For the past six years Southern Frontenac Community Services Corporation (SFCSC) has hosted an Annual Golf Tournament in support of their Senior Services programs. The Annual 50+ Classic Family & Friends Golf Tournament fundraiser is one of the largest events of the year for SFCS and is supported by over 30 sponsors and 132 expected golfers. This year’s tournament is scheduled for Friday July 17, at Rivendell Golf Course in Verona. It is organized by long-time volunteers, Dave Linton and Bill Hartwick, with support from other volunteers and SFCSC staff members.

SFCSC is looking for additional golfers and sponsors to help make this the biggest and best tournament ever.

In 2014-15, SFCSC continued to provide programs and services for well over 800 seniors, all residents of our community of South Frontenac. As demand for additional supports grows, the agency will continue to meet the needs of our community. We have all heard through media channels that our governments have no more money to support health care and health supports. South Frontenac is the fastest growing township in all of South East Ontario for seniors and if SFCSC is to continue to meet the needs of these seniors and our community, we must now rely on our community helping out. This golf tournament is one such avenue to support seniors in our own community.

Come out and join us on Friday, July 17, at Rivendell Golf Course, 7359 Highway 38, Verona. Time – 4 Person Scramble – Shotgun Start 1:30pm; cost is $80 per person; $65 for Rivendell members (includes dinner, prizes, cart). All attendees will receive a gift bag and prizing at the tournament. Deadline for registration is Friday, July 10. Please call 613-376-6477 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  

Organizers of an Olde Tyme Canadian Dinner fundraiser that took place at Trinity United Church in Verona on June 12 covered all the bases in celebrating 150 years in Frontenac County, as well as the church’s own 129th anniversary and the upcoming Canada Day celebrations.

Over 100 diners turned out for a sumptuous dinner that included an extensive menu put together by Diane Buchanan and Jane Mackay with the help of members of the congregation. They used recipes taken from classic United Church cookbooks, two in particular titled “Let Us Break Bread Together” and “Lunches and Suppers on the Go”.

The lavish meal included a fish chowder from Nova Scotia; cheese buns from Newfoundland; a cranberry raspberry molded salad from British Colombia; beef bourguignon from Cornwall, Ont.; and a wild rice casserole from Cut Knife, Saskatchewan. Desserts were rhubarb delight from Peace River, Alberta, and French Canadian sugar and maple syrup pie.

To get diners into the mood, bagpiper Ian Mackay piped the diners into the community hall, and again following the meal as they made their way to the church’s sanctuary for an evening of olde-tyme entertainment with a definite Canadian flavour.

Hope Andrews and Megan Peters played a scene from Anne of Green Gables and various choral ensembles from the church’s choir and congregation performed a number of rousing and highly comedic pieces, which included the Trinity ladies singing a rousing version of “I'se the B'ye” and the men of Trinity in appropriate bug attire, wielding flyswatters and singing a very funny rendition of “Black Flies of Ontario”.

Linda Brown read from famed Canadian novelist W.O. Mitchell's “Jake and the Kid” and Denny Buchanan read from Robert Service's famed poem “The Shooting of Dan McGrew”. Connie Shibley also performed a gorgeous version of the French Canadian song “The Wandering Canadian”. The evening ended with a sing along to “Something to Sing About”.

Without a doubt the diners left with fuller bellies and hearts and a better appreciation for Canada's rich history in the arts. For those not in the know, the members of the Trinity United sure know how to party Canadian-style and the evening proved that this lively and talented congregation definitely know how to put a Canadian stamp on anniversary celebrations.

Ginny Trousdale of Sydenham began making art as a photographer 20 years ago and recalls one particular painterly photograph that first inspired her to pick up a paint brush 12 years ago. “I never felt I could draw realistically,” she said, “ though I always knew that I was creative.”

Years later and after much learning and practice, she has come to realize that she is, at heart, an abstract painter. After completing an intensive three-month course at the Haliburton School of Fine Arts in July, 2014 where she had the time and space to explore the roots of what inspires that abstractionist bent, she finally took up Kim Ondaatje's offer to have a show of her work at Blueroof Farm in Bellrock.

The show titled “So Far” showcases Trousdale's work in a variety of mediums that demonstrates both her love of line and her impressive and intuitive sense of colour. The photographic works in the show hearken back to her first love, photography and she uses her pictures of real things and places, like the pictures she took of a mural at the Children's Library in Oaxaca, Mexico to use as a spring board to create abstract compositions that demonstrate her fascination with line. She has cropped the photos, making their origins unrecognizable and she layers them to create abstract and highly graphic compositions - in effect using known worlds to create her own new imagined ones.

Her “War Series” works, inspired by old letters and maps from World War 2, continue her fascination with line, but with the addition of abstract symbols inspired by cartography of that time, as well as “hobo symbols”, a kind of symbol language used by street travelers in the Depression era to communicate to one another.

This work and these ideas inspired Trousdale's most recent abstract paintings, large colourful works that have a Paul Klee-ish and Wassily Kandinsky-ish kind of feel to them, where graphic lines and broad swaths of colour together with abstract symbols large and small create worlds that can be sometimes calm and soothing, and at other times jarring and complex. Her term “creative cartography” can be aptly applied to these works, large paintings on paper and one titled "Backroads", which by name and appearances looks like a map but you can bet that no such place exists. In this work, coloured lines of all shapes and sizes curl, twist and turn back and forth through the expanse of the paper space, with large and small unknown symbols popping out and hinting at other worlds, places and meanings, perhaps forever unknown or maybe long forgotten.

These works capture and hold one’s attention and invite the viewer’s eye to move freely through a space unknown, yet somehow familiar in an inexplicable way. In her own words, Trousdale describes her fascination with these unknown worlds. “Painting pushes me to find ways to visually express and explore my world and I am fascinated by what I don't see. Searching for meaning involves digging and looking because the surface rarely reveals what is actually beneath.”

In her personal journey to artistic expression, Trousdale shows that she has dug hard and deep and the results are an impressive show in abstraction that demonstrates exactly how far she has come on that long and hard-earned road. The final viewing of “So Far” will take place Sunday, June 14 from 2 – 6 p.m. at Blueroof Farm, 6313 First Lake Road in Bellrock, just west of Verona.

Friends and family of Kevin Davison are hoping to raise $20,000 to replace the specially equipped van that he has been driving for years since being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis 30 years ago at the age of 22. Kevin, who has been in a wheel chair for years, requires a special van that allows him to drive with the use of his hands. Recently friends and family have been holding a number of different local fundraisers in the hopes of meeting their goal, and to date they have managed to raise $7,000. In Verona on May 16 and 17, Kevin's brother Bob headed up a community yard sale at Vaughn Automotive where friends, family members and members of the community donated used items that were offered up for sale. The family has also been soliciting local businesses in Verona, Sydenham, Odessa and Kingston for brand new donated items that will be put up for auction at their next dance/auction fundraising event for Kevin, which will take place at Portsmouth Olympic Harbour on Friday, May 22 starting at 7pm. Tickets are $20 each or $30 per couple and there will be live musical entertainment courtesy of Texas Tuxedo and Kingston DJ, Big G will be heading up the auction on the night of the event. Tickets for the dance/fundraiser can be purchased at Len Corcoran Excavating Ltd (542-0820 ext 3), Verona Hardware (374-2851), Rae Hazelett at Taylor Chev Olds (532-3367), Gary Davison (376-3347), Canadian Tire (384-0011) or Kingston Online Services (549-8667). For those unable to attend the dance, donations can be made at any Kingston Scotiabank to the Kevin Davison Fundraiser account.

One of the conditions that were set out three years ago by South Frontenac Council when they agreed to support turning the former Hartington Schoolhouse, which is township property, over to the Portland District and Area Historical Society for a museum, was that the museum would be called the Township of South Frontenac Museum and will serve the entire township.

The Society was happy to agree. One issue that they are facing as they prepare the museum for its grand opening in August, however, is that although it is a beautiful building that has been well maintained and upgraded, it is a one-room schoolhouse and is not large. The amount of material that has been gathered over the 14 years the society has been up and running, when added to items that are stored in garages and attics throughout the township, far outstrips the capacity of the new museum.

A lot of materials are stored in members’ homes, and it will likely stay that way for quite a while.

This embarrassment of riches means that the museum has the pick of the crop as far as what is on display, and will be able to change its display easily over time to feature different aspects of the past in the region.

Barb Stewart and Irene Bauder met with me at the museum last week, as it is about to undergo some minor renovations in May. These will include the building of a new stoop and a fully accessible entrance, as well as the installation of new windows.

The windows are being produced by heritage window expert David White, who happens to live in the township, and Barb Stewart said they “are perfect, exactly right”. The stoop, accessible ramp and door are being put in by township staff as part of the contribution the township is making to the project. The township also helped in securing a $50,000 grant for the project.

“We hope to be back in the building by the end of June,” said Stewart, “which will give us six weeks to set up for the grand opening on the 15th of August.”

By opening in mid-August, the museum will be up and running when the three-day Frontenac County 150th Anniversary celebration takes place August 28-30.

The Portland District Historical Society had its roots in a series of meetings that took place in 2001

“Its charter members were Bill Asselstine, Inie Platenius, Enid Bailey and Jim Reynolds. They would meet over at a cottage on Rock Lake once or twice a month, and they would yak and talk about developing a historical society, and eventually having a building,” said Barb Stewart.

In 2002 the Verona Heritage Society was founded, but soon afterwards, concerned that people were saying it was all about Verona, the name was changed to the Portland and District Heritage Society, and it has had that focus ever since.

The focus on Verona at the start is a recognition of the central role that Verona held as a commercial hub in the post-war period.

Photo left: Verona in the 1930's.

Barb Stewart moved to Verona from the farm that her family ran on Road 38 at Cole Lake in 1949. Irene Bauder did not arrive in Verona until 1960, but they both remember how many businesses thrived in the village in those days.

Barb Stewart's father built a cold storage plant in the location where Asselstine's Hardware store is now located. The storage plant included a butcher shop and lockers where clients could store their meat and other frozen food.

“In 1949, fridges had very small freezers in them, and even later when the freezers went across the whole top there wasn't much room. So we had quite an operation there. My mother did all the butchering, and she had all the saws and hamburger machine and everything. She charged 3 cents a pound for butchering and the lockers were between $10 and $12 a year, which people think is laughable now, but money wasn't as good then. I made 50 cents an hour working at Walker's store,” Stewart said.

“There were all kinds of businesses in Verona at one time,” said Irene Bauder.

Where Topper's Convenience Store and service station is located, there was a motel. Eventually they built another big building, which was partly an extension of the motel and was also a health food store. However before all that there was Snider's Service Centre and a restaurant.

The Heritage Society has compiled a list of businesses that were up and running in 1951. It includes two car dealerships: Revell Ford, which is still a thriving enterprise, and Verona Motors, which was a GM dealership owned by Jack Simonnett, who later moved it to Parham and then Sharbot Lake. There was a laundromat, E.L Amey's auction house and hall, Genge Insurance, a pool hall, a number of stores, the Bank of Montreal, which has been located in a number of locations and is still in Verona, and there were several restaurants, two barber shops, and more.

“When I moved here there was any kind of trade and service you could imagine,” said Irene Bauder.

Verona was the retail centre serving a swath of territory spread out in all directions, from Westport to the east, Harrowsmith to the south, Sharbot Lake to the north, and Tamworth to the west.

Although compared to many of its smaller neighbours Verona has remained as a retail destination, with hardware, grocery and gift stores, government services and banking as well as restaurants, a pharmacy and the ever-successful Revell Ford Motors, the retail sector is a shadow of what it was in the 1950s and early 1960s.

One of the reasons that has been pointed to in the past is the fact that Verona, and Portland, remained dry right up until amalgamation in 1998, with a liquor/beer store opening up only when the Foodland store moved to its new location a few years ago.

“People did start heading to Sydenham and Sharbot Lake and Westport for alcohol and that hurt,” said Barb Stewart.

Other factors included the closing of the K&P Railroad and the fact that people tend to travel more readily for shopping than they did 50 years ago.

“We are less than 20 minutes from Princess Street and Gardiners Road as we sit here,” said Irene Bauder, “and people work in Kingston and shop in Kingston.”

The former schoolhouse, which is in the final stages of conversion to a museum, started life in 1903. It did not have electricity installed until 1947, and it closed in 1954. It was used for meetings sporadically after it was closed as a school. In 1967 the Frontenac County Library opened a branch in the building. The branch moved to the new Princess Anne building just across the parking lot in 1982. Community Caring (now Community Caring South Frontenac) then opened up a thrift store in the schoolhouse. When Community Caring moved to the Princess Anne building as well in 2012, the township agreed to dedicate it for use as a museum.

As the opening date of the museum approaches, there are reams of documents and numerous artefacts to be organized. The plan is to have several small exhibit spaces in the museum, each devoted to different themes, from agriculture to military history, to education, and beyond.

Jim Reynolds, one of the original members of the group that met at the cottage on Rock Lake back in 2001, is one of two people who will be preparing a layout plan for the museum once the construction work is done.

In the interim, the Township of South Frontenac Museum will have a display at the township offices in Sydenham as part of the Open Doors Frontenac County event on June 13.

Over 100 Verona area gardeners were offered a sneak peek at what's new for gardeners this year thanks to Karen MacLean, a new financial consultant with Investors Group of Kingston.

MacLean, who is a long-time Verona resident, sponsored and hosted the free event titled “Investing in Your Garden”, which took place at the Verona Lions hall on March 8. The event was catered by Joyce Casement and in lieu of an entrance fee, guests were invited to make a donation to the Southern Frontenac Community Services food bank. MacLean's aims were twofold: to bring the local community (especially gardeners) together, and to introduce herself to the community as a new member of Investors Group.

Front and centre at the event was guest speaker Denis Flanagan, director of public relations with Landscape Ontario, a not-for-profit horticulture trades association that has over 2000 member companies from across the province, and whose aim is to promote professionalism in the garden landscaping industry.

Every year the organization partners with the University of Guelph and prepares trial gardens where seed companies plant their new varieties for the year. Flanagan’s presentation highlighted a number of these new plants and also outlined what he believes will be some of this year's trends in gardening.

Orange is in this year and the new “Oh So Orange geranium and the new “Summer Fling” patio rose have that colour in spades. Flanagan cited berry shrubs as a new trend to watch for, with new varieties of ornamental edibles like the “pink icing blueberry” and “glaze blueberry” exciting many growers in the audience. Other new noticeables included the “L.A. Dreamin' Hydrangea”, the “Ambassador” crab apple tree, proving that both species are making a comeback this year along with a number of vibrant rose varieties. Flanagan also spent time highlighting a checklist for gardeners looking to hire a landscaper. He cautioned them to make sure the service provider is properly insured, and can provide sufficient proof of their past experience and expertise. Flanagan also opened up the floor to questions and spoke about using copper wire to control slugs and about how to over-winter perennials. One audience member suggested using East Indian neen oil to keep pests off of lilies.

A number of local businesses had tables set up in the Lions hall displaying their gardening-related goods and services. They included Asselstine Hardware, Memory Lane Flowers and Gifts, and the Silverbrook Garden Centre, and Simply Landscaping from Odessa. Representatives from the horticultural societies of Kingston, Collins Bay and Lennox and Addington were in attendance and the work of two local artists was also on display.

Door prizes included six free tickets to the upcoming Canada Blooms Garden show, which takes place at Toronto's Direct Energy Centre from March 13-22.

As an avid gardener himself Flanagan has his own work set out for him this summer. He will be hosting his daughter's wedding in his own garden, which he said will be a feat considering his almost total lack of lawn.

Judging by the turn out, and the enjoyment had by the over 100 guests, MacLean said she might just consider making the event an annual one.

For more information about Landscape Ontario visit landscapeontario.com

In an effort to teach practical life skills to students in the Limestone District School Board (LDSB), a new pilot project called Slow Cookers for Kids was launched at three Kingston area schools, and last week the three-day program was introduced to grade 7 and 8 students at Prince Charles Public School in Verona. The project is run by the Enactus St. Lawrence College (SLC) program and delivered by Chef Thomas Elia and his culinary students at St. Lawrence College in Kingston.

Slow Cookers for Kids is one of Enactus's many projects designed to “reduce poverty and hunger, while promoting entrepreneurship, literacy life skills by creating comprehensive solutions to issues within the greater community.”

The Slow Cookers For Kids program resulted from Chef Elia's Food Sense program, which he runs at St. Lawrence College. Food Sense shows post-secondary students how to survive on an OSAP food budget of $7.50/day, which Chef Elia said is “pretty hard to do if you don't know how to cook”.

Given the fact that hot plates are not allowed in the student rooms at St. Lawrence, Elia introduced the idea of healthy and inexpensive cooking with the help of a slow cooker. “The beauty of a slow cooker is that it is safe and that it works 100% of the time.” he said.

Next, Chef Elia partnered up with Jason Quenneville, the technology teacher at First Avenue Public School in Kingston, and with the help of his students brought the Slow Cooker for Kids program to schools in the LDSB. The program teaches grade 7 and 8 students how to prepare and cook a number of healthy, inexpensive meals with the help of a slow cooker.

I visited Prince Charles during the final day of the program on February 26, where the students were preparing chocolate cake and a curry lentil dish, both made using a slow cooker. Chef Elia had the full attention of the students as he put the finishing touches on both items. Other meals prepared by the students during the program included vegetarian lasagne, and black bean soup and each meal cost on average about 50 cents per serving.

The students, who participated in the program not only learned the ins and out of slow cooking, but at the end of the program each received a canvas bag filled with the ingredients to create their own meal at home; a recipe book titled "Recipes for an Empty Wallet"; and last but not least their very own Hamilton Beach slow cooker.

Robert Riddell, a second-year culinary student at St. Lawrence, was one of four students teaching the PCPS students. He was thrilled with the opportunity to work with the students at PCPS. “It's a real pleasure to work with the students here and the program gives me an opportunity to share my skills and my trade and is a great way to give back to the community.”

Chef Elia, who to date has brought the program to three schools in the LDSB, was equally enthusiastic about how the program has been received. “What is truly amazing is that we did not know if we would be able to get young kids to eat this kind of stuff - lentils, curry and beans - and we have found the response to be phenomenal. Not only do the students love to cook, but they also love the meals and are taking the crock pots home, where they are making meals for their families.”

Elia said he hopes to see the program continue on at LDSB schools and that it is quickly grabbing the attention of other schools across Canada.

Funding for the program came from a partnership between Enactus SLC and the LDSB, and Elia said that a trust fund is currently being set up at the LDSB so that more slow cookers can be purchased for the program.

One student said, prior to digging into her bowl of lentil curry, that the program will definitely encourage more cooking at home for herself and her family.

For more information visit enactusslc.ca

By Jonathan Davies

Pat Joslin doesn't call what he does “farming” so much as “homesteading in a village.” Joslin, along with his wife Kate, owns Bear Root Gardens, which began operation in 2014 from their backyard plot in the center of Verona. An Environmental Studies graduate, he has been in the agricultural field in various forms for the past three years and his current focus is on intensive growing, primarily for seed, with the balance going to market vegetables.

The intensive focus is particularly important to Joslin, given the small scale of land he currently has, and it is an approach that is gaining ground, particularly among young farmers and homesteaders with limited space.

“Sustainable farming means many small farms versus a few huge ones,” he says.

However, sustainability in food production is not merely a matter of which system, whether small or large-scale, diversified and organic, or conventional mono-crop, works most efficiently and ecologically. The question of financial sustainability for the farmers themselves is also pertinent in an age where more and more small farms are going out of business.

A recent article in Salon magazine entitled “What nobody told me about small farming: I can't make a living” sheds light on the realities of running a farm business. The author, Jaclyn Moyer, notes that according to USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) statistics, about 90% of American farms rely on outside income to stay afloat.

Likewise, Statistics Canada's most recent data shows that over three quarters of the average Canadian family farm's income is gained off-farm.

Joslin is happy with his location and the challenge of using his yard effectively, and he is happy with the progress they have made thus far. “We're showing what you can do on about a third of an acre,” he says. They are in close proximity to the Frontenac Farmers Market – mere blocks away – which served as Bear Root's main vending point in the 2014 season. Perhaps most importantly, they are a reasonable

distance from Kingston, where Kate works full-time for a seed technology company. Pat, meanwhile, will be entering his second season working at the Kitchen Garden, a certified organic vegetable farm in Wilton this coming spring.

While Joslin hopes to be able to devote himself full-time to his own business down the road, he sees value in having the kind of steady, assured income that off-farm work brings. The threat of crop failures combined with worries about marketing opportunities, which are sometimes sluggish, lend credence to this view.

While working at the Kitchen Garden has helped him gain knowledge and experience that will translate to building a better farm business, he admits that working long days on another farm can mean little energy at the end of a long day for his own gardens. “Our farm always suffers first, ” he says.

Asked if he has any concern that the business will never achieve its potential, given the temptation to leave the weeding to another day or give up after a hard frost when vital income is not at stake, Joslin says that his passion for farming will drive the business forward. “Creating our own model, we can still have our non-farming lifestyle,” he says.

He has the option of going camping in August when most farmers would not dare, and the mantra, “farmhands often make more money than farm owners” currently favours him more than it works against him.

Joslin's approach gives food for thought to farmers and aspiring farmers alike. Certainly, the quest for quality of life at the sacrifice of financial certainty is a difficult balance for most anyone getting into agriculture. “For now, if we look at it as a hobby that we make money at, it's awesome,” he says. “I'd like that to change, but what we are getting out of what we are doing is more than if we were not doing it.”

Jonathan Davies is a farmer himself. He operates a small farm at Harrowsmith with his partner X.B. Shen. Jonathan is contributing a series of articles called Frontenac Farming Life, which profiles the lives of local farmers who are trying to make a living through farming, navigating struggle and hope. If you would like to have your story considered, please contact Jonathan at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

It is 2:00 in the morning. Your child has a fever and the fever has spiked. You give the child some medication to control the fever but you are in a quandary. Should you sit with your child and see if the fever drops? Should you drive to the emergency department? Should you call 911 for an ambulance?

These kinds of dilemmas occur in all kinds of families; those with young children, elderly relatives, or a member who is chronically ill. It occurs for people who live alone or who are caring for a spouse or a parent.

The Rural Kingston Health Link is holding three public information sessions to talk about what options people have when they are in need of medical help and don't know where to turn.

Dr. Ken Edwards from the Emergency Department at Kingston General Hospital, Gale Chevalier from Frontenac Paramedic Services, and the staff of the Verona Medical Centre will be on hand at Trinity United Church in Verona next Tuesday, February 24, from 7 until 9 pm to talk about what is available and to listen to public concerns.

One of the concerns among those who provide emergency care is that over 50% of emergency room visits would be better dealt with through other means.

“There is a difference between urgent care and emergency care,” said Lynn Wilson, of the Rural Kingston Health Link.

This distinction has implications both in terms of costs for the emergency departments and land ambulance, and for patients, who might find themselves spending a sleepless night in the waiting room at KGH when they would be better off at home.

One example of an alternative to emergency room visits is the option to contact a doctor over the phone. By calling their local family health teams or family practice in Sydenham, Sharbot Lake, Northbrook or Tamworth after hours, patients from those clinics will be referred to Tele-Health Ontario, and through Tele-Health they can access an on-call doctor from one of the local clinics. Patients of the Verona clinic are directly referred to the on-call doctor.

Even if that doctor is not from their own clinic, the doctor will still have access to the patient's medical file, and can offer advice tailored to the patient's medical history.

All of the clinics also have extended-hour clinics throughout the week, during which time they accept patients from any of the other clinics in the region.

Frontenac Paramedic Services is developing a community paramedicine program, to make better use of the skills of paramedics in between emergency calls, and to help reduce unnecessary visits to the emergency room. They will be using the meetings to help them tailor their programs to local needs, and to help them avoid duplicating services that are offered by other providers.

For those who cannot attend the meeting in Verona on the 24th, similar meetings are scheduled for Sydenham on March 10 and Sharbot Lake on March 24.

The public meetings are meant to foster a two-way conversation. Those attending will be encouraged to share their own experiences and their ideas for how they could be better served.

For more information see the ad on page 2.

by Julie Druker

Snowshoe racing, which has been popular in the U.S. for years, is fast becoming a popular winter activity in Canada as well, both for fitness lovers and more competitive types. Many snowshoe racers are road runners in the fair weather months, who have taken up the sport as a way to keep fit and / or stay competitive at a time when winter snow and ice can make for dangerous running conditions. Others are competitive athletes who use the activity as way to cross train in the winter months.

Over 70 of these varying types gathered at Frontenac Provincial Park, located just north of Sydenham on January 18 to take part in the Dion Frontenac Park Snow Shoe race, one of six races in a series that is being put on by Derrick Spafford of Spafford Health and Adventure.

The first race in the series took place in Morrisburg at Upper Canada Village on January 10 and attracted over 140 racers, which was up from the previous year.

The Frontenac Park race attracted snowshoe racers and enthusiasts from all over Ontario, including from Whitby, Toronto, Ottawa, Kingston, Cornwall, Montreal, Inverary, and Sydenham, as well as competitors from New York state.

Derrick Spafford, who is the race coordinator for the Dion Series and the race director at Frontenac Park, said that both he and his wife Sara compete. They have been organizing the race at Frontenac Park for the last six years. Derrick said that the Frontenac Park race is a favorite for racers in the area. “This course is a challenging, rolling course and it offers racers a little bit of everything. There are fast sections and a number of climbing sections but both veterans and beginners always really enjoy it,” he said.

Asked if there is a special technique required for snowshoe racing he replied, “If you can run, you can snowshoe run.”

The racing snowshoes, which are 21 inches long and 7 inches wide, are incredibly light weight and only require a small step, not the huge wide stance that people often associate with the traditional wooden frame snow shoes.

Spafford said he believes that the sport is continually growing but a lot of people are still unaware of it. “We're trying to promote the sport as a really great way to get out and enjoy the winter while also avoiding having to run on roads or treadmills.” In an effort to attract novices, Spafford at each race offers a rental fleet of snow shoes at a cost of just $5 per day. “We have a lot of people who come out to these races who have never had snowshoes on their feet before.”

Corey Turnbull of Smiths Falls, one of the participants at the race, started up a snowshoe racing team called The Snow Squalls, which to date boasts 15 members, many of whom were competing at the park. Turnbull came third overall in the series last year. He has been racing for the last four years and credits Spafford for getting him started in the sport. He said that the Frontenac Park race is one of his favorites. “The park is gorgeous and the atmosphere here is always incredibly friendly as well.”

Also among the participants were 16 members of a team from Paul Smiths College in northern New York state. This was the third year that members of the team have traveled to Frontenac Park to compete in the race and the coach, Jim Tucker, said that the team has been racing in Canada for the past 25 years. “Frontenac Park is a great facility and is a lot like where we run at home. For some of these racers it is their first time visiting Canada.”

I also spoke with three local participants who love the sport for the fitness opportunity it offers in the winter months. Basia Farnell of Inverary said she loves to get out in the winter and she runs at the park regularly.

Here are the race results as found on the Spafford Health and Adventure website (healthand adventure.com): Nick Best of Ottawa posted the fastest time of the day in the men’s race in a time of 28:32 for the 6.6km course. Jesse Bruce of Toronto followed in 29:51, with Charley Murphy of Toronto in third in 30:46. Alan Cushman of Paul Smith’s College in New York was the top masters in the men's race in 32:42. In the women’s race, Celine Best of Gatineau, QC finished first in a time of 35:57. Chloe Mattilio of Paul Smith’s College, NY was second in 39:06, followed by Deborah Berry of Kingston in third in 42:30. Jenn Ross of Merrickville was the top female master in 47:26

The top male and female performers, who are required to run in at least three of the six races in the series, will be declared the series champions and will each receive a free pair of Dion snowshoes.

The next race in the Dion Series will take place in Brighton ON on January 31 at 10am inside the Goodrich-Loomis Conservation Centre, which is located adjacent to the parking lot. Race day registration is from 8:30 – 9:45am. For more information visit healthandadventure.com