There are six schools in the Limestone District School Board that participate in a program called the Youth Philanthropy Initiative, which is sponsored by the Toskan-Casale Foundation. Sharbot Lake High School (SLHS) is one of those schools, and last fall in the grade 10 Civics class, 16 two-member teams were formed to research and promote a charity with a local reach.

The teams prepared presentations on the charities, and after the presentations were made, the four top presentations were selected. Four finalists then did their presentations again at the beginning of January, and the winning team was presented with a cheque for $5,000, which was made out to the charity they had been promoting.

“This is the third year we have been participating in this program,” said Civics teacher Randy McVety, “and one of the things I like about it is, it shows the students how charities work and helps to encourage them to volunteer themselves. And the fact that there is real money at the end of it for one of the charities, adds something very real to it.”

The teams that made the finals spoke on behalf of Martha's Table, Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind, the Kingston Youth Shelter, and the St. John’s Ambulance Therapy Dog Service.

Kelsea Babcock and David Riddell chose Martha's Table for their presentation. They had never heard of Martha's Table before (like most of the teams they found the organization after doing a google search) but “We really liked the fact that they were such a grassroots organisation,” said Kelsea Babcock. “They charge something like $1 a meal for people in Kingston who need one, and they are open 5 days a week,” said David Riddell. The students also mentioned that Martha's Table has a clothing program.

Cody Pichie and Jessica Cadieux chose the Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind. “We wanted to do something with animals,” said Jessica Cadieux, “and the guide dogs provide a great service for people who really need them.”

“It costs several hundred dollars to train a dog,” said Cody Pichie, “and it all starts with fostering them.”

Pichie explained that guide dogs are raised by volunteer foster families for the first six months, where they receive basic training before being sent for more advanced training. Jessica Cadieux said that it is a goal of hers to foster guide dogs in the future.

Leah Woodcox and Jessica Nedow looked into the Kingston Youth Shelter. “We wanted to look at something that was for young people,” said Jessica Nedow.

“There are many people at our school that have had troubles, and the shelter is something they might need to know about,” said Leah Woodcox.

Woodcox and Nedow learned about the shelter via emails with people who work there. “Confidentiality is important to them. They shelter about 250 - 300 youth a year,” said Leah Woodcox, “it's an important service for Kingston and the region.”

Emma Maloney and Erica Goodberry made the winning presentation on behalf of the St. John's Ambulance Dog therapy program. “We wanted to find a charity that used animals,” said Erica Goodberry. “The dogs go to hospitals for people who are dying, to Alzheimer's patients, and children's centres. They provide psychological stability for people,” said Emma Maloney.

“There is a certification service,” added Erica Goodberry. “The dogs need to be calm, not aggressive.”

There are about 40 dogs and 35 volunteers that are active with the program in Kingston. The $5,000 will go to the program to help cover ongoing costs, such as training and mileage for volunteers.

Sara Porisky, a program co-ordinator with the Youth and Philanthropy Initiative, was on hand when the presentations were made to present the cheque to the winners.

Lynne Young, a co-op teacher at SLHS, said that it was a great experience working on the program this year. “I am also looking forward to going to Toronto in the spring. There is a day planned for all of the winning teams from across the province, and I am looking forward to going with the girls and perhaps their families as well.”

“The program gave out over $1 million last year. That’s a lot of money for students to control,” said Randy McVety. 

Gordon & Louise Day at the Verona Tree Lighting Ceremony in November.

It's been 10 years since Dr. Harrison Gordon Day retired from the Verona Medical Centre, but people still talk about how Doctor Day brought medical services to the Verona area.

Doctor Day died on December 27, at the age of 81, and his funeral took place on Saturday morning, January 2 at the Verona Lions Hall.

During his remarks at the funeral, Dr. Day's son David recalled that a couple of days before his death at KGH his father told him to let everyone know that when he came to Verona in 1963 to set up his practice, he had done so in order to serve the community and that intention was what kept him going through his entire career. “Dad did not like OHIP very much. He preferred the days when he got paid directly by his patients, either with money or in kind, with produce or whatever people had,” David Day said.

“Sometimes we got apple pies, and sometimes we never got paid,” recalled Louise Day in an interview a few days after the funeral, “but what could people do? They had to eat.”

Louise met Gordon Day early in 1962 in Kingston. She had come to Kingston with three other friends who were also nurses, and they were all planning to go out west.

“That never happened for me,” she recalls. Four months after they met, Gordon and Louise were married, and they moved briefly to Peterborough, where there was a position for a doctor in a large practice. “We saw a notice that a group in Verona had built a clinic and were looking for a doctor, and Gordon thought he would be of more use there, so we took it on,” said Louise.

Took it on they did. For years Dr. and Nurse Day worked in the clinic downstairs while the children played upstairs under the watchful eye of Helen Cronk.

“The sound of Gordon’s shoe on the bottom step was enough to scare the children into being quiet,” Louise remembers.

Mornings were devoted to house calls, and the clinic was open in the afternoons and evenings, as well as Saturday mornings. Dr. Day also served as the coroner for Frontenac County, and set up a dispensary in his office because he knew many of his patients couldn’t or wouldn't make it into town to pick up the medicines he prescribed for them.

“We had a lot to learn about a rural practice at first, because both of us were from cities,” Louise said. “Many of our patients did not have running water at the time. They never went to Kingston; some had never taken their clothes off for a doctor before, so we had to learn what kinds of treatments would be useful for them.”

In going over his dad's papers, David Day found a handwritten note from a patient, which he thought summed up Dr. Day's relationship with his patients. He read it at the funeral. “Got a headache doc. I feel bad and I've got a dry cough. Get me something to fix me up quick, eh. Send some more in case my kids get it. John.”

“He just loved how direct people were in the country,” Louise said, “but he made sure to keep up his training and keep up to date with new diagnostic techniques and treatments. He did not want to be known as a backwards country doctor, and he made sure that never happened.”

In 1968, Dr. Day decided it was his last chance at a career as a specialist, and he left Verona to take on a residency as a radiologist in Kingston. Six weeks later he was back. “He missed it. He missed his role in Verona, he missed his practice,” Louise Day said.

For the next 31 years Dr. Day continued making house calls, providing cordial, accurate and thorough service to his patients. He was ready to retire by the mid-1990s, but waited until a replacement could be found. He worked for a year with Doctor Laurel Dempsey before selling the practice to her in 1999.

“He liked to fish and more so to hunt at the cottage we built near Sharbot Lake,” said Louise “but really being a doctor was what he loved.”

Gordon and Louise Day have three children, David, John and Susan, and four grandchildren as well.

The Days have been mainstays of the Verona community, being active in the Lions Club and the Verona Community Association.

Some people arrive in a community and change it immediately, so that people wonder how they got along before they arrived.

Doctor Harrison Gordon Day was one of those people.

Shirley Peruniak has been a reverse snowbird for many years.

Just as many seniors are starting to plan their escape to the South in the early fall, Shirley would start the trek from her summer home at Quetico Wilderness Park on the far western edge of Ontario to the luxury of Sharbot Lake for the winter season.

It is for her work as a naturalist at Quetico that she is receiving a medal today at Queen’s Park in Toronto, recognising her as a member of the Order of Ontario.

Shirley was born and raised in Sharbot Lake, and although her family moved to Perth when she was nine, in 1935, it was her first school principal at Sharbot Lake Public School who introduced her to naturalist pursuits.

“He took us outside and introduced all sorts of vegetation and birds, showed us Blue Herons. It certainly caught my attention,” she said, when interviewed from her home on Sharbot Lake on Tuesday morning.

Shirley always returned to Sharbot Lake on weekends to visit her grandmother. In 1988, she had a small house built on the lake, on a lot in the village that was still in her family, to serve as her winter home.

It was difficult to talk to Shirley on Tuesday, because the phone kept ringing as friends from all over were calling to congratulate her as news of her appointment to the Order circulated around the province.

“I’ve known for three weeks, but I wasn’t to tell anyone except for family until it was officially announced,” she said, but since Shirley is not exactly prone to self-promotion it is likely she wouldn’t have told anyone about it at all if it hadn’t already been publicized.

After being raised in eastern Ontario, Shirley said, “I wanted to know what it was like to live in different parts of the province.” That led her and her husband, who was a teacher, to move to Kenora. In 1956 a road was built joining Quetico with the rest of Ontario, and it wasn’t long after that that Shirley made her first trip to the park.

Fifty-four years later, her story has become synonymous with that of Quetico Park. Marie Nelson, who has worked as a ranger in the park with her husband Jon, is the person who put the application for the Order of Ontario together.

Jon Nelson has written about Shirley. In one of his articles he paraphrased a former park warden, Dave Elder, who said, “Shirley is the heart and soul of Quetico. Everybody who knows Shirley would agree with this assessment of her. She has definitely poured her heart and soul into her work in Quetico and her impact on co-workers in the park and park visitors has been profound.”

Although she lived in Atikokan in the early ’60s and took full advantage of the canoeing opportunities of the park, which is dominated by waterways, Shirley is being honoured for work that began in 1974, when she walked into the Atikokan Ministry of Natural Resources Office and asked for a job.

She was hired as a naturalist, based partly on her knowledge of birds, and together with Shan Walshe, a keen botanist, they formed a team that served the park and its visitors well for 20 years. They conduced tours and hosted education programs for anyone who was interested, and at the same time pursued their passions for collecting information.

For Shirley that included not only archiving written material about the park, but also collecting the stories of the people who made up the history of the park. She began collecting oral histories.

“I talked to trappers, park rangers, poachers, and elders from the Lac LaCroix First Nations, anyone who knew about where the park had come from,” Shirley said. “I remember getting children to interview their grandparents, who only spoke Ojibway, and having them translate for me.”

All of the interviews were transcribed and materials were stored away in filing cabinets. This part of Shirley’s personality is familiar to people in Sharbot Lake, where she has been doing the same thing for the Oso Historical Society since 1988.

At Quetico, her work led to the founding of a research library in 1986, using funds from the estate of long-time Quetico Foundation Chair Frank Ridley. The Ridley library is the only library in an Ontario Provincial Park.

Former Park Superintendent Jay Leather credits her with helping to bridge the gap between park officials and the Lac LaCroix First Nation when their respective interests in the park came into conflict in the early 1990s. “Shirley’s relationship in my own view was really crucial. She had a level of credibility and a personal relationship with the people there that we didn’t have. She maintains that relationship to this day,” Leather told the newspaper the Atikokan Progress late last summer.

In 2000, the Friends of Quetico published a 270-page volume Quetico Provincial Park, an Illustrated History, by Shirley Peruniak with Michael Dawber, who was the librarian in Sharbot Lake at the time.

Although Shirley retired from the park in 1991, she has continued to volunteer there each summer since then. Starting next year she is planning to cut back her visits. She maintains a little cabin next to the park and after so many years the park will certainly continue to call her back.

Her son, daughter, daughter-in-law and grandson are all accompanying her to Toronto to receive her medal.

They will be put up at a hotel near Queen’s Park for two nights. But she will be back in Sharbot Lake pretty soon after that.

“I’m not particularly fussy about the big city,” she said. 

Godfrey postmistress Shirley McGowan 

Shirley McGowan of Godfrey was surprised when the local area manager and supervisor and a few of her Canada Post chums showed up at McGowan’s Store in Godfrey on December 11 on her 68th birthday to present her with her Canada Post retirement certificate.

Shirley recalled, “I put in my notice three months ago but didn’t know that they would be paying me a goodbye visit.”

December 12 was Shirley’s last official day as postmistress in Godfrey after 25 years of service.

Born in the town of Drayton north of Kitchener, Shirley moved to the area after meeting her husband of 47 years, Les McGowan, who grew up near 30 Island Lake just east of Godfrey. Together they have owned and operated McGowan’s Store and Gas Bar in Godfrey for 44 years.

Shirley took over as Godfrey's head postmaster in November of 1983 when Piccadilly resident and former postmaster Les Judge was forced into retirement when he turned 65.

Shirley recalled, “It was pretty much down to the wire when Les asked me to take over.” She joked, “The way I remember it is that I really wasn’t that interested in the job but Les (my husband) thought it would be a good thing for me to do.”

For her first few months as postmistress Shirley worked from Judge’s home in Piccadilly where the post office was originally located. She recalled the quaint, old-fashioned metal wicket through which she passed stamps, letters and parcels to her customers.

Later in May of 1984 Shirley won the competition for the permanent position and the post office then moved to McGowan’s Store where it has been located ever since.

When asked about retiring now Shirley recalled a conversation she had with a niece who told her, “You’ll know when it’s time.” Shirley joked that the timing of her retirement had “absolutely nothing to do with the new computer system that was introduced in August of 2008.” Instead she admitted to being “very pleased” with how she progressed on the computer, thanks to the help she received from Rozanne Leonard-Stewart, Cheryl Gordon and Lou Richard, postmasters from the Hartington, Parham and Westbrooke branches, who gave her lots of encouragement and help.

Shirley then explained the real reason for calling it quits. “To be honest, it’s really just my age. I just turned 68 and Les and I just decided that we needed to free up time for whatever time we have left.” The McGowans have four children and nine grandchildren and Shirley already has plans for a February trip to Vancouver to visit her son and his family. She also has tickets to see some of the Olympic figure skating competitions, a passion of hers since she was a youngster. “I’ll definitely be rooting for the Canadian skaters.”

What will she miss most after retiring? “The people. When you work with the public, you get to really know a lot of very good people. That’s what I will definitely miss most.”

Friends and acquaintances who have come to know Shirley over the years, and who like myself have enjoyed her sense of humour, need not fret. She will continue to help run the store and gas bar with her husband Les.

For Canada Post customers in Godfrey, service will temporarily be running out of the Verona Post Office until a replacement for the position is found.

Saying that the current council does not “deal with any of the issues that are necessary and important”, Logan Murray has begun his campaign for mayor of Central Frontenac.

A flyer outlining his background and future plans was sent out in the mail last week, and Murray said he plans to get out campaigning in the coming weeks and to hold public meetings later in the spring and summer.

Municipal elections are scheduled for October 25, and while would-be politicians tend to make use of summer events to meet and greet potential voters, campaigns rarely heat up until after Labour Day.

But Murray, who put in his nomination on January 2, said he “plans to communicate with people more” during the campaign and after, if he is elected.

This is his second run for mayor of Central Frontenac. He tried to be the first mayor of Central Frontenac in 1997, and has served one term as councilor from Kennebec ward (2004 – 2006). He ran again for Council in 2006, but was defeated by a handful of votes.

Rather than running for council again, Murray said he is running for mayor because he found he had little influence on council decisions when he sat on council.

“Basically I've always been ignored on council. I got a roads committee going for a short time during the last term, but then it was killed by the mayor and some of the other councilors.”

Roads have always been a prime concern for Murray. “I've always been against the position of Public Works Manager. What we really need is a working roads superintendent, with a roads committee to give political direction ... I've always said that the best way to promote economic development in this township is to put people in houses, and the biggest impediment to doing that is bad roads. People need to know they can get out to work,” he said.

Murray is also critical of the way the township has handled the school closure issue. He thinks that the township should be pushing hard for all of the schools to remain open, and argues that the school buildings should be turned into multi-use facilities.

“The schools should be used for recreational purposes, as outreach medical clinics, and more, but the township needs to take the lead to make this happen because the province and the school board aren't going to,” he said.

Other concerns he expresses are about public access to council, which he says was promised but not delivered by the incumbent, Mayor Janet Gutowski, who intends to run again. He is also incensed that council has moved all its meetings to Sharbot Lake, eliminating the practice of rotating meetings between Sharbot Lake and Mountain Grove.

“I found it unbelievably insulting that they moved all the meetings to Sharbot Lake without making any announcement. I think it's because people came to meetings in Mountain Grove and they don't come out to the meetings in Sharbot Lake,” he said.

Murray would also like to see the influence of Frontenac County curtailed, and gas tax rebates that the county has received transferred to the local municipalities for road and bridge maintenance. 

First time angler Thomas Richardson of Kingston

Over 200 anglers took part in the first-ever free family fishing derby at Desert Lake Resort near Verona on Feb. 13 and for many, young and old, it was their first time ice fishing.

The Norman family, who live on Desert Lake, were among the first-timers. Sara Norman said, “It was just great! The kids had a great time and we would definitely come out and do it again.”

Event organizer Cam McCauley, coordinator for the Frontenac Stewardship Council, and host Bret Coleman of Desert Lake Resort both anticipate making the event an annual occurrence due the overwhelming turnout.

McCauley said, “We even had couples out who were visiting from Korea and Israel who wanted to see what we Canadians do in the winter time. It’s been a great day; people had a great time and we got a lot of first timers out.”

Bret Coleman co-owner and operator of Desert Lake Resort said, “We would have been happy if 30-50 people showed up and close to 200 came out so we are very happy… A lot of them were young kids and that is exactly what we wanted. Our intent was to show people that it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money to have fun in the winter. All they need is 30 feet of string and a hook, and some fish bait."

At 2pm McCauley handed out a plethora of prizes to the participants and Bret relit the barbeque to feed anglers who had worked up an appetite.

Throughout Central Frontenac, events are planned for the celebration of the past and the present that is the Frontenac Heritage Festival.

The fourth annual festival will include many of the features from previous years, and a few new events as well. Events will run for three days this year, between Friday, February 19 and Sunday the 21st.

One of the focal points of the festival will be the Crow Lake Schoolhouse, where interactive demonstrations about what life was like in rural Ontario about 200 years ago will take place on Friday and Saturday.

Inside the building up to 15 people will demonstrate traditional skills, including wool knotting, traditional foods and herbs, including some that were used as medicines. On Saturday, lunch in the form of goulash and pie will be available at reasonable prices.

Outside the schoolhouse, local residents Bob Miller and Mike Procter will be joined by a number of other people that have an interest in the way things were done in the era before machinery and electricity. “The skills that people needed to have in order to be able to survive interest those of us who get involved in this kind of activity,” Mike Procter said. “People needed to have a lot of ingenuity and self-reliance just to get by.”

Among the skills that will be demonstrated are: fire starting using flint and steel, the use of a variety of hand tools and tool-making equipment, and weaponry in the form of muskets. John DeWagner, who makes long bows, will also be on hand.

Bannock will be prepared, and for sweetening, Matthew Wheeler will be on hand to prepare maple taffy.

Mike Procter will have a busy day on Friday. Before demonstrating at Crow Lake, he will bring some of his passion for the past, along with some of his vision for tourism and perhaps an old joke or two, to the Sharbot Lake Legion. He will be the speaker at the kick-off event for the festival, a Business Over Breakfast on Friday morning at 8:30 am.

OTHER FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS:

Photo Contest Extended! For those shutterbugs who have missed it thus far, entries can still be made for the photo contest because the deadline for entries has been extended. Entering the contest is easy. There are three categories, People – Nature – Recreation (action shots) and there is a special category for youth (16 and under) as well. Simply email a jpeg version of a digital photo to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., indicating which category it is to be judged in, by Monday, February 15 at 5 pm.

On Friday evening the Legion will also be hosting a Roast Beef Dinner, starting at 5:30 p.m., and at 7:00 p.m. at the Maples Restaurant the winners of the Heritage Festival Photo Contest and the Snow Sculpture contest will be announced, and a slide show of the entries will be shown.

Saturday

The feature day of the Heritage Festival starts off the way any cold winter day should start, with coffee at a country store, in this case at the Parham General Store, where in addition to coffee there will be a display of local photos.

In addition to the Crow Lake Schoolhouse events, which will continue on Saturday from 10am – 4pm, the Soldiers Memorial Hall (Oso Hall) in Sharbot Lake will be the site of displays from the railway committee, the heritage weavers, spinners, cheese making, and more.

At the beach in Sharbot Lake, a girls’ pond hockey tournament will get underway at 10 a.m., as well as horse-drawn wagon rides. At noon, also at the beach, frozen turkey curling gets underway (organizers note that no turkeys will be harmed during this event)

Meanwhile, in the village of Arden, the Skills and Thrills event will get underway at 11:00 a the rink. Participants will need to bring skates, a hockey stick and a helmet to participate.

The Tichborne rink will be hosting a 3 of 3 hockey tournament, starting at noon as well.

While all this outdoor activity is underway, the Sharbot Lake Legion will be hosting a Chilifest, with judging taking place after noon. A Jam Session and Hockey & Wing Night follows.

While in Sharbot Lake, there is one added event that people should go to. At the Seniors’ Centre (across from the Freshmart in the former United Church Manse) Northern Frontenac Community Services is sponsoring a Quilt Show And Sale, featuring a silent auction with reserve bids, between 12-4 pm on Friday, and 10:00 am to 4:00 pm on Saturday.

In the evening, Jim MacPherson will be hosting the annual Variety Show at the Sharbot Lake High School Cafetorium, and the day will be capped off with fireworks at the ball field next to the school.

Sunday -

Sunday is more of an informal day at the festival. It starts with a heritage breakfast, put on by the Sharbot Lake Anglican Church Women's Group. (Anglican Church Hall – $5)

There will also be a heritage snowmobile ride guided by Wayne Harris. A family skate and fun day will take place at the Tichborne rink, followed the playoffs from Saturday’s 3 on 3 hockey tournament. After the tournament, the closing ceremonies will take place.

Celebrate Valentine’s and Family Day in Sharbot Lake

A few years ago the Oso Recreation Committee put on Canada Day events and maybe one or two other events a year, but lately that has changed, and this weekend is a prime example of that.

The committee will be presenting two events: a Valentine’s Dance for the grownups and a fun day at Sharbot Lake Beach on Family Day.

The dance will be held on Saturday night, February 13 at the Oso Hall in Sharbot Lake. It is a licensed event, featuring the Cellar Hounds, who are brothers Joe and Tim Asselstine, Randy Kempe and Pete Davis. Tickets are $10 per person, and are available in advance at Fit Plus and the township office.

Tickets have been selling well, but there will be some available at the door. The hall only holds 120 people so people are advised to come early or buy their tickets beforehand.

Family Day activities – Spencer Robinson's zamboni has been spotted on the west basin of Sharbot Lake. The rink is ready for the broomball game, and the oval is ready for the skaters as the February holiday approaches.

Free events are all scheduled to start at 1 o'clock on the school holiday, Heritage Day, Monday, February 15. Smoosh races, skating, broomball, snow shoeing, horse-drawn carriage rides and snowmobile/trail safety are all featured events, and everything is free, including spider hot dogs, hot chocolate and snow taffy. The recreation committee is even providing equipment for people to use if they don't have their own.

Barry O’Connor, who served as principal of Sharbot Lake High School in the 1980s and eventually climbed the administrative ladder to become Director of the Limestone District School Board, has died of cancer at the age of 60.

O’Connor was only 37 when he got his first posting as a high school principal in Sharbot Lake.

Former staff from the school recalled his impact on the school when they learned of O’Connor’s death.

“He was certainly one of the finest human beings I’ve ever known. We were working at 110% of our capacity when he was at Sharbot Lake,” said Gary Giller, who taught at SLHS throughout Barry O’Connor’s tenure at the school. “He just had a way with people, he had a way of getting the most out of people. Great things were always happening while he was principal.”

Giller said that O’Connor served as Director of the Limestone Board during some turbulent times under the Mike Harris government but “he remained positive through all that.”

After his retirement from the school board in 2004, O’Connor remained active as a basketball coach.

Barry O’Connor is survived by his wife Marilyn, son Ryan and daughter Steacy O'Connor-Wordley.

Local community learning centres in Sydenham, Hartington, Sharbot Lake and Northbrook are solving some of the problems people have when trying to improve their skills and education. One solution is a partnership with Ontario colleges for E-learning (electronic, online or Web-based learning) satellite services.

“It’s a hidden gem,” says Patricia Ramirez, speaking of the E-learning lab at Northern Connections in Sharbot Lake, “If I had known there was a local E-lab I would have gone back to school sooner.”

E-labs provide a learning environment that is friendly, supportive and close to home. High-speed Internet is available and the computers have all the software and hardware needed to complete courses for the Academic and Career Entrance Program (ACE) and some college certificate and diploma courses.

The ACE certificate is a Grade 12 equivalency for people who want to move on to college or apprenticeship. Learners may take any or all of the courses as needed for entrance to their post-secondary education. Available courses include Communications, Math, Computers, Self-Direction, Biology, Chemistry and Physics. Best of all, the ACE program is FREE and travel and childcare subsidies may be available. ACE courses are available thanks to PALS (Partnering to Achieve Learning Success), a partnership between St. Lawrence College, the Limestone District School Board, Kingston Literacy and Northern Connections Adult Learning, with funding from Employment Ontario.

A partnership with another college, Loyalist in Bancroft, has allowed people to take college courses online through the E-lab. “Any course that is shown on the OntarioLearn website is available to students, but we register them through Loyalist College,” says Laurie Watson, who coordinates the college E-lab courses for Northern Connections in Sharbot Lake and Northbrook.

“E-lab learning is less intimidating than a classroom, for me,” says Ramirez, who is taking a Medical Transcriptionist college course, “You don’t have all the noise and peer pressure. You also don’t have all that travel to Kingston or dealing with traffic and parking.”

Anyone can take these programs, but they are particularly useful for people who are getting their training or living allowance paid by Employment Ontario’s Second Career, WSIB, etc. They are only approved to do training at an acknowledged site, such as the E-lab, where their attendance can be monitored and they can get support from local staff.

E-labs are available for ACE upgrading in Sydenham at Frontenac Employment Resource Centre (613) 376-6592 and in Hartington at the Community Learning Centre South Frontenac (613) 372-2111. The E-labs at Northern Connections Adult Learning Centres offer both ACE upgrading and college courses in Sharbot Lake (613) 279-2499 and in Northbrook at Northern Connections (613) 336-0691.

The shoe store when it was housed int eh building that is presently the Sharbot Lake Pharmacy. The truck is carrying their float for the Sharbot Lake parade.

There has been a shoe store in Sharbot Lake for almost 80 years, but that will change on April 15, 2010 when Marg's Shoe Store closes.

The shoe store has been located near the government dock on Sharbot Lake, across from the Central Frontenac Township Office for the past few years.

It was opened by Mrs. Fair in 1932, and she ran it out of her house, which is now the home and office of realtor Mimi Antoine.

The business was eventually sold to Herb Duffy, who moved it across the street to his house. The house, and the business, were bought by Bill and Marie Robertson in 1959, and sold in 1966 to Marg and Len Desroche.

It has been called Marg's Shoe Store ever since.

In 1972, Marg moved the store to the building across from the grocery store on Elizabeth Street, which had originally been a bank, and was at that time a restaurant owned by Mrs. Gibson. The building, which now houses the Sharbot Lake Pharmacy, was the home of Marg's Discount Shoe Store for 14 years.

Marg maintained a close relationship with the Brown Shoe Company, which had a factory in Perth for many years. She would pick up shoes that had been returned to the factory because of a variety of minor flaws. She would bring them back to her store, look them over and determine if she could fix them or if she needed to bring them to a repair shop in Kingston to be fixed, and eventually sell them as “used” shoes. She also sold seconds from the factory that she would repair or have repaired, as well as first line stock.

Marg's Shoe Store became known throughout a wide region for quality, inexpensive shoes. “People came from all over to buy shoes here, and I mean from all over,” said Marg Desroche when interviewed this week about the 20 years she spent running the shoe store. “We had one lady who would fly in every year or two from Hawaii. She would buy enough shoes to do her family. We also had people from the States who would write to us in the winter and order shoes that they would pick up in the summer.”

Marg says she got the most pleasure when a family “that did not have a lot of money would come in, and by jiggling prices a little bit we would arrange it so they would all get the shoes they needed. At that time some of the shoes were only $2. But the glow in the eyes of the little ones when they got the shoes is something I still remember.”

People would also pick up shoes or sandals or clogs on their travels as souvenirs and bring them to Marg as gifts. “I think I built up a collection of over 600 shoes that way,” she said.

In 1986 Marg sold the store to her son Mike and daughter-in-law Sharon. They moved the store to the Sharbot Lake Retail Centre at the Junction of Highways 38 and 7, and ran it at that location for 16 years.

“We did well at the retail centre,” Sharon said, “because the tourist trade stayed strong and we continued to work with Browns Shoe Factory.”

Eventually the rent became high at the retail centre and an opportunity to buy a building on the waterfront right in Sharbot Lake came up, so the store was moved in 2001.

“Business stayed strong, but in the last couple of years it has slowed right down,” Sharon said when talking about her decision to close the business.

Browns Shoe Factory closed down eight years ago and even though they still distribute shoes that are produced off shore, the “used shoes” and “seconds” are no longer available.

“But the biggest problem we have had is the slowing tourist trade,” Sharon said. “We have always had a lot of local support, people have always supported us, but even if everyone in Sharbot Lake buys a pair of shoes from us each year that is not enough without the cottage and tourist trade, and that has dropped right off.”

The closing of an institution like Marg's Shoe Store is a sad event for Sharbot Lake, but for the next 2½ months it also means the store will be selling off its considerable stock of all shoes at prices between $5 and $70.

So the shoe store’s final days will resemble its early days, with prices that are well below market, except that the shoes are all new.

After the shoe store closes, the Treasure Trunk used clothing store will be moving to its location.