DDGM Messages for 2007-2008

I was raised in a small community whose economy was dependent on the lumber industry and tourism. Bias forces me to note that Muskoka is an annex where other tourists went because the Haliburton Highlands just cannot hold them all.

The bush is everywhere except where the rocks are and the 40,000 lakes take up a little room too. Farming is tricky to the point of requiring a considerable advance in agriculture to allow crops to grow in rocks. Beauty, on the other hand, is nature’s abundant gift.

In the days of my youth, tourists came on May 24th. Weekend and had all left by Thanksgiving having boosted the economy noticeably.

We locals subsided into the long winter and sliding, slithering, wading and shoveling, reappeared in April to prepare for the next influx of tourists.

Logging was a winter chore when logs could be collected at the loading decks on horse drawn sleighs whose tamped down roads were iced during the night to be slick next day for the sleighs. Some of the locals trapped fox, mink, muskrat and beaver to earn some extra cash. A prime black beaver pelt could bring sixty dollars and a mink about thirty but I cannot remember what fox and muskrat brought.

Vivid memories of the trap line still play in my mind as my sisters and I skied along with my Dad in the dark and cold winter morning before he went to work at 6:30 a.m. We covered about ten miles and I am here to tell you that a 30 pound beaver multiplies its weight when water instantly freezes on it, not at all unlike your hands, ears, cheeks and nose already frozen.

Believe me it is a refreshing experience to plunge your bare arm into frozen water to haul out a beaver at -25 degree Fahrenheit.

There are stories to be sure but I would not have missed that part of my life for anything I can think of.

Life was simple and hard but we really didn’t think about it since, except for a few who were better off and a few who were worse off, we all lived the same way.

We tapped maples in the spring, the tourists arrived, the lumber mill and the veneer plant were humming, and, before long, we were alone again looking forward to another winter as the men headed to the lumber camps.

Dad started shoeing horses in September and went night and day until the feet were trimmed, mud corks were replaced by ice corks, gait was corrected so the horses could work without strain and they were prepared for the snow and ice they would work in until spring.

Enough! I speak of another time. Where is masonry in all this?

It was and is in the people of that small area of this province who knew each other, were often related over several generations, who knew what difficulty was and who gave what every they had in time, a very scarce commodity left over from the endless chores that had to be done for survival.

They gave of themselves to the tourists in friendliness and generosity of spirit and they gave to nature the respect due to a dangerous and beguiling provider and they gave to each other.

We were happy! For you, I wish you the happiness that comes from finding the time and energy to give of yourself.