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| Photos of vintage Christmas post cards by Suzanne Currie |
THE SPIRITS OF CHRISTMAS PAST
THE LANDSCAPE INFLUENCING US IN SO MANY WAYS, AND OF COURSE, ALWAYS AT CHRISTMAS WHEN WE AWAKEN TO THE JOYS OF THE HINTERLAND
A PREABLE TO TODAY’S POST
BY TED CURRIE
“It has long been my contention that landscape has an especial influence on those who inhabit it - not merely in economic ways, as the wheat or cotton spring from the earth; not in geographic ways, as rivers and mountains become boundaries to be crossed, but in spiritual and psychic ways. The look and feel of land communicate not easily described messages to those who are sensitive enough to receive them. Perhaps because rivers in their courses offer poetic parallels to human life, people are inclined to attribute to them, influences that strongly affect their lives.” Carl Carmer, Forward from the book, “The Hudson River and its Painters,” 1972, Penguin Books.
Truer words were never spoken, or in this case written, to explain why I have had such an intimate relationship, for all these years, with my surroundings. I am not a wilderness hiker, and certainly not one who feels comfortable living in isolation anywhere on the planet. Instead, I have always attached myself to some parcel of uncompromised green space, usually in a semi-urban situation. It abutting, or nearly abutting a place or residence of which I am quite comfortable and familiar. And over time, I find that these nearby wild places, some no more than twenty or so acres, such as The Bog here at Birch Hollow, become a more intimate writing companion, and slowly evolve in my own psyche, to become not only backdrops of stories, but to be the catalyst of many writing projects in waiting. They can be cheerful places, or cheerfully haunted as old Bamford’s Woods, that bordered Alice and Toronto Streets, when our family lived in Bracebridge back in the sixties and seventies. I have become so familiar with these precious and accessible haunts, that I can even find myself doing an inventory of the creature inhabitants, such that I know if any of the major critters have left for greener pastures, or new ones have suddenly arrived to take up residence; whether fox, raccoon, family of owls, or something a little larger like a moose (we had one of those this past spring), and deer, of which are most numerous this year. And it is that level of familiarity that pleases me most of all, because I am a daily visitor, and most of the time, on my return to this little office, overlooking The Bog, I could write a wee story or a long, long essay. I am easily and readily inspired by wild places. Well, semi wild places, not to far from home. Like Thoreau, at his Walden Pond cabin, so close to his family in the urban situation, that he could get fresh baking daily if necessary, from the actual homestead only a few miles away. That’s me. I offer no apology for being a home-body, who likes to take occasional strolls in the Wild Wood.
Muskoka has shaped me most definitely. I have surrendered to it without a fuss. It has given me so much to write about, for so long, that I could not separate myself from this generous but small allotment, and expect to continue writing. There was a time about twenty years back, that I had a great feeling of claustrophobia due to the summer humidity that summer. I told Suzanne that I simply couldn’t stand it indoors, any longer, and seeing as an air conditioner wasn’t in the budget that year, and a fan kept her awake at night, I opted to sleep on the front verandah, with an mosts amazing panorama of The Bog. I began sleeping on a cot on the verandah in early July, and I remained there off and on, almost until the snow began to fall. I would sit out there and write by pen for hours and hours, benefitting from what is known as “actuality.” I was visited there by all kinds of creatures, especially the deer wandering through our yard, and sundry other raccoons, rabbits, squirrels (first thing in the morning), and the occasional fox interested in any food I might have left open when I retired to bedlam. I filled a dozen note books that summer and autumn season, some of the material yet to be used on this site. It was as pure as it gets for the voyeur, with the exception that I wasn’t actually tenting in the woods. I was willing to learn from the outdoors experience, and I dare say I benefitted greatly. Now it does seem an impossibility to write anything at all, without reckoning with the influences of The Bog, and the flora and fauna of Birch Hollow itself. And at Christmas, yes indeed, this enchanting old forest is the perfect host for a stroll along the trodden paths, whether at first light, or in the milky light of the moon as it tributes the winter season in Muskoka. The story below was one of my favorite folk tales, taken from real exposure, but re-visited many times since 1977 when the incident occurred well distant from the urban area of Bracebridge. It was my own Christmas feast, in a sensory way, and I hope you can identify with the circumstances and influences of a forgotten homestead, in the midst of a pre-Christmas snow event; and the most pleasant haunting that did send an initial chill through my body. It became more remarkable than frightening. Merry Christmas.
THE SPIRITS OF CHRISTMAS PAST
AT BIRCH HOLLOW
BY TED CURRIE
It was forty-four years ago this month, that I enjoyed the first Christmas season in the retail trade, and a fledgling antique dealer.
I had just graduated university in Toronto, and had a degree in Canadian history to hang on my wall. With my parents as partners, we jointly opened "Old Mill Antiques" on the main floor of the former home and medical office of Bracebridge Doctor, Peter McGibbon, one of the founders of the Red Cross Hospital on the site of the present South Muskoka Memorial Hospital.
We also lived in the Manitoba Street house, and I was welcome to use the attic as a writer's loft for those two years we ran the business. It wasn't the best plan in the first place, because, while my parents were no strangers to retail, they simply couldn't embrace the idea that old stuff can be quite valuable, if the buyer, which was in our case, me, did their hunting and gathering correctly with an idea of eventual profit. I was green and made a lot of mistakes in those first few years in the late 1970's. I don't know of a single antique dealer who has been unscathed by the disasters of inexperience.
There was one afternoon, that early December, when I decided that with the low to non-existent flow of customers that day, it would be okay for me to slip away from some recreation on the cross country ski trail just off Beaumont Drive. I didn't have a lot of time but there were several shorter ski loops, and I figure an hour or so would be perfect for the frustration I was feeling. Everyone who opens a retail operation imagines it will be super successful right off the bat. Antique dealers especially so. We can be an arrogant lot for sure. Well, it wasn't happening for us and my parents were getting nervous because we had opened in November as a test run for the Christmas period. We just kept paying-out and taking very little in, and it was mildly discontenting to all the ambitious plans we had prepared for the next five years. Oops.
I strapped my skis on, and headed out onto what I thought was the short trail at what was known as Kerr Park. It was a beautiful afternoon, clear and sunny and cool enough to invigorate but not so cold as to make it uncomfortable. A big wad of ice build-up in my beard is one of those instances of discomfort.
It was about three o'clock in the afternoon when I began sliding off down the trail, which was, if fact, actually upward in topography, but quite easy to navigate on well-waxed skis and a hard-packed trail. I knew it would be getting dark soon enough but there was going to be moonlight should I go over my time, and have to ski back to the chalet after sunset.
What I didn't know, once again, from inexperience, was that I had taken the longest trail, not the shortest. I'd only been out a couple of times so it was potential that I would do something like this, just like opening an antique shop when nobody in town had such an appetite.
As it was a beautiful afternoon, and deliciously invigorating, I kept on winding down the sloping trail, through some amazingly beautiful stands of evergreen. It was quite breath-taking and I really didn't want to turn around. I assumed the loop back would present itself in kind, around the next turn, or just down the next straight-away. Unfortunately I was day-dreaming and because of the lovely conditions, I lost my sense of time and distance. It meant that I had gone several miles further than I should have, because outside of the moonlight I knew would illuminate the trail, I had no flashlight to utilize in the darkest forest alcoves.
I soon came upon a long-since overgrown farmstead laneway, that led up a hillside to what appeared to be a Victorian era house slightly visible through the tree tops. As a history fiend, and an antique fanatic, there was no question about stopping for an inspection of the abandoned buildings on the property. There were no signs to thwart me, at this time, and as I was only a gawker and not a scavenger, I did take the liberty of hiking up the snow-laden trail. It was as if I had stepped back in time, the very second I started to slide through the powder snow, inching slowly up the slope, as the house became more transparent, the setting sun shining through the second floor windows. It was in pretty rough shape but that didn't matter to the historian and it entertained the antique hunter.
When I got up to the homestead, I took my feet out of the clasps holding my boots to the skis, and I began walking around the house, obstructing by a pretty large debris field. Many passersby had up to this knob of Muskoka landscape, to inspect the remainder of what was once a pretty farm house, overlooking a lowland bog area, and the huge rock face on the opposite, or rather, south side of the acreage. Possibly it had been a homestead grant back in the 1870's. The farm house was quite a bit younger than this, possibly built in the 1890's. It was a charming piece of property but I imagine it offered poor agricultural land, unless they were raising cattle or sheep. Like many Muskoka homesteads, there was thin soil, lots of rock and trees, and rolling hills and deep, wet valleys criss-crossed with creeks and dotted with ponds and quagmires that could make a wagon disappear in its muck.
I got inside the house and I immediately felt I wasn't alone. I was sure there was someone else in the building, but it could have been wildlife I suppose, moving about when my footsteps began to echo and creak through the debris-filled rooms. I did come to feel, as I spent more time in the house, that it was definitely of the haunted variety, and yet it didn't seem to mind my intrusion. Possibly I was considered a kindred spirit, as a history lover. And this was afterall, some very raw regional history, and I was now reliving some of it, with many questions swirling about in my mind, about who might have lived here once upon a time, and why had it been left to decay into the landscape? I wondered if a concerted effort had been made several years earlier, would this hinterland oasis have been spared this nasty and unflattering demise.
I wandered everywhere in the house that I could safely access, and I even sat down on a leftover chair in the kitchen, to study some of the fine details of the large room where thousands of meals had been prepared, and many Christmas celebrations had originated, and been heartily enjoyed in the dining room which I also had reclined for a few moments of quiet contemplation.
When I finally thought it wise to pull up stakes and head back out to my ride for the evening....the skis resting up against a venerable old pine in the front yard, I got a little nervous when I realized how late and subsequently dark it had become. The moonlight had not yet begun to flourish its milky while glow down onto the sparkling crust of snow, so it was quite precarious getting my skis on, and then navigating down the rest of the hillside, where the only trail was the one I made coming up.
Wasn't the fact it was getting dark inside the house the trigger for a sensible, timely retreat? I'm pretty sure I was so comfortable sitting in the heart of this old homestead, in the company of the ghosts of Christmas past, the family I had never known, that I most likely nodded-off for a few moments, content to let the atmosphere play with my emotions. A deep daydream you might say.
I remember getting to the bottom of the farm lane, and seeing the shadows of the park trail at the intersection with the property, and feeling I had a good chance of navigating quickly back to the chalet where I had parked my car. For some reason, usually because I am a sentimental dreamer, I turned back to look up the hillside toward the house, and I couldn't believe my eyes. There were lights in three of the six windows at the front of the building. At first I thought it had to be a reflection from the stars emerging from the blackness of deep space, or the moonlight dancing back on the panes, but it was overcast enough at that moment, to negate that from happening. It was as if someone in the house, had lit three candles, and placed them on the window sills of those rooms having a view down on the pastureland.
Maybe there had been someone else in that house when I was inside, and they just chose to leave me alone. Otherwise, there was no explanation as to why these lights were flickering, as a candle or oil lamp would, under the circumstances of a drafty house, other than to suggest, it was the spirits that still occupied the site, reliving the good old days. Instead of being scared, and beating a hasty retreat, I confess to standing in the cold for some period of time, watching in amazement as these lights continued to waver through the night atmosphere, bringing life and enchantment back to what was most certainly, a warm and welcoming Muskoka homestead.
It was when I turned back to the task at hand, of navigating back along the trail in which had brought me to this place, that I could have sworn I heard the sounds of Christmas music played on an old pump organ, and the thin vapor of crystal voices, as if the former residents were gathered in the parlor to welcome the festivities of the Christmas season. It was one of the most memorable hauntings I have ever experienced in forty years of adventures in the antique trade. It's one of the reasons I've stayed in both the history and antique business. I am a big fan of mystery and enchantments and this enterprise has never disappointed my interests in finding more haunted places to enjoy.
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