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Ever since Frank and Sandra White started booking shows after they purchased and renovated the Crossing Pub at the Sharbot Lake Country Inn, it has been known as the home away from home for Newfoundland musicians. This first performer in the new space, and this will make for a good trivia question some day, was the legendary songwriter, the late Ron Hynes.

Since then the range of musicians has expanded as the Pub has become established as an acoustic music venue on a regional, even provincial, scale. One of the lost boys from Newfoundland who were given a gig, and refuge, by the Whites, is Tom Powers and his band, the Dardanelles.

Powers is with the CBC in Toronto now, and has been playing duo gigs with virtuoso fiddler John Showman (Lonesome Ace Stringband, New Country Rehab, Foggy Hogtown Boys and many others) at the Cameron House in that city. The two have performed together at the Crossings Pub in the past. Powers is working on a bluegrass podcast, and in doing so, he came across Tatiana Hargreaves and Winnipeg-born Allison de Groot.

Hargreaves (fiddle) and de Groot (clawhammer banjo) are young stars in the bluegrass/old-time music tradition, and have performed with some of the major stars of the genre. They are both immersed in the Appalachian musical tradition, which is one of the prime sources for bluegrass, country and blues music. They put out an eponymous recording this year, and played Sharbot Lake last Friday night, in a double bill with Showman and Powers, as part of a short tour of Ontario and Quebec.

The Showman/Powers set was enjoyable, as Powers provided support on guitar for Showman’s inventive and technically masterful take on tunes from Newfoundland, Appalachia and beyond.

Hargreaves and de Groot played a somewhat more understated set, taken mostly from their album, as the audience leaned in to hear the intricate interplay between de Groot’s skillful and creative banjo and Hargreaves inventive fiddle and vocals. Their music, deeply rooted in history, but with the perspective of a contemporary political, social, and musical sensibility, was remarkable.

For too short a time, the four musicians performed together, and hearing Showman and Hargreaves together, two masters at work while listening and playing off each other, was another treat.

The quality of the sound in the Crossing Pub, even the vibrations from the audiences’ and musicians’ toes tapping on the floors, has made the venue itself part of the magic that happens during many of the shows. It is becoming a storied venue.

Upcoming shows at the Crossings Pub include: Turpin’s Trail on March 14th, a St. Patrick’s Day show that is sold out. On March 21st, Durham County Poets are performing (tickets are $25 – dinner reservations suggested) If you haven’t seen this band, get ready for fine music, and some wicked jokes.

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC

Charlottetown’s Rachel Beck is a former teacher who is obviously an attentive student herself.

Area music fans might remember her playing Blue Skies a couple of years ago as The Beck Sisters with her sister Amie but last Saturday night with her band Alicia Toner (fiddle/vocals), Kerine Bouchard (cello/vocals), Robin Ettles (bass) and Nick Coltas-Clarke (drums), she was a more pop-rock person than the folksy Beck Sisters.

Beck played an assortment of her own songs, including most of her latest CD Stronger Than You Know as well as some of her older work like Warrior (the video of which features one of her daughters). And listening to her music, you can’t help feeling there’s a little bit of Carole King and/or Joni Mitchell in there.

And there is.

“There’s a bit of throwback in there,” she said. “The songs have a poppy beat and they’re short (2-3-minute average) — more radio-friendly than a lot of music these days.”

Beck acknowledged the King and Mitchell influences, along with Annie Lennox, Fleetwood Mac and Sarah McLachlan but there’s also another one.

“My dad used to play in bands around military bases,” she said. “He was big into rock’n’roll, Clapton and Rolling Stones.

“So I used to listen to what he listened to.”

Just a bit of trivia for the fans — the people she jumps off a bridge with in the video Hearts On Fire aren’t musicians.

“They teacher friends of mine,” she said. “And we’re all wearing wet suits under our clothes.

“That water was like 4 degrees.”

Toner opened the show with her guitar-player fiancee Greg Gale and showed she can not only belt out a song with the best of them, she’s one kick-ass fiddle player as well.

Beck and her band made the Sharbot Lake stop in between performances at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa and Hamilton. She’s currently on tour all over Ontario before heading out west and then back home to the Maritimes.

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC

Frontenac rockers Reckless 4 just released a new video of their original song Rough Life last week and things are looking up, says lead singer/guitarist Jordan Lowery.

“Just over the last year, our followers on Facebook have gone from a couple of hundred to over 7,000,” he said. “We just got an order for 20 CDs, plus T-shirts and posters from a guy in Australia,” Lowery said.

The band is Lowery on lead guitar and lead vocals, Jay Mills on guitar and vocals, Maxwell Jacobs on bass and vocals and newest member Chris Melanson on drums.

“Jay used to be the drummer but we convinced him to come out front and play guitar,” Lowery said.

Lowery and Mills started playing in school with Julia Schall’s School of Rock, eventually forming the band H.D. Supply. In 2017, they decided to abandon the cover-band concept opting for almost entirely original material and an EP (Hell Bent) and an LP (Union of the Wild) later, they’ve been getting radio play (on K-Rock) and last Monday were featured on Bill Welchyka’s Morning Show on Global Kingston.

The video, which is best accessed from the group’s Facebook page, features the Lowery/Mills tune Rough Life with a video narrative of how each band member just doesn’t seem to fit into the conventional workaday world.

High School friend Jacob White plays four different bosses in the video.

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC
Wednesday, 29 January 2020 12:34

Lanark Life Learners Vernissage

On Saturday, February 8th from noon to 3 pm MERA is proud to welcome back to Dean Hall the Lanark Life Learners. The exhibition will run all of February, please see www.meraschoolhouse.org for when the building is open.

The Lanark Life Learners is a group of home learners from all over Lanark county who love learning through every day experiences.  We also love art!  We encompass a wide age range, and our art represents an eclectic collection of mediums and styles. Our artists will display pieces including sculpture, drawing, painting, and mixed medium.   The pieces include both the abstract and the literal, many are based in nature and most are full of fantasy and imagination. 

Our group believes that art is a form of individual expression.  Art is a universal language that people of all ages, interests and backgrounds can understand.  It is a way of story telling without using words.  It can be therapeutic or just plain fun! 

Because we believe that learning happens in all moments in life, art is an amazing way to explore a wide variety of subjects and topics. 

Each artist in the group has a different personal inspiration and has had different artistic training, but they find common ground in their love for expressing themselves and experiencing life through art. 

MERA is located at 974 Conc 9A Dalhousie in McDonalds Corners, ON.

Published in Lanark County

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

Published in General Interest
Wednesday, 11 December 2019 12:38

Trilogy available from local children’s author

Local author Elizabeth Barwell (better known as Mary de Bassecourt) has joined forces with her sister, artist Joan Harris, to create and publish art quality children’s books.

The first book in the trilogy is set in local surroundings and titled “A Rabbit’s Tale: A Most Particular Bunny”. Bernard Bunny brings a smile to the face of child with his willful but thoughtful “badness”. Children delight in Bernard’s gentle and cautious interaction with his world. The other two books in the trilogy are titled “A Cat’s Tale: The Terrible Timid Kitten and “A Beaver’s Tale: The Beaver who Borrowed”. The beaver and kitten stories are based on true incidents, with a few embellishments.

Joan Harris’ enchanting water colour and ink illustrations complement the stories. These hardcover books were designed to comfortably fit in a child’s hands. Some readers say these books remind them of Beatrix Potter’s books, although the illustrator’s animals are more realistic and don’t wear clothes. All are written, printed, and hand-bound by the author.

To order books or to contact Farm Girl books, go to www.farmgirlbooks.ca and click on contact us.

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC

Depending on the entrance to NAEC you used for this year’s Cloyne Showcase Art & Craft Sale, you may have been greeted by a pastel (chalk-based) portrait of Keith Richards. A little further in the display, there was a similar treatment of Willie Nelson.

These are the work of Brian Bailey, a first-timer at the show game.

Bailey and his wife, Leane, retired to the Ompah area three years ago and are beginning to make an impression on the northern art scene.

They work in pastels and coloured pencils and in fact, have been commissioned to do a mural for North Frontenac Township (to be installed at the Public Works Garage on 509 and S. Lavant Road).

“We’ll be learning acyrlics for that one,” he said. “Pastels don’t stand up to the elements.”

Brian has drawn for years, dating back to the late ’70s but somewhere along the line, he fell out of it. He’s just picked it up again since retiring.

“I worked for Coca Cola for 40 years,” he said. “I went there in 1976 for a summer job and never left.”

Leane was a high school teacher in Durham. They lived in Port Perry but opted for Ompah in retirement.

“And yes,” he said. “I am a big Rolling Stones fan.”

“We have a wall in our basement that’s all Rolling Stones portraits,” she said.

“I did a bunch of them in 1978,” he said.

The Baileys’ work is on display in the gallery at the back of the Shamrock Bakery in Plevna.

And showing off the work of local artists is quite in keeping with why the Cloyne Showcase, now in its 47th year, began, said Katie Ohlke, NAEC art teacher and one of the organizers of the annual show.

“It started out as a way for the night school adult students to showcase what they’d done,” she said. “And now, 15 per cent of the sales help fund the art program at the school.”

And while many schools have art programs, not many get the support and emphasis NAEC gives its program.

“It’s great,” she said. “The kids here are very artsy.

“I think kids who grow up in the country here are more creative because they’re surrounded by nature.”

Published in ADDINGTON HIGHLANDS
Wednesday, 07 August 2019 14:05

Rookie sculptor debuts at Art in the Sawmill

Dan Desjardins welds old pieces of metal together to make animals, birds, flowers, etc.

And this past weekend, he made his art world debut at Art in the Sawmill, Verona’s summer visual arts showcase.

He’s a rookie at this, but like a baseball rookie, he had a veteran to whom he could turn for advice and guidance.

“Mac (The Pine Man) McCormac introduced me to this,” Desjardins said. “This is my first as an exhibitor but I was here last year with him, to see what it was like.”

Desjardins and McCormac go way back. Both were bus drivers in the Kingston Transit Service and retired about the same time.

Now Desjardins does have something else to put in the time during his retirement. He plays guitar in the Swift Kick Blues Band. The constructive sculpting came about as a bit of serendipity.

“The welding I do is mostly a hobby,” he said. “About a year ago, my sister asked me to make her a couple of figurines and it just sort of carried on from there.

“I’ll see something and say to myself, ‘I can make something out of that, like birds, turtles, masks.”

He said old pieces of metal seem to bring out his creative side.

“I like to create,” he said. “I’ll find a a piece of metal — or a shovel, and I envision what I can do with it.

“This is bringing out my artsy side.”

But early on in the show, he’s also finding another aspect he’s enjoying.

“I like to mingle and meet with people,” he said. “They ask me what’s going on and where I get my inspiration from.

“And this is a good starting point to find out what people are interested in.”

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC

The first thing regular visitors to the Friends of Bon Echo Art Show and Sale probably noticed is that it’s in a new place. Instead of the gathering area where the show has been since Carla Miedema and a few others started it in 1996, this year it was moved to South Beach.

“There were a couple of reasons for the move, mostly logistics,” said FOBE President (and self-titled “chief cook and bottlewasher, jack of all trades, master of none”) Peter Alger. “With the boat tours, store and visitor centre, the old location was getting a little congested.

“So, in conjunction with Park staff, we thought we’d try it down here.

“Besides, there’s a nice breeze here coming off the lake.”

“Yes, the breeze is nice,” said FOBE executive director Chris Callan. “But we have a lot more room here, we have more parking and it’s close to real facilities.

“Also, it’s much more level ground and it gives us room for some kids activities like painting tree cookies.

“At 23 exhibitors, we’re down a little bit from previous years but I’m quite surprised at the turnout for a Friday,” said Alger. “Everybody seems happy and we hope this will be here for many years to come.

“And that looks good because we’re getting a lot more younger people volunteering.”

And the exhibitors seemed fine with the change, or at the very least were taking it in stride.

“I think I prefer the old location, there were more trees there for shade,” said long-time exhibitor Lisa Johnson. “But, there is a great view and every once in a while, there’s a nice breeze.

“But, I’ve made a few sales, so . . .”

“It’s pretty hot here and it’s a little out of the way but it’s the last day for the swim program so we’ve had lots of adults around with their kids,” said Miedema. “And, there’s a lot more room here.”

“I think it’s great,” said Debbie Reeve, who’s in her fourth year exhibiting at the show. “Sometimes, it’s kinda hard to teach old dogs new tricks.

“But here there’s lots of room, parking, a great view and a nice breeze.”

Toronto artist David Vasquez is returning to the show after a five or six year absence, so he barely remembers the old site.

“It’s a very nice place, I like it here,” he said. “I think it will be a great show, there’s lots of people looking.”

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC

Stella Ter Hart has spent the last five years, with her husband, bringing a farm property with a heritage orchard back to production.

It has been a labour of love, with the emphasis on labour, at their property just north of Inverary on Loughborough Lake. Stella always finds time for music, however, and working on compositions is one of a number musical interests that has animated her life ever since she was child growing up in Estevan, Saskatchewan. Music, and music education eventually took her to Toronto. Her interests in music are broad and her studies at the Toronto Conservatory resulted in her receiving four diplomas, in performance, composition, pedagogy and theory. She later taught in New Brunswick, eventually returning to Ontario and living near Bobcaygeon.

“We were living in Bobcaygeon and when my husband was ready to retire we looked at this property on Loughborough Lake, and decided that, although it was run down, it had a lot of potential,” she said, in a interview last week.

The apple trees in the orchard all had a silver tinge in the bright sunshine when I paid her a visit, and she explained that they were covered with a clay based spray that keeps insects from the tender fruit, an organic pest control technique. The clay washes off before the fruit comes ripe, and if all goes to plan the harvest of heritage apples will be ready in time for the second annual Frontenac Open Farms event on September 8.

But on this day the subject was music, not apples.

“I enjoy entering composing competitions,” Stella, “they provide a focus for me, and a deadline, to complete something.”

She has been involved in music her whole life, both playing and composing, and a has gravitated towards composing choral works.

This spring, she entered the Lirit Women’s Chamber National New Music Composition competition. The contest involved composing music for a text called “The Last Note” by the Canadian poet Jill Solniki.

Stella spent quite a bit of time reading and re-reading the poem to get a clear picture about what it was about, and in her interpretation the poem was full of humour.It concerns the last note of a movement in classical piece, an orphan note seeking refuge as the audience sits in awkward silence during the interval before the start of the next movement.

“No one really knows what to do during that time. Do they clap, do they sit still, talk to their neighbour, and I saw the note bouncing around.”

Her interpretation led her to compose a light hearted setting for the poem, and it turned out the be a good interpretation because it won the contest. She received a cash prize and the “Last Note” will have its debut performance in the Spring of 2020.

“It is a thrill to win a prize, although I enjoy competitions even if I don’t win. There is excitement in reaching the long list, the short list, in coming close,” she said, alshe grants that winning is still the best outcome.

The Lirit Choir, sponsor of the Lirit Prize, is a Toronto based choir devoted to the exploration of the range of Jewish music. They perform throughout the year in community performances and at an annual major concert, which is where “The Last Note” will be performed.

No matter what needs to be done in the orchard when that concert comes about, Stella Ter Hart will be headed to Toronto to experience the performance.

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC
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With the participation of the Government of Canada