If you haven’t witnessed majestic Mazinaw Rock with your own eyes then you’ve missed out on one of the natural wonders of eastern Ontario.

Just 20 minutes north of Northbrook within the bounds of Bon Echo Provincial Park, the gorgeous granite cliff rises 100-metres straight out of the depths of one of the province’s deepest lakes. It’s truly an awe-inspiring sight, and one immortalized by generations of artists.

The Rock is itself an enduring canvas; at water level there are more than 260 pictographs painted in red ochre by the area’s indigenous people. These paintings, some of them believed to be more than 1,000 years old, are images of a rich cultural tradition. Park visitors can see them up close as part of the fully interpreted Wanderer tour boat ride.

But the appeal of Bon Echo extends well beyond the splendour of the Rock. With numerous trails and activities to enjoy, the park has something to offer adventurers of all ages.

For anglers, Bon Echo boasts excellent fishing opportunities, for which it earned a nod from Outdoor Canada magazine. Those new to fishing are invited to join in on the Learn To Fish program being offered by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry on the weekend of Aug 5 and 6. No experience necessary and equipment is provided.

For art lovers, there’s the annual Art Exhibition and Sale, taking place this year from Fri, Jul 28 to Sun, Jul 30. With the theme “Canadian nature, wildlife and countryside,” the event will showcase original works from 40 artists and include activities for the whole family. Plus there’s the Colin Edwards Memorial Art Gallery, inside of Greystones store, that showcases local artists all season long.

For those looking for some lakeside lounging, there are three natural sandy beaches from which to enjoy a refreshing swim or just soak up the gentle sounds of the waves on the shore. Canoes and paddleboats are available for rent in the Lagoon.

Nature lovers can be on the lookout for the wide variety of wildlife that inhabits the park, including the peregrine falcons that circle Mazinaw Rock, the Blanding’s turtles and the elusive five-lined skink. The skink, Ontario’s only lizard, is being celebrated all-season long with a kids’ colouring contest (entries available at the Visitor Centre) and special events on Sun, Jul 30 and Sat, Aug 26.

Visitors who choose to stay overnight in the park can choose from a wide range of amenities, including cozy lakeside cabins, spacious yurts, RV and car-camping facilities as well as hike-in and paddle-in camp sites for those who want to explore the backcountry.

The season includes a variety of special events, including those presented by the Park’s Natural Heritage Educators and those presented by the volunteer organization the Friends of Bon Echo Park. For more information check out Ontarioparks.com/park/bonecho and Bonechofriends.ca.

Julia Garro lives just south of Tweed and is a board member of the Friends of Bon Echo Park.

The Land O’ Lakes Garden Club (LOLGC), the Cloyne and District Historical Society (C&DHS), Mazinaw-Lanark Forest Inc.(MLFI) and North Frontenac Township have joined forces to regenerate the area between the Pioneer Museum and Barrie Community Hall in Cloyne that was devastated by a micro-burst in 2002, during which most of the trees were destroyed (some 200 years old). We will create a legacy parkland with educational signage for all to enjoy. The park will be named Benny’s Lake Heritage Park in honour of the family who originally owned the land. The Land O’Lakes Garden Club members have prepared a special project which will be unveiled at the Ribbon Cutting of the park.

The Bon Echo Rocks choir will be performing, Martine Buissart will be singing in French, Tunes and Tea, a local Ukulele/singing group will be playing, Eileen Fleiler will be reciting a poem about Benny Lake. There will be a BBQ with The Pickled Chicken String Band entertaining us while we eat.

Mike Bossio (MP for Hastings-Lennox and Addington), Scott Reid (MP for Lanark- Frontenac-Kingston), Ron Higgins (mayor of North Frontenac), several members of the North Frontenac Council, and Chief Doreen Davis (Chief of the Sharbot- Obaadjiwan First Nation) will be attending the celebration.

Please mark Saturday June 24th on your calendars and join us to celebrate Canada’s 150th Anniversary.

Remember when you were a kid, before school started, at recess, lunch hour, whenever you weren’t in class but were still required to be on the school grounds. Chances are, if there was no snow on the ground, every diamond on the property would be in use. In many Southern Ontario school grounds, the game was called ‘scrub.’

Call it what you will, softball, lob-ball, slo-pitch, whatever, the image of a ball glove slung over a bicycle’s handlebars was common.

When school let out for the summer, the game continued, often on open fields, with bases defined by dragging your heel in the dirt to delineate a less-than-perfect square. Often, rules were set by stomping home plate, as in ‘no lead-offs’ and/or ‘call your field’ if there weren’t enough players to cover all the positions. Players rotated through the positions and everybody got their turns at bat.

That generation has become seniors now, but the memories still linger.

So is it any wonder that seniors seem to be returning to the game, albeit with a slower-paced approach?

This summer, there are no less than three, and probably four teams (using the term ‘team’ loosely) operating in the northern areas of Frontenac and L & A Counties, whereas it wasn’t that long ago there were none.

Cloyne, Arden and Sharbot Lake all have seniors softball programs operating this summer, with Sharbot Lake being the new kids on the block.

By all accounts, things got started about five years ago when the late Don Patry and Lauder Smith put an ad in The Frontenac News asking if anybody wanted to get together once a week in Cloyne to play a little ball.

As it turns out, enough people did. Some of them were from the Arden area.

“My wife Karen and I along with the Pratts drove up there and enjoyed it so much we thought we’d try to get something similar going in Arden,” said Gord Brown, the de facto ‘commissioner’ of Arden seniors baseball.

That was three years ago and from an inaugural season of about 10-12 players, the Arden contingent grew to around 20.

One of those was Sharbot Lake’s Mike Procter, who this year started testing the waters to see if there was enough interest for a team there.

“I’ve had all sorts of inquiries,” Procter said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we could fill two teams.”

That doesn’t surprise Brown or Rick Guthrie, who is one of the main organizers in Cloyne.

“I was lucky enough to play rec league until 2013,” Guthrie said. “But in many ways, this (seniors ball) is better.

“It’s all of the fun, with none of the stress.

“When you go back and catch that fly ball, it’s just as much fun as it always was.”

“I always come home with a few aches and pains, but yes, it is fun,” said Brown. “You know we have quite a few players in their 70s and a couple are over 75.”

Another aspect of seniors ball is that while pick-up games in the ’60s tended to be more of a guys thing (although there always seemed to be a couple of girls in the game), seniors ball tends to be co-ed, with more females than males on many nights.

There’s no real ‘league’ of sorts but there is talk of games between the communities including a potential Canada 150 ‘tournament.’

At any rate, if you’re 50-something-plus, you may want to check it out this summer.

In Cloyne, games are Friday mornings at the field behind the tennis courts. Contact is Rick Guthrie 613-336-3460.

In Arden, games are Wednesday and Sunday evenings at the Arden ball field. Contact is Gord Brown, 613-335-4843.

In Sharbot Lake, games are Wednesday and Sunday evenings at the ball field. Contact is Mike Procter, 613-279-2572.

All you need is a glove and it’s all about just having fun.

The third Monday of April just happened to coincide with Easter Monday this spring. Not being certain of how many members or guests might attend our monthly meeting,  we planned a program of general interest. "Bring an Item and Tell a Tale" was a hit.  Some of the more interesting items included the following:

A tiny safety razor in its own leather case that would have been issued to military. It was made small to fit into a soldier's breast pocket.

A Victory Bell said to be made from the metal of a downed WWII German fighter plane and embossed with the faces of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin.

A five year diary from the early 1940's with writing ever so small and written in real ink! Each page was full to the edges with births, deaths, events and activities.

A wooden coffee grinder that was once used exclusively as a pepper mill.

A radiator cap from an old Buick, complete with it's own built in thermometer, dating to a time before automobiles were built with a heat gauge.

An original copy of "Mary Melville, Psychic" , a story about her sister, written by Flora MacDonald with a notation, in Flora's own hand.

Pioneer hair curlers(strips of rags). Women once used these to create curls or ringlets in their hair for special occasions.

A collector's issue of "Susannah, A Little Girl with the Mounties", written by Muriel Denison. We have a full collection of the Susannah books in the Pioneer Museum.

Another interesting book about the road building in this area and the homesteading it created, called "Footpaths to Freeways."

A fascinating pair of handmade snowshoe miniatures made exactly to scale from thread and preserved with layers of varnish, the only pair in existence.

A geologist's rock hammer, used locally in early mining sites to chip out rock samples. In today's terms, its weight and pointed end make it quite the weapon!

The most giggles of the presentations were generated by a complex unit of electrodes, from 1925, complete with instruction manual and professing to cure headaches, toothaches, intestinal issues, sore feet and every ailment you might imagine. Just change the attachment, plug it in and apply to affected area, with supposedly guaranteed results!

Our next meeting will be on Monday May 15 at 1:00p.m. at the Cloyne Hall. More information on our website www.cloynepioneermuseum.ca. Be sure to come and learn details of our annual gigantic yard sale. The Museum and Archives will be open for business for another season on June 24. That's also the date for a Sesquicentennial celebration at the park in Cloyne, right beside the museum. This is a special day, designed to celebrate Canada's birthday but also the revitalization of the park, complete with entertainment and food! There will be more information on posters and ads coming to you very soon!

After a joint North Frontenac-Addington Highlands Council meeting last Friday at Barrie Hall in Cloyne, it appears that concerns about equipment reserves for the joint Kaladar Barrie Fire Department (KBFD) have been laid to rest.

The meeting was called at the request of North Frontenac (and Mayor Ron Higgins in particular) to address funding for the replacement of the Rescue 5 vehicle at an estimated cost of up to $315,000.

Both Councils agreed to approve budget submissions of $281,119 being added to the Vehicle/Equipment Reserve in 2017.

The Councils also approved an allocation of $110,000 ($55,000 per Township) for the next nine years (2018 to 2026), with the amount required to be reviewed on an annual basis when the KBFD Asset Management Plan Tangible Capital Asset Replacement Schedules are reviewed as part of the annual budget process.

The budget in general was also approved as presented in draft #2 permitting the KBFD to have all the equipment, personnel and training required to provide the core services as set by Councils in the establishing and regulating bylaw.

The Kaladar Barrie department is an anomaly in Ontario because it is managed by two different townships  in two different counties, but since the department pre-dates the municipal amalgamation process in 1998 and serves a single community on either side of Hwy. 41 it has persisted through successive councils for almost 20 years. Occasionally differences in the way North Frontenac and Addington Highlands run their townships has caused friction from time to time, however.

“North Frontenac has had concerns that the Joint Fire Committee (JFC) hasn’t put enough money away, but we’ve put in $281,000 to buy a rescue vehicle,” said Addington Highlands Reeve Henry Hogg.

“It’s something we have to do,” he said. “It means a tax increase but it has to be done.

“It’s as good as we can get. It’s always that way.”

“I think it went fairly smoothly,” said Addington Highlands Fire Chief Casey Cuddy of the meeting.

“Both Councils were brought up to speed.” Cuddy lives in North Frontenac but serves as Fire Chief for Addington Highlands and for the KBFD.

Higgins agreed.

“I feel good about how it’s gone,” Higgins said. “It’s comforting to me that Councils addressed errors in asset management.

“I just wanted assurance that Councils agreed.”

Councils also agreed to have the JFC review the agreements as required and to revisit the Tangible Assets Replacement Schedule in 2017 with respect to the options available.

By Kip Vankempen’s own admission, it’s just one man’s survey but the results did spark response from Mayor Ron Higgins at North Frontenac’s regular Council meeting last Friday at Barrie Hall in Cloyne. (The meeting was held in Cloyne because it immediately followed a joint Councils meeting with Addington Highlands on the joint fire agreement.)

Appearing as a delegation to Council, Vankempen said he used the internet application SurveyMonkey and received 83 responses.

Of the 83 respondents:

• 92 per cent opposing the new municipal building expenditure
• 96 per cent felt the federal gas tax could be put to better use than the building project
• 97 per cent believe the Cloyne firehall is important
• 97 per cent believe firefighting and rescue equipment should be maintained up to recommended standards
• 78 per cent believe the Cloyne playground equipment should be replaced
• 99 per cent believe internet voting should be available
• 99 per cent would like Council to keep them informed by email
• 97 per cent believe cottagers should receive the same relief as year-round residents for Hydro
• 93 per cent felt the delivery charge for Hydro should be changed.

While Higgins agreed with the respondents as to Hydro charges and pointed out the Township has sent letters to the Province asking for the repeal of the Green Energy Act, he wasn’t as agreeable when it came to the municipal building expenditures.

“It is going ahead as is,” Higgins said. “You can’t look at it in isolation because the building itself has no negative impact on taxes, which we’ve kept to the Consumer Price Index.”

Higgins said they view the municipal building expenses as “spending on an asset and improving service delivery” and that it has health, safety and accessibility issues.

He also said that they have approved a new communications policy.

Restoration Project on Hold
Improvements to the Palmerston Canonto Conservation Area by the Palmerston Beach Restoration Project Team are on hold following a resolution by Council.

Council did pass a bylaw authorizing the Mayor and Clerk to enter into a five-year lease agreement (for $1 per year) with the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority (MVCA) on the property but execution of lease may also have to wait.
The problem is, actual ownership of the property seems to be in question.

In a report to Council, manager of community development Corey Klatt said “At the Feb. 16 meeting, we were advised by MVCA staff that there is currently an issue with the ownership of a portion of the property within the PCCA beach area.”
Klatt said an adjacent property owner believes he owns some of the property.

Coun. Gerry Martin, who has been working with the PBRP team wrote a letter advising them that “the renewal of the MVCA Lease Agreement will be on the April 7 Council Agenda.

“The title search has not yet been completed (by MVCA) and until ownership of the property is determined, Council cannot approve work on the lot. There is a possibility the property is actually owned by a third party.”

“This is turning out to be a disaster,” said Coun. John Inglis. “They’re not going to be able to do (work) this year.”

“We’re dealing with something that was done wrong 30 years ago,” said Martin.

We have a tremendous project planned for Canada’s 150th Anniversary of Confederation next year. As part of our Sesquicentennial Project our colour themes for the Community Planter boxes will be red and white. We hope all local gardeners who plant flowers next spring, to enjoy for the summer season, will do the same. Just imagine our Community at large in a bounty of red and white flower beds and containers. It is a significant and visual way to show everyone driving into our Townships of North Frontenac and Addington Highlands that we know how to celebrate 2017, such a special year for Canada. Most important, we are asking all you readers to set aside June 24th 2017 so you can attend the annual opening of the Pioneer Museum in Cloyne, beside the Barrie Township Hall, for a very special unveiling of an Art Installation completed by our Land O’Lakes Garden Club members, in recognition of Canada’s 150th. We appreciate the help and support of the Historical Society Board in this undertaking, who have so kindly agreed to display our art work on the Museum. This project has involved many volunteers and a tremendous amount of work and a great deal of learning for all those who have participated. Under the guidance of our Co chair Lynn Oborne we feel we have created an Art Installation that the Community will be proud of. We are all excited for you to come out and see our handiwork. Canada’s 150th Anniversary is a once in a lifetime opportunity to connect with one another, to celebrate our accomplishments as a nation, our diversity and common interests and engage as a community in a conversation of our vision for the future. We look forward to you attending along with your friends and neighbours to view this Art Installation that we hope will be enjoyed by the entire Community. We have also commissioned a local artisan, Ken Chatson, to create a tribute piece on our behalf for the Community. Please mark June 24, 2017 as a special day on your calendar and come out to meet your friends and neighbours at the event.

Have you ever thought about what sounds you might hear in our museum?  Perhaps not, so let me take you on a little tour. The voices of children chattering eagerly in the school house come to mind. These are the same children who will tell you that no, they don’t want to go back to school, but at the moment they are enjoying the books, the old desks, the nibs of the pens, the schoolmarm with no shoes, the aura of a different kind of school.

Female voices drift in from the Pioneer Life section, most of them in amazement at the tiny wedding dress made by Ila Redshaw Wagar when she was only 17 years old. There also are the porcelain dolls which have their own history, long before they became playmates of children in the early days, one of them in particular who was created in Germany some time before becoming the best friend of Ora Wickware in Cloyne. Perhaps in the silence of the night, they talk to one another, exchanging their stories!

From the south end of the new section, where all the tools are, you can hear the sound of someone cranking the forge which was built by Zach Snider. If you listen very closely, you can almost hear the fire as it would have caught the coals in the forge.

From the front room, there are the sounds of toonies and loonies dropping into the donation jars. The folded-up bills fall so softly that you don’t know they’re there until it’s counting time at the end of the day! Here also is more amazement coming from the folks reading the life story of David Trumble. “What, he was 118 when he died?” And then there are the adult voices patiently explaining to children what a phone used to look like and how it worked, when it was called a “telephone”. On the north side of the room, the cause of exclamations will be the size of the old chain saws, with wonderment at how strong the man must have been who once used those on a daily basis.

These are the sounds of learning - about a lifestyle no longer in existence, about the ways in which small communities have kept themselves alive, through timbering, through mining, through tourism. This is the business of our museum.

The Museum and Archives this summer was a busy place. Including the tours which have brought in groups from the school and from neighbouring towns, we welcomed 1,350 visitors who donated $1,986, a significantly greater amount than in previous summers. Instead of the long-standing average of  donations of $1 per person, we are now up to nearly $1.50 per person! Our sales cupboard did well also this summer. Customers purchased $2,207 worth of our merchandise. As a result of the brisk sales, several items will have to be reordered over the winter.

After a quiet winter’s rest, followed by a cleaning and rejuvenation of displays, the doors will be ready to open next spring as we mark Canada’s 150th birthday. Then the sounds will be cheering ones, as we all get together to have a celebration!

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. For the first time ever, items were collected in Denbigh for the Denbigh Food Bank.

On October 7, a group of students from North Addington Education Centre travelled to Kingston to visit the Kingston Glass Studio. Students took it in turns to try their hands at glass blowing, in order to make a spherical ornament. Each student chose the colours and style of their ornament, and blew it into a spherical shape with the help of the professional glass blowers at the studio.

“It was great to make your own glass ball, but it was just as much fun to watch your peers doing it,” said Emma Fuller, a grade 12 student. Students had to wait several days for the ornaments to cool enough to be transported, and were delighted with the results. This trip was in preparation for a trip on October 27 to the Dale Chihuly exhibition at the ROM in Toronto.

Grade 7 to 12 students at NAEC have also been having fun with a ball. They have been using inflatable bubble balls in a variety of activities. These balls were rented from Skyza, a new company from Pembroke. The balls are very large, with shoulder straps to keep them in place and keep the players’ heads protected.

Students have played Bubble Soccer, Sumo Wrestling, Last Man Standing, and King of the Hill. The great advantage to using the bubble balls is that students are protected from injury when making contact. It is also good exercise, because speed is not as hazardous. In addition, students spend a lot of energy manoeuvring while playing Bubble Soccer.

Amber Verbruggen, Grade 7, said, “It made you feel like you were on a roller-coaster.” Noah Gray, from Grade 8, observed, “It was fun because we got to “crush” people without getting in trouble!”