, and her mother Beasley has taken up lodging upon my feet. Muffin the dog snores to my right side, and the summer breeze at nightfall sways the canopy of ferns and raspberry canes in a familiar summer time dance. I’ve watched them weave in an out of each other’s company for the past twenty minutes, letting the natural ballet sooth the battle woes of the work day. This is sheer pleasure, this writing thing, with my companions all about me, and such a story yet to unfold……for you!

     To suggest that Lake Rosseau is a haunted lakeland, is ripe, time etched speculation, saved as fertile domain of poets and writers, certain of its inherent spirituality, and rich enchantments. Yet failing in usual course to prove their point beyond the speculation of ghosts, "the lady in white" and claims of bandy-legged wee beasties, dwelling in the dark secrets of the enclosing woodlands. Including all the strange abstractions of age-old folk tales and first person confessionals. Does it inspire thoughts of the paranormal? Or of a deep well of spirituality, profoundly more complex than the familiar pretty picture, of a mist-laden waterway, we still see in news stand postcard images, and those glossy regional promotions that draw the reader's attention to the glories of the "Muskoka lifestyle". There was one voyeur in the early history of Muskoka, who found Lake Rosseau to be a very enchanted place, and he used his experiences gathered here, as a background inspiration, to his well known stories of the paranormal. Horror stories, of which Algernon Blackwood was a master.  

     At the time of writing today's story, the continuation of yesterday's introduction to the biography of author Algernon Blackwood, overviewing his five month stay in Muskoka, circa 1892, I was thinking back to when Suzanne and I, as newlyweds in a storied environs, would take her canoe out for an early evening paddle along the shoreline, both of the mainland, and across the narrow channel of Lake Rosseau, at Wellesley Island, where we could find in the shallows, old bottles and sealer jars that had most recently washed onto the sand. At about sunset the atmosphere of this magnificent lakeland dazzled in the fire-light, and it was clear then why so many artists, and writers, have found it the perfect source of creative energy. Listening to the rhythmic lapping of the gentle succession of waves, washing onto shore, that would rock the canoe ever so slightly, as we set our paddles over the gunnels to secure safe passage, enjoying the bobbing and slow drifting along the rock and tree shoreline. It was a dreamscape come to life. It would have been impossible to have remained uninspired by all that was offered us, its enthralled voyeurs in that slow drift to nowhere in particular. It was our Zen moment, where anything and everything was possible. It was an existence without fetters. An almost absolute liberation from our worldly responsibilities. 

     Due to the creep of darkness in these early moments of encroaching evening, I had to turn up the flame in my faithful oil lamp, the one that was once used at the Muskoka Assembly of writers, on Lake Rosseau's Tobin's Island. The lamp had once belonged to Reverend Charles Applegath, of Epworth Inn (later Wigwassan Lodge), where the Assembly was held in summer seasons, during the 1920's and 30's, hosting some of the most revered authors and poets in Canada at the time. The lamp still gives off an inspirational, warm light, as it did a century ago, in its cultured environs, possibly in the presence of poets such as Charles G.D. Roberts, Wilson MacDonald, and Bliss Carmen.

     I suppose it was a fitting circumstance, a keen bit of actuality you might say, now looking over the diminishing golden light, burning across the hollow’s pinery, its flouncing spirits in light and shadow changing momentarily,  the pleasant haunting of such beautiful places, to thusly commence this story[ about one of the world's best known horror writers, and his relationship with Muskoka, dating back to 1892, when he was in his early twenties. A lawyer friend, in Toronto, following two catastrophic business failures, one being an overly ambitious dairy operation, the other being an ill-famed hotel, offered Algernon Blackwood, new to Canada, an opportunity to hideaway for a period of time, on a secluded island he owned in Lake Rosseau, in the District of Muskoka. He and his former business partner were quick to accept the invitation, and within days, they were housed in a small, simple cabin, on the beautiful little island, not far from the Village of Windermere.

     It is acknowledged in his biography, published in 1923, that this five month escape from the city, and creditors looking for his partner to cover back debts, and a hiatus from further risky business ventures, would come to be one of his most cherished memories. Hailed in its inherent simplicity, as wilderness camping, it became a respite for spiritual recuperation. It became an ongoing source of inspiration for the rest of his life. Especially when he began authoring his famous tales of horror, after his turbulent years scrounging for stories on the crime beat, as a New York newspaper reporter. It was the hinterland experience that renewed his interests in exploration and adventure; knowing that there was so much more to see and experience of life, than the inside of a gloomy old hotel with its notorious bar and bad actors, of which he had been a partner.

     Algernon Henry Blackwood was born on the 14th day of March, 1869, at Shooter's Hill, London, England, and died at the age of eighty-six, at Bishopbourne, Kent, England. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the mountains of Saanenmoser, Switzerland.

     His father, a postal executive with the British Postal Service, was Sir Stevenson Arthur Blackwood, and his mother was Harriet Sydney Dobbs, the Duchess of Manchester. When Algernon Blackwood passed away, in 1951, his personal property was valued at approximately 14,189 pounds.

     The fact that the writer lived to the ripe old age of eighty-six is a miracle in itself. As a matter of personal misfortune, firstly being seriously malnourished as a young man, out on his own, stricken-down by poverty, caused by poor paying employment, while living with roommates of the same financial disposition. Dwelling in a bug infested New York rooming house, he struggled with the anxiety, over several long years, feeling certain that his dire circumstance would never change. Then, at his most vulnerable, physically, emotionally, and financially, he survived a nasty bout of illness, that kept him bed-ridden for more than a month, the toxic aftermath of an untreated abscess, that very nearly killed him before he had reached the age of twenty-three. He let the abscess go untreated because he couldn't afford the price of a doctor's visit, and it wasn't until a friend solicited help from a physician he knew, that Blackwood agreed to have his now angry abscess lanced, and treated with healing ointment.

      "My parents were both people of marked character, with intense convictions; my mother, especially, being a woman of great individuality, of iron restraint, grim humour, yet with a love and tenderness, and a spirit of uncommon sacrifice, that never touched weakness," wrote Algernon Blackwood, in his 1923 biography, "Episodes Before Thirty." "She possessed powers of mind and judgement, at the same time, of which my father, a public servant - financial secretary to the Post Office - availed himself to the full. She had great personal beauty. A young widow, her first husband having been the 6th Duke of Manchester, also of the evangelical persuasion, she met my father at Kimbolton soon after his return from the Crimean War, where he had undergone that religious change of heart, to the movement as 'conversion.' From a man of fashion, a leader in the social life to which he was born, he changed with sudden completeness to a leader in the renounced world, the flesh, the devil and all their works. The case of 'Beauty Blackwood', to use the nickname his unusual handsomeness gained for him, was, in its way, notorious. He became a teatotaller and non smoker, wrote devotional books, spoke in public, and held drawing-room prayer meetings, the Bible always in his pocket, communion with God always in his heart. His religion was genuine, unfaltering, consistent and sincere. He carried the war into his own late world of fashion. He never once looked back."

     Blackwood noted of his family in the following kindly overview, that "Without wholeheartedly sharing my father's faith however, his religious and emotional temperment, with its imperious need of believing something, he certainly bequeathed to me.....  The evangelical and revivalist movements, at any rate, was the dominant influence in my boyhood's years. People were sharply divided into souls that were saved and those that were not saved. Moody and Sankey, the American Revivalists, stayed in our house."

     "In a short time I came to look upon the whole phenomena of 'conversion', so far as my type of mind and character was concerned, with distrust and weariness. Only the very topmost layer of my personality was affected; evidently, there was no peace or happiness for me that way. None the less, I had one or two terrible moments; one (I was reading with a private tutor in Somerset for Edinburgh University) when I woke in the very early morning with a choking sensation in my throat, and thought I was going to die. It must have been merely acute indigestion but I was convinced my last moment had come, and fell into sweating agony of fear and weakness. I prayed as hard as ever I could, swearing to consecrate myself to God if He would pull me through. I ever vowed I would become a missionary and work among the heathen, than which, I was always told, there was no higher type of manhood. But the pain and choking did not pass, and in despair I got up and swallowed half a bottle of piles of aconite which my mother, so ardent a homeopathist, always advised me to take after sneezing or cold shivers." Blackwood writes, "They were sweet and very nice, and the pain certainly began to pass away, but only to leave me with a remorse that I had allowed a mere human medicine to accomplish naturally what God wished to accomplish by His grace. I was certainly released from my promise to become a missionary and work among the heathen. And for this small mercy I was duly thankful, though the escape had been a rather narrow one."

     He continues, "A year and a half in school of the Moravian Brotherhood, in the Black Forest, though it showed me another aspect of the same general line of belief, did not wholly obliterate my fear of hell, with its correlated desire for salvation. The poetry of the semi-religious life in that remote village set among ancient haunted forests, gave to natural idealistic tendencies another turn. The masters, who we termed Brother, were strenuous, devoted, self-sacrificing men, all later to go forth as missionaries to Labrador. Humbug, comfort, personal ambition played no part in their lives. The Liebesmahl in their little wooden church, for all its odd simplicity, was a genuine and impressive ceremony that touched something in me no church service at home, which Sankey's hymns on a bad harmonium, had ever reached. At this Communion Service, or Love Feast, sweet, weak tea in big white thick cups, followed by a clothes-basket filled with rolls, were handed round, first to the women, who sat on one side of he building, and then to the men and boys on the other side. There was a collective reality about the little ceremony that touched its sincerity with beauty. Similarly was Easter morning beautiful, when we marched in the early twilight towards the little cemetery among the larch trees and stood with our hats off round and open grave, waiting in silence for the sunrise. The air was cool and scented, our mood devotional and solemn. There was a sense of wonder among us. Then, as the sun slipped up above the leagues of forest, the Eight Brothers, singing in parts, led the ninety boys in the great German hymn, 'Christus ist auferstanden'."

   "The surroundings, too, of the school influenced me greatly. Those leagues of Black Forest rolling over distant mountains, velvet-coloured, leaping to the sky in grey cliffs, or passing quietly like the sea in immense waves, always singing in the winds, haunted by elves and dwarfs and peopled by charming legends - those forest glades, deep in moss and covered in springtime with wild lily-of-the-valley; those tumbling streams that ran for miles unseen, then emerged to serve the peasants by splashing noisily over the clumsy water-wheel of a brown old sawmill before they again lost themselves among the mossy pine roots; those pools where water pixies dwelt, and those little red and brown villages we slept in our long walks - the whole setting of this Moravian school was so beautifully simple that it lent just the proper atmosphere for lives consecrated me an impression of grandeur, of loftiness and of real religion....and of a Deity not specifically active on Sundays only."

     The recognition and celebration, of the natural environment on the soul of Algernon Blackwood, is a recurring theme throughout his biography, and plays well in his discovery of the solitude of Muskoka, specifically his island retreat on Lake Rosseau in the early 1890's. It is also reported, according to a piece written by John Robert Colombo, that Blackwood returned to Muskoka much later in life and his writing career, to stay for a shorter period, on North Bohemia Island, also in Lake Rosseau. His first retreat in Muskoka, had been on what is now known as Wistowe Island. More on this interesting biography, of internationally revered horror-writer, Algernon Blackwood, in tomorrow's  post. Please join us.

Horror Writer Algernon Blackwood Retreated to Lake Rosseau Island

 

Photo by Suzanne Currie

A PREAMBLE TO OUR STORY ABOUT HORROR WRITER, ALGERNON BLACKWOOD'S STAY IN MUSKOKA

By Ted and Suzanne Currie

     When Suzanne and I began dating, oh, so many years ago, or so it seems, we used to spend quite a bit of time at the family cottage on Lake Rosseau, nestled into the pinery backdrop along the shoreline of the mesmerizingly picturesque, silver and black shallow channel, that divided the mainland from Wellesley Island only a short canoe traverse to the bay where Windermere House rises from the promontory of Muskoka Rock, that overlooks the busy Village waterfront. We’d sit in one of the Stripp family’s vintage wooden boats, lashed into the boat slips, and listen to the sounds of the boathouse frame, being shifted ever so slightly by the incoming waves, the scent of lake and the watercraft awakening our senses, and setting out so many plans and adventures for the rest of our lives. Whether we were lodging in the charming early 1900’s cottage, sitting in the sunroom overlooking the channel on colder afternoons, or during rain events, or resting by a snapping cedar fire in the parlor hearth, we knew this was an incredible haunt, and all the ghosts within were family, near and dear. We thought about how we would like to live here in Muskoka, as a married couple, and it was considered a possibility that we might even live in this relic cottage that seemed most cheerful when occupied. But they were plans and more often than not, life, as they say, gets in the way. Although we did spend many more months residing at the cottage, even after both boys, Andrew and Robert had arrived to enhance our family desires, the early trend of waterfront property values took its toll particularly in the way of market value assessments. Suzanne’s father didn’t really have much choice, but to sell the cottage, that had been built as a family homestead by his father Sam Stripp, where five children were born and four were raised and tough economic times weathered; like the durability of house and boathouse to have survived handsomely for so many decades. It was sold and torn down by the new owner, who erected a modern building that, in our opinion, was typical but not remarkable. The old cottage and boathouse that we knew was perfect for that hillside above the channel, and could have been easily renovated to serve a succession of cottagers for another century.

     Before the cottage was knocked down, and the landscape bulldozed into submission, Suzanne and I took as many of the original lilacs as we could, and many raspberry canes and day lilies from the garden planted by Suzanne’s grandmother. We brought these reminder-plants home to our new Gravenhurst home, we call, with affection, our Birch Hollow. So we have a little of Windermere still thriving just beyond our front porch, which does help us rekindle those good old days when we had lots of time to plan out the future. Well, the future is a lot shorter now, but we still find ourselves caught up in the romance of the Muskoka we have grown up in, and refuse to rest on whatever laurels we still have, preferring instead to carry on our writing adventures for some time to come. And one of the stories we bandied about, as we rocked in the bosom of the antique Hunter launch, in the light and shadow spell of the open boathouse, was the folk tale about a revered writer of horror stories, who had once also enjoyed a Lake Rosseau retreat, on a truly enchanted little island just a short boat ride away from Suzanne’s cottage. We thought it would be a good place to start our co-operative writing projects, yet, for many different reasons, it wasn’t until well into this new century, that we actually put pen to paper, and wrote the story of Algernon Blackwood and uncovered what the Muskoka lakeland did for the budding writer on the cusp of a stellar international career.  

     We have long known about Algernon Blackwood's stay in Muskoka, in the late 1800's, on an island in Lake Rosseau, but we never understood until recently, just how much the adventure meant to the soon-to-be writer, who would go on to become one of the best known horror writers of his period. We are so glad we put some research hours into this project, because what we came out with, at the conclusion, was a totally different opinion than when work was initiated.

     It began with the purchase of the book "Episodes Before Thirty," an autobiography by Algernon Blackwood, with a lengthy section about his first (of two) stays in Muskoka. We purchased the book from an antiquarian book dealer from the Advance Book Exchange (abe.com),  and we acquired a nicely bound, secure, 1923 first edition, published by Cassell and Company. There is also his story of "The Haunted Island," which is one of his classic horror tales, probably, in part, inspired by his five month stay on the Lake Rosseau island, circa 1892, when he was twenty-two years of age.

     Suzanne and I are pleased to offer our friends this multi-part summer series to honor both the work of Blackwood, and recognized, most importantly, the amazing spiritual electricity of this amazing district in Ontario.

PART ONE - ALGERNON BLACKWOOD IN MUSKOKA

     "A strong emotion, especially if experienced for the first time, leaves a vivid memory of the scene where it occurred." (Algernon Blackwood)

     One of my writing mentors, from the past, and a good friend in the field of local history, Sylvia Duvernet, once explained to me, upon my enquiry about what, in her opinion, has made Muskoka so attractive to authors and artists, replied, without hesitation, "It's a very spiritual place." If anyone could make such a claim, and validate the opinion of "spirituality," it was Sylvia DuVernet, the author of numerous books about Muskoka. One in particular profiling the activities of the writer's retreat at the Muskoka Assembly, on Lake Rosseau's Tobin's Island, in the summers of the 1920's and 30's. A collective of creative types including some of Canada's best known authors and poets, at the time, who very much appreciated what Algernon Blackwood had found of the same lakeland environs thirty years earlier. A pleasant haunting sensation!

     I have lived for periods on Lake Muskoka, Lake Joseph and Lake Rosseau, and Suzanne, of course, grew up in Windermere and had a family cottage on Lake Rosseau opposite Wellesley Island. We had both long appreciated the spiritual allure of the lakeland through the four seasons. I have always found Muskoka a wonderful place in which to write, a reality of considerable pleasure that I continue to this day, from Birch Hollow, now looking out over a beautiful little paradise of lowland we call The Bog. We understand what Algernon Blackwood and the writers who attended the Muskoka Assembly found so spiritually significant and enduring about the natural elements of the regional environment. To sit out on the end of a dock to watch a sunrise over Lake Rosseau, breaking through the morning mist, or to watch the milky moonlight rippling across the water surface at midnight, is to appreciate from the roots-up just how hauntingly strange yet beautiful it all is, as the environment subtly manifests thoughts, in its voyeurs, of the joyful play of roaming spirit-kind. Sylvia DuVernet and I probably agreed, on that day, that Muskoka is, and will remain, an enchanted place on earth, to benefit creative enterprise.

     Well respected Canadian ghost sleuth, John Robert Colombo, who also wrote about Algernon Blackwood's late 1800's stay in Muskoka, suggested a few years back, that I should compile a sort of compendium of Muskoka ghost stories. It was John who wrote the lead article in a series of ghost stories, I had researched and written, that summer, published in The Muskoka Sun. You never know. Maybe this is one of my next projects.

     To begin this series on Algernon Blackwood, it's necessary to provide some biographical background into writer's early life, and his budding philosophy, and enduring kindred relationship with what he regarded as the spiritual essence of nature. For this information we will consult his biography "Episodes Before Thirty."

     "We arrived in New York towards the end of October, (1892) coming straight from five months in the Canadian backwoods," wrote Algernon Blackwood, in the opening paragraph of Chapter Two, in "Episodes Before Thirty." "Before that, to mention myself first, there had been a year in Canada, where, even before the age of twenty-one, I had made a living of sorts by teaching the violin, French, German, and shorthand. Showing no special talent for any profession in particular, and having no tastes that could be held to indicate a definite career, I had come to Canada three years before for a few weeks' trip. My father, in an official capacity, had passes from Liverpool to Vancouver, and we crossed in the 'Etruria', a Cunarder which my mother had launched. He was much feted and banqueted, and the C.P.R. bigwigs, from Lord Strathcona and Sir William van Horne downwards, showed him all attention, placing an observation car at his disposal. General James, the New York postmaster, gave a dinner in his honour at the Union League Club, where I made my first and last speech - consisting of nine words of horrified thanks for coupling 'a chip off the old block,' as the proposer called me, with the 'Chief of the British Postal Service."

     The author notes that, "In the lovely autumn weather, we saw Canada at its best, and the trip decided my future. My father welcomed it as a happy solution. I came, therefore, to Toronto, at the age of twenty, with one hundred pounds a year allowance, and a small capital to follow when I should have found some safe and profitable chance of starting life. With me came - in the order of their importance - a fiddle, the 'Bhagavad Gita,' 'Shelley,' 'Sartor Resartus,' Berkley's 'Dialogues,' Patanjali's 'Yoga Aphorisms,' de Quincey's 'Confessions,' and a unique ignorance of the Methodist Magazine, a monthly periodical published in Toronto, and before that licked stamps in the back office of the Temperance and General Life Assurance Company, at nothing a week, but with the idea of learning the business, so that later I might bring out some English insurance company to Canada."

     Blackwood's business experience, which was a near-constant source of self inflicted agony, especially in those early years of trying to make a gainful position for himself in the world, became the polar opposite for what his escapes into the bosom of nature restored in kind. He took a large amount of money, given generously from family coffers, sent for his prudent use to invest in Canadian farmland, being instead squandered on a number of high-risk investments. He invested in a Toronto area dairy farm, said at the time to be a leading one, that would innovate the industry and increase milk production to an approving marketplace. In less than a year he lost his investment as the business venture failed to live up to its claims; and the promises of his partners to return a healthy profit on Blackwood's money. Shortly after this failure, he and another partner, who saw a similar pie-in-the-sky opportunity, that would return big money over a short term, also caused the future writer another business horror. This time it was in the joint purchase of a Toronto watering-hole, hotel known as "The Hub," which was entirely contrary to his father's innermost Christian values; being a fierce temperance advocate, and having raised the young Blackwood to adhere to the vow of abstinence as far as alcohol was concerned. The Hub failed as a business investment, and cost him the final few dollars of his family's endowment, to set up, and operate a successful business in Canada.

      It was at this time, on the cusp of his 22nd year, that he and his former business partner, at The Hub, accepted a generous invitation from a lawyer they both knew, from their near-year as hoteliers, to retreat to an island he owned in Lake Rosseau, in the District of Muskoka, a hundred and twenty miles or so from the big city. He came to Muskoka feeling a failure as a son and businessman, betraying family values, and as it turned out, he had bottomed-out even before he began a career in earnest. There would be more failures to come, when he would eventually move to New York with the same business partner, and this time, it became the struggle of a rookie reporter for a well known city newspaper. His experiences in Muskoka for those five months however, continued to inspire him of a better life yet to come.

      As conditions of his existence in New York were always a hair's breadth away from starvation, and the final snuffing-out of poverty embrace, it is interesting to note, that his most called-upon source of rejuvenation, was to venture to the then forested Bronx Park on Sundays, to relive some of the wild splendors he had known in Muskoka. He would make a campfire in the woods, and wax poetic and rework his philosophy through the day and nights, studying nature as if trying to squeeze nourishment from every hour spent in its company. He felt a spirituality in these natural settings, and it would be a source of nourishment and companionship cherished for the rest of his life. Muskoka was never far from his thoughts, and like former United States President, Woodrow Wilson, who had vacationed frequently on the same lake (before he was elected to office), staying at The Bluff resort, operated by Thomas Snow, also very much feeling the inherent enchantment of those mist-shrouded mornings, watching the sun rise, and celebrating the haunted moonlit revels on warm summer nights. On his deathbed, the President recalled with family, those wonderful days spent in Muskoka.

     Please join Suzanne and I again tomorrow, for part two of this seven part series of stories, on Algernon Blackwood and his relationship with our district.

The Haunting Sound of the Undertaker's Cart on the Dirt and Corduroy Roads of Pioneer Muskoka

Birch Hollow Photo by Suzanne Currie

      The Shea family and settler friends, residing in the Hamlet known as Ufford, in the Township of Watt, (present Muskoka Lakes Township), joined the sombre procession through narrow forest paths, to carry the body of the young Maria Shea to her final resting place a half day's walk southeast to the newly established Falkenburg Cemetery. The year was 1867. Roughly four years since the Shea family members began arriving in the wild frontier of Ontario settlement lands, now in the District of Muskoka. By 1867 there was little improvement in roadways and in settlement growth, Bracebridge being the closest village to the South. Doctors were few, and the isolation of these pioneer encampments made travel long and difficult, and often by foot or by dug-out canoe, or possibly a crudely fashioned rowboat.

     Maria Shea the victim of a respiratory illness, that today would be easily treated, while isolated on the family homestead,  died without having received proper medical care. She was treated with the usual home remedies and basic medicinal formulas available to settlers at the time, but it was not enough to save her life. The funeral procession was by foot through along rough cut bush trails, the casket being carried by the men of the family, arriving later in the day at the tiny hillside Falkenburg Cemetery, where a grave had been dug the previous day. It is said the family would not lower Maria's body into the grave initially because it was full of run-off water. The grave had to be emptied of its contents by borrowed pail from a neighbor, and it wasn't until much later in the day, with failing daylight, before the men, with rope, were able to carefully, slowly lower the rough box into the ground. The funeral procession, according to one account, had been followed to the cemetery by a number of wolves said to have been particularly curious about the human intrusion. It is to be expected the mourners and family had to return to Ufford and area by oil lamplight to illuminate the winding, hilly forest pathway.

     Settlers were probably quite familiar with the undertaker's cart, and the funerary wagon, being the horse-drawn hearse, that would have rattled down these same rough roadways to either recover the bodies of the deceased, or to carry a coffin to the nearest cemetery for a proper burial. It was probably quite disturbing to hear the tell-tale scuffing of the team of horses, banging hooves down on the hard pack dirt roadways, often late at night, the lamplights flickering as the cart was shaken by the pot holes and sharp curves over and around hillsides known well of the Ufford farmland, bordering Three Mile Lake. These watchers in the woods, in their roughly hewn shanties, would have been able to identify the wagon and horse traffic along their abutting laneways, and have known that someone close by, a friend of the family, or known neighbor had most likely succumbed to illness or injury; and the undertaker from Bracebridge, more than likely, had come to assist with the removal, and or late night funeral. Here's why.

     When there was a seriously contagious illness, possibly in the form of an epidemic, whether Smallpox, Influenza, Diphtheria, or other disease easily spread amongst the community, it was not uncommon for burials to be conducted shortly after death had been confirmed, and usually late in the evening or early morning, in order to efficiently remove the potential for disease spread, and held in private to avoid any mourners or curious onlookers that would have occurred during the daylight. In one case, also in the Ufford area, the Doherty family, (road of the same name today) was stricken by such an contagious infection, and four members died within a twenty-four hour period. They were buried quickly adjacent to their property, only a few meters from the well travelled roadway. There are many similar stories told, with a folkish bent, about these late night funerals, without any particular religious rites being performed before death, or any ceremony during the burial, because of the nature of the illness, and the possibility of it spreading to the grave diggers themselves. The rural residents had every reason to be fearful of these unfortunate but necessary visits, because it meant a potential outbreak was happening nearby, putting them at serious risk as well. Did they have contact with the affected neighbors in the days leading up to the news of the illnesses? Might they be next to fall seriously ill? As far as medical rescue, this was part of the homesteading catastrophe that occurred on many Muskoka homesteads in the earliest years of formative settlements, dating back to the late 1850's.

     I am frequently awestruck with the gravity of their pioneer situations, and how dangerous it was to move ill prepared families into the wild frontier lands, that were viciously hard even on those brave souls who were experienced with axes and saws before arrival here. Many lives were destroyed by this brutally difficult reality of cutting down large acreages of forest, clearing the lands of stumps and rock, and building stable and weather resistant shelters to protect against the early winters that moved in by late October, and wouldn't relent until the end of April, when the lake ice might finally release its hold. When I wander through these cemeteries where quite a few of those hale and hardy pioneers are buried, some taken by the dangerous realities of falling timbers, and broken backs, others taken by untreated injuries, cuts and food poisoning, and yet others felled by the quick spread of contagions; something we are particularly familiar with today in our world of 2021.

     I have been known to pause on my way out of these scenic, peaceful historic graveyards, for a few moments of remembrance and contemplation, the visual character, and sounds that companioned those mournful events dating from the 1860's. How much neighborhood, community and regional history transpired on this hallowed ground, in the drama of everyday life, and everyday tragedy, and everyday resolve to carry on, as God's will, and hold memories close in the march of time that will again and again involve both birth, and rejoicing, death and its resident sadness. In these cemeteries our history speaks to us, when we choose to extend a few moments of quiet contemplation about how we arrived at this place in time; and how these good folks buried within, inspired the improvements of which now all benefit. Health care comes to my mind.

     Several years ago, Suzanne, who has been working in her spare time for at least a decade, gathering together our family history, decided she really needed to know where her relative, Maria Shea was buried in the Falkenburg Cemetery. We had an inkling because of the descriptions in her uncle Bert Shea's book on the history of Ufford, and we looked at the landform of the hillside property, to determine where water run-off might have come from on the day of the young woman's burial. As we both have some reverence for the serendipity of finding graves, getting a little other worldly assistance, (from the deceased or family thereof) we made every effort to let Maria lead us to her actual plot in the small cemetery. Suzanne went to a low area not to far removed from the roadway, and where there was an obvious depression in the ground, but no visible marker to suggest there was anyone buried in this location. We had been at the cemetery for almost an hour at this point, and there hadn't been as much as a single fly flitting about. When she yelled to me, at the opposite corner of the property, that she believe the plot was just to the west of where she was standing, I watched her then take a couple of steps and call, "Maria, Maria where are you?" In a matter of seconds, she was swarmed by flying insects that were hitting her in the face and eyes, that had seemingly come out of thin air. She couldn't find anything on the ground that she could have inadvertently disturbed to send the flies skyward, but it was obvious that they were particularly fond of this one small location; literally a habitat that was the size of the grave Maria had been buried in back in 1867. Was Maria trying to let her relative, Suzanne, know that she was buried below her feet; and that she was very much deserving of a grave market to memorialize her short life? In the whole cemetery, although not very big, it was the only bit of landscape that matched the description given in the text of her uncle's community and family history. As far as being convinced that her bones were in that unmarked grave, well, funnier coincidences have occurred during her years of research and on-site adventures in historically peaceful places like this.

     Don't be shy about visiting these sanctuary locations in our region and beyond. They are wonderfully peaceful places for reflective respites; and to reconnect with our heritage without having to pay admission.

 

The Serene Heritage Landmarks Most Often Forgotten When The Futurists Forge Ahead With Irreverence - as if Nothing Else Matters More Than GOING BIG!

 

Birch Hollow Photo by Suzanne Currie

     I was never forced to go to church as a child, not because my parents were atheists, or had any falling out, of which I'm aware, with formal religion. I was never forced to go to a cemetery, but I went of my own volition. In part, it was being denied the privilege of attending both my grandmother Blanche Jackson's funeral, and then, a few years later, my grandfather Stanley. I did want to know what this "death" thing was all about, but my mother insisted that her only son should remain a child for a few more character and experience building years; presumably to figure out why we are born, to later die, and then be the subject of a funeral and maybe even a ride to a cemetery in a shiny black hearse. What a morbid way to start off a post. Well, you don't even need to be able to read between the lines, that I have a long held fascination for final resting places, in the whole spectrum of urban, rural and family cemeteries, graveyards, and mausoleums. It all came to fruition a few years back when Suzanne, my research partner and photographer, and I, decided to survey as many of the graveyards and private burials sites as we could in South and West Muskoka. Even with months of work, we only managed to cover about two thirds of these important heritage sites. We also documented all the angel symbols, etched onto monuments, and the angel statuaries that are more frequently seen in the Catholic Cemeteries visited. Suzanne took many hundreds of photographs of interesting and unique heritage monuments, and plot adornments placed by family, and she also snapped many images of fallen, brush compromised, and broken tombstones that had never been repaired let alone restored. Many were so deeply covered in moss and related natural qualities and quantities, that you could decipher the inscriptions, that for me, the scribe, was disappointing, but I knew this in advance. Cemetery upkeep is expensive and church budgets in this regard can be pretty tight these days with maintenance issues for their respective buildings. It is eventually going to be necessary for more community involvement generally, in the financial sense and volunteerism, to keep these historic sites, which are all tributes to the Muskoka builders, of once, proportionally upgraded as one would expect of any heritage landmark. The chronicle of Muskoka's past is all here in these hallowed places dotting the countryside, and the citizens resting there, were responsible for what we brag about now as the Muskoka lifestyle, that is so heavily celebrated in real estate sales these days. In these rural and urban properties, neatly fenced, treed and flowered at this time of the year, and identified for the municipal ward, and or church, that has the particular responsibility for upkeep, are the row upon row of familiar names,  duly noted in the many published history books. It is a history lesson to walk through these peaceful places, where the hardwoods and softwoods wreath together, with century old lilac stands, and wildflowers thrive along the fence-lines.

     I can still remember wondering where the hearses were travelling, with the entourage of vehicles following behind, each with their headlights on, in the daylight, especially when the deceased in the lead car, was someone I knew. I had a number of childhood friends pass in childhood, and quite a few of us school chums would form a short honor guard on Manitoba Street, near the funeral home, to pay our respects the best we could from a distance. We didn't know how to mourn, because we didn't really understand what death was all about, and why our friend had met this fate when we were all fine and full of youthful energy. Most of us, had actually visited the funeral home where their bodies had rested for an upcoming memorial service, and not one of my mates, at the time, could register the truths of what we had witnessed at the side of the casket. We saw family members wiping away tears from their eyes, dressed in black, hugging each other, while we were dressed as you would expect of unfettered kids who hadn't told our parents of our intentions to visit the deceased in this unfamiliar place, in an unfamiliar circumstances. And on each occasion, we did visit the cemeteries where these friends of ours had been buried, and when we saw the still grassless earth in front of the tombstone, and read the inscriptions, we still didn't appreciate all that was involved in this cycle of life thing. A few of us inspired nightmares, and quite a few vowed to never die, or attend a funeral home again, no matter what. We were untutored by our parents, and we took it upon ourselves to experience this sudden departure without any guidance or subtle warnings, about being compassionate and respectful of mourning families. It's because we didn't know about the finality of such circumstances. We knew our mates had either died of serious illness, been the victim of a swimming misadventure, and two others, having been killed when the tunnel they were building collapsed, pinning them under tons of wet earth.

     Each time Suzanne and I would visit a different cemetery here in South and West Muskoka, I always retreated a few moments to survey the properties, so visible unique to the host landscape, each possessing a mix of solitude, of pervasive peace, and historical actuality, that became the over-riding kinship between me and the providential, the hallowed ground sprawling out in front, so attractively appointed in monuments, simply representative,  to sculpturally elaborate, all being cradled in the bosom of the Muskoka landscape; its gentle intrusion of fern canopy and vividly green mosses, and soft cushion of grasses matured over centuries into a soothing velvet carpet, flowered humbly in pockets, and shaded by venerable oaks and maples, bordered by tall pines and sculpted cedars of district heritage. The scented breeze that washes down over the wildflowers and patches of sweet grass intoxicates the sense, and makes relevant the consuming ethereal mood, of heaven as it is on earth, and we shed a tear without being sad, or mournful for the departed. It is as much a joyful reaction to a beautiful place, that is so very relevant and living; a beginning versus an end, to understanding what has come before us, in this most amazing region in Ontario. These are the names attached to the past, yet relevant in the present tense, and equal in quest of the future, because they are the foundation names, and the security of strength in numbers, that the futurists will eventually come to appreciate, as being the stability every community requires to truly benefit, in human terms, from all changes deemed compatible in the well planned vein of progress. Here lie the makers of tradition in our Muskoka communities, that is non-negotiable when it comes to those who might wish to remake the district in their own images; based on their interpretations of what makes most money for their investments. It's just one of those oaths of office that Suzanne and I have taken, quite voluntarily, to serve and protect the provenance that we have been gifted with in Muskoka, as evidenced by the names on these gravestones, that remind us clearly, how much progress had been achieved by their expense of life and times, to make our rural neighborhoods, hamlets, villages, and towns not only vibrant, but long serving because the foundations were built right and strong for an enduring legacy.

     I can read a lot into a cemetery viewing, with my historical bent, but more so, I trundle along these well worn pathways mindful of the names inscribed, stopping frequently to acknowledge someone I knew, in years past, feeling a calming sense of reclamation thinking back to our past interactions, socially or on the sports field, golf links, or arena ice. I don't end my tour of these historic places in our communities, feeling sad, or in any way distressed, as you see, I've come a long way in appreciating what death is all about; and that there is a persuasive peacefulness and subdued enthusiasm, that there is such a generous offering of serenity for those of us who find stress and discomfort so abundant in this often harried existence. As I dwell for a time, before I enter the cemetery gates, I also pause momentarily on departure, to look back with affection, and respect, at what this tranquil place means in the grand scheme of historical reckoning. It is why I believe it is a better place to begin appreciation for our history, than a concluding visitation, simply because of what it offers in inspiration. These are memorializing sites, obviously, but they are not just the nurturing ground of melancholy. It is the clear human evidence that a good town has grown here.... because of their ambitions and initiatives, of which we still benefit so profoundly and profitably in this new century.

     Visit history. Take a stroll through a Muskoka cemetery.

Cemeteries Are Not Haunted by The Deceased But By The Living - Serendipity on the Other Hand, is Very Much a Going Concern on This Hallowed Ground

Birch. Hollow Photo by Suzanne Currie

     First of all, to set the record straight before we once again look at what is haunted, and what isn't, I should clarify that I am not a ghost hunter. I am not a ghost buster. I am not a ghost voyeur, and I would never ever pay to go on a ghost walk with an author of such persuasion, who gets paid to sell folks on the idea a spirit will pop-out and do a little soft shoe performance, before turning back into a vapor and existing stage left. I generally only ever report on what I've experienced first hand, and what are notes in the history books about what our citizens have witnessed in decades past, that may or may not qualify as a paranormal anything. But I do subscribe to the theory that the mortal spirit crosses over to the so called "other side," after death, and that from this ethereal retreat, they can communicate in a variety of ways with those they have left behind; meaning us mortals fulfilling our destinies. I do follow the work of Medium John Edward, and his "Crossing Over" collection of books on psychic phenomenon, where those who have crossed do actively communicate with the living, through any number of signs and situations, some of course coming through Edward himself for those people being read. And no, I have not been "read" myself, and frankly I have no reason to seek this out, because honestly, and I mean this, I've been getting messages presumably from the great beyond since I was a kid. I don't believe for a minute that I'm particularly psychic and I don't really want to be a conduit for other people's messages from the other side. I've got enough voices in my head already, not to invite any more. I would most definitely love to speak with John Edward because I have some meaty questions about stuff like visible ghosts, and does he believe in them; and if those who have crossed over can manifest in some visible fashion to get their messages out to the land of the living. I've tried to contact him with my psychic energy but it's obvious I might have to land-line, or snail-mail him, as my spiritual conduit leaks like a sieve.

     As I wrote about earlier in this series of posts, just over a year ago I was introduced to several books by genealogist Henry Z. Jones, author of "Psychic Roots," volume one and two, profiling how his work on his own family history, and the overlap with others he discovered amidst in-depth and on-site research in Germany and United States, that serendipity was rearing up regularly that was seriously but helpfully influencing where he looked for information, whether in municipal registries or in cemeteries all over God's half acre you might say. He became so interested in the serendipity influence, meaning he was getting leads and basically heaven-sent dreamscapes, regarding his elusive kin, that he not only benefitted this way on the record, but asked others in genealogical pursuits if they had experienced similar out-of-the blue assistance that could not be easily dismissed or explained. He put it out there, asking for others to validate his experiences, by stating their own curious dances with serendipity, and there were so many responses to the positive, that he had enough copy for a second volume. Most from people who testified to the strange coincidences that put them, without knowing where their ancestors were buried, right at the foot of the actual tombstones; not having a clue what made them take a right turn down a row, versus a left, or taking a little stumble on uneven ground, and looking to one side or another, and catching a glance of the family name the subject of the search. Fascinating stuff, and so much of it paralleling what Suzanne and I have been benefitting from for decades; Suzanne being a full fledged family historian and attesting to many curious serendipitous situations with her research material, that suddenly reveal something that bridge an information gap that had previously proven a dead end to ongoing research. As both Henry Jones' books make clear reference, the ethereal aspects of serendipity are acts of spiritual generosity, that have helped thousands of family historians find long lost, and even unknown kin, by intervening in the strangest, but non-ghost way. So, here's my question. If you don't believe in ghosts, would you take help from a serendipitous circumstance that was clearly "weird" and unexpected, if it gives you the information you were looking for to fill out the family tree. Sort of like the mother of the young lad who thought he was a chicken. And when a family friend suggested she should take the boy to see a therapist about his fixation, she replied, "I would but we need the eggs." I think many of us, who are sensitive to such things as life after death, and being open to the possibilities of getting messages from the other side, have experienced such fleeting contact and do appreciate that we don't need to see a ghost, to be able to wax in the paranormal realm, one spirit to another.

     A few years ago now, Suzanne and I decided to embark on a little heritage survey of our own making, that we would share with others via a prepared text with photographs. Graveyards. Cemeteries. Public, Church and Private. Some even set at the side of the travelled road where a homestead once stood, and death came calling. And it had a lot to do with death and final resting places, but not anything paranormal. Unless, like the serendipity of which I have already referred, something led us to discover an important lead in our own family research; or as is common with me, a few morsels of information from these memorials markers, to add details to any community history I happened to be working on at the time. I am no stranger to cemetery walks, but never once have I attended one of our beautiful final-resting-places, to hold vigil in order to catch a wayward ghost trying to exist the property. I have heard these stories from others, but for them, I should note, there encounters were not expected, and they really didn't suspect that the human form they saw trying to step over the border fence wasn't really human at all; and the apparitions would vanish eventually into the atmosphere of nightfall. They were unsettled but not frightened, because the scenes that unfolded were not macabre, horror-filled or threatening. The image of a woman in a long white gown trying to clear the wire of a fallen fence at the rear of a small graveyard, was a more peaceful and historic image than a Hollywood spine chiller.

     When we travelled around for those four months, visiting at least two cemeteries a day, just to pay homage to the folks who had contributed to building the Muskoka we celebrate today, there was never one visit, that we weren't introduced to some element of what Henry Jones was writing about in his Psychic Roots books. But these weren't our family members reaching out, but rather, they were grave sites of citizens and good friends that we had known well in their lives, crossing over in so many ways with our own, and indeed our family members dating back decades. The strangest one was when, in the St. Thomas Anglican Church Cemetery, in Bracebridge, I was walking by myself along the well travelled laneway around the site, pondering quietly to myself where Fred and Mary Bamford's memorial stone was located. I had found it about ten years previous when Suzanne and I had reason to visit one Sunday. I was in almost the same circumstance, and distance from the gravestone, when I started thinking about Bamford's Store up on Bracebridge's Toronto Street when I was a kid, circa the late 1960's and early 70's. Fred and Mary owned Woodley Motor Park and general store, and our family lived in the Weber Apartments, on Alice Street, directly behind. I played almost every day in what we called Bamford's Woods, and my mother Merle used to work part time as a clerk in the tiny-wee store. I used to marvel at Fred and the wildlife of his little parkette, and many times I watched in awe as he held numerous birds at once on his arm, with seed in his open palm, and a squirrel or chipmunk at the same time on his shoulder, or even on his head. I was reminded of this while I was walking down this cemetery lane, still unable to find the name Bamford etched on any of the stones. Then I watched as this huge and beautifully attired Blue Jay came fluttering just over my head, landing on a tombstone about two rows to the west of where I was standing. I was curious about the Jay and went to get a closer look. There it was. Roosting on Fred and Mary's grave marker. I thought, well, this is ironic to what I remember of Fred in real time, real life. And maybe you can guess this, of my second visit, to the same cemetery, once again, looking for my old friends' stone. And there was a similarly large and stunningly appointed Blue Jay perched in almost the same place as I remembered of my previous visit. I had to get a closer look to make sure it wasn't a ceramic ornament someone had since attached to the stone. It was real, and it stared me down, as if it was indeed giving me a message from the other side. "Hello Teddy." Short and sweet, and that was Fred's way of keeping conversations uncomplicated but sincere.

     A year ago, and just as strange as ever around here, we got an out-of-the-blue message from a member of the Bamford family in the United States, who had read a post I had written about Fred and Mary many years back; and as circumstance had it, and this time, a family member was bed-ridden and some reminiscences had been bandied about with those at bedside, and my story they had known about previously, became the topic of discussion. They wondered if I had any more stories about Fred and Mary, and well, I just happened to have a book I had written about my childhood on Alice Street, and a few other ditties I wrote out by hand; and I mailed it to them as a wee show of the affection I had for these two fine folks who were important to our own family. I was carrying the wrapped book down to the car, so that Suzanne could take it to the post office for shipping, when, half way down the driveway, another beautiful Blue Jay fluttered overhead, and settled on an overhanging maple bow just above my head. Serendipity at its finest, and in respect to the situation, I once again gave a heartfelt "good morning Mr. Bamford," as I had offered so many times when we both lived on that scenic piece of urban open space in my old hometown. I like fiction but I am not a fiction writer. This happened, and what's a voyeur writer to do but bring it home, and make of it what is relevant to the time and circumstances. Look up Henry Z. Jones books online, and you can get copies by searching the old book dealers belonging to the "Advance Book Exchange," or "ABE". You will never disbelieve in serendipity as a family history research aid again.
More on graveyard visits in upcoming posts.

     

       
 

Muskoka Has Always Been My Really Big Narnia-Like Magic Wardrobe And I've Been Escaping Through it for More Than Fifty Years

Birch Hollow Photo by Suzanne Currie

     (In reference to author C.S. Lewis) "Lewis had first considered writing a story for children in 1939, when one of his young evacuees (from potential London bombing) had shown a fascination with the wardrobe at The Kilns (the authors home) and had asked Lewis what was behind it; whether there was another way out through the other side. Lewis was intrigued by this and found it impossible to remove the image from his mind. Most of us have imagined at some time or other, perhaps in moments of unhappiness, that all our problems could be solved and our dreams realized if we could leave this world behind. Doors and windows lead quite obviously to another part of our own universe but what about the wardrobe, dark and warm and secret, the back of it somehow distant but in fact very close. Anything could be in there, everything is possible. Lewis himself had been fascinated by the idea of the magic wardrobe since he was a boy when he had read "The Aunt and Annabel" by Edith Nesbitt, in which a new and special world is entered through just a wardrobe." (The book title is "The Man Who Created Narnia," by Michael Cole 1994 Lester Publishing.

     Muskoka is as extraordinary as the voyeur wishes it to be, or as ordinary as wishes demand. It can be a most enchanted place or a locale possessing northing spectacular suited to the lovers of commonplace and uncompromising plainness in their lives. But for those who cherish potentials and possibilities, and who are keen to treasure hunt, uncovering the universality of Muskoka is like finding that the Lewis "Wardrobe" has something special to offer, should you be willing to engage adventure.

     I have, for many years, reading through the mountain of books written in, and about Muskoka, and examined closely, the work of artists and artisans who have created their artwork here, and I have yet to find definitive works that an historian like me, could latch onto as characterizing the region I know from most of a lifetime exploring its nooks and crannies, and of course, it's inherent magic. I happen to be one of those voyeurs who has always found Muskoka extraordinary, and it is the reason I have never even considered moving to some other region for work or home comforts. Yet it has puzzled me why I can attach so few names to this register of artists and writers who have made serious imprints on the region as a whole, such that most of us can list them casually, as being the beacons of our cultural heritage from a literary and artistic perspective. It doesn't mean to suggest we haven't been the welcome recipients of massive artistic profiling, as our district has benefitted, from the beginning of its settlement period commencing in the late 1850's, but that a majority of these artists and writers, and some musicians, have never lived here more than a few years to complete their studies, and literary profiles. We have in fact, entertained some highly significant names in Canadian literature; from poets such as Pauline Johnston, Sir Charles G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carmen, Wilson MacDonald, and authors, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Sir Gilbert Parker, Marshall Saunders, Algernon Blackwood, Max Braithwaite, Wayland "Buster" Drew, and many others of international acclaim. Artists such as Mower-Martin, Homer Watson, Tom Thomson, A.Y. Jackson. David Milne, Arthur Lismer and Franz "Frank" Johnson, to name a few. Of course we have had many home grown artists and accomplished poets and authors of all genres of work. But we have not had the wandering poet / authors such as walked the countryside of New England, such as Emerson, Longfellow and Thoreau, from his Walden Pond. There are many New England writers, like Herman Melville, who came to represent the region in the historical sense, and who are still revered to this day, as I dare say part of literary tourism which is still hale and hardy in their honor.

     Muskoka is well represented, of course, by many artists, artisans, free lance writers, poets, historians, and photographers, as well as being a haven for musicians and song writers, and this has all created a huge social / cultural quilting from one end of the district to the other, that is promoted by music festivals, art studio tours, and art exhibitions through the district, promoting the reality that Muskoka is an inspirational place to live, work and create. I was once, quite a few years back, invited to participate in a Muskoka Arts and Crafts Association lecture series, at the groups annual meeting, in Bracebridge, attending on behalf of Muskoka Publications, specifically the Muskoka Sun where I was Assistant Editor to Robert Boyer, the founder of the popular summer season publication. I was there to pitch our increasing interest in promoting the arts community in our coverage area, that in our opinion, had not been getting the media coverage it warranted; and that we wanted to help improve for our mutual benefit. I spent about an hour that night, trying to convince member artists that it was okay to send me profile information on their work, and to make sure they sent us any notices of upcoming open house events at their studios, and also to let us know if they were working on unique projects our readers might be interested in knowing about. The audience, honestly, hadn't been held spellbound by my pitch, and they had been fidgeting in their seats for most of my presentation. I could tell that my little speech had been about thirty to forty minutes too long to keep their interest. Here's why. They simply didn't believe that a money making outfit like our newspaper, was going to give them anything free, or send out a reporter to interview them without trying, in the preamble set-up, to sell them an advertisement. No ad, no story! I had a lot of undoing of past woes to get these folks to trust me, that there were no strings attached. Our readers wanted to know about them, and their work, and the company was willing to pay someone like me to visit their workshops and studio / galleries to write their individual stories.

     After the meeting had officially ended, I had an audience of a dozen artists who had crowded around me, to, in large measure, brow beat me into confessing what it would really cost them, if I did come out to do a story on their work. I still had my work cut out for me then, because it was difficult to explain why we had this sudden turn of respect for what the arts community could do for us, as a publication that requires ad copy and readers to keep the accountants happy. I did convert a few that evening, who were at the very least, willing to let me show them how this new level of co-operation would work, to our mutual benefit; giving the artists and artisans a media platform to promote themselves, and in so doing, giving Muskoka a little credit for being a wonderful host-residence. I was really trying to draw out the artists who would lend credit to the district in which they work, and are inspired, and considering that we were then one of the largest weekly publications, (from May to October) promoting all things Muskoka, it seemed more than likely, I would receive many positive testimonials from member artists; that yes, indeed, the region had played a major influence on the development of their work, and within their respective art creations, there was a distinguishable and embedded Muskoka character. I can report that there was support for our initiative, but not nearly what we had hoped for, when we began reaching out to artists. They were still suspicious we were out to make a profit off their backs, and they held out until other artists had worked with us over the next few months; and could attest to our honesty of mission statement.

     Funny end to that story, and once again, it won't make the history text. An artist member came up to me after the meeting, and in front of many witnesses, said in a very clear and determined voice, "Mr. Currie, thank you so much for the presentation and I really want your job." It was said twice, in fact, such that there was no way I could mistake the serious intent above what had been friendly banter to that point. The punch line? Well, I don't really have one, other than to report that the person who uttered that rather blunt statement of intent, did relieve me of my job within the year. Gosh, I was so impressive pitching co-operation between the arts community and the print media, that it so inspired one of my guests that night, to wangle a writing gig at my expense. So the bottom line is, well, I never did get to follow through completely on this plan to co-operate fully with the arts community, to increase their profile and show our commitment to celebrate their creative enterprises, because I was working from home as a free lance only a few months later. My interest and commitment remained the same and ever since I have found myself immersed in a number of artist biographies, including Richard Karon, Lake of Bays Artist, Bob Everett, Bracebridge and Muskoka Artist, Ada Florence Kinton, Huntsville Artist, and Frank Johnston, Gravenhurst Artist. I also dipped to the south to write the biography of Oro Medonte Artist, Katherine Day. I love the arts, and I love writing, and I sure love this region of Ontario. It is the reason to this day, after fifty years and some minor turbulence, I still enjoy any opportunity to work with the arts community, and delve deeper into what the Muskoka mystique has inspired of their creations. It is one of the cornerstones of this series of posts, and why I am always so excited to work with creators who feel the same about our region as I do; and who might even go as far as considering these environs like a really big and natural wardrobe in the spirit of the good Mr. Lewis.

     We are looking forward to working with the talented artist / illustrator, Sarah Cole, later this year. Please stay tuned to this site.