Clarendon & Miller Community Archives (CMCA) will be sharing their latest year-long research covering the topic of Lodges: Past and Present.  This project aims to recognize the huge economic contribution that local lodges/housekeeping cottages made in the past and continue to make to the township. In addition to Lodge information, the Committee collected information about Housekeeping Cottages to assist with the Accommodations listing website that the Frontenac News initiated last year. On May 6th at Clar-Mill Hall in Plevna starting at 1 p.m. CMCA will transform the Hall into a Lodge-like setting, allowing for an interactive format. Guest speaker and well-known country entertainer, Neville Wells, will provide his personal experiences of growing up at his family-owned Mosque Lake Lodge.  Visitors can browse the many photo boards and researched documents of North Frontenac Lodges and Housekeeping Cottages. A panel of lodge owners/workers will share their expertise and engage in a lively discussion with the audience.

CMCA thanks The Frontenac News for publishing a three-part series about Lodges: Past and Present as an introduction to the May 6th event. The first Lodge to be highlighted: Coxvale/ Cedar Crest Lodge.

This postcard depicts the first known “lodge” at Coxvale. The building was part of the farm built by Donald and Maggie Cox.  Their children were: Richard, Charlie, Guy, Nellie, Hilda, Bobby, Irene and Orpha. They rented cottages that were across the bay and on both sides of the old main road. Cox’s sold to Fred and Jean Lemke in 1945.

In 1937 Fred and Jean Lemke bought property at Coxvale on Big Gull Lake which included some sleeping cabins and a dining room. This was the beginning of Cedar Crest Lodge. The next few years Fred built several cottages and he and Jean made plans for a dining room.  Fishing was excellent and Fred was always in demand for guiding.

Cedar Crest in 1945

In 1945, they bought the Cox home (first used as dining-room and later became a store). Jean served home-cooked meals with homemade bread, rolls and pies.

A store was built in 1947 and during the 50’s Fred added more cottages. During this time a building that had been used as a dance hall was converted to a cottage. At this point they had 13 cottages. In 1960, the old house was torn down and a new home built; the Lemkes purchased the house and three cottages on the other side of the bridge. They lived in that house while Fred did most of the carpenter work on the new home.

Upon completion of the new house, the store was moved. A lunch counter was opened and light lunches served. The lounge had a juke box and a pinball machine; it was a meeting place for young people on the lake in the 60’s. Cottages, now numbering 17, were rented into the late fall when Fred guided the hunters and Jean prepared the meals.

People kept returning to Cedar Crest, not just for fishing and hunting, but because of the hospitality of the Lemkes. Fred’s stories of the early years at Cedar Crest Lodge were a hit with renters. According to Fred, the last lake trout he saw in Big Gull Lake was in 1940. The biggest walleye he saw from the lake weighed 11 pounds and 3 ounces and was caught by Earl Franz of Ohio.   

On Dec.25, 1988 Jean passed away. Fred suffered a stroke in January 1992 and passed away July 6, 1992. Daughter, Barb and son-in-law, Harold Way continued the business for some years.

Tay Valley Township is hosting the ceremonial opening of an exhibit of Indigenous artifacts found in the township, with presentations on the history and archaeology of the artifacts.

The ceremony is set for Saturday, March 25 at the township office, 217 Harper Road,  just up the road from Glen Tay Public School off Hwy. 7.

Maberly’s Brenda Kennett, principal archaeologist with Past Recovery Archaeological Services, curated the exhibit, using materials from the Perth Museum, which are on loan to the township for the duration of the exhibit.

Kennett became involved in the project after sitting on the working group for the 200th anniversary of the Perth and Tay Valley last year. Some of those efforts have been extended to this project, which is one of Tay Valley’s Canada 150 projects.Much of the display material was collected in early 19th century.  

“A lot of it was found along the Rideau lakes, and some along the Tay River and Bobs Lake areas, but We do also have projectile points that are of a style that we call Paleo-Indian could be 8,000 years old, going back to early occupation,” she said.
After the last ice age, a body of water called the  Champlain sea covered much of Eastern Ontario. It formed around 13,000 years ago and last until about 10,000 years ago. There is evidence of the Omàmiwininì (Algonquin) settlement in this region from that time forward.

“Their [Omàmiwinini] history is evidenced by artifacts found in several areas of Tay Valley Township and local watersheds. Tools for fishing, hunting and woodworking; cooking pots for campsites – these found objects and fragments all contribute to the story of the gathering places and activities of indigenous societies over thousands of years,” said a press release from Tay Valley Township.

The artifacts that form the display will be celebrated with song, drumming, prayers and history presented by Francine Desjardins, Larry McDermott, and Brenda Kennett.

After the formal ceremony, all are invited to view the artifacts and share refreshments and stories.

Larry McDermott, from the Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation, will present a talk called  “10,000 years of the Algonquin Drum Beat Upon the Land,”  about both oral and western history of the Algonquin presence in this area. Brenda Kennett will talk about “The Omàmiwininì and their Ancestors: Archaeological Glimpses into the Settlement of Tay Valley Township.”

The book “At Home in Tay Valley”, a history of indigenous peoples and European settlers, will be available for purchase. Proceeds from book sales go to a scholarship for a student graduating from Perth and District Collegiate Institute or St John Catholic High School and beginning post-secondary education.

For further information, contact the Planning Department at Tay Valley Township, 613-267-5353 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Lanark County Neighbours for Truth and Reconciliation helped to organize the event in coordination with the township.

The disbandment of another volunteer organization is taking its toll in South Frontenac Township.

“We’re losing our history,” responded Township Councillor Ron Sleeth after hearing of the closure of Kingston Area Antique Association; a volunteer club that has hosted a two-day antique show every summer for almost 40 years.

Held at Ken Garrett Memorial Park before it was moved to Odessa, Homesteader Days was a showcase of the innovation and accomplishments of our farming forefathers.

It was where history came alive. Where old tractors and hit & miss engines hummed the song of a bygone era when machinery was still a marvel.

“It’s sad this has taken place,” said Sleeth from his dairy farm in Battersea. “Homesteader Days was such a vibrant show. People by the hundreds attended to see that old machinery working.”

A member of the club for approximately 15 years, President Earl Brown noted about the disbandment of the club and end of Homesteader Days, “I’m very much disappointed that we weren’t able to continue-on.”

Speaking from his home in Tamworth, Brown said, “Our finances had dwindled to the point where we weren’t able to support another show in the same way.”

Brown cited declining membership and increasing costs as the downfall of the club’s signature event.

“Insurance is what really took a toll on us,” admitted the president. “It came down to the finances to what actually shut us down. Our gate receipts were disappointing the last few years.”

The president sees the loss of the antique show as a blow to the community.

“That’s what inspired me to rejuvenate some old machinery,” he said with enthusiasm. “It was for my own satisfaction and the hope that other people would see it and really appreciate what our forefathers worked-with to cultivate the land.”

One of these items, an antique hay press owned by the club, remains to be relocated. Members are considering sending it to an agricultural museum in Stirling or a working mill in Madoc.

“Any funds left will be distributed among three or four non-profit organizations,” confirmed Secretary Glenn Babcock.

A hobby farmer in Harrowsmith, Babcock, 65, was a younger member of the club that had an average age of 70 plus.

“The club is officially disbanded,” he confirmed in early March. “Homesteader Days is officially done

Citing diminishing membership and the high cost of insurance as the death knell, he admitted, “It’s killing a lot of fairs as well.”

“It just got to be too few members,” he said, clearly disheartened. “It ended up being too much, for too few. I’m disappointed – we all were. But we had to deal with reality.”

As history books, however complete and comprehensive they may be, tend to be rather dry reads.

But Marion Sly Hart’s new offering, Hart to Heart, My Life in Poems is not one of those.

Make no mistake, it is a history book, the history of the Mountain Grove area and particularly its people. But it’s told more in the style of a memoir, with the unique twist of being primarily poems, most of which consist of rhymed couplets. And, it’s a very easy read, with many interesting historical photos and the inclusion of Hart’s family tree, which incidentally can be traced back to the Pilgrims and the Mayflower.

She has a rich cultural history with Mohawk, Scottish and English ancestry on her father’s side and Algonquin, French and English on her mother’s.

But Hart was born, raised, married and raised her family in Mountain Grove and therein lies the focus.

She’s been working on the book “since 1983 at least” compiling some of her dad’s stories in three ring binders and writing her poems from them and other source material.

For those who don’t know Hart, from her writing style you may be surprised to learn she didn’t get her Grade 12 until she was 36. She did however supplement this with several writing and word processing courses.

But, she freely admits she doesn’t know just how she writes her poems and prose.

“Most days, I can’t put two words together,” she said. “When I get writing, it just comes.

“I think it must come from the Lord.”

Her book should be an interesting read to anyone with Mountain Grove connections. She weaves many names, incidents and histories together and although told from her perspective, her poetic stories should strike many familiar notes.
And they’re told in a rather welcoming folksy style.

In particular, her account of the train bringing her grandfather, who had been killed in a hunting accident, home to Sharbot Lake makes one feel like they were standing on the platform with her on that day many years ago.

Hart credits Bill Willis with helping her get the book actually published and former Frontenac News editor Jule Koch with inspiration, writing tips and encouragement.

Most of the original run of 200 soft-cover books (176 at last count) have been “spoken for” (ie sold) but copies will be available at Pharmasave in Sharbot Lake and Shabot Obaadjiwan Smoke Shop. There’s a book signing planned at the Cardinal Cafe during the Heritage Festival as well as the Mountain Grove Seniors meeting Feb. 8 and the Bedford Jam in Glendower Hall Feb. 25.

As well, copies have been donated to GREC and Land O’Lakes Public School and the Kingston Frontenac Library has two copies, on in its local authors section and one in its archives.

$1 from each book sale will be donated to the Food Bank.

It’s a huge project, but Candace Lloyd, secretary/treasurer of the High Land Metis Council is optimistic that a project to map and preserve Traditional Knowledge and Land Use as it pertains to the Metis way of life is doable and worthwhile.

“The Metis way of life represents all aspects of ‘being Metis,’ including a tightly woven relationship with the environment for food, spiritual and cultural fulfillment, medicine and ceremony,” says a pamphlet put out by the Metis Nation of Ontario.

The idea is to interview members of the Metis community on all aspects of traditional knowledge and land use and then preserve that knowledge with map overlays and videos, for use by future generations.

The High Land Council is responsible for an area that stretches from Cardiff in the northwest, down to Trenton and Prince Edward County, over to Kingston (including Frontenac Islands) and up to Smiths Falls in the northeast.

Last Saturday, Lloyd, along with her Council, grant proposal writer Darlene Loft, interviewer/videographer Ashley Lloyd and Traditional Knowledge coordinator Markus Tuolimaa and GIS specialist Steve Gautreau held a workshop in Flinton to collect information and get the word out.

Lloyd said there are many benefits to such a project. Not only will knowledge be preserved, it will also serve as reference material and educational material.

“We will be able to say ‘you’re not going to find ginseng there’ and suggest that a potential wind or solar project be moved slightly because it’s on a moose trail or blueberry patch,” Lloyd said.
“The common thread is this is how they use the lands and waters,” said Tuolimaa.

“There has always been an oral history tradition,” said Gautreau. “Now we’re doing actual mapping of things like where the stories took place, where and what animals were hunted and where and what plants were gathered.”

He said they try to maintain a certain amount of confidentiality but generally they’re interested in game harvesting, fishing, trapping line, plants and natural medicines, access points and cultural sites.

“It’s not a free-for-all knowledge thing,” Lloyd said. “But we would like to know things like this-is-a-moose trail or this-is-a-rabbit swamp.

“If it flies, swims, walks or you can pick it, that’s the information we want.”

She said they’re also hopeful this will lead to jobs for Metis people.

“Who better to work on solar projects or mines than someone who knows the land?” she said.

As Canada turns 150 this year, Sharbot Lake’s Dianne Lake has come up with her own 150th project — 150 years, 150 women, 150 stories in 150 words.

“I thought I’d get the history down on paper,” she said.

Now, Lake’s not going to write the stories herself. The idea is to get others to write the story of female friends or relatives who’ve passed on.

“We’re limiting it to 150 words,” Lake said. “That way it’s not an overwhelming thing for someone to do and it will allow us to put them on large recipe cards, which is appropriate for stories about women from this area.”

Once the stories are on cards, Lake will have them laminated and they’ll be placed on tables for an afternoon tea (tentatively scheduled for July 29). The idea then is for the cards to be read and passed around. After the tea, they’ll be put in a binder and donated to the local library.

“We hear stories all the time about women who’ve passed on but made a big contribution to the community,” she said. “It’s these neat little stories that make us what we are as a community.”

Lake said she got the idea one day while looking at an old picture of the United Church Women with Pastor Jean Brown.

“Jean would ask ‘who was that woman?’ and I realized each woman in that photo had a story,” Lake said.

Lake wanted to tell those stories, in the words of someone who knew them, before those who could tell the story had themselves passed on.

And, it also seemed like a ‘fun’ thing to do. In fact, that’s what Lake has been telling her contributors to write — ‘fun little stories.’

“It’s not a who’s who,” she said. “It’s things like who their parents were, such as ‘she was the daughter of the station master in Tichborne’ or ‘she made the very best donuts.’”

They don’t have to have been born here (ie they could have been long-time cottagers), as long as they weren’t just “passers-through,” Lake, who’s lived in the community for 47 years, said. And it doesn’t have to be exclusively Sharbot Lake. Stories about residents of Arden, Mountain Grove, Parham, Tichborne, anywhere in the area will be welcome.

So if you have a story about a woman who lived in this community, Lake would love to hear from you at 613-279-2991 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

She said she already has about 40 stories and she’s been numbering them so when that number reaches 150, that’s it.

Families were invited to enjoy refreshments and history as the South Frontenac Museum hosted their second annual Christmas open house over the weekend.

Children were invited to come out to the museum with their families after the Santa Clause parade to explore the museum and even visit with Santa Clause. There were also prizes available and goodies made by society members for visitors to enjoy.

The old schoolhouse was filled with familiar faces and the smell of warm apple cider as members of the Portland District and Area Heritage Society sat around sharing stories and answering questions.

This was the second annual Christmas open house. According to the president of the society, Barbera Stewart, the event had a great turnout last year so they thought they would host it again this year.

The event is one way that the society tries to get residents more interested in their heritage. The society’s director, Lynne Hutcheson, sees a lot of importance in sharing the area’s history with the younger generations.

“It’s important for young people to learn about history period. History repeats itself and you learn a lot from it,” says Hutcheson. “If you look into your ancestor’s history, you know where your roots are from and how you’ve come to be where you are today.”

According to the members, there is a surprising amount of intrigue in these younger generations.

“It’s amazing how interested the little ones are in the pieces,” says Hutcheson. There are often competitions and games set up for the children to get them more involved. They have chances to win prizes while learning a bit more about the history of where they are growing up.

The Portland District and Area Heritage Society was formed in 2002 by a passionate group of individuals who were determined to create a museum for the area. In 2015, the society finally got their wish and the South Frontenac Museum was born.

The group has since organized all kinds of fundraisers, bake sales, displays and even put floats in parades.

The museum had their first anniversary celebration in August of this year, with around 80 people coming out to show their support.

Admission to the museum is by donation and there are always society members available during working hours to answer any questions that guests may have about history in the area.

“There’s a lot of history here,” says Stewart. The old schoolhouse is filled with fascinating artifacts that have been donated by different people in the area.

This open house was the last event that the museum will host for the winter season. It will open again in May and remain open until October.

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!

(film to premiere on TVO next week)

Derreck Roemer and Neil Graham spent four years on a project that was sparked by a singular observation. Riding his motorcycle between Tweed and Perth one day, Neil Graham noticed the number of abandoned business on the stretch of Highway 7 between Kaladar and Sharbot Lake, and wondered how prosperity had passed this corner of Ontario by.

The two filmmakers took up residence in Henderson and began interviewing people who lived in the area about the businesses that were gone. They found Howard Gibbs, the owner of the last gas station on the stretch, and that was where The Lost Highway really began.

The resulting film is a quite intimate portrait of Howard Gibbs and his daughter Melanie, as well as the neighbours that Gibbs had never met, David Dashke and Linda Tremblay. The backdrop to the film is the economic and social realities of nearby Arden, which are captured in the film mainly through interviews with Sarah Hale of Arden Batik. The struggles and the fate of David Dashke and Howard Gibbs are the film's core.

Even though the events that dominate the film could not have been predicted in advance by the filmmakers, or the men themselves, Graham and Roemer do not consider that the story that unfolded before them was different from the one they expected to tell.

They say they did not have a pre-conceived notion of what the film was going to be. It was always their intention to talk to a lot of people and see what stories there were to tell. They filmed meetings of the Friends of Arden and interviewed people on camera about the region, its past and its future, but they never intended to make an educational or didactic film about economic conditions.

“The more you can condense a story the better it is,” said Derreck Roemer, “and in the end I think there is a balance to it. We gave it our absolute best to tell the story, and to try to be respectful of the people involved.”

Some of what happened during the filming came as a surprise to them and to the people they were filming, and some of those unplanned revelations became key to the story that the film ends up telling.

It is hard for me to evaluate The Lost Highway because the characters and their stories are known to me, so for me it was less a matter of an unexpected narrative being revealed as it was seeing how stories that I knew either through fact or rumour were told and meshed together.

However, I can say that the way the journeys that two people from totally different backgrounds were laid out, and the way the film deals with factors that were out of the filmmakers' control, was affecting.

Without giving too much away, the filmmakers had to handle the fact that Howard Gibbs' wife Hope had no interest in being interviewed on or off camera, and a similar thing happens in the story about David Dashke.

The vast difference in world view, lifestyle, background and life experience between Howard Gibbs and David Dashke is striking, and the difference between the 70-year-old disintegrating Gibbs Garage, and the seven-year-old dream of David Dashke and Linda Tremblay that is Nomad's Rest Bed and Breakfast is equally striking.

This only makes the parallels that the film draws between the fates of the two men unexpected, and at times, particularly poignant.

The way the film fits quite neatly together would not ring true if it had been done entirely though clever editing and film-making technique. There is some of that in the film, to be sure, but there is an honesty in the way the hopes and desperation of two men are portrayed.

They never meet in the film and they may never have even met outside of the film. After watching it, I wonder what they would have to say to each other, even though once upon a time, not too long ago, they shared a story along the Lost Highway.

The Arden Legion will be showing the Lost Highway on Wednesday April 23 at 9pm when it premieres on TVO. The showing will be preceded by a spaghetti supper at the Legion from 6:30 to 8:30 pm; the cost is a goodwill donation. The film will air again on TVO three hours later, at midnight April 23/24, on April 27 at 11pm, and on April 29 at 9pm. To see the trailer, visit www.thelosthighway.ca

At 81 years of age Dave Dawson of Sharbot Lake is an artist who continues to create work at an awe-inspiring rate. A painter, poet, writer, songwriter and musician, Dawson has been living the life of a multi- disciplinary artist for decades. A visit to his century-old schoolhouse studio located just north of Sharbot Lake never fails to inspire. Painted guitars, sap buckets, and turned, painted talking sticks hang from the ceiling, and countless framed original landscape paintings in all shapes and sizes cover the walls. A record player sits in one corner (Dawson loves to listen to records while he paints) and a palette covered with freshly squeezed coils of oil colour await his brush.

Many of the books he has penned are laid out on a desk to one side of the room. Two armchairs are cozied up to the recently lit wood stove and when I arrived, Dawson was carrying in an armful of wood as his 10-year-old Belgian shepherd Bruno greeted me at the door. Originally from Huntington, Quebec, Dave Dawson moved to the area 35 years ago. He worked for years at North Frontenac Telephone Company before art became his central focus.

Dawson, who sings at a number of regular events around the area, also continues to put out an amazing amount of work. His latest is a new book titled “A Touch of Cobalt”, a collection of his latest poems and ballads that has been in the works for roughly three years. It includes a special tribute to famed Canadian troubadour Stompin' Tom Connors, who died last year

Dawson knew Connors quite well, having met him while working as a telephone technician in Northern Ontario, “He was not very well known at that time when I met him. He was an honest man and very much his own person and I recognized right away his originality and loved the fact that he was able to go into a place, look around and then go up to his hotel room and write a song about it. People loved him for that.” Dawson's tribute to Stompin' Tom demonstrates his admiration and respect for the man.

“To the common folk, and the hard working man, 
To his songs we all could relate. 
Standing strong for the downtrodden, 
Like the bum, whose home is the street.... 
A singer, songwriter, recording our times, 
Our harbinger of history and song. 
He touched each one of us deeply, 
Placed his lyrics just where they belong.”

In the new book Dawson writes also of the unavoidable tragedies of life. In his moving poem titled “The Night I Sang You Jimmy Rodgers Songs”, Dawson writes about Anita, his first true love, a woman who died tragically in a car accident the night after he proposed to her. In the poem he captures that loss both from the point of view of the young man he was then and the man he has now become.

Do you remember Dear 
That November night so clear, 
When we thought that nothing could ever go wrong. 
And in the back seat of my car, 
Just you and my guitar, 
The night I sang those Jimmy Rodgers songs.,... 
I'd pretend to be a train, 
Moaned the whistle's sweet refrain, 
And often you would follow right along. 
Now when I strum my old guitar, 
I often wonder where you are, 
Especially when I sing Jimmie's songs.

While not afraid to delve into the darker realms of the human heart and mind, Dawson is also an artist with a lively sense of humour. In his poem titled “Just An Ugly Piece of Wood” he tells of an experience that many woodstove owners know all too well - the sad fact of “No More Wood”. The poem tells of Dave's incredible efforts of tackling one last chunk in his yard, a “cast iron hard, petrified knurl”. He writes of his initial defeat:

I hacked away, made little dent, 
This cross hatched 'matter' so intent, 
I swung my axe, and broke its tip, 
But didn't gain one single chip. 
I circumscribed the block again, 
Drove the wedges in and then 
I turned the big block on its side 
But my axe it still defied.

In the poem the matter is happily resolved months later when the woodcutter recognizes other possibilities for the unruly chunk of stove feed. 
Dawson is a humble artist and believes that creating art, no matter what kind, is something that many wrongly think is outside of their abilities. “Anyone can do this stuff, really. All it takes is little perseverance and dedication.”

Perhaps the best way to understand the work of this local Renaissance man is to read the poem “Leaving Something Behind”, which can be found in an earlier book of his titled “My Dear Old l-Log Cabin”. It tells of the works of an artist. One of its verses may hold the key to the legacy Mr. Dave Dawson has created over the decades.

I have looked to the stars, and cried out the blues, 
Then came to conclusion, that there was nothing to lose. 
Be it poets, craftsmen, writers, musicians, 
Be it ever so small, they left a legacy written.

In the case of Dave Dawson his is one legacy that continues to grow both in size, scope and feeling and one that continues to charm our eyes, ears, hearts and souls. “A Touch of Cobalt” will be available in print on March 24. To purchase a copy contact Dave Dawson at 613-279-2280 or 613-279-2797.