On May 14, several girls and staff from Granite Ridge Education Centre and Sydenham High School tried their hand at blacksmithing. This event was arranged to show the girls that there is no job they cannot do. Stefan Duerst, Artist Blacksmith from Godfrey, Ontario, led the students through a logical sequence of techniques including forging, twisting, scrolling, and bending.

After covering safety and the basic techniques, Mr. Duerst let students work on their own to plan and make items. Mr. Duerst stressed that with the proper techniques and equipment, anyone can work with metal – it is not necessary to be built like Thor.

Students worked hard all day, and came home with several items they had made. A Grade 8 girls’ group will be going to Duerst Artist Blacksmith in June, from Land O’ Lakes Public School, Granite Ridge Education Centre, and Prince Charles Public School.

On May 15 and May 23, David Francey led songwriting workshops at Sydenham High School in the morning, and Granite Ridge Education Centre in the afternoon.

Many students participated in these intensive sessions, working alone or with partners.

David Francey has won three Juno Awards, the SOCAN Folk Music Award, the Grand Prize in the International Acoustic Music Award and the Grand Prize in the Folk category for the John Lennon Songwriting Award.

These events are part of the initiative focusing on the Arts, Indigenous Learning, and non-traditional pathways funded by various combinations of AIREE, GREC Parent Council, Live Wire Music, Blue Skies, Gillianne Mundell, and Pez.

Leslie Gauer and her husband, Bruce, decided to move to Sharbot Lake from the Hamilton area to open up a bed and breakfast.

They opened The Cottages at Windrush on Sharbot Lake a year ago and have been surprised by the number of visitors they have welcomed who are from far flung corners of the globe.

“We were also surprised how busy we were this past winter,” said Leslie.

Working with other local business owners, Lesley and Bruce have been taken with the energy and range of businesses in Frontenac County and are supporters of the Infrontenac branding initiative as well.

All of this, and the fact that Leslie has always liked the idea of running a small craft store with a good selection of exceptional items, led her to consider opening a gift store with a focus on locally made artisan items for both the local and tourist traffic.

When a small space became available at the high traffic corner of Hwy, 7 and road 38 she grabbed it and Windfall Fine Gifts began to take shape.

Even though it has just opened, the store already has a curated feel to it.

Some of the featured artists are Dave Travers from Hartington, who makes finely crafted folk-art inspired bird houses, and wood worker James Hanley whose small tables and other items are carried. Cards and smaller Batiks from Sarah Hale are available, as well as original work by Judith Versavel. Signs from Backwoods Country Creations, local honey and maple syrup, Perth Soap products and more are available at the store.

Free coffee is in the pot these days as Leslie encourages everyone to check out this new store in Sharbot Lake.

The store is open from Thursday to Sunday at the moment. Summer hours will be coming soon. Contact - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Lanark Highlands Basketry Museum will open on May 25, 2019, with an exciting new exhibition called Flights of Fantasy.

A large, flying dragon will be outside waiting to greet visitors, while inside in the loft there will be many different types of birds on display. Some, like the indigenous decoys, are traditional forms, while others are complete flights of fantasy. Many of these birds have been made by Ankaret Dean, while others are from countries such as South America or Japan.

Ankaret Dean, curator of the museum, explains, "Basketry can be a very sculptural medium, although most people do not realize this potential."

Visitors will be invited to make a small floating duck out of cat tails. Children especially might like to try their hand at a flight of fancy. 

The museum will be open from 11am to 3pm. The address is 5596 McDonald Corners Rd., McDonald’s Corners, and admission is by donation.  

For further information, go to www.lanarkhighlandsbasketrymuseum.ca.

The Boy Wonder completed a successful four day run at Granite Ridge Education Centre on Sunday afternoon. The Mother’s Day matinee had a modest audience, but sellouts on the previous two nights and a very well-attended opening night on Thursday made it one of the most popular productions for the 40-year-old community theatre company in recent years.

The play was both an original work and a throwback at the same time. It was conceived, written and directed by long time NFLT lighting director, Jeff Siamon.

Siamon is a fan of old-time musicals of the 1930’s and 40’s that were often about putting on a musical. The Boy Wonder includes a play within a play, and is constructed around songs that were drawn from the post World War I era.

The Boy Wonder of the title is Guy Martin (Christopher Hall). At the beginning of the play, he is a few days from the opening of his make or break musical “A Woeful Love” when his star and lover, Deloris (Angela Cowdy), quits. It takes him quite a while to realise what the audience has known from the start: that the typist, Monica Jones (Danielle Hall), is destined to be the star of the show and of his heart. It will take a while, but in the end “A Joyful Love” ends up being destined for Broadway successful and Guy and Monica have become an item.

There is a point, about halfway through the play, when Monica tells Guy something that, in retrospect, Jeff Siamon was also telling the audience. In the scene where the title of “A Woeful Love” is ultimately changed, Monica tells Guy that he should turn his play into a revue, because the music tells the story anyway and the audience comes out for the music, not the storyline.

This was certainly the case with A Boy Wonder, which had 24 musical numbers, creating an opportunity for not only the two leads to sing several numbers, both together and apart, but for a number of secondary characters to perform one or two songs. The chorus, as well, took centre stage at one point.

The best thing about A Boy Wonder were the musical performances. The two leads, who are newly weds in real life, complemented each other well. Danielle Hall, well known to NFLT fans from when she was a youngster, has an ease on the stage and the comic timing to keep the action flowing, as well as the singing talent to navigate a wide variety of songs. Christopher Hall, who comes from a family that is steeped in music, seemed to hit every note effortlessly and beautifully. Together, they carried the play, and some of their performances (hers: Second Hand Rose, Melancholy Baby, his: Anytime, After I Say I’m Sorry and together: Put Your Arms Around Me) were among the highlights of the production.

Other major characters included Mitzi (Megan Hall - Christopher’s sister) and Summer Storm (Sarah McCullough). They are both first time performers who both fully inhabited their roles, Mitzi as the plucky theatre insider and confidant to Monica, and Summer as a burlesque performer looking for a way into the legitimate theater. They made the most of their scenes, and belted out their songs when the opportunity came.

NFLT veterans, Brian Robertson as Victor and Angela Cowdy as Deloris, also mugged their way through in admirable fashion, as did Braidey Merigan as Wendell Bradshaw. In non-singing roles, Greg Morris as Guy Martin’s unsupportive father, Terence Martin, was the picture of cold villainy, and Marc Veno as the gangster, Eddie Bradshaw, was in full comic book mode.

Martina Field and Virginia Beckett were positively ditsy as sister chorus girls without a lot of talent. The chorus: Pam Giroux, Joan Hollywood, Linda Bush, Margo McCullough and Carol Morris, added depth to many of the musical numbers. Rounding out the cast were Rudy Hollywood, John Stephen and Evangeline Michie as the porter, bartender, and flower girl, respectively.

The costumes (Geoffrey Murray), set design (Steve Scantlebury) and staging of the Boy Wonder were also effective, thanks to the efficient work by the stage crew under stage manager, Barb Scantlebury, who kept the numerous set changes quick.

The Boy Wonder ran long - almost 3 hours with two intermissions. Although it could have been shorter, the quality of the production numbers was at a very high level, keeping the audience fully engaged to the end during the Friday night performance that I attended. John Inglis on piano and Adam Parker on a programmed keyboard that simulated a fuller orchestration also did well, although on some occasions the music was too loud, making the vocal solos harder to hear.

The Boy Wonder was a massive undertaking for Jeff Siamon and the NFLT, a fitting kick-off for its 40th anniversary year.

Brenda Young, the organiser of Sydenham Artfest, held her first show at her home in Sydenham last fall. She wanted to give her sister Wanda, a jeweller, an opportunity to share her work with the local community, and decided to invite a few other of her artisan friends as well. And it turned into a pretty successful day.

That was where the idea of a larger show came from, and Brenda thought the Sydenham Legion would be a primes spot to hold one.

After booking the Legion hall for the 18th of May, she hand picked the vendors for a number of spots and then put the word out for a few moew.. The hall has room for 21 tables, so that became the limit.

A wide range of items from jewellery to wood work, glass blowing, fabric and more, including some local food producers.

“It was important to me that everything in the show is hand made by the vendors,” said Brenda of how she chose the artisans.

Participating vendors include: Judys Jams, Wooden Art by JM Doiron, Jeni Juranics from Hawk Moon Healing Arts, Oh Baby Bowtique, Janice's Folk Art, Knowlton Lake Cakes, The Glass Shack, Beach Pebble Tales, Hanna’s Meat Pies, Old Country Bath and Body, Mermaid Molly Seaglass, Barb’s Handmade Pierogis, Emily Hawkins Designs, Knot your Nature, Countryside Treasures, The Knutty Knitter, T&A Condiment Co, Knotty by Nature, Wood and Water Jewelry and Kelly Whan creations.

Admission is free, and there will be food available to eat in or take home. The show runs from 9am to 4pm.

“Keep calm and fiddle on” was the motto last Saturday as the Blue Skies Community Fiddle Orchestra held its 8th annual Jam-a-thon & Pie Auction fundraiser at the Maberly Hall.

The hall was packed with music and musicians, and yes, the great majority of those were fiddles and fiddlers.

And right in the middle of it all was orchestra leader Cindy McCall, complete in her Yes (the band) T-shirt, handing out percussion instruments and providing some semblance of organization to all this (it’s a jam, after all, how much actual structure can there be?).

“I’m having a great time,” she said. “It’s our major fundraiser and we have more bands than ever participating — all ages and styles.

“There’s a lot of goodwill here — a lot of people brought food and donated things.

“Many people brought tunes they wrote and they gave me the music and charts to hand out.”

McCall has been leading the Orchestra for 10 years.

“There are 53 people in the orchestra right now,” she said. “There were 10 when I started.

“We’re in a pretty rural area here and there isn’t a lot of arts and music education in the schools.

“(But) the tradition of fiddle music is very strong here.”

And that’s important, she said, because passing on those traditions is a big part of what they do.

“If we don’t pass this on to our kids, it will die,” she said. “(The Orchestra) is a vector for musical education.

“It’s community based and next year will be our 20th.

“It’s touched hundreds of lives.”

To that end they’re planning a 20th anniversary concert, likely in the late summer or fall of 2020 which will include some of the musicians who got their start in the Orchestra like fiddler Jessica Wedden, Jaier Mullally, who’s studying opera at U of T and the Sullivan brothers, J. T. and Noah.

There have been plenty of offshoot of the orchestra such as Fiddlers and Friends and the current trio, The Space Between (Fern Marwood, Sarah Jeffrie, Willow Marwood) and others like Jerrard Smith, who’s still a member but on this day brought his own band DLUX (David Pollard, Diana Smith, Vicki Hanes, Marty Rennick and Larry Hanes) to jam along.

“The lending library gives me the tools to put a fiddle in any hands that want one,” McCall said. “And every fall, we start a new beginners class.

“This has become more than a full-time job for me.”

And for the record, that was Lois Webster behind the mask, auctioning off pies, most of which went in the $40 range.

“Thank you to the community for all its support,” McCall said. “We couldn’t do this without them.”

The North Frontenacs Little Theatre production featuring classic theater tunes from the 1930's with an original storyline, runs from Thursday to Saturday (May 9-11) at 7pm, and on Sunday, May 12 (Mothers Day) at 1pm.

The Boy Wonder – production crew
by Pam Giroux

Behind the scenes of every production, there is a hardworking crew of dedicated volunteers who generously give hours of their time to make sure the show happens. The Boy Wonder is set in New York city on Broadway in the 1940’s, so the construction and design of the set reflects that period in history. Steve Scantlebury and his wife, Barb, were able to create a set which met with Director, Jeff Siamons’, greatest expectations. Not only did they spend hours at school working out details but also at home where they manufactured the signs and poster art which decorate the flats. Barb is also Stage Manager, and along with Steve, they keep the Props people on their toes with each scene change. As well as performing on stage, Rudy and Joan Hollywood, Linda Bush and John Stephen help with the props, do set changes and listen for Barb’s cues. It’s a busy place back stage.

At performance time, the House Manager’s role comes in to play with the 50/50 raffle at intermission, setting up chairs and getting the lobby prepared for patrons in the audience. This time, Ian and Betty Anne Willens are taking care of these preparations. And then at intermissions, Dianne Lake, a long-time supporter of NFLT, will be supervising the Canteen and providing refreshments.

The Land O’Lakes Traditional Music Hall of Fame has revised some of its categories this year, and will be holding its first stand alone induction ceremony at the Lion’s Hall in Verona on October 6.

Everyone who is a member of the organisation has the opportunity to vote for new inductees each year, from a list of nominees that is developed by the jury.

This year 171 ballots were turned in, and the winners were announced last week.

This year the entertainer category has been expanded to include three winners, one each from Frontenac, Lennox and Addington and Hastings Counties.

The Frontenac inductee is Wayne Eves from Battersea. Wayne is well known as the house bass player at the weekly Sunbury Jam and at the twice monthly Bedford Jam. The voting in the Frontenac category, which had six nominees, was tight. Both Joey Saunders (Sydenham) and Don Cochrane (Kingston) were only three votes behind.

In Lennox and Addington, Yarker’s Barry Calthorpe was selected. Barry was the dobro player in Echo Mountain for many years and now plays with Bill White and White Pine. He will also join his wife Sheila, who joined the hall in 2017 as a songwriter.

From Hastings County, the new member will be Sid Prescott from Foxboro, in another close vote. Sid plays pedal steel in the band Heartland, and is also fiddle player and vocalist.

In the posthumous category, Tamworth’s colourful fiddler Don Johnson has been elected.

In the songwriter category. Bob Mcquaid from Trenton, who penned the Highway of Heroes song among many others, is the 2019 inductee. The other nominee in the category was Clarendon Station’s own Dave Dawson, who finished a close second.

In the promotors category, Ellis Wolfreys from Verona was elected. Ellis is a performer as well as the host of a radio program on CJAI FM from Amherst Island that spreads the word about the music scene in Eastern Ontario.

Two other people are being inducted this year. Odie Snider from Cloyne will receive the lifetime achievement award, and from Bancroft John Forman is a Directors pick.

Tickets have not been printed yet for the induction ceremony and gala performance on October 6, but about one third of them are already spoken for and the Hall of Fame President Bob Taylor said he is certain it will be a sell out. Music lovers are encouraged to get them early, by visiting the hall of fame website or contacting him directly at 613-336-9633. They are only $10.

For more information, go to lolmusichof.ca

Author of "The Hard Road Ahead: The Addington Colonization Road of Early Ontario", Linda Corupe, visited The Cloyne & District Historical Society last week.     She shared her research about Road Agent Aylesworth Bowen Perry and his supervision of the building of the road.   It started in Sheffield Township, north of Napanee to Brudenell Township, to meet the Peterson Road in the 1860s.    Perry's descendants were in the audience that gathered from Ottawa, Kingston, Tweed, Belleville and Trenton.

The two-volume book shall be available in The Cloyne Pioneer Museum and Archives in the Spring.

If there was a Juno category for ‘longest song introductions,’ Dave Gunning would win hands down.

Thankfully, his introductions are as entertaining as the music.

Gunning was at The Crossing Pub in Sharbot Lake for the second time last Saturday.

He is a singer-songwriter in the tradition of Canada’s finest (think Lightfoot, Cockburn, McLauchlan). His tunes help define the Canadian experience, with a healthy helping of Nova Scotian perspective.

Probably his best-known song, A Game’s Goin’ On, from the No More Pennies album, was written with local songwriter David Francey, and it won the Great Canadian Song Quest, 2013 Hockey Night in Canada Song Quest.

Everybody was singing along (funny how that tends to happen when there are a lot of musicians in the audience).

“I met David in Denmark in 2003,” he said. “And we wrote that when he stayed at my house during the Celtic Colours Festival.

“We were both mad at hockey because of the strike at the time - millionaires fighting with billionaires - and we wanted to write something about the game that spoke to its roots.

“I wanted to have David sing on it and we produced it with that in mind, so his fans would be able to appreciate it.”

Gunning’s 12th album just came out “a couple of Fridays ago” and he has been touring relentlessly in support of it.

The album also features long-time collaborator J. P. Cormier.

“I’ve played with J. P. for 20 years,” he said. “He’s one of the best in the world.”

Even though his busy touring schedule takes him away from home a lot, he said he wouldn’t change it and it does have some advantages.

“You gotta do fool them again,” he said. “The secret is to keep moving, town to town.

“But even though I miss Sara and the boys, I enjoy the life and I feel very fortunate to be able to do it.”

And he tells you all about it, in song and song introductions.

Perhaps his most entertaining introduction featured his appearance on The Trailer Park Boys. It’s the episode with George Canyon, where the boys attempt to smuggle dope across the border and Gunning delivers the immortal line, “Shreddies?”.

“Yeah, it was one word but I got paid more because it was a speaking part,” he said.