Without any fanfare, Blue Skies Music Festival hit a milestone in its 46th edition over the long weekend. The festival, which takes place near the Clarendon station, the last remaining station from the old K&P railroad, just at the crossroads between North and Central Frontenac and Lanark Highlands, has remained stubbornly true to its non-commercial hippy roots throughout the decades, but it has evolved in some interesting ways

The artistic directors, including the most recent, Danny Sullivan, have tapped into the burgeoning indigenous music scene over the last ten years or so, and have made conscious strides towards gender parity among the featured main stage acts.

It was not discussed in the program or announced in any way during the festival, but this year, under the artistic director Al Rankin, gender parity among the band leaders was reached. Of the 12 featured bands over three nights, 5 were female led, 5 were male led, and 2 were partnerships between a man and a woman. There were, however, more male backing musicians than female.

Nonetheless, the voices, the genesis of the music, the lyrical and musical core of the performance, was as much female as male this year, for the first time, enhancing the commitment to variety that has been the hallmark of the music at the festival for many years. Ending the festival with the Montreal based Urban Science Brass band, which features a New Orleans style brass jazz band supporting freestyle hip hop, also provided a feeling that something new is afoot on the old Blue Skies stage.

The penultimate band on Sunday Night (Aug. 4) was the afro Cuban band OKAN, which is led by violinist Elizabeth Rodriguez and percussionist Magdelys Savigny. Both of them came to Canada from Cuba as part of the Jane Bunnett supergroup Maqueque, and have ventured off on their own.

OKAN comes from dialect of Yoruba, a language linked to the Afro-Cuban Santería religion. It means heart and soul.

Rodriguez and Savigny were joined by three other players, including their frequent collaborator, legendary keyboardist Miguel de Armas, a newly minted Canadian citizen who wowed the Blue Skies audience in 2018 with his own Cuban jazz quartet. OKAN’s rhythmic, energetic, and hypnotic set was one of the musical highlights of the sold-out festival this year.

Al Rankin, who lives near Inverary, had a stint as the artistic director of the festival a number of years ago. He is the programmer for the Live Wire Concert Series in Kingston and holds occasional house concerts as well.

The last little while has been a busy time for the Clarendon & Miller Community Archives (CMCA), Coordinator Brenda Martin told North Frontenac Council last week at its regular meeting in Ompah. The CMCA is planning an open house Aug. 30 from 1-4 p.m. at the Plevna Library to update the public on its activities as well as say goodbye to its student workers who have put in many hours on its various projects. “The Historic Tours of North Frontenac is very exciting,”

Martin said. “I guarantee you will learn a lot about this Township you did not know before.” She said that mostly through the summer students, the entire CMA website has been revised and updated, a virtual tour planned and enhanced hundreds of photos (removing scratches and folds etc). “The goal is to have the Tour Guidebook at least ready for production by Aug. 30,” she said. That project was funded by the Township and a Community Foundation for Kingston and Area Grant. Martin also provided updates for the 2017 and 2016 Township Community Grants. On the 2016 grant, she said: “The 10th anniversary of CMCA was a celebration Memories of General Stores. “Although that research is stored at the Archives in binders and available on the CMCA website, our committee members regretted it had not been published in book format.

“The book has been compiled (and) it is our intention to publish limited copies for the local libraries and the Cloyne Museum. It should be ready for the end of August.” On the 2017 grant she said: “The lodge research event May 6 had a huge turnout. The material was produced in book format with complimentary copies provided to the Ompah Community Library, the Cloyne Public Library, the Plevna Public Library and the Cloyne Museum. “It was not deemed a major fundraiser, and we will publish more copies as the demand requires.” Also on the 2017 grant, Martin said they’ve done “extensive research” on 10 historic signs “based on the best information and photos available to us.” She said the signs should be ready for installation in 2017. Martin also expressed concern about a lack of storage space. “We can develop things but where do we put them?” she said. “We don’t even have storage space.” Coun. Gerry Martin suggested that there was an old township office in the Community Centre in Plevna. “The library was there at one point,” he said. “There was a mold problem but that was fixed.” “There might be some space in the old township office up the road here,” said Mayor Ron Higgins.

When Holly Labow moved her spa business out of town to her home north of Grafton a few years ago, she was concerned that she may lose business being north of the 401, and in the country.

“That didn’t happen. People made the trip for the services I provide and the atmosphere I created,” she said last week from her new home on Pine Lake, on Brown’s Lane off the Ardoch Road in North Frontenac.

Being a few minutes north of Grafton, and just 15 minutes from Cobourg, is not exactly the same as being located off the Ardoch Road, especially in the winter when even permanent residents are planning southern getaways.

Holly and her husband Michael bought their lakefront property a few years ago, and once he retired, they moved in last summer on a full time basis. They had a new building designed and built for Polished Spa, for Holly to start up her business in North Frontenac.

Since then they have continued to work on their house and have built Polished Spa for Holly to start up her business in North Frontenac.

Polished Spa has one main room with a treatment bed and plenty of room to work, and a foyer/waiting room at the front. It is clean and comfortable and has views of Pine Lake and the surrounding woods.

In it, Holly Labow offers a range of services, including: manicures, shellac manicures, pedicures, facials, makeup,  and waxing and trimming. She also provides hot stone, aromatherapy, and exfoliating massage treatments.

Holly is also a certified foot reflexologist and provides reflexology treatments in the spa.

“By manipulating specific reflexes in the feet to remove stress, a parasympathetic response will occur in the body,” Holly says on her website about reflexology.

Reflexology treatments include a foot bath and the use of essential oils. First sessions can last 90 minutes and subsequent sessions are not as long.

“I love my work in the spa, and even if we are in a new location, far off the beaten track, I wanted to get  started up as soon as I could after we moved here. I opened in mid-August, and caught the tail end of the summer. Since then I have been learning about the community, and introducing myself and my services to people in the area, many of whom have never had a pedicure, never spent an hour in a spa like this,” she said.

So far, even in the dead of winter, she feels pretty good about how the business has gone.

“The summertime is more about the esthetics part of the spa and the winters are more about healing and wellness. I’m happy to create this kind of peaceful atmosphere, to help my clients relax and serve their needs.”

So far so good. While the spa has not been overwhelmed with business this winter, there have been clients coming in on a regular basis, and Holly is as optimistic as ever about the future.

“I kind of took the philosophy that if you build it they would come, and so far it is working out.”

The Drum is the thing as Sullivan makes his mark as Artistic Director

Scheduling a family-based Drum from Peterborough to open the Blue Skies Festival on Friday night, and the Big Smoke Drum along with Chilean-based hip hop artist Akawui to close the festival on Sunday night, was a precedent-setting decision from Danny Sullivan in his first year as artistic director.

It was the first time a drum has graced the main stage in many years, even as the festival has explored music from around the world. The experiment worked, as the first performance culminated in a round dance with hundreds of participants, and the finale on Sunday night brought the entire crowd back their feet.

In between, the musical highlights included performances by the 14-member Lemon Bucket Orchestra from Toronto; Jonathan Byrd and the Urban Cowboys from Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Irish Mythen from PEI; and Swamperella from Toronto, among others.

The hot, sunny weather, along with a push by festival organizers (who are all volunteers) to increase the sale of single day passes to the event, helped set an attendance record on Saturday. In the past, the festival has been notoriously reluctant to promote itself for fear of overcrowding the festival site.

Overcrowding did not prove to be an issue, however, as the crew of site and parking volunteers was able to handle the crowds. Aside from some sunburns and an ambulance call for a broken leg, the festival went off without a hitch in its 43rd rendition.

The Blue Skies Music Festival has been around for 43 years, but for many people it is a phantom event. Day passes have been available at locations in Perth, Kingston and Ottawa, but they can be sold out by mid-July. A schedule of performers is never published until a few days before the festival, and although people who make the trip up to Clarendon always report that the performances are memorable and the vibe is more than friendly, many people feel that the festival is not accessible.

That is all changing, as Blue Skies finally joins the 1990s (it may even make it to the new millennium in a few years).

Not only is the schedule of performers available online at blueskiesmusicfestival.ca, tickets are also available at the same location. Camping passes are still hard to come by, as many of them are reserved for committed volunteers and the rest are allocated by lottery in May of each year, but Friday night, Saturday and Sunday tickets are now readily available. In addition to being available online, they can be purchased at the front gate to the festival, on Clarendon Road off Road 509, on the Saturday and Sunday morning of the festival, which takes place on July 30 and 31 this year.

The festival has a new artistic director this year, Danny Sullivan, who may be familiar to some readers because he has programmed several music series at MERA in McDonalds Corners. Sullivan, who lives with his family off the Bennett Lake Road north of Maberly, served as the artistic director at Blue Skies once before, he recalled when interviewed earlier this week, in the mid-1980s.

At that time the music director at the festival had less authority than they do now. The bands they wanted to hire were vetted by a committee.

“I left the job after one year, even though it is usually a three-year term,” Sullivan said, “because it was hard to program the way I wanted to while pleasing a group like that.”

Since taking on the job after last year's festival, Sullivan has attended different kinds of music conferences and showcases in Montreal, Toronto, and elsewhere.

“I made sure to see a live performance by every band that I booked this year. You can't tell how a band performs in front of an audience by their recordings and videos,” he said, “and I not only had the job of booking the bands, I also have to put together programs that fit together well.”

He also decided that, for his first year, he would not book any acts that have already played at Blue Skies in the past.

“One of the performers I am most looking forward to seeing, Corin Raymond, was at Blue Skies with the band, the Undesirables, several years ago but he is coming back as a solo act. He always brings something different to the stage,” Sullivan said.

Another act that he mentioned was Akawui, who will be closing the festival on the Sunday night.

“Akawui is a former mixed martial arts fighter of Chilean heritage, who has indigenous roots through his Mapuch grandmother. He performs in a Latino-urban-electro style with a hint of the Chilean star-band Inti Illimani. At the end of his show he is joined by dancers from Akwasasne in full mask. It should be a spectacle that will get people moving.”

The final act dovetails with the opening of the festival on Friday night.

“Blue Skies is one of the only festivals that owns the land where it takes place, and this is the 10th anniversary of the year when the land was purchased. In order to celebrate that, and the 40 years before that when the land was owned by Oskar Graf, as well as the Algonquin stewardship of the land for thousands of years before that, we will be holding a drumming ceremony to start the festival with members of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation.”

Danny Sullivan said he already has plans for next year's festival, but for now he is looking forward to seeing how all the pieces he has assembled will come together in 2016.

And for the first time ever, everything anyone needs to know about attending the festival can be found at their website.

The Blue Skies Music Festival is known for its variety of music, tie-dyed everything, and workshops about subjects such as Appalachian music, Yoga Nidra (sleeping yoga), Thai head massage, and making ice cream.

But this year, in addition to stand-out performances by Swing (fresh from the closing ceremonies at the Pan Am games), folkie Karen Savoca, East Coaster fiddler and guitarist Tim Chaisson, funksters with message Digging Roots, folk/bluegrass veteran Shari Ulrich, and the inimitable Washboard Hank, the festival was all about garbage.

Zero garbage that is. After years of efforts to encourage composting and recycling, working with the Central Frontenac Waste Management Department and Bill Everett from Bee Sanitation, the festival decided this year that it would offer only comprehensive recycling and composting collection. Campers and day visitors to the festival were called upon to minimize their waste and bring whatever could not be recycled home with them. The garbage-free policy extended beyond visitors to the festival, which prepares food for festival goers and performers, and operates a main stage and workshop areas for up to 2,000 people.

“This year I picked up two bags of garbage from Blue Skies,” said Bill Everett. “When I first started working with them they already had recycling in place, but there were 350 bags of garbage as well. They've really done well.”

Everett will be back later this week to pick up recycling, and all liquor and beer containers were collected and returned for refund to benefit the Guatemala Stove Project. There will be a lot of compost as well, but the garbage is down to the amount a family could produce in a week in pre-recycling days.

“The Township of Central Frontenac, like most municipalities, has a waste disposal problem. For as long as I've done recycling and garbage at Blue Skies the township has been worried about landfill space, looking for ways to divert waste from landfills and pricing landfill usage appropriately,” said Matt ???, who convinced the rest of the festival organizers that the zero garbage policy should be put in place.

He explained the Central Frontenac recycling rules to the festival organizers and visitors and offered some tips as well, and waited to see what would happen.

“It helps us all to become more aware of the simple things we can do to reduce our impact in our day-to-day lives,” he said.

By going from 350 bags “over the hill” to just two, the Blue Skies Festival is now part of the solution to Central Frontenac Township's waste issue.

The 42nd Blue Skies Music Festival is all set for another magical weekend. The volunteer-run festival is set up on a piece of land rich with history near Clarendon, off Road 509.

Although camping passes have all been sold out, day passes for Saturday and Sunday, August 1 and 2 are still readily available. Day pass tickets sell for $35 at Tara Foods and Brian's Record Option in Kingston, Shadowfax in Perth, and Moondance Music in Peterborough. Sadly for Ottawa residents, the Folklore Centre is closed and will therefore no longer be selling tickets.

However, day passes will also be sold at the front gates all day Saturday and Sunday. The gate opens at 8am as the incredibly varied workshops begin early in the day.

Saturday the music begins at 3pm with opening act Shari Ulrich followed by the infamous Blue Skies square dance. Next, Washboard Hank & the Wringers with Sweet Muriel will hit the stage at 7pm followed by Catherine MacLellan at 8pm, Tim Chaisson at 9pm, David Celia at 10pm and Samantha Martin and the Delta Sugar finishing off the night off at 11pm.

The Sunday schedule starts in the morning again. At 10:00 the annual Blue Skies parade will kick off the day, followed by musical and holistic workshops. From unblocking your dreams to plant identification, and from ukelele orchestras to Tim Chaisson sharing the east coast music scene, there is bound to be something for everyone.

There will be a showcase featuring the Blue Skies Community Fiddle Orchestra at 3:00 followed by a square dance at begins at 4:00. The evening's music starts with the Blue Skies Community Choir led by Suba Sankaran and Dylan Bell, followed by The Young Novelists at 7:45, Karen Savoka at 8:45, The Bombadils at 9:45, Jaffa Road at 10:45. Finishing off the festival will be SWING at 11:45pm.

The 42nd Blue Skies Music Festival promises non-stop entertainment, friendly faces and new experiences. Bring an instrument if you so desire, but most importantly, bring your open ears. For further information, go to blueskiesmusicfestival.ca

Under the leadership of J.P. Pendergast, operations officer with the Princess of Wales' Own Regiment in Kingston, 34 soldiers and cadets spent a cold weekend camping on the property of Jen Farnum and Marcus Saunders, located near Clarendon in Central Frontenac, learning the basics of winter warfare.

The group usually camps on crown land, but when they were exploring the access points to crown land closer to Kingston so that they could spend more time training instead of traveling, they happened upon the Saunders property and were given permission to camp there, which also gave them access to over 20,000 acres of crown located just beyond it.

The group arrived on February 6 after dark, set up their camp and went to work immediately. The weekend training included formal classes and hands-on learning that teach the participants the basic skills of winter warfare. The focus is primarily on the skills for surviving in a winter environment, skills that are often unknown to people who come from urban populations.

“What we teach here would be no surprise to people who spend a lot of time trapping and hunting outdoors in the winter months but for those who have never experienced that, there is a lot to learn,” Pendergast said.

The group camped in three 10-man, bell-shaped arctic tents, each equipped with a two-burner Coleman stove and a single lantern and they ate the majority of their meals outdoors. The participants learned to build makeshift outdoor snow shelters and one participant built and slept overnight in what is known as “a winter coffin”, a 3x6 foot hand dug snow bed, which once dug is covered in branches and a waterproof tarp.

When I visited the camp I came across two senior officers chatting casually inside what Pendergast called a “quinzee”, a fully enclosed snow dome shelter that they had built. They packed down snow using their snow shoes and pierced it with sticks, then they dug it out from the inside, using the inlaid sticks to show them the depth to dig to. The structure had a hedgehog-like appearance and was 10 degrees warmer inside than the biting temperature outside.

The soldiers and cadets, who were dressed in specially made winter camouflage gear, also built numerous shelters out of fallen trees. They built lean-tos and other pit-type tree shelters in the woods surrounding one large open field. Other activities taught in the course included bear paw snow shoeing and cross country skiing. Participants also learned winter navigation techniques and how to construct various snow defenses, which consisted of trenches built of snow and ice. In a war time situation these would protect them from enemy fire.

The group came with their C7A2 service rifles. They did not fire them but they were shown how to properly carry them while skiing and snow shoeing and how to service them in the winter climate. The group endured ample snow fall and well below average temperatures that often dipped below -20 degrees Celsius and felt even colder with the wind chill. Pendergast said that to avoid hypothermia and frost bite, participants took regular breaks out of the wind.

It was the group's first time at the Saunders farm and Pendergast said that the property served perfectly for their purposes. “We had ample privacy and access to all of the different kinds of terrain necessary for our training. We saved ourselves a lot of traveling time, which made our time here more productive than if we had traveled further north.” He added that he would come back in a heart beat. “The Saunders were great hosts and we had an opportunity to show the Saunders' kids some of the things we were doing, which they really seemed to get a kick out of.”

Winter survival in the great outdoors is serious business and whether in times of peace or war, many of the teachings in this course would come in handy to soldiers and civilians alike. Perhaps Pendergast and some of his crew might welcome an invitation to next year's Frontenac Heritage Festival, where they could teach festival goers how to build their very own quinzee or winter coffin.

They arrived near dusk in a van and a car, with cartloads of equipment that needed to be navigated down the hill, past a couple of thousand people who were milling about playing frizbee, watching the music or looking for their children as night was coming in.
“You better rock this place after making us drag all this stuff down there,” we told them.
“Oh, we will,” said Lindsay Beaver, the band's drummer and driving force, “not to worry.”
An hour and a half later, after a highly entertaining performance by Coco Love Alcorn and Ian Sherwood, the crowd was ready to jump and jive.
Then the curtain rose on five musicians lined up at the front of the stage, the drum kit at the centre of stage, and Lindsay Beaver glaring out at the audience like a boxer ready to burst out from the corner.
“One, two, three, four,” she yelled and then hit the snare and bass drums as the other four players (sax, double bass, keyboards and guitar) all launched into the first number.
From then on it was a blur. The Wailers play no-holds-barred original blues/rock/R&B tunes that sound at first like they could be 50 years old. There is much of the manic Jerry-Lee Lewis vibe in what they do, but they are no throwback.
The genre they play was pretty much a macho domain in its early day, with women more often than not singing back up, or sometimes lead vocals. The women in Wailers - Beaver and guitarist Emily Burgess - are the songwriters and their drum and guitar work drives the music; no window-dressing there.
However that does not mean that the men in the band take a back seat. Saxophonist Jon Wong struts his stuff with the very best of them, as do bassist Mike Archer and Jesse Whitely, the newest member of the band, on keyboards.
Not to get wrapped up in gender politics - the band is not particularly bothered by them, but even in 2014 it is refreshing to see those rock and roll stereotypes stood on their ear.
The Wailers get hired to play blues festivals around the world, but it is hard to imagine a better kind of setting for them than in front of a crowd that wants to dance and shout. They played fast and strong; it was an engaging performance from start to finish. And they seemed to enjoy themselves doing it. I hope someone helped them get their gear back up the hill afterwards.
Julia Phillips is the artistic director of the Blue Skies Festival. In her third year on the job she brought a number of new faces to the little back-field on Clarendon Road.
Last year, which was the festival’s 40th year, featured some nostalgic elements and the return of some of the bands from earlier eras of the festival. This year was about looking forward. The only returning acts were Jaron Freeman Fox and the Opposite of Everything, who are in their early 20s, and the Rhythm Haints, a band of teenagers from Kingston who were rained out last year. Aside from that, there was a lot of variety in the mix of music: the Dardanelles (Newfoundland), Genitocurm (Quebec), manic Ben Caplan and the Casual Smokers (Nova Scotia), Gregory Hoskins (Guelph), and the wonderful Sheesham and Lotus and Son (Wolfe Islands/Gatineau). It is a delicate mix between styles that is required by a festival that attracts a seamless mix of young families, teenagers and 20 and 30 somethings, along with the greying and balding set who have been navigating the narrow Clarendon Road since the ’70s and ’80s.
The Blue Skies Festival now has a website, and among the useful information on the site, the one controversial element is the line-up of musicians, complete with links to band sites. Many festival-goers are resistant to the idea of knowing what they will hear before they go to the festival and they now have to avoid the temptation to click on the links to the bands' web and You-tube sites. They want the artistic director to surprise them.
Julia Phillips delivered many pleasant surprises this year, and a revelation, the 24th Street Wailers.

Campers and staff at this year’s Blue Skies Arts Camp joined forces for an end of the week show highlighting the activities they took part in during their five-day camp experience. The camp is run by Blue Skies In The Community and is an annual day camp located in Clarendon. Over 50 campers between the ages 7 and 13 attended it this year.

Friends and families filled the area in front of the camp’s main stage for the show, which was emceed by the always entertaining Teilhard Frost, a professional musician and this year’s camp band instructor. The choir section featured a song called “Benjy met the Bear” an rather gruesome tale of a young boy’s misadventure. The song went as follows: “Benjy met the bear, the bear met Benjy, the bear was bulging, the bulge was Benjy!”

The children were thoroughly entertained by it, to say the least. The show included dance, songs, a fashion show, a play and more.The camp activities were headed up by a number of talented local artists including Isidora Spielmann, Teilhard Frost, Rachael McDonald, Bridget Way-Brackenbury, and Josh Lyon and Corky Peppley leading workshops in costume making, choir and band, drama, dance, and multi-media arts. The show wrapped up what camp director, Susan Walker, called another “fun and enjoyable camp season” at Blue Skies.

If you would like to register your child for the camp next year please email Susan Walker at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or phone 1-613-530-2654