It is always a busy time at the Pioneer Museum as members of the Cloyne and District Historical Society prepare for the annual museum opening in late June each year.

This year, however, it is busier than usual because the museum has almost doubled in size since it closed last fall. Thanks to a relatively modest Trillium grant of $39,000, a lot of local fund-raising and some volunteer labour, a 1400 square foot addition has been added to the building.

The addition will allow for much improved viewing of the museum's collection of local artifacts, particularly the display of tools. It also includes a gallery for displaying photographs and other artwork, space for genealogical research, a work room for restoring artifacts, and a fully accessible washroom.

The old two-seater outhouse, which has served the staff and patrons of the museum since it opened in 1982, was being carted away early this week, but it will not be gone entirely. The solid doors of the outhouse have been re-purposed as display tables for the new tool display area.

When the Pioneer Museum was opened in 1982 it was a 600 square foot log building. In 2002, a 1,200 square foot addition was added, and with this latest upgrade the museum now has 3,200 square feet of space. It has a schoolhouse section, a homestead section, church display, and a Tourism and Bon Echo display as well as the new sections that are being added in the new space.

“The tools had been jumbled together before, and now they will be properly displayed,” said long-time museum volunteer Margaret Axford on Monday, as a half dozen volunteers and three or four trades-people scurried about, putting the final touches on the renovation and preparing to set the museum up for the opening on Saturday.

Among the tools on display will be the museum's latest acquisition, a well preserved forge. But among all the tools on display there is one that Marg Axford pointed out which symbolizes the kind of life that the settlers in the region lived. It is a corn seeder with a wooden wheel covered by a thin strip of rubber salvaged from something else. It has a wooden frame. The seeds were held in an old washbasin with ¼ inch holes cut into it that was nailed to the wheel. The seeder still works as well today as it would have 50 or 100 years ago. The settlers who used the seeder had to use whatever was at hand to try to coax food out of the thin soil and granite that passed for farmland in Frontenac and Addington Counties.

It is that same spirit that enabled the Pioneer Museum committee to build a 1,400 square foot addition, with a washroom, on a $39,000 grant.

L&A County might consider talking to the museum committee about building the new ambulance base in Northbrook, which will likely cost 20 times as much to build.

The season opening/ribbon cutting celebration starts at 11am on Saturday, June 22. There will be live music as well as a BBQ. The museum is open from 10 am to 4 pm throughout the summer. It is located in Cloyne, on the east side of Hwy. 41 next to the Barrie Township Hall (across from the post office) call 613-336-8011 or go to pioneer.mazinaw.on.ca

If there has been one constant in Cloyne for the past 40 years, it has been Ted Snider.

Ted and his wife Verna built Snider’s Service Centre and Restaurant in 1972, and with the exception of hunting season and very occasional vacations, he has been there every day ever since.

Ted was raised in the house that he lives in now, along with his sister. His father died when Ted was 13, and he went to work for the Sawyer Stoll lumber mill when he was 15, in 1943. He later worked at the Wells Brothers Lumber company, where he drove a truck.

“We had to look after our own truck, and that’s how I started in on becoming a mechanic,” he said.

He eventually became a certified mechanic, and worked for 20 years at a service centre in Toronto. His wife Fern knew how to cook and run a busy kitchen, and eventually they decided to move back to Cloyne and start up their own business. They took a small piece of family land north of Cloyne that was across Hwy. 41 from the Snider family home, and built a restaurant and service centre, and Snider’s has been open ever since.

“The business has been good to me,” said Ted, as current and former customers filed into the restaurant to wish him well as the closing date of June 14 approaches for the sale of the business. “But I’ll be 85 in November, and I guess it’s time I retired.. I was able to raise my children in the country thanks to the business, and I’m grateful for that.”

Among the long-standing customers who have had their vehicles looked after at Snider’s are a fleet of buses from Martin’s Bus Lines, which were still being serviced at Snider’s up until the end of this week.

Ted Snider had hoped to be able to turn his service centre over to his sons, two of whom did become certified mechanics, but health issues made that impossible and Snider’s had been for sale for several years before a buyer came forward a few week ago.

“I know he plans to keep the restaurant open but I don’t know about the service centre,” said Ted.

Verna Snider ran the restaurant until the late 1980s, and at that time it was a busy spot for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

“Verna used to make Lemon Meringue pies that stood up this high,” he said, stretching out his hand as wide as it could go, “and over the years about 150 local girls worked here while they were in high school. There were two shifts, working 7 days a week. The service centre was only open Monday to Saturday, but I was here on Sundays pumping gas. We used to take all our meals here as well. It was quite a business, but after 20 years Verna grew tired, and she stopped running it.”

Snider’s Restaurant is still the main meeting spot for a lot of people in the area even though it has only been open from 8 am to 4 pm in recent years. Verna moved in to Pine Meadow Nursing Home in January and selling the business will make it easier for Ted to visit her each day.

“The thing about Pine Meadow is that most of the staff there worked at the restaurant when they were younger. Everyone gets excellent care there,” said Ted.

As for himself, Ted figures he’ll be kept busy enough running around and visiting friends.

“I pretty well know everyone around here,” he said.

Debbie Barkley knows a thing or two about transportation services and it is her decades-long experience in the business that has prepared her for her latest business venture. For 30 years Barkley worked in the taxi business and then she worked for Frontenac Transportation Service (formerly Rural Routes) for another 5 years.

On May 1 Barkley officially opened her new business called SASI Taxi. SASI (Simply Access Service Innovations) Taxi is a transportation service that will provide wheelchair-accessible personal transportation services to individuals in need. Based out of Parham, SASI Taxi will offer trips to customers in the townships of North, Central and South Frontenac as well as Lennox and Addington. Barkley is also offering an additional driver service for those who may be experiencing health issues that prevent them from driving their own vehicles. She will drive those clients in their own car to appointments, social engagements and for any daily errands. Barkley currently has one vehicle to serve her clients, a Chevy Venture van that is equipped with a Braun power lift ramp that can accommodate two wheel chairs and one regular passenger on any one trip. She uses Q-Straint, a retractable restraint system for wheelchairs.

Debbie is hoping in the near future to add a shuttle bus service to the business, which will enable her to pick up several clients in various villages in the area and travel to major centres like Kingston, Napanee and Perth on different week days. Fees for her service are based on mileage and her rates are $1.25 per kilometre for a door to door trip. She does not charge her clients for her personal travel time to their pick up location. For return trips, Barkley offers her customers one hour of free wait time at no charge and after that she charges $15.00 per hour. Barkley said her rates are less than half of what regular taxis charge, which is the only other option, though most taxis cannot accommodate wheelchairs. Barkley said the idea for the new business came about  while working for NFCS. “When I finished up working at NFCS I said to myself, 'Now is the time to do something. There are lots of people who require this service and who better than me to do it. I have the experience and the know how. It's what I have done all my life and it’s also important for me to offer something positive in the community. '”

Barkley’s services are also available to those in need of transportation but who do not require wheelchair accessibility. For more information call or text Debbie at 613-453-7506 or email her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

On April 17, Jeremy Diaz, founder of Jer’s Vision, visited NAEC to talk to the students and staff. Jeremy is the force behind the International Day of Pink, a day which NAEC has embraced with growing enthusiasm since they started observing it three years ago. Students sported pink shirts, hats, shoes, badges, etc., on April 10, to celebrate International Day of Pink.

Jeremy talked to Ms. Cuthill and Mr. Hill’s classes first, then spoke to the Secondary classes. He talked about the discrimination he had faced during his school days, first because of race, and then because of sexual orientation. Jeremy told many anecdotes, often using humour to explain how hurtful his peers’ behaviour was.

Jeremy successfully sued his school district, because of the treatment he had received, and used the settlement money to start Jer's Vision. The aim of Jer's Vision is to spread a message of inclusion and acceptance for all, using personal appearances, workshops and conferences.

Jeremy talked about the harm people do by excluding anyone, for whatever reason. As well as discussing discrimination, Jeremy also discussed violence against women and sexism in general. He urged students and staff to think about actions, conscious or unconscious, which may hurt their peers.

Jeremy remained behind after the presentation to address individual questions, and was surrounded by an interested group of students. Jeremy invited students to attend a conference in Ottawa to learn more, and plans are in place to take a group of students on May 30.

After listening to Ojibway Elder and Queen's University Professor Eileen (Sam) Conroy speak so passionately about turtles, it is hard to think of them as other than magnificent and magical creatures worthy of our care and respect.

Conroy, a retired teacher who currently works with the Ontario Arts Council teaching native arts in the schools, delighted guests and members of the Cloyne and District Historical Society with her storytelling prowess. I could not attempt to mention here all of the mesmerizing topics that she covered; suffice to say that most of her tales and tips focused on turtles, the creature whose name was given to this continent in her people's oral history and who ways are what keep our bountiful waters naturally fresh and pure.

Conroy, who lives on a farm near Madoc, has been a volunteer at the Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre in Peterborough for many years and said that she has always loved turtles. She got involved with the centre, which is the only one of its kind in the province, after finding an injured painted turtle that had been hit by a car on the side of the highway. She took it to the centre in Peterborough and because she wanted to witness it healing, she volunteered to feed it every day. She has been volunteering at the centre ever since.

In her talk she spoke of the amazing abilities of turtles - how they clean the water, how snapping turtles can live to be 500 years old and how they carry with them throughout their lifetimes over 16,000 eggs. She said that this area is a haven for turtles but unfortunately last summer in a 100 metre stretch of wetlands just north of Kaladar, 105 dead turtles were found in one week after being struck by cars as they were trying to cross the road to lay their eggs. “ That,” she said, “is a sad fact”, but she added on a more positive note, “People in this area have taken the lead in allowing wild life to thrive here. They have not drained their wetlands and filled them in, which is a very good thing for turtles and why so many turtle species, even one of the most endangered, the Blandings turtle, thrives here.”

She said it is best to help turtles to cross the road by carefully picking them up and placing them down always in the direction they are heading. For the more feisty snappers, a shovel can be used to carry them across the road, again, always in the direction they are heading.

Conroy related her people's creation story of this continent, Turtle Island, how it came about following a flood and how the muskrat brought forth from the bottom of the deepest depths a tiny piece of soil that was laid on a sea turtle's back and eventually formed the continent. She spoke of Nanabozho, the teacher/trickster who gave the turtle its shell to cover its heart since it was so concerned about the well being of others by keeping the waters clean.

What exactly is it that makes Sam speak so enthusiastically and skillfully to groups and students about turtles and native traditional stories? "I think it's because I am beginning to have an understanding of how everything fits together; how the trees, the animals and plants and we are all part of something special and how we need each other and need to be respectful of each other. I want to make sure kids especially have an opportunity to learn about this when they are little so that they don't have to wait until they are my age to find out.”

Sam encourages anyone who finds an injured turtle to immediately contact the Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre in Peterborough by phone at 705-741-5000. For more information about the centre and on the care and handling of healthy and injured turtles and their eggs visit the centre's website at www.kawarthaturtle.org