At the beginning of his book, One of US – A biologist’s walk among bears, Barrie Gilbert answers the question that people who have met him invariably wonder about.

How did this world-renowned bear expert lose his left eye, and much of the left side of his face? The answer is not surprising. It was a grizzly bear encounter in Yellowstone Park.

What is surprising is that the incident took place pretty early in his career as a bear biologist in 1977, and that it did not end his career, but almost seemed to spur it on.

The physician’s report about the injuries is reprinted in the book, “the injuries included multiple lacerations across the back of the scalp forward to the face. The left side of the face was destroyed, left eye missing, entire lateral aspect left mouth open, all salivary glands of left face destroyed, the left superior nasal and inferior orbit open … estimated blood loss was 2/5 of his total volume.”

As harrowing as that account is, it does not compare to the visceral impact of Gilbert’s account in the book of the incident itself.

After the swift, brutal attack, his graduate student chased the bear off, then called the park’ emergency services, and somehow they were able to get him off the mountain and to a clinic nearby. Fortunately, doctors on call at the clinic had served in the Vietnam war and were more accustomed to severe trauma.

“Have you ever seen this kind of damage” he asked one of the plastic surgeons back in Utah, where was flown to for further treatment. “Yes, but not on the same guy,” was the answer.

Later, when Gilbert was asked to give talks on bear safety, he thought it was like asking the captain of the Exxon Valdez to give a lecture on seamanship.

Even on the day of his own near fatal encounter with a female grizzly, which he described as the “furious behaviour of a mother protecting her cubs” he insisted that the bear he “had surprised” not be destroyed because he knew that the encounter was “triggered by my sudden appearance and felt that the grizzly should not be the victim of our accidental contact.”

Over forty years removed from that day, from his home on Wolfe Island, Gilbert decided to write a book for the general public that contains the insights from decades studying bears in the field.

“One of Us” describes dozens of bear encounters and observations in different settings, none as dramatic as the first, but all clearly described. The book challenges many of the common perceptions about grizzlies that trace back to the Lewis and Clark expedition. Gilbert looked at all of the written accounts from the Lewis and Clark expedition, which recorded 51 grizzly kills and 18 other wounded bears, and no human fatalities. The vast majority of the instances that are described are cases where expedition members were the aggressors.

The bulk of the book contains detailed observations of the cultural reality that exists among bear populations in different locations. He describes how bears need to understand their habitat in order to maximise their foraging success, and how interactions with humans alter in different circumstances. In many cases, bears are less concerned about humans than about other bears. This is because humans represent less of a threat, unless those humans happen to be hunters.

In salmon rich locations in Alaska, bears are often unconcerned about either humans or other bears; it gets in the way of maximising the feeding potential offered by a salmon run. The book deals head-on with the myth that grizzlies are beasts that kill for pleasure. Instead, it offers evidence of how bear behaviour can be explained by the social world that they inhabit and learn from. Factors such as the availability of food, and proximity to other bears and humans, have an impact on bear behaviour.

The book provides much evidence for its ultimate thesis that the only way to preserve grizzly and other bear species in the wild is to preserve habitat. It is imperative to ensure that the wilderness park system, in the United States and in Canada as well, maintains a focus on preservation of wild spaces instead of expanding human recreation opportunities.

Gilbert’s conclusions about bear safety are also instructive. When travelling in grizzly country, it is important to pay attention.

“I can stay much more aware on trails if I make a conscious mental shift by suppressing any tendency to reminisce or fantasize and become instead a primitive sensory animal, constantly scanning everything ahead, listening intently, and sniffing for wet bear or the odor of dead meat.”

For further information or to order the book, go to barriegilbert.ca

You might think that a company that builds docks and boathouses, and does shoreline restoration up and down the St.Lawerence seaway and Lake Ontario (and grows hops in the summer as well) would be taking it easy in early January. But late last Friday afternoon, as the ice was forming on the bay and a cold snap was setting in, company owner Jason Lacelle was at headquarters and fabrication shop for Wolfe Island Marine. He was supervising work on some of the products that his crew builds in the winter time, for installation in the warmer weather. “We work 5 days per week year around. In the first few years it slowed down a bit for us in the winters, but we have developed a good mix of clientele and there is always something happening for use. We like to utilize the shop as much as possible in the winter,” he said. A couple of years ago, Wolfe Island Marine purchased a large barge and that has opened up opportunities for the company. “Not only can we transport equipment, section of docks and other structures to properties on the seaway and Lake Ontario so much more easily, it really helps with our shoreline restoration business. We can get in close to shore and do the jobs from the water. We can bring in equipment, materials, and aggregate, whatever we need, and not have to get to the shoreline over land. No matter how gentle you try to be, there is always damage to clean up when you cross over land with heavy equipment.” The shoreline restoration part of the business has been very strong, partly as the result of the flood seasons in 2017 and 2019 along the lakes and rivers. “We’ve been really busy helping customers to repair their shorelines, and to protect against flooding in the future. There has been a lot of damage everywhere in recent years.” Wolfe Island Marine is an offshoot of its parent company, Lacelle’s Corporate Group, which was the name that Jason Lacelle gave to the welding and fabricating business that he started in Marysville back in 2011. He opened the shop when the only commercial welder on Wolfe Island was retiring. The company grew exponentially after Jason and his wife Christie bought a farm property on the island and Jason began to hire more people and acquire larger pieces of equipment. Establishing Wolfe Island Marine in 2018 was a natural progression in order to reflect the company’s expansion into shoreline development, boat house construction and restoration, dock fabrication, and dock repair. Aside from a loan from the Frontenac CFDC several years ago, Wolfe Island Marine has been able to absorb the cost of equipment purchases by waiting for the right piece to come on the market at the right price, and to leverage their expanding business at the same time. “The CFDC is always helping us with information about grants that are available, and with other kinds of business information. I was just speaking to them last week with regards to training because we are having employees trained for AZ/DZ licensing so we can be more versatile by moving our own heavy equipment, and they helped us with information on that. It’s nice to have someone to call who understands what we are trying to do. Looking forward, Wolfe Island Marine Services’ next purchase might be of interest to waterfront property owners in mainland Frontenac County. They are looking to acquire some sectional barges that can be lifted up and trucked to job site locations. They plan to use them for projects on in-land lakes, to bring their services to waterfront residents throughout the region, even on remote lakes and water access properties. The range of services offered by the company can be found at their website, wolfeislandmarine.com

Joe Gallivan, Manager for Planning and Economic Development for Frontenac County, briefed Frontenac County Council last week on a communal services report that will be coming their way next month. This is a file that Gallivan has been working on for years, but he wanted some of the newer members of the council to be more familiar with the issues in the report in advance of its release.

The Province of Ontario encourages rural municipalities to focus on development within hamlets. Since there are no hamlets in Frontenac County that have municipal water systems except for Sydenham, and there are no municipal waste water systems in the county at all, development potential within and near hamlets is limited.

“The potential for communal services within subdivisions has been around since 1995, but municipalities have not taken it up within their jurisdictions, because of fears over the potential liability coming back to the public if a communal water or waste system fails,” said Gallivan. “Over the years, the technology for septic systems has progressed substantially, and that cuts the risk.”

Communal services would mean there is one large septic system to cover an entire development instead of separate systems for each building. In some case, one of more communal wells could be included as well.

Municipalities in Ontario have two options for creating multiple building lots on a single piece of property, ‘vacant land condominium’ development, and ‘plan of subdivision’ development. Under a ‘plan of subdivision’, the municipality assumes ownership, and the associated costs, for the public infrastructure (roads, ditches, sidewalks, etc.) within a development, after the developer pays to build them to a municipal standard, whereas within a ‘plan of condominium’ the infrastructure remains the responsibility of the property owners after construction is complete.

Plans of Condominium, Gallivan said, could include responsibility for upkeep and maintenance of communal services in addition to roads and ditches, keeping municipal liability to a minimum.

“As well, if there are a number these systems within Frontenac County, there may also be an opportunity to put together a single municipal fund to cover potential liability from all of them. Individual projects would not have to cover as much liability on their own.”

In making his presentation, Gallivan used an existing development on the southwest edge of Inverary as an illustration of how much more density can be achieved using communal services. The Mathias subdivision is a 27 - acre block of land with 16 lots. The minimum lot size in the development is 1.5 acres, and each lot includes space for a well and individual septic system.

If a communal septic system were in place, the same block of land would be able to contain 42 detached lots as well as 9 townhouse lots and a small apartment complex with 12 units, plus a commercial lot. Gallivan said that once the study is released, he will be proposing that Council authorise him to go to the township councils to see if they are interested in pursuing the type of development that communal systems will make possible within their townships.

“It really comes down to what the local townships envision for their future,” he said, “the timing is good for South Frontenac, which is facing a lot of development pressure right now. The council is starting to review their Official Plan, and they will have the opportunity to accept communal services in their new plan”.

Gallivan said that one of the key elements for developers would be a consistent process and cost structure for communal water systems across the county.

“That would put Frontenac County ahead of other municipalities,” he said.

While South Frontenac is the jurisdiction that would be the most likely to see developments using the communal system model, Gallivan said he could see applications in Marysville on Wolfe Island, as well as in Central and North Frontenac.

The Frontenac Five, events you should not miss in August, have been posted. This month they include The Wolfe Island Music Festival, which runs this coming weekend – August 12 and 13, is the first one on the calendar, check wolfeislandmusicfestival.com for details. The following weekend, August 19 and 20, the Parham Fair is featured. See Parhamfair.ca for more.

Ongoing events this month include the Godfrey Sculpture Park, see Godfreysculpturepark.ca for more, and the Thursday Night Battersea Porch Sessions, different musicians each Thursday all summer between 6:30 and 9:30 at Holiday Country Manor. Rounding out the list is the K&P Trail day grand opening on Saturday August 26 at the trailhead in Sharbot Lake.

For the full Frontenac-Five experience, go to Frontenac-live.ca/events/frontenac-five.

The Wolfe Island Garden Party is a three day event that will feature music on Thursday and Friday Nights (June 15 and 16) and a day of open houses at farms and arts studios on the island and  much more music, food and local beer on Saturday (June 17).

The event has more or less developed into this form after Janette Hasse approach local musician and producer Chris Brown about a fund raising benefit. Hasse has been working with the students at Marysville Public School on  a community garden project at the Wolfe Island Medical Centre, which she is planning to expand to the grounds of the new senior’s building that is being constructed nearby and build a greenhouse.

Chris Brown has been producing music with musicians from far and wide at his Post Office Studio for ten years, and recently decided to form a label, Wolfe Island Records. At the same time, Casey Fisher from the Wolfe Island Grill and Rene Zieglemaier are launching Wolfe Island Spring Craft Brewery this month (see article on page 4 of the FCFDC supplement in this issue).

The idea of celebrating the link between art and agriculture on the island took off and the 1st annual Wolfe Island Garden party came to life. The event has turned into a coming out party of sorts for the music label, the beer company and local farmers and artists.

In the end 13 locations have signed on to participate, including 6 farms, 2 artists and 3 restaurants.

“We wanted to raise some awareness about food sourcing and the interdependence between food and art and music, and to celebrate some of the connections that have been growing in our island community,” said Chris Brown. “And when people came forward offering to hold open houses across the island, we knew we had something.”

Among the farms operations that are participating are DeRuiters Black Angus Cattle, the Posthumus Dairy Farm, Windkeeper Farm vegetables and seed, to name a few. Frontenac County is hosting an agricucltural panel on Saturday afternoon at the General Wolfe Inn. Later in the afternoon, the restaurants will be hosting musical events and serving food, and Chris Brown has invited some of the musicians who have recorded at his studio, including Jenny Whiteley and Joey Wright from Elphin, Luther Wright and the Wrongs, the Openhearts Society, Suzanne Jarvie, David Corley, Chris Brown himself and a host of others will be performing at the venues throughout the three days. For a full schedule, go to the Wolfe Island Garden Party Facebook event page.

Particularly on the Saturday, visitors from the mainland are invited to leave their cars in Kingston and walk onto the ferry or bring a bike. Many of the events are in Marysville or close by, and bike rentals are available and there will be a wagon providing free transportation. The idea of visiting the island without bringing a car is a focus this summer, to ease pressure on the ferry, make it easier to cross and for a more pleasant experience because walkers and cyclist can waltz onto the ferry while cars and trucks need to wait, sometimes for an extra hour.

Events start at 8:30 pm on Friday and Saturday and run from 11am until the evening on Saturday.

The ferry leaves Kingston  on the 1/2 hour from 8:30 in the morning until 12:30, and then on the hour from 2pm until 10pm. It takes 20 minutes to cross over.

For the 9th consecutive year, the Wolfe Island Corn Maze will host a day of family-friendly fun in support of children with physical disabilities. On Saturday, October 8, attendees can enjoy a walk through the two corn mazes and live music by the Kings Town Tenors. They can also enter a raffle to win a fall gift basket! Admission is $10 for adults (age 12 and older), $8 for kids (5-11 years) and children aged four and under are free. 100% of all ticket sales from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. will be donated to Easter Seals Ontario.

This year the creatively designed maze carved out of a cornfield features two mazes with a refreshment area in the middle called the "Oasis Rest Stop". The 50-acre property offers the perfect venue for a variety of activities that all come under the heading of good, clean fun! Participants will also have the opportunity to learn about the wind turbines at a featured exhibit at the exit of the maze, to visit with the farm animals, and enjoy the beautiful singing of the Kings Town Tenors. Families are encouraged to visit the Maze early in the day. Please check the ferry schedule to Wolfe Island at www.wolfeisland.com/ferry.php.

For over 93 years, Easter Seals has played an important role in providing support for children and youth with physical disabilities from all ethnic and religious backgrounds. Thanks to its generous donors, Easter Seals continues to offer programs to allow kids to experience freedom, independence and a sense of accomplishment. Easter Seals helps by providing financial assistance for mobility equipment, communication devices and summer camp opportunities at its two properties, Camp Merrywood and Camp Woodeden. Together we are helping kids BE KIDS. For more information or to donate, visit EasterSeals.org.

Wolfe Islanders have struggled over the years to develop and maintain medical services on the island.

There are many stories about difficult trips by car, horse and buggy, sleigh, ferry boat or other inventive means of transportation as patients scrambled to get to Kingston when in medical distress.

In the early years of the 20th Century there were doctors living on and servicing the island, at least on a part-time basis, but between the late 1930s and the early 1970s there was no consistent service.

That all changed in 1972, when Dr. George Merry, who lived on the island and had a medical practice in Kingston, approached the local council and asked them to look into the cost of establishing a medical facility on the island.

A public meeting was called and 200 people attended. Eventually $12,000 was raised, enough money to purchase a 12 ft. by 52 ft. trailer, which was initially located on Dr. Merry's property.

The clinic was stocked with supplies over the years and was staffed by Dr. Merry and his wife Catherine, who was a nurse.

When Dr. Merry took on more responsibilities in Kingston and was no longer able to offer services on the island, the trailer was moved to a location next to the fire hall and ambulance base at the edge of Marysville, on land that was donated by Mildred Hawkins-Walton and Keith Walton. A succession of doctors offered service in the trailer, until it burned down in 2008.

Within two years a new facility was in place, and in 2013 the most modern version of the clinic re-opened at that same site.

Currently, Dr. Deanna Russell holds clinic hours one day a week and has about 200 patients on roster at the clinic. There is also a nurse practitioner available for part of another day, funded by the clinic itself. One Friday a month, Frontenac Paramedic Services provides a checkup service for certain chronic conditions as part of its community para-medicine project, and every second Friday, a blood clinic run by Life Labs is held at the centre.

Linda Thomas is the chair of the eight-member Wolfe Island Medical Services Board. She moved to Wolfe Island 17 years ago and has done a lot of volunteer work since then. She said, “One thing led to another and I ended up on this board and then chairing it. It is a very good, hard working board, and we have volunteers who help us provide service. We have receptionists, people who help with maintenance; everything we do requires a volunteer effort.”

Since the board receives no outside funding, it uses fundraising to provide for the upkeep of the building and for the nurse practitioner service.

Its major fund-raising event of the year, the Wolfe Island Classic, is a running race that will take place on July 3 this year.

Thomas feels that Wolfe Island residents are under-served as opposed to other residents of Kingston and Frontenac County.

Certainly, compared to residents of Frontenac County who are rostered into any of the Family Health Organiz (FHO) clinics - the Sydenham and Verona clinics and the Sharbot Lake Family Health Team - Wolfe Islanders do not have the benefit of everyday service by doctors, nurse practitioners, dieticians, registered nurses, and other services that are available. They must travel to Kingston.

“I feel we can make an argument that we are remote, in terms of time if not distance,” said Thomas.

One of the difficulties that Islanders face is their limited numbers, and the fact that many are used to travelling to Kingston for emergency and ongoing medical and social services.

“We keep on working, however, and trying to bring more service to the island and trying to keep this building in use as much as we can,” she said.

While the municipality of Frontenac Islands does not fund the clinic, they have in recent years decided to rebate the property taxes that the clinic pays, which has been a big help, according to Linda Thomas.

It is a scene that has been replicated time and time again across the country.

Fifteen or so people gathered at the almost empty Kingston airport just before 1 o'clock on Saturday, February 27. As they chatted with each other in the lobby, Nancy Bayly was sitting in a far corner with Ron Albinet of the First Baptist Church of Kingston, and Dr. Mohamad Bayoumi of the Kingston Islamic Centre.

The First Baptist Church has provided an administrative home for the Frontenac Refugee Support Committee, a group of South Frontenac and Frontenac Islands residents who have been working for months to host a family from Syria. They reached out to Dr. Bayoumi for help with translation services when the family arrived.

The three of them greeted Frontenac County Warden Frances Smith, who trekked in from Over the Hills Road (back of Road 509) to provide greetings from the County to the newcomers and the four of them formed the official greeting committee. When the small plane arrived, everyone went over the window to get a first glimpse of the 10 members of the Al Khalaf family as they disembarked.

A few business commuters came off the plane first. Then came the family: a middle-aged man and woman, three young women, three young men, and two boys. They gathered for a second on the tarmac, shivering a bit against the cold, then headed in, the boys running ahead.

The support committee hastily unfurled a Welcome to Canada banner as the greeting party headed over to the door. Bright-eyed and smiling, the family reached forward to shake hands and share hugs.

After all the planning and all the waiting - several months for the support committee and several years for the Al Khalafs - they were here. One of the committee members rushed off to gather coats; there were many to choose from because the committee only had basic information about the Al Khalafs, the number and approximate ages of each person. They then got ready to drive off to their new home.

The committee had secured a one-year lease for a four-bedroom townhouse near the Kingston Centre for the family, and one of the volunteers was already back there, preparing a Syrian welcoming meal for supper. This week will be filled with bureaucratic details, health cards and Social Insurance Numbers, etc., as well as lining up English classes and schooling for the boys and young adults in the family.

The Al Khalafs are being sponsored by the Frontenac Refugee Committee and will also be receiving some support from the federal government. The group has already raised over $33,000 out of a preliminary goal of $45,000. There will be some support from the federal government, but the bulk of the responsibility for supporting the Al Khalafs for their first year in Canada falls to the committee.

At first, the committee was told that they were going to be hosting a six-member family, and then they found out they would be hosting a 12-member family. This has been the basis for their fundraising efforts. However, shortly before they learned that 10 members of the Al Khalaf family would be arriving on February 27, they also found that an additional four members will be arriving in the coming weeks, one of whom is pregnant and due to deliver in May.

“We are committed to supporting the family for a year financially, but the commitment doesn't end there. We will be following them until they are completely settled and making a contribution. Their priorities right now are to learn English, go to school, and find work, as soon as possible,” said committee member Ruth Allen.

The Al Khalafs are living in Kingston for the time being, even though they are being sponsored by Frontenac County residents.

“The services are in Kingston,” said committee member Nancy Bayly, “and the language training is in Kingston, so we decided early on that even though we are a Frontenac County group, we would look to find a place for them in Kingston to start off. They may move to Frontenac County once they are settled, but they are in Kingston for now.”

Of the 10 who arrived on Saturday, six will be attending school, starting this week.

Meanwhile, back at the airport, the adults were figuring out how to deal with the luggage and who was going to drive with whom. The two young boys, who had been fidgeting as all the greetings were taking place, broke free and bolted out of the terminal door to the parking lot. They veered left as they got out the door, chased each other for a minute, then finding a bit of snow, one of them gathered it up in his bare hands and threw the snow at the other.

The snow was not ideal for snowballs, but they did the best they could, laughing the whole time.

In 1973, Winston Cosgrove published a 60-page book on the history of Wolfe Island. Wolfe Island Past and Present outlines how the island came to be settled, how it remained in use by indigenous peoples as fall and winter fishing and hunting grounds until the middle of the 19th Century, and how the population peaked in the late 19th Century before beginning a long decline that has only recently been reversed.

The book is written in a kind of discreet manner that suggests its focus was more in the past than on what was then the present, and of course 40 years have passed since it was published. It contains, however, much information about how the island community developed from the late 17th until the 20th centuries.

In 1685, Robert Cavallier, Sieur de Lasalle, having been granted the Signeury of Fort Frontenac by King Louis the 14th ten years earlier, conferred ownership of what would become known as Wolfe Island on James Cauchois. It was the “first conveyance of any part of Ontario from one subject to another”.

The land remained in the Cauchois family for over 100 years, until it was sold in the early 1800s to David Alexander Grant and Patrick Langan for one shilling an acre. Grant had married the Baroness of Longeuil in 1785, and although the sale of the island to Grant and Langan severed all ties to the French monarchy it did establish the Baron of Longeuil as a major force on Wolfe Island.

In 1823, David Alexander's son, C.W. Grant, the 4th Baron of Longeuil, owned about 11,000 acres on the island. A similar amount was split among the three daughters of Patrick Langan. Two-sevenths of the land had been turned over to England's King George when the British overturned French rule in the entire region.

Grant sold off 100 acre lots starting in 1823, and settlement began in earnest. He also had a large house constructed near Marysville. The house, which was called Ardath Chateau, was known locally as the “The Old Castle”. It had 25 rooms, a dungeon, a carriage house and servants' quarters and was the “focal point for many years of life on the island”. In 1929 the house, which had been unoccupied for at least 15 years, was razed in a fire.

“Being a native born Islander, this writer recognises the staunch loyalty among the Islanders for one another and out of respect for this tradition, would prefer 'to let sleeping dogs lie' rather than delve further into the matter.” This suggests that Winston Cosgrove knew more about the fire than he was willing to say, and in all likelihood further information about what happened that dark night in 1929 is still carried by any number of Wolfe “Islanders”.

Although “The Old Castle” was certainly grand, the housing situation for Wolfe Island settlers in the early to mid 19th Century was more modest.

Fifteen settler families lived on the island in 1823, and this increased to 261 persons by 1826. The population grew steadily, peaking at 3,600 by 1861.

When the island was being settled in the 1820s and 30s “the typical house was a log cabin, 20 feet long by 16 feet wide, 6 logs high, with a shanty or sloping roof. Some had glass but most often the windows were only holes in the wall, which could be covered in the winter.”

During the 1850s, demand for lumber for D. D. Calvin's shipbuilding operation on nearby Garden Island led to a lumbering boom on Wolfe Island, and the boom ended when the trees were gone. The population began to dwindle at that point, and by the time Cosgrove's book was published in 1973, it was down to 1,200. It had dropped to 1142 by 2001, and the 2011 population survey lists Frontenac Islands (including Wolfe and Howe Island) at 1864. The current permanent resident population of Wolfe Islands, according to Wikipedia, is 1,400, although it is twice that or more in the summer (perhaps excluding this past summer due to the Ferry Fiasco of 2015).

Wolfe Island Past and Present contains a wealth of information about landmarks and renowned island residents. It explains how Marysville was named after Mary Hitchcock, who lived all of her 92 years on the island and was its first postmistress between 1845 and her death in 1877.

The General Wolfe Hotel, originally known as the Wolfe Island Hotel, was built in 1860. It was renamed the General Wolfe by the Greenwood brothers in 1955, and benefited from the results of a liquor referendum in 1957, which was won by “the wets”. The hotel remains an island landmark and a major part of the hospitality industry. It's 130-seat restaurant has won a number of provincial awards.

The final chapter of the book deals with a crucial subject, one that has been top of mind on the island this summer and was also the subject of a discussion and slide show on Wednesday, December 2, “Ice Travel” with Kaye Fawcett and Ken White, which was organised by the Wolfe Island Historical Society.

Throughout Frontenac County the history of road and railway construction is full of colour, hardship and a fair taint of corruption and scandal.

On Wolfe Island there is an added dimension - the water that separates the island from the mainland and the City of Kingston. It was 50 years ago, in 1965, that a year-round ferry service financed by the Province of Ontario was established on Wolfe Island.

Until then the ferry service ran only until freeze up, and during the winter an ice road was the way across.

In 1954 the winter was so warm that the ferry was only inactive for 2 days, but between 1955 and the onset of the year-round ferry in 1965, the range was 60 to 110 days, with an average of about 80 inactive days each winter.

Over the years, tragedies and near tragedies occurred on the ice on many occasions. One of the more famous events was the near drowning of entire families on Christmas Day in 1955.

The ferry was out of commission because of an early winter, but a tug boat, the Salvage Prince, waited at the edge of the ice at Barrett's Bay for families who had come to the island for Christmas Day and were returning to Kingston late in the afternoon. They were being drawn across the ice in a sleigh, but just before reaching the boat, the sleigh went through a wet spot in the ice, forcing a hurried and dangerous rescue, as children, adults and seniors, were luckily all pulled out of the freezing water back to the tug and a boat ride to Kingston. Some were taken to the hospital for observation. An account of the trip by Brian Johnson is available at thousandislandslife.com.

In the concluding pages of his book, Winston Cosgrove makes the argument that the economy of Wolfe Island will be doomed unless a bridge is built.

“In the past the economy of the island has been purely an agricultural one, with hunting and fishing and summer residents as minor items. Under this system the population has dwindled. The key to the problem is transportation. There is much beautiful undeveloped shoreline and land that is is well-suited for permanent homes but better ways are needed to get to and from the mainland if the community is to develop and grow. A ferry service is not efficient enough ... Meanwhile the Islanders who want a bridge must be content to await future developments while acting as guardians of a great land developed by pioneers, to whom all are indebted.”

Although Cosgrove's views may have had a lot of currency this past summer while the Wolfe Islander ferry was in dry dock, Wolfe Island has reversed the population slide over the past 10 years and a number of tourism-related businesses are thriving.

The 17th annual non-profit Wolfe Island Music Festival will be running August 7-8. The line-up is a diverse mix of Folk Country, Alternative, Pop and Rock. The music will be presented on four separate stages Friday night and the main stage in full swing on Saturday. The festival will be held on Wolfe Island, a free 20-minute ferry ride away from Kingston. There will also be a free ride on the party boat taking festival goers from Kingston to Wolfe Island every day, offering local DJ's and live music during the ride.

The festival line-up this year is nearly all Canadian bands with the Friday night line-up Elliot Brood, Limblifter, Mo Kenney, Daniel Romano, Spencer Burton, Wax Mannequin, Megan Hamilton, Brendan Philip, Elsa, The Kodeines and the Attic Kids. Saturday promises to be an enjoyable night as well with Constantines, Operators, Hayden, the Elwins, Moonface, Lowell, Tops, Taylor Knox, Highs and Lost Cousins.

The Constantines have been having continued success since the release of their first album in 2001. Their sound is reminiscent of The Clash and Bruce Springsteen but with their own signature zing of roar and insightful commentaries on life added on top. If the name and description doesn't ring a bell, their performance at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics might! On that same night, seasoned performer Hayden will perform his eclectic mix of grunge and alternative country.

Music will begin at 6pm on Friday and 12:30pm on Saturday. Cost for a camping package is $125, and cost for just a weekend concert access ticket is $100. Day passes are $50 for Friday night; $65 for Saturday. Children 12 and under get in free to Saturday's main stage. Food and drinks are available from various vendors throughout the festival.

Music enthusiasts will enjoy the calm and not overly populated venue to hear great music with a killer view of Lake Ontario. It is a family friendly atmosphere with more to offer than just the music - as if that wasn't enough!

For more information visit www.wolfeislandmusicfestival.com.