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Photo by Liz Lott
Liz Lott creates work that is easy on the eye and the environment
By Sarah Ryeland
What inspires an artist? Is it love? Life? Family?
For Liz Lott, it’s all of the above and more.
For Lott, there’s no such thing as a typical day. One day you’ll find her taking beautiful wedding photos or family portraits, and the next she’ll be painting futuristic interpretations of her city’s landscape. The day after that, you might find her selling environmentally friendly goods and handcrafted jewellery at Hibou, her boutique in North Bay.
“Every day is completely different,” she says. “I run an eco-shop, but I also do photography. I’m also an art instructor through Learning Through the Arts, I’m a mom, and I do volunteer work for different community groups.”
Obviously, she knows how to keep herself busy. But when you have a passion for art and giving back to both the community and the environment, there’s no such thing as time off.
Lott grew up in Powassan, and began travelling the world once she graduated high school. She visited many different countries and experienced life in various cities around Canada – even studying visual arts at Montreal’s Concordia University for a year – but eventually she returned to her roots.
“I moved back up north because it’s just where I feel most at home and most comfortable,” she says “with all the nature and lakes and trees.”
That love of nature is something that fuels Lott in every project she tackles. As a young girl, the artist became inspired by action the government was taking against issues like acid rain. From there, she involved herself in environmental groups in places like Barrie and Temagami and has continued to incorporate environmental issues into her art.
One of her favourite projects is a photograph of North Bay that she manipulated with paint to include an imaginary scene: giant red pines growing in the middle of the downtown core. To create the piece, Lott printed the image onto canvas and then simply set up her easel on the sidewalk, picked up her paintbrush and got to work.
“I really believe it brings all of my passions together, that painting,” says Lott. “It’s combining two of my favourite mediums, but it also combines my intense passion for the environment and wanting humanity to realize that if we don’t have healthy surroundings we’re not going to get very far. I really believe that we need to get back in touch with nature and bring it back into our lives.”
It’s a positive message, too. Lott’s vision of the future is one where our environment is healthier; where humans respect the land and live within it peacefully.
“That’s one unbelievable thing about Liz,” says Lott’s friend Yan Roberts. “All of her stuff is so positive. That painting in particular gives us the opportunity to choose a better way of doing things, without fear mongering.”
Judging from the reactions she gets, others feel the same way too.
What Lott is creating is a positive future through the power of art. Her photography focuses on capturing the innocence of youth and the simple joys in life, like new families and young love.
In fact, the decision to focus on photography was one that was made with the healthy future of her son in mind. When Lott was pregnant, she realized that her oil paints included toxins that she didn’t want to expose her young child to. So instead of focusing solely on painting, she began to develop her skill for photography.
“I decided to take a break from painting,” says Lott. “I purchased a manual camera for doing slide documentation for applying for grants and juried shows, so once my son was born I started taking pictures of him. Through encouragement from friends and family who said that I could take good pictures, I decided to try doing children’s portraiture and prenatal images.”
By the following summer, Lott had added wedding photography to the mix. Each year her business grew bigger and bigger and now her company – Snapdragon Photography – is a well-respected name in the industry.
“I really love people and I love capturing intimate moments with them,” she says. “That I can apply my artistic knowledge to my work is pretty great, too.”
She also applies her artistic knowledge to the work she does in her eco-shop. The name Hibou is French for owl – Lott sees owls as symbols of nature and wisdom, and encourages her customers to make wise and environmentally friendly decisions when it comes to making purchases.
Customers come into Hibou – located in the F.A.R.M. (fashion art and retail market) collective in North Bay – not only for her environmentally friendly items, but for the artwork as well. Lott has a well-trained artistic eye that offers her customers the opportunity to be gentle with the earth, while still being stylish.
Hibou also has another function – bringing together those who care about the environment.
“It’s such a fabulous addition to our community,” says Roberts. “It’s a place you can go and you’re guaranteed to run into someone that’s likeminded. The fact that this is right on Main Street in North Bay makes it normal and gives us all a sense that we’re not alone with these ideals.”
Lott and her friends are also advocates for the bring-your-own-bag program. Hibou Boutique has a strictly no-plastic-bag policy.
“Plastic bags get airborne and animals consume them,” says Lott. “Loons get them around their necks. That was the inspiration to not have bags. Yan (Roberts) made some great signs for having at point of sale and also at the door reminding people to bring their bags, so that was really great.”
It may seem like Lott has a lot on her plate, but it’s by focusing on what she loves that gives her the fuel she needs to create her art. And she never stops learning, either. She has taken photography courses taught by local photographers David Lewis and Jim Forsythe, and continues to work on being the best photographer, painter, environmental activist and businesswoman she can be.
“Liz is so invested and involved in every single community that we run into her everywhere we go,” says Roberts.
While she continues to grow her eco-business, Lott is also very focused on her photography and art, making sure none of her passions takes the back seat.
“I’ve been a visual artist since the time I could hold a crayon,” she says. “And I would like to pursue my visual art and the urban ecology series a bit more. But I also want to foster and grow both my photography and eco businesses.”
Clearly, Lott shows no signs of slowing down. And for the city of North Bay, the arts community and the environment, that’s a really good thing.
Canadian history deep beneath North Bay
Story and photo by Rob Learn
For sale: one large, gently used hole in the ground. Owner no longer has use for. Very secure.
That’s an ad that could be popping up sometime soon in a classified section for army surplus goods.
The space in question is “The Hole,” as it was affectionately referred to in its heyday. Near North Bay, 60 storeys beneath the Canadian Shield, it served as the nerve centre for North American air security.
Decommissioned in 2006, the military is preparing the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) base for dispersal, though what that might mean is very much up in the air.
And whatever it’s used for, the new role likely will pale in comparison to what went on in the bunker in its previous incarnation, when generals sent out their orders from the base at the height of the Cold War.
The Hole is set just off the heart of North Bay, across the road and rail line from the Ministry of Natural Resources office on the shores of Trout Lake.
It now mostly sits idle, save for the small force of maintenance staff keeping it operational and safe. It’s a tiny, tiny fraction of the 600 to 700 people who made their living keeping the base on guard for anything that looked like a threat from its enemies and their nuclear arsenal.
The Hole was a direct result of those nuclear arsenals that just kept growing after the initial deployment to end the Second World War. Started in 1959 and completed in 1963, the bunker was designed to be capable of withstanding a four-megaton nuclear warhead – a bomb 260 times larger than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
To achieve this level of protection the military employed rock, lots of rock, 60 storeys of pure, unadulterated rock.
You get to The Hole through a tunnel, a 1.2-kilometre-long tunnel that runs from the entrance at the base of a ski hill to the CFB 22 Wing base atop Airport Hill. When it was operational, access to The Hole was by a bus that dropped off military and civilian personnel deep within the earth, where they went to work in what was essentially a windowless, three-storey office building.
But it was the construction of the office building that truly made it unique. The structure was housed in a man-made cave five storeys high with a footprint of about 240 feet by 430 feet. The whole building sits on large steel girders bolted to the Canadian Shield. The effect is a building that didn’t even flinch when the area was shaken by an earthquake that registered 5.2 on the Richter scale.
Access to the cave came through three doors that opened from the tunnel. The doors are nearly two feet of thick, solid steel with heavy-duty pins locking the 19-tonne pieces shut. The military says that the doors are capable of withstanding days of direct blasting.
The size of the building was most likely dictated by the technology that was available at the time of construction. It has the same square footage as the Northgate Shopping Centre and, until 1982, almost half of that – 11,900 square feet – was taken up by a single computer dubbed SAGE (Semi-automatic Ground Environment). Hard to imagine in today’s technological age of smart-phones, tablets and the like, but it was at the time of construction in the early 1960s the most powerful computer in the world. It took up the entire third floor and a good portion of the second floor and weighed 275 tonnes. It’s computing capacity? 256 kilobytes. It was used until 1982, when solid-state computers replaced the tubes.
The computer was connected to the air defense system of North America. From a command post, generals could see all of the information available and make decisions in real time.
In fact, the command centre was used extensively during the Gulf War, with live footage from Canadian F-18s shown on the monitors.
Which was the ironic part of The Hole. Despite its isolation, the computer was connected to the world long before anyone had dreamed of a worldwide web. And more than any other place in Canada, the base was directly affected in terms of alert levels and surveillance levels by other world events. For instance, in 1959, when the Iraqi government changed from being pro-Western to pro-Soviet, the NORAD complex was thrown on high alert.
So, how did this crossroads of air defense land in North Bay? The quick answer is Trout Lake. Being underground with that much computer equipment – old-style computer equipment – the primary concern of the designers was heat. To dissipate the anticipated heat, the building was designed like a radiator with eight-inch water lines delivering cold Trout Lake water to the building to collect the unwanted heat and disperse it back into the open water.
It is one of the design features that made life in The Hole bearable for periods as long as four weeks in total isolation. The facility featured a gymnasium, medical rooms, barbershop and chaplain office and they were put to use regularly. For exercises, the base would be shut down behind the 19-tonne doors for three days at a time to make sure everything was ready “for the big one.”
Power was even self-contained with three generators sitting on stand-by, each capable of producing 1.2 megawatts of either natural gas or diesel. During an outage, the lights don’t even flicker, with instantaneous backup coming from 388 batteries that fill in before the generators are called upon.
But that capacity became more and more moot as air defense was moved above ground. The place that at times had 500 people working in it during the day-shift now only has two working toilets and a skeleton crew keeping the alarms and lights on.
Major Delta Guerard says the military budgets $400,000 to $500,000 for annual maintenance just to keep the place somewhat safe while its future is sorted out at National Defense Headquarters in Ottawa.
“That’s a lot of money going into something that is really not serving much of a purpose,” said Guerard.
Are there any offers on the table?
“Not that we’re aware of. It’s a great facility and it would be nice to hear from someone who has ideas for it.”
By Mary Beth Hartill
St. Patrick’s United Church stands majestically atop a hill looking down over the town of Kearney.
The stone structure is rich in history, telling the story of the town’s Irish settlers who took on the backbreaking work of erecting the church stone by stone.
“It was constructed from hand-gathered fieldstone,” says Patti Gilchrist, chair of the church’s restoration committee. “When the Irish came to this community, there were a significant number of them and they decided they would build this church.”
A labour of love, volunteers from the community gathered the stone manually and transported it to the site by horse and wagon. The result was a building that has been a landmark in the community for more than 100 years.
The building was eventually designated a heritage site by the Town of Kearney in 1986, and served as an active church until 2004, when a structural issue forced its doors to close. For six years St. Patrick’s was empty, but the restoration committee was determined to return the church to its former glory and finally the doors were re-opened in August of 2010.
Despite a concrete post beneath the sanctuary collapsing and the roof needing some repair, the church is still in good shape and its supporters hope it’s here to stay.
“It’s on a nice big, thick wall,” says Gilchrist. “The main beam that supports the church is hand-hewn log with bark still on it even after all these years. That is not part of the structural difficulty. Not at all, it’s in very, very good shape.”
The foundation walls are a strong 24 inches thick and the roof trusses are a scissor design using 6×6 lumber. There is a vaulted nave and two smaller vaulted sections and the original tin ceiling that soars 32-feet above the floor.
“The big timbers that they used below are perfectly intact even though they are over 100 years old,” says Dolores White, who is descended from J.K. O’Connell, one of the original settlers instrumental in building the church. “We were amazed that there was nothing wrong with those. The timbers are just like they were put in yesterday.”
“The type of building that they did, you just don’t see anymore,” says Gilchrist.
The front window above the grand doorway is decorated with bits of pottery and other decorative bobbles placed meticulously by those original settlers. Even the original stained glass ceiling windows remain intact, including one that depicts the church’s namesake: Saint Patrick.
“It was dedicated in memory of Thomas D’Arcy McGee and the Irish Exiles,” says Gilchrist. “He was one of the Fathers of Confederation and the only Father of Confederation to be assassinated, so this was dedicated in his memory.”
It was Bishop John Francis Jamot who encouraged many of the early settlers to come to the area and work in the thriving lumber trade. These settlers included John O’Connor, Martin Corcoran Sr., and Tim and Con Holland Sr.
Bishop Jamot travelled to Welland, where workers toiled on the Welland Canal. He convinced many families – including the Kearneys – to come up north and work in the lumber industry.
“A lot of people came here because of lumbering for the white pine, used for ships’ masts and ships’ timbers,” says White.
It was also Jamot who encouraged the building of a church at the site where the stone church is today. In 1888 a small 30-by-40-foot log church was built to house local parishioners. As the town grew, so did the need for a larger church and it was the first pastor, Father Thomas Fleming, who encouraged the entire parish to participate in construction.
“He was the one responsible for building the bigger church because the population had grown and they needed the bigger facility,” says White.
The church now seats about 300 people.
St. Patrick’s officially opened in 1904 – four years before the town itself was incorporated.
“It took a while to build the church,” says White. “It was opened in 1904 officially, but it had been available before that. We know it had been built because we have a window in the choir loft that says it was installed in 1902.”
White says construction began in 1898, but the church was officially opened when the bishop came from Peterborough to bless it in 1904.
Today, the church and its wonderful architecture garner much attention.
“We’ve had people from various universities come in,” says White. “They’re studying architecture and because they’ve heard about this church, they want to look through it. They want to know when it was built, who built it and the style of architecture.”
White says the building is very much a gothic style because of the free-span ceiling.
Mary Lesperance, another involved parishioner, says work that has been done to reconstruct the church is nothing short of miraculous with people, regardless of religion, contributing. She says the church is a root to the heritage of the community, which is why so many have given to it over the years.
St. Patrick’s stands as a symbol of the strong Kearney community that has been passed down from generation to generation, making it a wonderful sight to see as you enter the town.
For Lesperance, it’s a welcomed sight for those entering the town. “When you come over the hill,” she says, “what do you see, but the steeple.”
Story, photo, Sarah Ryeland
It’s not every day you come across a field full of sculptures – especially giant, concrete screaming heads.
Monstrous heads, hands, trees and horses pepper the landscape and tower over those brave enough to step foot onto this Ryerson Township property. Some say the creations are rising up out of the earth, while others think they’re being dragged down into it. But just like all great art, interpretation is all in the eye of the beholder.
“The real question is,” says Peter Camani, the artist behind this unique display, “is the artist creating what he imagines to be there, or is he just showing other people what he actually sees?”
It’s that kind of philosophical question that drives the former Almaguin Highlands Secondary School art teacher to create his unusual masterpieces. Themes of man destroying nature, immortality and Druidic symbolism abound as Camani works to integrate an artistic vision with his beautiful northern surroundings.
Camani wasn’t always interested in art. Moving to Canada from England in 1954, Camani and his parents settled in Hamilton where the young man developed a love of science. He pursued that line of study at the University of Waterloo until, in his third year of study, he switched gears.
“I had never taken art in high school,” says Camani. “So when I was at university I was in sciences. I then had a rough idea of what I wanted to do, and so in my third year I went over to art, got my B.A. requirements and then went to Althouse.”
After graduating from Althouse (a teaching college in London, Ont.), Camani was offered a teaching position at the Almaguin high school.
“My first and only teaching job has been Almaguin,” he says. “I got the job mainly, I think, because in 1973, they couldn’t get teachers up here because it was so-called ‘remote’.”
During his long teaching career, Camani began to see his home as an extension of his artistic vision.
“I was employed as a teacher for 35 years,” he says. “During the summers instead of traveling around places I decided to fix up the house. Since I did teach art, my idea was to put the art on the fields and if people wanted to see it, they could.”
Working with the existing house and a theme of “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil”, Camani began the transformation. First came the dragon that sits perched on the roof above the fireplace. Next came the tower.
“We have three or four feet of snow every year,” says the artist, “but I don’t like going out and making bonfires in the snow. So what I did was make a tower so I could have a fire up top.”
The tower sits close to the house and can be accessed by a steep set of stairs. At the top is Camani’s version of a primitive cave, with inside walls covered with paintings of screaming heads that dance in the glow of the fire’s flickering flames. The outside of the cave is a depiction of “hear no evil”, featuring a screaming head with two faces, windows for mouths and hands over its ears.
Next came the sculptures on the field. The first one went up in 1995 and, because of its meticulous construction, is still standing. According to Camani however, it’s not the construction of the pieces that’s unique; it’s the process.
“It’s not something that’s mysterious,” he says. “It just involves a lot of time and costs a fair bit of money. To get the crane that lifts them up costs $1,000 a day, so it’s an expense.”
Camani creates the sculptures by first selecting the location. He then brings out all the materials he needs to create the figure and the entire piece is created flat on the ground. When the sculpture is ready to be moved, a crane comes in and lifts the enormous piece of cement and places it in the spot Camani has chosen.
“All you’re doing is basically shaping a sidewalk,” he says. “Then you’re standing the sidewalk up so all the weight is evenly distributed, and that’s it.”
None of the sculptures are anchored in the ground. Camani likes to think of them as sailboats that float on the earth, weighed down by the cement platform that is a part of the actual figure. This allows the artwork to remain steady through every season and not get heaved up by the ground when it freezes and thaws.
Having perfected the method, Camani now works to fulfill his vision for the property. He sees it as a living organism, inviting curious strangers to come in and experience the artwork, rather than simply looking at it in a sterile environment.
“It’s kind of nice to actually be able to go in, around and through to see it from all different ways,” he says. “I like the idea of the sculptures breathing as the climate or the year changes, or as the sun rises. The sculptures change and everyone sees them differently.
“The idea of galleries never really appealed to me, where somebody says ‘well I don’t like this, or I don’t like that’. I don’t care what they like. So I put trees across the front. If they don’t want to see it they don’t even have to look that way, but if they want to come in, by all means they can actually look at and encounter the art.”
And come in they do.
Camani’s work on Midlothian Road has become a sort of legend in the area. People come from far and wide just to have the screaming head experience. The property has been featured in television shows and movies – one of which was seen in 26 countries. Festivals and weddings have been held in the unique setting, most notably the annual Harvest Festival.
Camani is generous with his land, allowing the music festival to have the run of the property for one weekend out of every year. His only request is that they keep it clean.
“The Harvest Festival is meticulous about where the garbage goes, the outhouses that are brought in, the program, the music, the noise; they know all of what’s going to be involved. Cleanup is very important and the land might be pricked a bit, but not abused.”
During the festival that hosts about 1,500 revelers each year, the sculptures and ponds are lit up and create a special atmosphere that can’t be found anywhere else. Tents and additional artwork are set up throughout the fields and even in the woods, with different genres of music attracting fans from across the country.
During the rest of the year, Camani has regular visitors like the local farmer who collects hay from the fields and a group of organic farmers who use his land to grow their produce. The artist does this on an exchange basis – the farmers sell their produce at a stall on his property, and Camani gets to eat from the garden to his heart’s content.
He accepts donations from anyone who enjoys his property, but never asks for monetary compensation.
“I suppose I’m the caretaker,” says Camani, “but the land lives by itself. I’m not waiting there for people to come in, because that’s not what I care to do. The land is actually attracting people and I’ve done things on the land. I just try and make sure it can carry on and I can carry on.”
And if you want to, you can carry on there as well.
Camani offers a unique and artistic way to spend eternity: having your ashes placed inside one of the sculptures.
“I find the whole thing kind of humorous,” says Camani. “I mean, I just don’t like the idea of being under the ground when you could be above the ground. So I just made a statement and I’ve had a lot of inquiries about it.”
Although no one has taken him up on the offer yet, the artist – who has already experimented with placing naturally deceased animals inside the concrete sculptures – would definitely go ahead with the plan.
Would he consider having his own remains placed inside a sculpture on his land?
“Sounds good to me,” he says, “but who’s going to make it? That’s the problem.”
Whether anyone decides to dwell inside a piece of artwork or not, one thing is for sure: the display will be standing for a long, long time, and that pleases Camani.
“It’s weird when you do all your work and then you sort of sell it or get rid of it and you never see it again,” he says. “Every morning I go outside and I can look out and see it. I think I make good choices. I sure wouldn’t have changed spots for where those things are placed.”
As for future plans, Camani wants to create a concrete army emerging from the forest bordering the far field of the property, to represent society’s fear of invasion. And if you think the sculptures are big now, just wait.
“The biggest one is 22 feet high and weighs about 30 tons,” says Camani, “but there’s no reason why they couldn’t be even bigger than that.”
There’s no doubt that Camani’s vision has reached epic proportions. So whether you perceive the land to be swallowing up the artwork, or the artwork emerging from the land, take a trip out to Midlothian Road. You might be scared, but you definitely won’t be disappointed.
Photo by Bill Eden
By Mary Beth Hartill
The sounds of motorboats have gone, there are no more paddles dipping into the water and the sounds of children frolicking and splashing are no more. The water’s surface has become solid and bit-by-bit, ice huts are making their way onto area lakes.
Experienced ice fishermen like Bill Eden know the lakes. They map out the location of fish in the summer from their motorboats and return in winter to fish those spots, moving from location to location to get the best fishing – waiting diligently for their prey.
But not everyone is as experienced in the ways of ice fishing. For families or first-time fishermen Eden recommends contacting an ice fishing operator or guide, going where the action is and heading out on the ice on a nice day.
“Don’t go out when it’s 40-below and the wind’s blowing,” he says. “There are some nice days when it’s bright and sunny and plus two – it’s lovely.”
He says pick on the perch, rock bass, crappies, or fish that are in abundance. That way your family won’t get bored waiting for a bite.
“Take the kids some place where there’s lots of action,” he says. “When you get the kids into it it’s a really nice family get-together. Lots of action, lots of fun. It’s a blast. If the kids get sick of catching perch and want to go for something bigger then they’ll understand that its not going to be a fish a minute – it’s going to be a couple of fish a day and you have to wait them out.”
Basic gear for ice fishing is an ice fishing rod and reel package that retails for about $40 and a six- to 10-pound test line. Or, Eden says, use the reel from summer fishing and attach it to a shorter rod.
Ice fishing adventurers will also want to wear warm clothing, appropriate winter footwear and take along an extra pair of dry socks, just in case. He also thinks that hand warmers are a great idea.
Eden says going with an ice fishing guide is advised, not only because they have knowledge of the lakes, the fish and the regulations set out by the Ministry of Natural Resources which vary from lake to lake, but they have a responsibility to keep you safe.
Whether fishing with kids or just for a first time out, Eden still recommends perch fishing.
“Perch are abundant, there’s lots of them,” he says. “You’ll catch like 20 fish a day, in all sizes. If you want something that’s harder and bigger, well then go pike fishing along the weed beds in the shallower water. You’ll find pike there in the wintertime and the summertime.”
As always, safety on frozen water is key and a minimum four inches of ice is advised.
“Do not take your ice auger out to see if the ice is thick enough to hold you,” warns Eden. “Because you’re standing on the ice, drilling a hole between your feet.”
Instead he recommends an ice pick to gauge the depth of the ice.
“If you drive it into the ice it will go through at least two inches of solid blue ice. That’s a good thing because you can stand on two inches of ice,” he says.
To see if the ice is safe, use a step-pick-step-pick technique and always head back across the path you’ve tested. It’s also very important to know exactly where you are because out on a frozen lake it is easy to get lost once the landmarks are out of view.
“In some spots there are cities or villages out there,” says Eden of the groups of ice fish huts that pepper the lakes. “You’ve got roads plowed all over the place so you can just hop in your truck and travel when the conditions are right.”
In some cases there are not only cleared roads, but signs directing fishermen to bait shops and ice fishing outfits, too.
“Where these people congregate it’s not necessarily the best fishing. It’s just the easy access to get on the lake,” he says. “In January the guys are taking their sleds and four-wheelers out. It’s usually the end of January, early February before they’ll start taking their pickup trucks out on the lake, depending on the year.”
Unlike the folks that fill these villages, Eden prefers the quiet that he finds during his ice fishing.
“I like the solitude. I like to be out on the lake,” says Eden, who keeps moving for the sake of the hunt. “In a normal day for me I’ll dig about 25 or 30 holes.”
Just like in any sport, when you’re around other ice fishers there are manners in play.
“There is proper etiquette out here. You can’t walk out and cut holes against somebody’s ice hut. Our rule of thumb is you can’t be any closer than what the depth of the water is around the guy’s hut,” Eden says. If you get any closer than that, lines might get tangled. “Then you’ve got one awful mess going on.”
And just because it’s cold doesn’t mean the ice is safe.
“If we get a cover of ice on the lakes and then we get a dumping of say, 12 inches of snow, you’ve got bad ice now for the rest of the winter,” says Eden. “You’ve got that thin layer of ice on the bottom that’s really not hard enough to hold you, then you’ve got snow on top that’s an insulator. It never freezes for the rest of the winter.”
The result: dangerous ice conditions with snowmobiles and people landing in icy waters. Again, a pretty good reason to head out on the ice with an ice-fishing guide that knows what he’s doing.
Story, photo, Alison Brownlee
Walking into Chalmers United Church in South River some Wednesday nights can feel a lot like walking into a high-profile board meeting.
But instead of high-flying executives clutching BlackBerrys and flipping through agendas, these meetings have women of varying ages sitting around a long table cutting quilting squares and searching through sewing kits.
The Almaguin Quilt Guild meets on the fourth Wednesday of every month. With about 24 active members, the group never tires of sharing ideas – nor does it run out of projects.
For example, at one meeting the group displayed five large and colourful rag quilts it had pieced together for charitable causes. At the same meeting, stacks of uncut fabric sat at the centre of the long table waiting to be claimed, cut and quilted by guild members for the next round of charitable giveaways.
The guild has had a humanitarian agenda since its humble beginnings over 20 years ago. Joyce Lang and Lorraine Yandon founded the group in 1989, but back then it was called the Almaguin Needlework Guild and it met in Sundridge.
Five members – Sharon Tipper, Andrea Percival, Joan Pinkerton, Pat Smith and Phyllis Robins – have been with the group for nearly, if not all, of the 21 years.
Robins, who has been with the group since the very beginning, says each member had an interest in fabric crafts and they got together to share creative ideas with each other. Quilting eventually became the dominant art form the group members focused on and the name change followed shortly thereafter.
Of the charity aspect, longtime member Tipper says, “It’s always been a part of what we do.”
They gave the example of making cuddle quilts, which they say are given to children after accidents, so the children can feel safe and warm. Donating quilts has also been a large part of the group’s mandate. But it seems to be the sentimental and nostalgic aspect of quilting that draws some people to the craft.
“We always had quilts on our beds growing up so I guess that’s why I got involved,” says longtime member Percival.
When asked why they joined the group, each gave a different answer.
“To share knowledge,” says Tipper.
“And also for the friendship,” says Smith.
“We’ve had some good times, too,” says Percival with a smile.
And the good times have happened while making dozens of intricate pieces of practical artwork, many of which are a point of pride for the guild’s members.
For example, during the October meeting, member Mallory Slingerland presented a massive – and gorgeous – quilt that she had spent nine months creating. It’s primarily cream coloured with earth-tone stars and diamonds stitched onto it. The boarder is blue and it is large enough to fit a double bed comfortably.
Slingerland says her quilt took first place at the 2010 Powassan Fall Fair and also landed first place at the Ontario Association of Agricultural Societies’ District 11 regional meeting held in Foley, Ont. this year. Because of its victories, Slingerland’s quilt will be presented at the association’s 2011 convention held in Toronto.
After Slingerland unfurled her quilt and earned much praise from the guild members, she gave them some advice: have your quilts appraised.
Once the quilt was finished, she decided to have it appraised for insurance reasons. She was told the replacement value of the piece she had worked so diligently on was $1,750. Past president Joan Pinkerton also presented a beautiful quilt she made for her daughter’s wedding and her quilt was appraised at $1,500.
“It’s worth the $50 appraisal,” Slingerland calmly told her shocked listeners.
And Slingerland’s blue-ribbon quilt has quilt guild origins. She says it was a product of last year’s mystery quilt project, which was spearheaded by fellow member Deanna Weiler.
At each meeting, Weiler presents a piece of a pattern and instructions to the group. Each member then picks her own fabric colours and starts putting a quilt together piece by piece without knowing what the end product will look like. The result is dozens of unique quilts based on the same basic design.
Guild member Barb Pearce made a quilt with a similar pattern to Slingerland’s but it was a quarter of the size of Weiler’s original pattern. When Pearce unveiled it for the group, her intricate work was met with gasps of surprise and awe.
All of the members, whether they are from Huntsville, North Bay, Sundridge, South River, Powassan, Trout Creek, Callander or elsewhere, support and motivate each other. Several members told the story of when a fellow quilter’s house burnt down last year and the guild did what it could by throwing a party. During the event, the group presented her with a specially made quilt.
Guild members also work together to create most of their cozy coverings. To complete a quilt, the top has to be pieced together using different colours or types of fabric. The second step is to sew, or quilt, the pieced top to a bottom layer, and the quilting stitch can either be purely functional or decorative. Both steps can be very elaborate and intricate, making for a very impressive piece of artwork.
The Almaguin Quilt Guild is somewhat lucky in that it has three quilters, or members who help others by taking their pieced tops and quilting in the final stitches. Some smaller guilds have their tops sent to quilt shops to have them finished off.
Some quilts, however, do not use a pieced top. These are called whole cloth quilts and guild member Louise LaPointe displayed a gorgeous example of what that looks like. What blew members away with the large white fabric quilt with white stitching was that LaPointe did not use a machine to quilt the fabric – she spent 110 hours stitching it by hand.
And the members’ creativity and dedication doesn’t end there. At the same meeting, Kim Boaro presented an in-progress project that had yet to be quilted. She had created slightly larger-than-life pictures of her son and daughter’s eyes out of pieces of fabric, which she had dyed herself.
When asked how long the project took her, she smiles slightly and says, “Everything takes time.”
Boaro also says the first guild she became a part of was the Cactus Patchers chapter of the Arizona Quilters Guild. That guild has 49 chapters and Boaro says during her time with it her chapter had anywhere between 75–90 members.
Of the Almaguin Quilt Guild, she says she likes the smaller group.
“It’s a nice guild. It’s very cozy,” she says. “It’s not politically correct, it’s relaxed and that’s what I want.”
And the informal tone of the group comes through in its meetings. At one point, member Suzette Payne presented a bright, dynamic quilt she had pieced together for her daughter and also mentioned to the group that Slingerland had quilted it for her.
“You’ve had this for how long?” asks Payne of her quilter.
“Since April of ’09 but you said you weren’t in a hurry,” replies Slingerland, which is met by bursts of laughter from those around the table.
That type of camaraderie punctuates every meeting, emphasizing the bond the group has with each other despite meeting only once a month as a large group. It is a bond that it built through helping each other complete projects, providing one another with creative feedback and appreciating the work each person does.
Story, photo, Rob Learn
He’s arguably North Bay’s most famous resident. In fact, since Mike Harris left town for the Big Smoke he’s probably more inarguable than arguable.
But fame and fortune don’t go hand in hand, as Troy Hurtubise can tell you.
The star of the classic Canadian documentary by director Peter Lynch, Project Grizzly, never did manage to convert that fame or his driven, focused attention into something he would call success.
As an inventor, Hurtubise was proud to have one of his prized creations – a special suit designed to withstand an aggressive grizzly bear attack – featured in a documentary. Unfortunately, the success of the film didn’t translate into acclaim for the inventor.
Now almost 50, Hurtubise lives in North Bay in a small rental cabin on the Lake Nipissing shoreline with his wife Lori and 18-year-old son Brett, and is still looking for that break.
More than 14 years after he rose to fame, Hurtubise hasn’t sit still for a moment. What he has done is thrown himself into one project after another. Each endeavour has had varying degrees of success in execution he says, but always the same result – no interested buyers and crushing bills.
“We lost the house in 2005 and we’ve been around ever since,” says Hurtubise, who notes that the hard luck started even before then.
“I went bankrupt six months after the documentary came out,” says Hurtubise who, during the time of filming, was operating a scrap metal business.
“I knew before they started filming that (the documentary) was going to cost me big time. While I’m out doing this testing and going out west there was no one to run the business and it all went downhill,” he says.
But what footage!
To this day, clips of Hurtubise testing out his suit dubbed the Ursus Mark VI are some of the most viewed on the Internet. A decade-and-a-half later and each new generation gawks in awestruck wonder as Troy, inside the suit, takes blows from pickaxes, axe handle-wielding bikers, logs and even a pretty high-speed impact from a reinforced pickup truck. Through online streaming, Hurtubise’s death-defying feats make him just as popular now as he was when the film hit screens to wild acclaim in 1996.
“I understand why it went huge, why it was Quentin Tarantino’s favourite movie. I get that. Peter Lynch was a brilliant filmmaker…(Project Grizzly) set me back for a lot of years. Most people thought it was a joke.”
Hurtubise says it wasn’t. He says the intention of the suits was to do actual field testing of bear sprays to see what works and what doesn’t stop the brute force of a 900 lb grizzly intent on doing someone harm.
“I’m the only one who tests it on free range grizzly bears…that’s not what you got. What you got was me running around the Rocky Mountains trying to wrestle grizzly bears and not the science,” says Hurtubise.
Wife Lori says she liked Project Grizzly, but says she sees a character on the screen and not the man she married.
“I think they portrayed him much different than the man he is. For instance he’s constantly smoking in the movie. Every scene it seems he’s got a cigarette. He doesn’t smoke that much.”
What Lynch and the National Film Board got was a big hit. The documentary was already out on the big screen when Tarantino, at the height of his fame after Pulp Fiction’s blockbuster run, dubbed it his favourite film. The quip let Project Grizzly gain momentum and a star was born in a giant suit of armour.
“People think just cause your famous you’ve got a lot money. You don’t. I didn’t get one dime from that,” says Hurtubise, though he did make some money doing appearances on American talk shows and in consultant fees that he was always throwing into the next project.
That next project, after Project Grizzly, would be the final bear suit dubbed the Mark VII. Hurtubise says the suit was revolutionary compared to its forerunner because of a change in design that split the top piece in two vertically.
“NASA didn’t even have anything like this. Here’s this huge impervious suit and I could put it on by myself. It was revolutionary,” he says.
It also wasn’t enough to pay the bills. The Hurtubises lost their first home in 2001 and the suit went with it.
It’s a pattern that’s repeated itself again and again, with what many would deem to be mind-blowing projects that seem to fall through his hands like sand.
Troy Hurtubise says he was only supposed to be visiting North Bay for a week on his way to British Columbia when he met Lori.
“Me and my brother go to the Country Style Donuts and sat down next to the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She says, ‘I wonder if the movie [Dances with Wolves] is an accurate portrayal of the book,’ and I had seen the movie so I open my mouth and the next thing you know I’m 20 years married to this woman who won’t leave North Bay.”
During the interview she sits back and lets her husband carry on with his rapid-fire style of talking that goes through peaks and valleys – sitting back one moment and building his momentum until he’s at the edge of his seat, eyes focused.
Over the two-hour interview he doesn’t lose that intensity as he describes the many projects he’s worked on over the past decade.
They include Angel Light, which he claims could see through walls, the ground, even clothing and flesh to look at the bones and internal organs of a person’s body.
That one, Hurtubise says he gave up because of side effects that included heavy vomiting; his hair started to fall out and he lost 30 lbs of weight in about two weeks.
But news of the discovery, says Hurtubise, spread and he soon had a German physicist making inquiries and then suggestions about how to develop the Angel Light. During the phoned-in augmentations the device went from being portable to being about 26 feet long. Hurtubise dubbed it the Godlight.
Hurtubise says the light from the machine, the Godlight, had an almost magical power and that he says, cured one person of Parkinson’s disease, another of Alzheimer’s and two cases of breast cancer.
“It didn’t even need to be that intense of a treatment. Two ten-minute sessions and they were cured,” says Hurtubise, who doesn’t recall the names of the patients he helped.
The Godlight befell the same fate, says Hurtubise, as his other inventions. In 2005 shortly after inventing it and trying to get it noticed, the Hurtubises lost their second home. He put the Godlight machine in storage, but when he couldn’t pay the bill, the facility’s owner threw the cure for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and breast cancer into the local landfill.
“Angry? You couldn’t believe it,” says Hurtubise. “If only they had given it a chance the world would be a better place today.”
Another invention is Firepaste that Hurtubise claims almost completely stops the transfer of heat and is much more impervious than the product used by NASA on its shuttle missions.
In fact, Hurtubise says he created Firepaste after the Columbia disaster in 2003.
“I studied for 12 hours on the Internet what the top fire resistant materials were in the world and then I spent three hours of trial and error mixing them and I had Firepaste,” says Hurtubise.
Firepaste’s lack of success, says Hurtubise is that industry and science don’t want to give credit to a man working out of his house without hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment, let alone any formal science education.
“How the hell can he do it?’ That’s the answer you get when you show them this stuff,” says Hurtubise.
His latest inventions are inspired by his younger brother Blair’s service in the Canadian military in Afghanistan.
One set is armour for vehicles that can either be attached to the outside in magnetic bags or set inside the body of the vehicle to ward off improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades and other deadly fire.
The second is a full-body exterior-skeleton suit, including full head protection that is inspired by the futuristic shoot-’em-up games popular amongst the video gaming population.
“It weighs 65 lbs. It’s a full-body armour. Not only will it cold stop a bullet, but it won’t cause blunt force trauma… it can take a 50-calibre bullet to the chest,” says Hurtubise.
Certainly the videos of Hurtubise testing out the suit look compelling. Men and women fire at close range with large handguns, shotguns and more at his creation, with ballistic clay behind it showing no sign of trauma leaking through.
But like the other creations, Hurtubise doesn’t have it either. He sent it to a lab in Ottawa for testing to convince the military to take a look at it.
Although he has some pieces of it left, Hurtubise says the rest has been blown to smithereens.
And while he may not have any other suits he built, the devices he’s created or any accolades for his achievements, Hurtubise does have the devotion of his family.
They appear unwavering in their faith that his maverick style of living is going to get them where they need to go.
Lori does work to support the family and Brett is getting ready to make decisions about his own life. Hurtubise says he can’t go to work, that it isn’t in his nature. “If I had to go work for the man after three days I’d just blow my brains out.”
Right now he’s in the midst of writing a second book about his life. He’s found a publisher and hopes to have it on the street before Christmas rolls around. The working title is The Bear Man. And while it will certainly look at his exploits and the lean times that have come in their pursuit, there are some big moments in his life.
For instance, Lori says she doesn’t get out much, but when the subject of Project Grizzly comes up she is able to rhyme off a pretty impressive list of celebrities that she and her husband have gotten to rub shoulders with.
She’s also enjoyed taking trips to Harvard University where Hurtubise has twice lectured after winning the 1998 Ig Nobel Award for safety engineering for the Mark VI.
That suit has a special place in the newly opened Toronto International Film Festival Bell Lightbox Theatre in downtown Toronto. The suit is behind glass in a proper display after the festival was able to buy it off one of the bankruptcy trustees for $2,500. Hurtubise estimates he spent $50,000 building it.
“That’s the most famous of all my suits. At least it’s in a good place,” says the inventor.
And there’s probably another suit in Troy Hurtubise yet.
“I’ve been hit by logs, run over by trucks and bulldozers…pfft. It’s all second nature to me now.”
Story, photo, Sarah Ryeland
As you drive north on Highway 11, the beauty of the landscape is overwhelming. Everywhere you look there are rocky cliffs, fields, trees and lakes that remind us why Almaguin is so great. But as you near the intersection of highways 11 and 124, there’s a certain charming little town with a big heart that’ll catch your eye.
Sundridge sits on the shores of beautiful Lake Bernard. Home to both seasonal and year-round residents, it’s a friendly, tight-knit community that takes pride in offering plenty of restaurants, cafes, shops and activities for the entire family.
The town was incorporated in 1889 but its history dates back even farther. Sundridge’s first settler, James Dunbar, came to the area in 1876 as the Canadian National Railway worked its way into Ontario’s north. Over the next few years, churches and a library were established, with more settlers coming to the region.
Sundridge has a small but loyal community. Both year-round residents and cottagers alike love the town’s welcoming spirit and sense of fun.
Jennifer Thompson, a third-generation resident of Sundridge, says she loves the town because of all the events that bring the community together.
“There’s the Santa Claus parade,” she says. “We take part in that. But there’s also the fall fair, Family First Celebration, fireworks in the summer and tons of other events, too. That brings everyone together.”
Thompson also likes Sundridge’s locally owned businesses. “There are a lot of nice shops like the deli,” she says. “And there are so many restaurants that are all unique.”
Besides shopping and dining in the picturesque downtown area, Sundridge offers a wealth of outdoor activities in both the summer and winter. Thompson’s favourite winter activity is skating, either on the lake or in the arena, but no matter the season, it seems that Lake Bernard is the biggest source of entertainment and fun.
“Ice fishing is our main outdoor sport in the winter,” says Tim Webster, a lifelong Sundridge resident, whose family has lived in the town for close to 100 years. “I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember.”
Webster and his family look forward to heading out on Lake Bernard in the chilly winter months to hang out in the ice-fishing hut – a family tradition.
“I’ve been going ice fishing on the lake with my family since I was four or five,” says Webster, who notes that there are often three generations of his family on the lake at one time.
There are plenty of ice hut communities on the lake and the Websters aren’t the only ones in Sundridge who enjoy the sport.
Webster, his family and other outdoor-loving Sundridge residents are interested in plenty of additional winter pursuits. There is snowmobiling (to get to the ice fishing hut) and sometimes even snowshoeing (to get to the snowmobile, to get to the ice fishing hut), he says.
But whether it’s cold and snowy or warm and sunny, Sundridge is a friendly and welcoming town with a disposition that definitely earns its Sunny Sundridge nickname.
Beet and Garden Sorrel Soup
By Sherry Milford
2 lbs small beets*
1 tbsp oil
2 large onions, chopped
2 cups shredded garden sorrel or wood sorrel
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 large carrots, grated
1 cup stock or reserved beet juice
salt, pepper to taste
Wash beets and trim, leaving 1 inch of the ends attached.
In large saucepan, cover beets with water and bring to boil.
Reduce heat and simmer, covered for 20 to 30 minutes, or until tender.
Remove beets from saucepan, reserving cooking liquid.
When beets are cool enough to handle slip off skins and stems. Cut beets in half.
In large saucepan, cook onion in oil until tender.
Add 3 cups reserved cooking liquids**, beets, sorrel, lemon juice, carrots and stock.
Simmer for 10 minutes.
In blender or food processor, puree mixture in batches and return heat to low.
*I cook my beets in advance so they are not so hot to handle; then the only hot thing in the food processor is the onion and carrot mixture.
** I have also found that adding the stock or water after everything’s been processed saves a mess. Only add enough water to the processor to get things moving.
Photo by Yan Roberts
Piebird Bed and Breakfast takes the natural approach to lunch, life and the art of travel.
By Sarah Ryeland
Piebird is a happy place.
Head to its website or gorgeous property in Nipissing Village and that’s the first message you’ll receive. Stepping through the front door on a blustery day is like a warm embrace. With a fire burning, the house is cozy and dry, smelling faintly of wood smoke and vegetable soup. There’s tea in the pot, smiles all around and a big handsome cat at your feet. Welcome home.
But the happiest places on earth don’t just magically appear – they take a lot of hard work to create. Sherry Milford and Yan Roberts are examples of what a lot of hard work – and love – can do to transform a house, a vision, and two lives.
The pair that now owns Piebird Bed and Breakfast– a vegetarian B&B that focuses on homegrown food and healthy, back-to-nature living – met in British Columbia. Roberts and his family had always spent summers in Nipissing at their cottage, and when he and Milford began dating, he brought her along with him.
Five years ago, the couple was in the area and noticed that the old house they’d always loved was up for sale. They jumped at the chance to own the grand old place, moved to Ontario and never looked back.
“We were living in Vancouver, just waiting for something to happen,” says Milford. “And this just kind of happened. As soon as we saw the place we knew it needed an amazing amount of work, which is why I guess no one else would buy it.”
She and Roberts were up for the challenge though, and immediately began work on their new home.
The Piebird house has a long history. Built in 1902 by a wealthy Toronto businessman, the house was an exact replica of his elegant home in the city and was eventually lost in a card game, so the rumour goes, in 1919. As time went by, it was sold and housed various businesses, becoming a landmark in the area. Locals knew the house well, but by the time Milford and Roberts came along, it was on its last legs.
“When we first moved here it was fun to have the locals come by and tell us what the house meant to them,” says Roberts. “Because it means a lot to a lot of people. They were so appreciative of a young couple coming in and saving it from falling down. All the locals knew what was wrong with it.”
“Apparently the foundation had been crumbling for decades,” adds Milford “and it looked like the roof was, too. The foundation guy we hired said one more year and it would have been irreparable. It almost made me cry because the whole thought of that is such a shame.”
But with a lot of hard work, the couple restored the house to its former glory. The original embossed copper walls and tin ceilings, antiques and beautiful creative details make guests feel like they’ve stepped back in time, to an era when simple living was king.
“We earned the respect of the community by fixing up something that belongs to everyone, really,” says Roberts. “Earning that respect allowed us to do what we’re doing, which is definitely different for the area.”
What Roberts is referring to is the Piebird way of life. Not only is Piebird a haven of fresh, vegetarian and vegan food, it’s also an educational resource. People come from far and wide to spend time with Milford and Roberts who are pioneers when it comes to healthy eating, sustainable farming and loving the earth. They educate the public on nutrition, growing your own food and living in a way that is respectful of the environment.
Aside from the concerts and events they host at Piebird, Milford and Roberts teach workshops on healthy food preparation, healing with herbs and canning and preserving. Farm stays are another big draw, giving guests the chance to learn about sustainable farming through hard work in the Piebird fields.
That educational aspect is very important to the couple, as they strive to raise awareness about giving back to the earth.
“The combination of everything we do is pretty unique because this whole area has been based on extraction tourism for so long,” says Milford. “So many types of tourism are not sustainable at all. So we’re kind of a part of this new wave of ‘hey, let’s just grow some food and not mistreat animals or fish the lakes dry.’”
“Not being based on resource extraction is a big part of what we try to educate the whole industry about,” adds Roberts.
Milford and Roberts are respected in the community for their knowledge and expertise. Their opinions are sought after in Nipissing and beyond, and that’s part of what draws visitors to the B&B.
With a beautifully detailed website (Roberts uses his background in advertising and marketing to make it pop) and comprehensive skill sets (Milford is a nutritional consultant specializing in helping people suffering with diseases like cancer and diabetes), Roberts and Milford end up attracting exactly the kind of people they want to stay at Piebird.
One look at any of their flyers or sites, and people know exactly what they’re getting into. They often feel like they know Roberts and Milford before they even arrive.
“Our first year was more just traditional tourists traveling through the area and stumbling upon us for whatever reason,” says Roberts. “Now, pretty much everybody comes to us for this experience.”
“I usually ask people why they come here,” says Milford “and they say ‘oh, just coming to see Piebird,’ and that’s pretty cool. We’re a draw for people, which is amazing, but also a bit of pressure.”
The pressure doesn’t seem to get to them, though. That could be because of the positive attitude the couple share. They embrace individuality and goofiness – something that makes every guest feel welcome in their midst.
Inside the main house live Milford, Roberts and their two cats Chapeau – referred to as the French wild man – and Pinky, the kitten. Outside, there are four other special members of the family.
Billy, Ginger, Sunshine and Sadie are the family of goats that make up the rest of the Piebird gang. Billy and Ginger are the oldest, with kids Sunshine and Sadie adopted last spring. The foursome has a loving home at the farm, with a warm shelter, lots of food and playtime to fill their days.
“They’re hilarious and they’re our friends,” says Milford. “We have them mostly for comic relief and companionship. We’re reluctant to call them pets because they’re not our pets. We don’t have them for milk or anything, their purpose in life is just to be happy and make us laugh, which they do readily.”
“Everyone wants to know what their purpose is,” adds Roberts. “We just want to remind people that you can offer animals love and expect nothing but love in return.”
It might sound like a simple philosophy, but it’s one that many lose sight of. Coming to Piebird can be an eye-opening experience for those travellers who are unaccustomed to the simpler aspects of life, such as working the land, eating from the garden and loving animals.
Milford and Roberts take extra care to show their guests how rewarding it can be to live a life that’s full of simple pleasures. But that doesn’t mean it’s an easy job. The pair puts in a lot of hard work to ensure their guests have a rich and varied stay at Piebird. They take the time to get to know their visitors and tailor the experience to their individual needs.
So what keeps them going? Call it mutual inspiration.
“In this business there’s a lot of energy output,” says Roberts. “But the folks that come through here are doing wonderful things in their lives and that inspires us. Then we teach them about food and gardening and they leave with a glowing heart.”
Although Milford and Roberts stay put in Nipissing Village, they feel like the traveller’s spirit lives inside the house. Instead of heading abroad to experience different cultures, travelers bring that culture to Piebird and fresh perspectives on life are a part of that, too.
“We’re continually impressed and bewildered by the good people that come along,” says Roberts. “It gives you a good sense of humanity. Very encouraging.”
