Presumably, having the Duke of Sussex speak at one of their meetings after he moves his family to Canada was just Carolyn McCulloch joking around, but don’t put it past the Cloyne and District Historical Society.

“We’ll tell him to bring Meghan and Archie,” she said at the Society’s first meeting of 2020 last Monday in Cloyne.

The Society has been well known for inviting interesting and engaging guest speakers to its meetings and it looks like that’s a tradition it intends to continue as this meeting’s focus was what it plans to do in the coming year.

As an organization, it’s in good shape financially as Treasurer Ian Brumell reported a bank account with $4,900 in it, reserves of $4,800 and $95,000 in an ‘endowment fund.’

“We should have enough interest for one summer student,” he said.

But even so, they’ve applied to Young Canada Works for three summer students.

While the summer students are primarily employed at the Cloyne Pioneer Museum, they also help out with a variety of events and duties.

And speaking of the Museum, the Society is actively engaged in finding a replacement for volunteer Curator Margaret Axford, who retired last summer after 20 years in the position.

Just exactly what 2020 will look like for the organization has yet to be determined but that should firm up after the Feb. 17 meeting that they’re calling a strategic planning meeting with a Queens’ University professor coming to act as facilitator.

“It will be about where we want to go in the future, what people’s talents are and what would you be prepared to do,” said President Shirley Sedore. “And summer’s coming up so we’re looking for someone to look after the flower boxes.”

In all likelihood, there will be more bus trips like the one last November to the South Frontenac Museum in Hartington, a calendar, guest speakers and a return of “bring a thing and tell a tale.” There could also be courses on archiving and how to operate a metal detector.

Established in 1983, the Cloyne Pioneer Museum is seeking a new Curator. The Museum is operated by the not-for-profit Cloyne and District Historical Society. The Society's catchment area is the Highway 41 corridor from Kaladar in the south to Denbigh and Griffith in the north, as well as Flinton to the west and Harlowe to the east. Museum collections, both in artifacts and documents, reflect the history of this area beginning from settlement times in the 1850s, with emphasis on such themes as settlement and pioneer life, mining, logging, tourism and the building of the Addington Road. 

The Museum is open mid-June until Labour Day and receives over 1,000 visitors during the summer. Students are employed throughout the summer to ensure the Museum is well staffed to receive visitors. 

Margaret Axford has been serving as volunteer Curator for the past 20 years and is retiring from the position. The Curator liaises between the volunteer Board of Directors, students, membership and visitors.  Exhibit maintenance, receiving photos, documents and articles for display as well as archiving are part of the Curator's duties.

If you wish to be a vital part of preserving our local history please apply to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 613-336-2203 for more information.

Last Monday marked a milestone of sorts for the South Frontenac Museum in Hartington. It was the first time the museum hosted a visiting historical society for a talk on two of the museum’s most prominent collections and displays — the 146th “Overseas” Battalion and First World War Nurses.

The visitors on this day were the Cloyne and District Historical Society and about a dozen of them made the trek south to hear what former Canadian Army Sgt. Doug Lovegrove and his wife Debbie had to say.

“We like to support other historical societies,” said Red Skipper of the Cloyne group. “We go to a lot of museums.”

“We’ve even been to the NORAD mountain,” said Gordon McCulloch. “It covers two football fields.”

The visitors weren’t disappointed as the Lovegroves laid out the history of WWI soldiers in Frontenac County.

“One thousand and two men joined the 146th,” Doug said. “Of that 561 men went overseas and 127 were killed in action.

“There were 39 officers of which 26 went overseas and two were killed in action.”

He said that of the 55 battles Canadians were involved in, the 146th was in 41 of them.

He then went on to detail the recruiting process in the area.

“The recruiters came up from Kingston to Harrowsmith and took the stage to Sydenham,” he said. “They recruited five men there.

“They did a lot better in Verona where they recruited 53.”

He said a lot of the recruits were farmers, who made about 50 cents a day. Since the army paid $1 a day plus 10 cents in overseas allowance and provided $20 a month for families, it was a fairly easy sell.

“A recruit had to be taller than 5 feet, 3 inches tall and be between 18 and 38, (although he could not be sent overseas until age 19),” he said. “In August of 1918, the Military Service Act changed enlistment ages to between the ages of 20 and 45.”

Lovegrove said that in his researching the 146th, he came across some rather interesting information about Canadian nurses in WWI but since there was so much to be researched with the 146th, he couldn’t do it justice. So, he turned the nurses section over to his wife Debbie, herself a M/Cpl CD1 (ret).

“There were 2,845 nurses enlisted in the Canadian Army Medical Corps,” she said. “A nurse was commissioned as a lieutenant and a matron as a captain.

“And they received the same pay as their male counterparts.”

She said 1,886 of those served overseas and 62 were killed in action.

She said the work in field hospitals and convalescent homes was traumatic, with lice and rats everywhere.

“But it also gave the nurses who went overseas a deep sense of satisfaction and accomplishment at a time when women’s roles were firmly planted in the domestic sphere,” she said. “They made significant and very public contributions to the war effort.”

One of the most interesting statistics she presented was the stature of some of these nurses.

“The smallest was 4 feet tall, 120 pounds,” she said. “The lightest was 5’4”, 89 pounds; the tallest was 5’11’’ and 130 pounds and the heaviest was 5’5 ½ ” and 220 pounds.”

For the third straight year, there were more than 90 entries for the Conservationists of Frontenac Addington Deer Contest.

This was the 19th annual event which is co-sponsored by the Bishop Lake Outdoor Centre (weigh-in hosts) and the Frontenac and Addington Trappers’ Council.

When the bell rang signifying the end of the weigh-ins on Sunday, there were 97 deer this season, surpassing last year’s total of 94.

The biggest buck was 218 pounds, from Brooke Hawley of Cloyne. The runner-up buck was 212.7 pounds, from Will Parks of Belleville. The biggest doe was 145.2 pounds from Ed Yanch of Flinto adn the runner up was 130.5 pounds from Terry Tryon of Kaladar. Winners receive a trophy and $200. Second place finishers receive $100.

Todd Boutilier won the grand prize draw (for all weigh-ins) of a Browning ABIII 270 WIN with 3x9x40 Tasco Scope valued at about $939.

There a numerous other draw prizes and the winners of those will be contacted shortly, said contest organizers.

“It’s mainly sponsored by COLA, we just lend them some space,” said Dennis Black of Bishop Lake Outdoor Centre. “This has been increasing the last four years and we’ve had hunters from as far away as Oshawa, Ottawa, Renfrew and Pembrooke.

“But the greatest amount of hunters come from within 30 minutes of here.”

COLA treasurer Doug Tocher thanked all the volunteers such as Fred Perry, Lauder and Pat Smith, Marie Anderson and Debbie Robillard who helped with the weigh-ins as well as all the local businesses and individuals who donated prizes.

The students of North Addington Education Centre suited up on October 31st in their Campbell’s Soup Costumes, to collect items for the food bank.

About ten secondary students were spread out between Flinton, Northbrook, and Cloyne to collect non-perishable food items, instead of tricking or treating for candy. The students are not strangers to supporting the community who supports them.

This is the ninth year for the very successful event. We visited as many households as possible, but we know that some houses were missed- especially those on back roads, and in Northbrook. The wet weather slowed us down. If you have food that you would like for us to pick up, please call Candice Bovard throughout the week at 613-336-8991.

On behalf of students and staff, the vice-principal, Bill Dowling, would like to thank the community for their contributions to our food drive efforts over the years: “It’s great to see the students wanting to take care of, and invest in their community. Thank you for helping us build resilient children. We appreciate your continued support toward this very worthwhile cause”.

Items can also be dropped off at North Addington, in the main office.

The 5th annual Sail Mazinaw was held Saturday August 10.  This year's event included the Sandpiper 565 Rendezvous and drew 18 boats.  One came from Michigan, and another from Sault Ste. Marie.  Saturday was gusty with intermittent sprinkles of rain:  perfect sailing conditions.  Crews dressed as pirates for breakfast at Mazinaw Lakeside Resort, and again for a potluck dinner.  This year's Mazinaw Cup was presented to the Sandpiper fleet for their enthusiasm and for fending off an attack by a ghost pirate ship.  Sunday, the RCAF flew a C-130 Hercules over the fleet while they were cruising The Lower Mazinaw.  Nobody has more fun than sailors. For more photos, check out Sail Mazinaw on Facebook.   Next year's Sail Mazinaw will be August 8.

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.”

If you’re visiting the area north of Highway 7 and east of 41 you’ll find beautiful forests, lakes and hills, but no motels or hotels, very few bed and breakfasts. You’ll find a restaurant and a bakery in Plevna, restaurants in Cloyne and Myers Cave. In general, the common knowledge around here is that things are full in the summer, closed in the winter. The great majority of visitors either own waterfront homes or have booked campsites and cottages months in advance. Not much available for the casual visitor in a car or on a motorcycle: and we’d like to change that.

The township has a committee looking at ways to increase economic activity- as do most municipalities of any size and this one is right now trying to do something to create more rental accommodations for visitors. We’ve just had a big boost in our efforts from a new zoning bylaw. It becomes legal on August 7, and has some rules in it that are new in Frontenac County, still novel in most of Ontario.

If you own an acre or more of non-waterfront property, you can now put a second dwelling on your property, limited to 45% of the floor area of an existing house. No need to sever off a separate lot or get any kind of a zoning change. Our idea in promoting this is to encourage some residents to build a single rental unit to supplement their income. It’s a bit of a gamble for us on Council, in that there may be no uptake of the idea. It’s a completely opposite approach to the accommodation problem from the initiative of finding an entrepreneur to build a hotel. You can advertise this ‘secondary building’ on Airbnb or simply put out a sign on the road. My own experience in travelling new parts by car is to look for roadside appeal in a place to stay.

Let’s say you try this, find that your rental cabin is solidly booked, and want to build a couple more. Now you will have to get a zoning change on your property, and even that is a bit easier than it used to be. It still takes an application, some thousands of dollars and some months to get through the process, but township staff will be able and willing to help along the way.

Call the North Frontenac Township office at 479 2231 if you want to know more. The new zoning bylaw is of course on the website.

by John Inglis, Ward 3 Councillor

On June 25, 2019 at 3:31 p.m. the Lennox and Addington County Detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) responded to a report of an assault at Bon Echo Park off County Rd 41 in Cloyne. 

Investigation revealed that a person was acting in an erratic manner by screaming and yelling. The person approached two other park users and threatened to hit one of them with a stick. The person followed through on the threat and was subsequently restrained by the victim's friend as well as an off-duty park warden until police arrived.  The victim received minor injuries

Police arrested 23 year old Armand Joshua GUANLAO of Scarborough for assault with a weapon contrary to the criminal code of Canada. GUANLAO will appear in the Ontario Court of Justice in Napanee on July 30, 2019

The Cloyne Pioneer Museum and Archives opened its doors for the 2019 summer season Saturday and it was an occasion, in part, to say good-bye to the one person many credit with its success.

Margaret Axford, has stepped down after 10 years as curator.

“It’s an opportunity to toast and roast a lady who’s been a wealth of information for this organization,” said historical society president Shirley Sedore.

“She’s (Axford) been very gracious, welcoming and cordial, also a great stabilizer,” said Wendy Hodgkin.

“This museum is one of the best in the country for its size,” said Katherine Grant. “And we know who we have to thank for that.

“Her passion, her vision, her taste have left us with such a good platform.”

Emma Veley, who’s worked at the museum for seven years, takes over as curator for the summer.

“Everything I’ve learned and my knowledge of the area comes from Marg,” Veley said.

“She’s never been an insider, just an observer,” said Gord McCulloch. “Marg comes on very softly but she’s a little like the sting of a bee and she gets things done.

“She’s shown us what it should be.”

The museum is located on Hwy 41 across from the Post Office.

It’s open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in July and August.

It’s partially funded by Trillium Foundation grants and the sales of its historical calendars and books, available at the museum and its online store.