The Haunting of the Antiquarian - The Bedazzling of the Writer - The Joyful Immersion of the Historian

Birch Hollow Photo by Suzanne Currie

      When I moved my very few antiques and collectables back to my home district of Muskoka, in the spring of 1977, I had the great fortune of taking up residence in an historic residence on Bracebridge's Manitoba Street, opposite the tree lined Memorial Park, with its scenic bandshell and two canons at opposite ends of the triangular piece of urban landscape. It was the former house and medical office of Dr. Peter McGibbon, former Muskoka Member of Parliament, and one of the founders of the Bracebridge Red Cross Hospital, established as a memorial to those local citizens who had perished overseas, during the years of the First World War. As I have written about previously, it was the house where my parents and I would set up Old Mill Antiques, my initial foray into the profession of buying and selling old stuff.

     The point I want to make about the beautiful three story house, other than it was gloriously haunted, in the most friendly and accommodating way (very polite about their interventions), is that I was allowed to use the attic with a large horizontal window that afforded me a panorama of the park and venerable Norway Maples that bordered the adjacent roadways on both sides. I had a desk, a wonky old lamp, plus an oil lamp for its scented influences, and a cheap portable typewriter I had brought home from university, all positioned on the wall below the front window, to give me a clear view down onto the main street. I spent a full year utilizing that attic room before I had to re-located in the old house because of other rentals in the building. It was a great opportunity to watch the transitions of the four seasons, month by month, in the hometown of my youth. I certainly didn't have any problem putting that cranky manual typewriter to work, cranking out hundreds of stories, real and, yes, a little bit of fiction which of course was enhanced by the interior character of the house, having its share of paranormal lodgers dwelling amongst the living.

     I was a rookie writer, who wanted desperately to be an author, and a fledgling antique dealer, who also, desperately wanted to rise to the rank of antique shop owner. And here I was, staring out on this panorama of my home town, having returned from the city to make my way in one or another profession, finding so much to write about, and yes, so much to be encouraged about in the first few months that our shop was open on the main floor. I have often made reference, in other ghost stories I've composed for various publications, over the years, that the McGibbon House was not the kind of paranormal hot spot, that would have made a decent backdrop for a Hollywood movie. It wasn't in any way a frightening place to be, even when I did have curious encounters with numerous visible entities, witnessed on the back stairway for example, and I have always credited the residence with giving me an incredible head start in both professions. I never had a day or night writing in the McGibbon House attic that I didn't feel the intimate haunting, as if a watcher was sitting in the chair beside, or hovering at my back, as if reading over my shoulder. As a writer I was always fearful of being unable to come up with editorial material, and that would have been worse for me, than feeling I was in the company of the departed. I can't tell you that it was the influences of those roaming spirits that found the attic a comfortable after-life sanctuary, that gave me my start in the writing business, but I did write several small books there, and enough short stories to publish a third had I gone that route. I was hired by the Muskoka Lakes-Georgian Bay Beacon based on the sample writing I sent to the publisher of that paper, all tapped out at the attic window, looking out over that picturesque little park that I had crossed four times daily when I attended Bracebridge Public School, one block to the west. I learned the ropes of being an antique dealer in that house during the daytime, and it was also where I was living when Suzanne and I began dating back in 1983.

     It was from that house, and from that attic vantage point, that I matured with my impression of both Bracebridge as a hometown, the history it possessed, known and unknown, giving the young writer in residence, an unobstructed point of view that incorporated Muskoka itself, that I had been introduced to back in the late winter of 1966. I was glad our family moved north from Burlington, Ontario, to Bracebridge, as weary urban refugees, but it wasn't until I returned home after a three year hiatus at university, that I truly began to see Muskoka and Bracebridge as I had never witnessed it previously. It was as if this attic portal, from this very historic home, at almost the centre of the Manitoba Street strip, entitled me to a deeper perspective; a voyeur onto the life and times of the citizenry of this small town on the verge of new and exciting growth in the coming decades. I knew this. I felt it was important to remember this scene, and this amazing house, and the interactions with its friendly ghosts, and it seemed so comfortably right, to compose almost anything in that room, to keep as my most intimate diary, of my own discovery year in writing, and my ambitions as an antiquarian.

     I find it almost impossible, in the verbal sense, to properly represent, and illustrate even adequately, what studying Muskoka in those days meant to me, particularly as a collector and dealer of antiques, which while clear to me, doesn't translate simply by showing off the large collection of regional histories and collectables at our Gravenhurst shop. I have been involved in regional history since that first fall and winter at the McGibbon House, and in fact, it was where the idea for a Bracebridge Historical Society was first hatched, and an inaugural meeting held. Yes, in the attic, looking out over Memorial Park. And it was the host lodgings, that gave me every reason to involve myself in local history, and in my own mind, a protector of Muskoka's natural and historic integrity thereafter. In this, my enthusiasm and commitment has never ceased, and Suzanne has been with me on this Muskoka odyssey since we hooked up way back when. We are still actively researching and writing about Muskoka and its heritage, and representing it whenever information is requested of us, and our own personal archives that will never be for sale.

     We are always on the lookout for Muskoka histories, journals, ephemera, documents and vintage photographs, and in many cases, we take our latest acquisitions, and we build feature stories around them for public consumption. It's what we love to do, and the rewards personally, are the satisfaction that more history has been infilled that wasn't previously known, and regardless of having made no money in the process, the completion factor more than makes up for the time and investment expended. We are always interested in hearing from Muskokans who have archives materials they would like to share; and we still have a ways to go to complete our adventure in regional history.

     I owe the former McGibbon House a lot. It is no more, but it memory, it will always exist. The ghosts? Well, I think they're still with us, here at Birch Hollow, but what the heck. We've got lots of room.