Shirt Tales

fantasyland

2009-11-24T13:17:00.025-05:00

Gentle reader, today's first photo of Element night club's pent roof with Spanish tiles contrasting strongly with the bracketed cornice of its neighbouring commercial building has long puzzled Rambling Rose.

These red-hued tiles are an anomaly in the remaining nineteenth-century Berlin streetscape of downtown Kitchener (pop. 224,000). The tiles are original to this building's first use: Capitol Theatre 1921 with 1200 seats (architect:J. M. Jefferies); the building is listed on City of Kitchener Heritage Register and is the city's last remaining vintage theatre building. Hidden behind the metal siding (next photo) is the original facade; inside there still exist a pressed tin ceiling with original ceiling medallion and second floor balcony.

Third photo is of Prince Rupert, B. C. Capitol Theatre 1928-1981 architects W. Dodd and Company. This theatre opened as a combined vaudeville theatre and movie house but has since been converted to a mini mall to tap into the cruise ship market.

Both buildings share a common architectural history and are representative of the Spanish Colonial Revival Style of the 1920s to 1940s. This style was chosen to evoke an air of fantasy and associations with Hollywood, California. Architectural features include: smooth stucco walls;gently pitched red tile or pseudo-tile roofs; arched doorways and window openings; covered porches and curvilinear gables.(1)

Within the Canadian context, these two Spanish Colonial Revival theatre buildings are quite rare as world-wide only 175 were ever built. The most spendid surviving example nationally would appear to be Vancouver's Orpheum Theatre 1927 (architect B. Marcus Priteca) which is currently home to the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra & has begun screenings of silent film classics, accompanied by the theatre's organ.

Architecturally, the building was constructed in a "flamboyant Spanish Baroque style (also referred to as Moorish) with exuberant arches, tiered columns and interlaced mouldings executed in marble, travertine, cast stone and plaster. The Orpheum originally seated 2,800 theatre-goers on two levels and was constructed of reinforced concrete and structural steel, with the largest balcony girder weighing in at 28 tons." In its glory days, patrons were greeted by a manager who wore a tuxedo.

Fourth photo: King Street W north side with Elements (L) and the pre-Confederation Georgian Canadian Block (R)

Other communities have undertaken restoration projects and converted these obsolete movie palaces** into venues for the performing arts:

Brantford, ON's Capitol Theatre (originally Temple Theatre 1919 architect Thomas Lamb***)has become the City of Brantford’s Sanderson Centre for the Performing Arts; the 1989 restoration was recipient of the Prestigious “Theatre Preservation Award” presented by the League of Historic American Theatres.
Moncton, New Brunswick's The Empress Theatre 1908 & the Capitol Theatre 1922 @ 1400 seats have become Moncton’s Performing Arts Centre @ cost of $3.5 million restoration costs.
Chatham, ON is doing likewise: "The Chatham Capitol Theatre Coalition made a proposal to save the theatre and restore it as an entertainment venue. $7.7 million= cost of construction to
date to structurally complete approximately 50% of the Capitol Theatre; $23 million economic impact from the project to date – for every dollar spent on construction there is a spin-off of three dollars in the community at large.

Paired photos above: partial nineteenth century Berlin-era streetscape; the post modern Canada Trust skyscraper required demolition of several historic structures in downtown Kitchener; Prince Rupert's early twentieth century streetscape is seen as prized asset to promote cultural tourism.

However, some of these architecturally splendid buildings are slated for demolition:

London ON's Capitol theatre was sold to local developer Shmuel Farhi to be turned into a parking lot;(2) however, London City Council will be spending $5.6 M to save the Capitol's facade (arched windows, decorative columns, intricate stonework) in order to to keep historic character of the downtown and avoid having a gap-toothed streetscape. Nancy Tausky, heritage consultant, pointed out: “ You see somebody with a big gap and you don’t notice the other teeth. You notice the gap and I think the same thing happens when you interrupt a historic streetscape.” (3)
Not so locally as the City of Kitchener purchased and then demolished the Lyric theatre, located a few steps west of the still extant Capitol/ Club Elements to prevent a porn theatre from opening up shop downtown. In its role as vice-cop, this City's Council spent approx $9.7 M to create a gap-toothed streetscape and a huge parking lot still awaiting redevelopment. Cf. line drawings & photos adjacent.

"During the late 1920s it became fashionable to design atmospheric theatres. These were most prominently characterized by their sky-like covered ceilings on which moving images of clouds and stars, and sometimes of moons and airplanes, were projected. Pastiches of building facades or garden walls at the sides gave the illusion of open-air town squares or courtyards, often in a Spanish or other ethnic theme. The most fully developed example remaining in Canada is the Granada at Sherbrooke, Québec (D.J. Crighton, 1929). Here, 2-storey house fronts with ceramic-tiled roofs give glimpses of a night-time landscape beyond, through their columned loggias typical of southern Spain." (4)

Port Hope Ontario former Capitol 1930/ now Cameco Capital Arts Centre (1993 restoration @ $6 million dollars bills itself as "one of only two surviving operational "atmospheric" theatres in Canada. The building's "fantasy decor, designed to divert the audience away from everyday cares and set the stage for the show to come on stage and screen." Building features included:

Front facade adopts the character of a Norman castle, complete with leaded glass, diamond-paned windows, and a marquee which emulates a drawbridge, supported by heavy iron chains;
foyer is 15 feet wide: walls were painted in art deco colours, and the beams on the ceiling bore stencilled motifs of Cornish roses, Scottish thistles, and Fleur-de-lys;
to evoke the illusion that patrons were seated outdoors, use of brenograph to project images of stars and moving clouds onto a grey painted, seamless ceiling.

Unique to Ontario is Toronto's Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre centre (architect Thomas W.Lamb of New York) that is billed as the only one built in Canada and the last one operating in the world; completethat foreshadows the 21st century multiplex "movie palaces" ****Both theatres have undergone a complete restoration in the mid 1980s by the Ontario Heritage Foundation:

Lower Elgin /Loew’s Yonge Street Theatre 1913: gilded plaster details, faux marble finishes, damask wall fabrics;
Upper Winter Garden 1914: hand-painted with garden scenes, columns disguised as tree trunks, ceiling and balcony hung with real beech leaves*****, cotton blossoms, and garden lanterns. (4)

whither summer?

2009-11-24T12:33:00.005-05:00

Gentle readers and new visitors,

For most of the past twelve months, Rambling Rose has been literally camping out in her older home. Plumbing issues prompted renovation and repair projects that have consumed the greater part of her time and energies.

Computer time spent on research and writing blogs were a welcome break from the filling, sanding, painting, repairing and refinishing tasks that are now nearing completion.

The time has come to go offline and to disassemble the computer work station to be moved into her new home office. This is a task that she does not relish as computer maintenance comes fraught with technical glitches. For starters, RR is wondering whether she will need Bell to come in again to install new phone wires to the new office location. Even experienced technicians complain as to how much time is consumed by maintenance and upgrading of computer equipment.

However, if RR is to finish the entire reno project in time for Christmas she will have to take leave from blogging but will return in the New Year 2010. With best wishes to all until then.

Photo above is of a plighting stone located at Teeterville Museum: this province's earliest settlers would reach through the hole to join hands to pledge their troth that a promise, an oath, or a contract would be honoured. Ah, that's how it was done before lawyers and written documents were near at hand!

Along the line of smoky hills
The crimson forest stands,
And all the day the blue-jay calls

Throughout the autumn lands.

Now by the brook the maple leans,
With all his glory spread;
And all the sumachs on the hills
Have turned their green to red.

Now, by great marshes wrapt in midst,
Or past some river's mouth,
Throughout the long still autumn day

Wild birds are flying south.

-- William Wilfred Campbell (1860-1919)

winter-patience

2009-10-28T12:10:00.008-04:00

"Only with winter-patience can we bring the deep-desired, long-awaited spring."
-–Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart.
Try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and
like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.
Do not now seek the answers that cannot be given you
because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, lie along some distant day into the answer."
-–Rainer Maria
Rilke

"Adversity has the effect of drawing out strength and qualities of a man
that would have lain dormant in its absence."
-–Herodutus

"Out of the depths of mankind's darkness emerge inspiring messages from individuals
who had every reason not to have hope.
These extraordinary individuals are bright beacons for all humanity,
and their stories rekindle
the human spirit in each of us.
These inspiring examples also underscore important values that have begun to fade,
but which need to be embraced again by all ...
regardless of age, religious beliefs, or social and ethnic origin."
--Nick Del Calzo, photographer

"Whether we rise to the challenge of adversity
or
are devastated by it is largely a matter of choice.
Ultimately,
we are responsible for that choice."
— Carl Hiebert

the doctor's house

2009-10-05T18:59:00.015-04:00

Earlier this year when dear hearts were yearning for spring's warm promises even as they were tasting the dregs of a miserable winter that just refused to depart, Rambling Rose started preparing itineraries for this summer's rambles. For starters, she hoped to finish up the Grand River watershed rambles put on hold when gasoline prices rocketed. Thus, she added to her list of places to check out the doctor's house south of Mt. Pleasant as described by another rambler:

“Dr. David Duncombe was one of three Duncombe brothers who became pioneer doctors in southwest Ontario. He had practised medicine in the area for many years before building this house/surgery in 1867.

The house is a classic Canadian Farmer house: T-shaped with a rear section that contained a kitchen and some living areas. The main house had bedrooms and a study upstairs and the doctor's surgery downstairs. Patients would come to the front door and ring the bell (which still works). On being let into the hall, the patient would go into the waiting room on the left. From there, the patient would go through sliding doors to the surgery to consult the doctor. Afterward, the patient would leave by another door that opened into the hall and from there would leave by the front door.”

RR had never heard tell of the Canadian Farmer architectural style & persisted trying to locate the house. When she finally did, she realized she had driven past it several times as it is screened from passersby by a row of towering fir trees. In the meantime, she had picked up a flyer promoting a living history play, The Duncombe Rebellion 1837
& began merrily researching that particular Dr. Duncombe and mentally attached that historical figure to the house she finally photographed (above).

Months later, RR can finally distinguish between the three Duncombe physicians who settled in Upper Canada in the early nineteenth century: 1) Dr. Charles who emigrated first and brought the rest of his family north* 2) brother David came with Dr. Charles in 1819 as his medical apprentice & settled in the Mount Pleasant area (cf. photo above); 3) Dr. Elijah who settled in St. Thomas whereas Dr. Charles eventually moved to Bishopsgate, Burford Twp.** There are as well two other Duncombe houses: Dr. Charles house where with a Dr. Rolph he set up Upper Canada's first medical school & Dr. Elijah's --both are located in St. Thomas with the relevant historical plaques affixed thereto and both are now Elgin County museums: Elgin County Pioneer Museum & Elgin Military Museum 30 Talbot Street, St. Thomas.

RR found the "Canadian Farmer" label equally frustrating until she completed a cyber-ramble to a definitive website about Ontario architecture **** where she learned that this building style is essentially Italianate:

"Unique to Ontario is a design for a two storey square residence with projecting eaves and ornate cornice brackets promoted by The Canada Farmer journal in 1865. This residence provided a classical alternative to the Gothic Cottage. Trademark features of this style include deeply round arches, overhanging eaves and robust eave brackets, shallow roofs, corner quoins and asymmetrical square towers...People wanted a large, many-bedroomed house that had some interesting detailing. A two story rectangular building with a mild hip roof, a projecting frontispiece, and generous eaves with ornate cornice brackets was the basis of the style."

McIlwraith confirms this opinion in Looking for Old Ontario (Toronto 1997):“Two-storey houses became the backbone of the late-nineteenth-century construction boom. Though it was promoted in rural areas, the Canada Farmer model is essentially an urban type...Happy the merchant or doctor who could build such an edifice on a big lot on main street, just beyond the end of the business section; happier still if the site was a corner lot offering maximum visibility....By the 1870s town mansions were overtaking court-houses and Anglican churches as the stylish structures.”

However, only Katherine Ashenburg touched on the stylistic conundrum that so frustrated RR as she was trying to define the Canadian Farmer (aka bracketed Italianate) house: “Ontario towns in the main were the creation of builders, not architects. And those builders could be stubbornly conservative, constructing a Gothic villa forty years after the style’s peak in the U.S. or Britain. Next door to the villa the same builder might build an up-to-the minute Queen Anne house, based on the latest pattern book from Britain or the U.S. Next door to that he might concoct a patchwork of a house from two or three styles. Just because a new style was à la mode was no reason to jettison an old favourite, and the builders’ reliance on pattern books left them free to mix, match, and improvise when they saw fit. All of which makes Ontario buildings maddening to date, bewildering for the purist, and diverting for the walker.”

Gentle reader, RR would like to leave you with a question to ponder:

If this building style is " Unique to Ontario" & if, in the opinion of another expert, this style became "the backbone of the late-nineteenth-century construction boom", then surely this particular style deserves to have its own name? ****

Notes: * because of his part in the Rebellion of 1837 Dr. Charles took up exile in the States; ** to confuse the historical record even further, there is a fourth Dr. Duncombe, son of one these three brothers; ***RR is currently reading a very elegant slim volume A Guide to Canadian Architectural Styles by Leslie Maitland, Jacqueline Hucker & Shannon Ricketts that shines a brilliant light on the evolution of Canadian architecture; **** where once we did not have Canadian literature to speak of, we are now recognized internationally for the quality of our literature; can we abandon stylistic elitism to recognize our indigenous architecture that adapted international stylistic trends to this particular climate?

the bracketed (Italianate?) house

2009-10-03T13:41:00.013-04:00

“When you first savour an Ontario town, its particularity is striking. Frequently it’s a result of the available building material, which in the nineteenth century was difficult to transport even short distances...The terrain, the settlers’ social and geographical origins, the date of settlement also determine a town’s character...The individual distinctiveness of the towns impresses a visitor first, a deeper acquaintance unmasks the common elements. There remains something very Ontario about Ontario towns, most obviously a plainness in the buildings that ranges from elegant to dour. The prevailing Scottish ethos, which distrusted display and prized straightforwardness, was influential here; so was the settlers’ poverty and the dearth of easily workable stone. Using the repertoire of nineteenth-century styles common to Britain and the United States, Ontarians built more simply (and often smaller, because of the cold and relative lack of servants). Compared with those of Australia, a sister colony with workable stone, abundant convict labour, and a certain national joie de vivre, Ontario’s Gothic Revival and Italianate buildings can look downright severe. Commodity and firmness were in good supply...[as were] ...proportion and restraint." --Katherine Ashenburg, How to Read an Ontario Town

Thomas McIlwraith in Looking for Old Ontario traces the evolution of Ontario houses from the 1 1/2 storey Ontario classic Gothic preference in the province's early settlement stage to the full two storey bracketed Italianate version that become the design preference in the late nineteenth century (1850-1900) cf. the Ancaster limestone house above.

A version of a two-storey square residence suited for a big lot in an urban setting appeared in 1865 in the Canada Farmer publication. The gable roof has now been replaced by a shallow pitched roof with deep overhanging eaves that shelter oversized decorative brackets. McIlwraith notes this basic house design underwent several adaptations: 1) a Tuscan version with towers and brackets; 2) an Italianate version with long windows; and 3) a Second Empire version featured a mansard roof.

Those variations are just a beginning as, according to McIlwraith, "Ontarians have gradually developed an affection for eclecticism i.e. a carefree mixing of whatever stylistic elements one preferred." Thus, high art architecture moves into the vernacular phase. Wherever one travels throughout this province, this basic design can be found in a variety of local adaptations that reflect a particular locality's culture, climate, building materials, economy and available technology.

Note how the warm limestone cut from the Niagara Escarpment in the house just southwest of Hamilton (1st photo) has been adapted with gray & black field stones gathered from the Paris Moraine in the Brant County farmhouse (next three photos).

Note the different porch and window styles. Other than the basic square shape, central front entrance, and similar roofs, how similar are the two residences above? are they both equally Italianate? RR is not certain and would prefer to label these two Ontario variations on a basic plan: the classic Ontario bracketed house. Note as well, the evolution of architectural styles as revealed in the three photos of the Brant County house: at the back, the original Gothic gabled cottage superseded much later by the Italianate residence that now faces the original Talbot Road (now old Highway 24). The current structure raises an interesting question: has the road alignment changed since the first structure was built?

radical uncertainty

2009-09-28T22:32:00.005-04:00

Dianne Dumanoski, The End of the Long Summer ( New York 2009) deals with the planetary
crisis now facing all of us:

“Amid the danger and uncertainty of the planetary era, how does one choose life? Choosing life begins with courage, the courage to confront the complexity and contingency of this world and let go of the modern illusion that we can bring it under human control. The absence of control is itself a terrifying thought, especially for anyone who has been nurtured on the dreams and promises of our current civilization.

A sober look at the radical uncertainty of the human future, moreover, gives reason for real fear, the kind of primal fear that drives to the bone. But fear can be, must be, faced down rather than repressed or denied. The times are too dangerous to do otherwise. Though life for now continues with a sense of normality, the current order is no longer viable and hasn’t been for some time. The deep change that lies ahead threatens to shake the foundations of natural systems and human societies alike.

Courage, as Martin Luther King Jr. observed, is the “the power of mind to overcome fear.” It
requires “the exercise of a creative will” to challenge “the forces that threaten to negate life.”
Fear is an emotion; courage is a mental discipline long counted as one of the supreme human
virtues.”

Photo of the Lake Erie sand bluffs taken at Sand Hills Park, Norfolk County Ontario.

the emigrant

2009-09-17T09:26:00.019-04:00

Gentle reader, today's blog is a juxtaposition of photos and text to illustrate the emigrant theme in early Canadian history. Photos of a remarkable collection of dioramas were taken at the Delhi Tobacco Museum, Delhi Ontario. Text consists of observations made by the British writer Mrs. Anna Jameson in the journal she kept of her journeys through Upper Canada 1836-37. Thanks to modern technology her published journals Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, New York 1839 are readily available for download at The Internet Archive.

Anna Jameson is a remarkable woman who set out to join her husband who had been posted to serve in the colonial government of Upper Canada at York. Apparently rebuffed by a frosty reception in the provincial capital, she set out alone to explore the wilds of Upper Canada. Her journal records her observations and it is she who speaks of the emigrants she met in this journey; thus, the word emigrant illustrates the plight of those who had left the mother country behind and looked back with longing and nostalgia even as daily they struggled to establish themselves in this new land. Mrs. Jameson notes that the generation born here were much happier and considered this new land their country and homeland.

Note also that this juxtaposition of text and photos is anachronistic as the dioramas illustrate a much later chapter in Canada's history. The second and third photos illustrate the Canadian Pacific Railway's role in the settlement of Canada in the late nineteenth century as by that time the CPR had acquired steamships cf. S. S. Palatia-Hamburg and actively advertised in Europe for settlers to come to Canada. Rapid settlement of the western provinces resulted as newly arrived immigrants could be transported by rail to the prairie provinces. Long gone were the frustrations of stage-coach travel over corduroy roads* experienced by Anna Jameson!

Nonetheless, the stages in an emigrant's experience illustrated so beautifully in the dioramas apply and continue to apply to the immigrant's story. As well, the dioramas illustrate the realization of Anna Jameson's vision for this young nation in the making:

“I paused and meditated till...the present fell like a film from my eyes:
the future was before me,
with its towns and cities, fields of waving rain, green lawns and villas, and churches, and temples–turret crowned; and meadows tracked by the frequent foot-path; and railroads, with trains of rich merchandise streaming along: –for all this will be!”

1. The departure (the push factor):

Jameson relates tale of young emigrant whose father in the old country was a weaver who ”at last couldn’t get no work, and trade was dull, and we were nigh starving. I remember I was always hungry then–always.”...family of 8 emigrated but at last minute his eldest brother “on the way to the ship, he got frightened and turned back and wouldn’t come. My poor mother cried very much, and begged him hard. Now the last we hear of him is, that he is very badly off, and can’t get no work at all.”
Jameson speaks as well of an English emigrant who "had come to Canada in his own behalf and that of several others of his own class – men who had each a large family and a small capital, who found it difficult to get on and settle their children in England. In his own case, he had been some years ago the only one of his trade in a flourishing country town, where he
now had fourteen competitors. Six families, in a similar position, had delegate him on a voyage of discovery: it was left to him to decide whether they should settle in the United States or the Canadas...”
Charles Clarke in his memoirs tells us that he had been indentured as apprentice at 14 years
of age for three years in Lincoln, UK; near end of apprenticeship, his widowed mother remarried
& moved to Canada in 1843 with her new husband; son wanted to follow his mother & applied
for release from contract and remaining wages; claim denied & so resolved to run away to
Canada with uncle to join his mother in Canada. (1)

2. The ocean crossing:

Anna Jameson's young emigrant’s mother “died of the cholera, coming over,.. The cholera broke out in the ship, and fifty-three people died, one after t’other, and were thrown into the sea. My mother died, and they threw her into the sea. And then my little sister, only nine months old, died, because there was nobody to take care of me, and they threw her into the sea– poor little thing!....one got used to it–it was nothing but splash, splash, all day long–first one, then another.”
Charles Clarke who had only£ 10 to pay for his trip to Canada journeyed alone: “The first ship to leave Liverpool was the Superb, a timber and cotton ship which landed him safely in New York six weeks after he had left Liverpool: “

In the meantime we had run before a tremendous gale in the Sargasso Sea, been in close proximity to the West Indies, sailed under frozen rigging in the Northern Atlantic, and had opportunities to study the possible length and height of an Atlantic wave. We had been served with ship dog-biscuits and sprouting potatoes as means of keeping body and soul together, until many were suffering from diarrhea. We had medical remedies in the form of Epsom salts and castor oil, without a doctor to prescribe even them..

3. the arrival (Quebec or New York):

By the time Anna Jameson's young emigrant and his family landed at Quebec the young emigrant had cholera and family was detained there for five weeks... after that his father sold his silver watch to purchase their fare to York [now Toronto] where "there was a schooner provided by government....rations provided that brought us to Port Stanley; ...we had to find...and pay our way to Delaware [near London, ON] where our lot of land was...and then we had nothing left—nothing at all.”
Charles Clarke had a more fortunate experience:" ortune favoured me. Upon the day the Superb cast anchor, the Hottinger arrived from Liverpool, having amongst her passengers my uncle and his family. I again became a capitalist by effecting a necessary loan, and on the following day started afresh for Canada. Going up the Hudson in a “tow” for Albany, we took passage in a mixed freight and passenger canal boat, transferred to steamer at Buffalo, and landed at Port Robinson, on the Welland Canal, on the 23rd of June 1844.” **

4. Settling in
Anna Jameson's heart goes out to the early settlers in the backwoods of Upper Canada:

“The poor emigrants who have not been long gone from the old country, round whose hearts tender remembrances of parents, and home, and home friends, yet cling in all the strength of fresh regret and unsubdued longing, sometimes present themselves at the post-offices, and on finding that their letters cost three shilling and four pences, or perhaps five or six shillings, turn away in despair.....At Brandtford [sic] I saw forty-eight such letters, and an advertisement from the postmaster, setting forth that these letters, if not claimed and paid for by such a time, would be sent to the dead-letter office.”
“The case of this poor fellow with his discontented wife is of no unfrequent occurrences in Canada....I never met with so many repining and discontented women as in Canada. I never met with one woman recently settled here, who considered herself happy in her new home and country.”
“I am perishing and deteriorating, head and heart, for want of a companion– a wife, in short. I am becoming as rude and course as my own labourers, and as hard as my own axe. If I wait five years long, no woman will be able to endure such a fellow as I shall be
by that time – now woman, I mean, whom I could marry–for in this lies my utter unreasonableness: habituated to seek in women those graces and refinements which I have always have associated with her idea, I must have them here in the forest, or
dispense with all female society whatever. With some one to sympathize with me–to talk to–to embellish the home I return to at night.”

5. A brave new world on the horizon:

Elsewhere in her journal Anna Jameson notes how much the settlers hoped for schools to educate their children although during her travels she was disappointed to find:

“I passed in these journeys some school-houses built by the wayside: of these, several were shut up for want of schoolmaster; and who that could earn a subsistence in any other way, would be a schoolmaster in the wilds of Upper Canada? Ill fed, ill clothed, ill paid, or not paid at all–boarded at the houses of the different farmers in turn, I found indeed some few men, poor creatures! always either Scotch or Americans and totally unfit for the office they had undertaken. Of female teachers I found non whatever, except in the towns. ...Here, without means of instruction, of social amusement, of healthy and innocent excitements–can we wonder that whiskey*** and camp-meetings assume their place, and ‘season toil’ which is unseasoned by anything better?”
Jameson provides the following footnote reference to Schoolcraft's Travels : "the erection of a church or chapel generally precedes that of a school-house in Upper Canada, but the mill and the tavern invariably precede both. In the United States, the first public edifice is a court-house****; then a jail; then a school-house-- perhaps an academy, where religious exercises may be occasionally held; but a house of public worship is the result of a more mature state of settlement. If we have sometimes been branded as litigious, it is not altogether without foundation; and, not withstanding the very humble estimate in which foreign reviewers have been pleased to make of our literary character and attainments, there is more likelihood of our earning the reputation of a learned than a pious people."

“This land of Upper Canada is in truth the very paradise of hope...
It would be possible,looking at things under one aspect,
to draw such a picture of
the mistakes of the government,
the corruption of its petty agents,
the social backwardness and moral destitution of the people,
as would shock you, and tempt you to regard Canada as a
place of exile for convicts.
On the other hand, I could,
without deviating from the sober and literal truth,
give you such vivid pictures of the beauty and fertility of this land of the
west, of its glorious capabilities for agriculture and commerce, of the goodness and
kindliness and resources of poor, much-abused human nature, as developed amid all the
crushing influences of oppression, ignorance, and prejudice; and of the gratitude and
self-complacency of those who have exchanged want, servitude, and hopeless toil at
home, for plenty and independence and liberty here,
-- as would transport you in fancy
into an earthly elysium.” --Anna Jameson

Notes: *“What can the settler of today, in any section of old Upper Canada, tell of corduroys, log crossways and culverts, jolting mud-holes, wide and deep, of ditches absent where most needed, of huge stumps round which wagon wheels or sled runners slipped or bumped, of sticky clay piled into yawning chasms, or of big boulders dumped into a hole only make jumping, groaning, creaking, squeaking wheels work a wider margin of sloppy, slushy, indescribable confusion.” (1)

** Per Anna Jameson: "the usual route of emigrants to the New Western States is through the State of New York, by the Erie Canal, passing the Niagara River at Queenston, and then through the finest parts of Upper Canada to Detroit, in Michigan [i.e. the Detroit path, using the Old Stage Road cf. previous blogs]. the number of the emigrants and settlers who passed through Canada to the Western States, in 1835 and 1836, has been estimated at 200,000." Mrs. Jameson attended session of Upper Canada's legislature where she heard an elected representative observe: 'Everyone knows well...that countless numbers of German, Swiss , and even British emigrants passed, during the summer of 1836, through Canada to the western parts of the United States, and that none could be prevailed on to stop and settle in this province, though the fertility of the lands, and all other natural advantages are confessedly greater here, and the distance save from five to seven hundred miles. We profess to desire emigration, yet we prohibit virtually nine-tenths of the world from settling their foot on our shores; and why? Because these foreigners, naturally republicans, would naturally overture our institutions. Now all foreigners are not republicans; the Swiss, Prussians and other Germans, who pass through our country in multitudes, and cannot be persuaded to set up their rest here, are more friendly to our British institutions than to those of the United States."

*** It would appear that alcoholism was rampant in Upper Canada as whiskey was a ready by-product of the grist mills that were grinding wheat for export.

**** Is there an historical basis for the differences between Canada and the United States i.e. that Canada is still a much safer, less-violent society than that of our neighbour?

Sources: primarily unless otherwise noted: Anna Jameson, Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, New York 1839 & (1)Charles Clarke, Sixty Years in Upper Canada, Toronto 1908;

heirloom lace

2009-09-04T18:05:00.014-04:00

We drink from wells we did not find;
We eat from farmland we did not develop;
We enjoy freedoms we have not earned,
We worship in churches we did not build;
We live in communities we did not establish.
For this day, make us grateful for our heritage. (1)

Photo: Port Rowan pier and lighthouse set against the Inner Bay, Long Point Biosphere Reserve.

Cherished: the Armstrong Mill 1829-1950 /Ken Danby Estate (1960-2009):

"John S. Armstrong built this "massive limestone [mill] into the bedrock beside the Speed River using stone quarried from the site. A water wheel powered three pairs of stones for grinding flour and one pair for feed. The mill was known for its high-quality flour and Mr. Armstrong's business prospered. The mill housed the post office and a stage coach stop. Farmers would deliver their grain and stay overnight at an inn across the road before returning to pick up the flour or feed the next day. The Armstrong family operated the mill until 1903. It changed hands a few times before George Parkinson purchased it in 1931. The vibrating machinery and severe weather had caused the structure to deteriorate over the years, and Mr. Parkinson removed the top 11/2 storeys, reducing the mill to its current proportions. Work at the mill came to an end in the spring of 1950 after the dam burst in heavy flooding." (2)
" The late Ken Danby's (1940-2007) sprawling 47-acre property, with its undulating hills, a stream and walking trails located at the corner of Mill Road and Jones Baseline, just northeast of Guelph, is listed at $3.7 million. The land includes 2,000 feet of river frontage, walking trails and woods." (3)
"When Danby bought the property in 1960, he was 27 years old and the former 19th Century Armstrong Mill situated on the land's riverbank was slated for demolition. The mill's roof collapsed during Danby's first year of ownership. But the legendary artist converted the mill into a five-bedroom, five-bathroom family home. The miller's house is still standing firm and Danby converted the barn into an art studio and arena, which houses Gillian's [his wife/widow] horses." (4)....[Mrs.] Danby says she thinks of the refurbished mill as the embodiment of Mr. Danby's artistry. “He was a man with a vision at 27 years old. It's his creation...the limestone required extensive repair. He had a full-time stone mason here for 10 years. Inside, Mr. Danby had massive beams taken down, numbered, refinished and reinstalled. The room that serves as a large living room today consisted of four crumbling stone walls open to the sky when Mr. Danby started his overhaul. Throughout the house, Mr. Danby incorporated as much of the wood, stone and machinery from the historic mill as possible into the new design. Wide floorboards are built into the kitchen island, for example, while another artifact was used as the newel post in a stairway. In the garden, Mr. Danby created a sculpture
from the mill's grinding gear." (2)

Abandoned: 2 storey red brick (farm?) house ca 1880's , Front Road Port Royal est 1793

Port Royal was established by the first United Empire Loyalists to arrive in Upper Canada and became an important harbour for exporting the white pine lumber that grew on the lands surrounding Big Creek. In the mid nineteenth century a canal was opened through the Long Point Peninsula to allow lake boats to reach Port Royal for the lumber that was floated down Big Creek. Today there are several houses and a sign to indicate the village that once was. (5) The house in the photos is surrounded on all sides by agricultural lands. Was this abandoned house part of a farmstead or part of the original Port Royal settlement?

the Italianate window detailing and the lacey woodwork on the front porches would place this building in the late 1880's. There are many such abandoned farm houses as 21st
century intensive agricultural practices require larger and larger landholdings. Once it's no longer profitable or feasible to rent the building out, the farmer just leaves it standing until of its own accord the building collapses into a big rubble pile that can be scooped up and hauled elsewhere on the farm acreage.
After viewing a flickr portfolio of 450+ images of abandoned houses in Ontario, RR forswore ever photographing another abandoned, ghostly building until she fell in love with the lacey treillage on this particular porch.

neglected: Barra Castle 1930 Scottish Baronial is now awaiting demolition!

This beloved Kitchener landmark has been frequently photographed and blogged about as per this post by compassrose: "Barra Castle is a Neo-Gothic apartment building built in the 1930s by a woman named Molly Marquette, who apparently modelled it after her childhood home in Russia. That must have been some home. Her interpretation has towering parapets, beautiful detailing on the outside trim and arched doorways, generous windows, heavy wooden doors. Inside, rumour has it, are sunrooms and Moorish archways and tiled bathrooms. Naturally, of course, it's been a squat for years, owned by a series of slumlords, its occupants moving down the social scale from artists and musicians to crackheads.......Anyway, last fall the city inspectors shut it down for a list of violations (copies of which were helpfully stapled to all the
doors, sheathed in plastic page protectors), and cut off power and gas. It's sat (officially) empty all winter, and is visibly falling into an even more ramshackle state of disrepair. The current owners claim they were just—really!—making some repairs and getting loans to make more when evil inspectors shut them down, but who knows? In the meantime, there it sits."
Neglected for decades by a succession of owners more focussed on the ROI's of their real estate investment portfolios, rejected by multiple suitors who took one look and headed for the nearest arched exit door, Barra Castle has of this date found one enchanted suitor: the power of sale purchase price is right and this castle is handsomely endowed with 0.61 ha of prime lands in downtown Kitchener. Prince Charming has proposed that he will gladly give her a facelift provided that all of her appendages are removed pdq.
The purchaser is taking his proposal to City of Kitchener Development and Technical Services Committee on 14 September and hoping for consummation of this match at the 22 September full City Council meeting.
All those who signed the facebook petition to save Barra Castle have two chances to speak up, or forever hold their peace. For full details see the latest news report by the man in black. (6)

Gentle reader, do note the drooping eyebrow above the left window as decay exposes much to view. Stucco has flaked from this window to expose the reddish brick of the original MacKay house that Molly Barra Marquette purchased and remodelled into 11 stylish apartment units (each with fireplaces, oak hardwood floors, large windows and other intricate details). RR is postulating that this could be Kitchener's first successful adaptive reuse project. Was Mrs. Molly Barra Marquette of Marquette Realty indulging in personal nostalgia for a childhood home she once lived in and barely remembered? or was this one-legged woman who arrived here with one son to raise a shrewd marketer pitching wish fulfillment to every woman who has harboured a secret princess fantasy?

Certainly the architect who will be masterminding the 21st century facelift of the remnant building post-demolition thinks likewise. He has been quoted thus: "The original Barra Castle is an important feature that will sell the rest of the place." (6)

Three buildings built by others and passed down to our generation to have, to hold, and cherish forever? The fates of each building reveal so much about those who were entrusted with their stewardship and what they could or would not do with the trust bestowed upon them: Cherish, Abandon, or Neglect.

Sources: (1) variously attributed but found in a sermon here: (2) Carolyn Ireland, Danby's digs: Old mill home was an artist's landscape, Globe and Mail Jul. 09, 2009; (3)GREG LAYSON, Danby's often-painted 47-acre mill property for sale GUELPH MERCURY July 02, 2009: (4)Canadian painter Ken Danby dies at 67 CBC News September 24, 2007; (5) Unterman McPhail Associates, Norfolk County Lakeshore CHL and Built Heritage Study 1 March 2007; (6) Terry Pender, Barra Castle will restore original building, demolish additions, The Record 2 September 2009.

heritage at risk?

2009-08-20T19:17:00.016-04:00

Gentle reader, this rather weighty summer 09 sequence of blogs devoted to built heritage had its genesis in the early summer. A sequence of events prodded the related research: the last City of Kitchener Council meet before summer recess, a news article in the local rag, and an e-mail request from an acquaintance.

First, the Council meet that RR hoped would be a quick 30 minute session turned out much longer and more interesting than she had expected. RR had gone to hear out a property owner who was opposing the listing of his property on the City's Heritage Register and Councillors' responses. She expected to hear the usual argument that such a listing would limit his development/property rights; instead most of the interchange between Council and delegate concerned the legal issues re demolition of a barn. Free legal advice ensued i.e. that as long as the barn was in agricultural use, no demolition permit would be required.

Next, a local natural heritage advocate whom I shall call Lady Green was allowed to speak to the sale of city-owned parklands issue. Although Council had committed itself to not sell off two parks (Kiwanis and Lakeside), Lady Green wanted to know what kind of contract Council would be willing to sign to ensure these parks would remain public parks in perpetuity. Much fudging and persistent questioning ensued until Council turned to staff for advice. Well, Council's decision re city-owned lands was not appealable and hence not legally binding ( ah yes, municipal elections around the corner in 2010; next Council safely elected could opt to sell off these same lands.

To give the degree of certainty Lady Green required, staff advised that Council would have to 1) amend the official plan; and 2) pass a by-law to change the zoning in the affected lands. Both those actions are appealable and have legal force. Both issues were deferred to Monday 24 August 2009 Council meet. Agenda and related staff reports are posted to the City's website the previous Friday after noon. *

Those gentle readers who have chewed on the Port Dalhousie related blogs will recall the OMB response to a political decision made by Council even when that decision comes dressed up in the phrase "a moral contract" with its citizens. What the issues have in common are that they deal with valid land uses. The pressure on publicly-owned parklands or privately-owned farmsteads results from legislative changes made in 2005 and 2006 directing growth towards the City of Kitchener and calling for intensification of built-up settled areas -- the very same issues at the crux of the Port Dalhousie OMB hearing.

Next? the local rag picked up the Port Dalhousie OMB decision the day Heritage Canada Foundation released its list of Canada's 10 most endangered heritage places and put all of Ontario's 90+ Heritage Conservation Districts on its nationally endangered sites list. The story was headlined, "Heritage Districts made vulnerable by board ruling," and featured local comment by Heritage Kitchener citizen co-chair who opined, "That’s outrageous. To go ahead and put a high rise up, I would argue that up, down, left, right and centre." (1)

The next day RR received an e-mail from a leading spokesperson from the local heritage community urging all on his mailing list: "I urge you to communicate with your Member of the Provincial Parliament to urge her/him to bring to the cabinet's attention the need for overturning this dangerous precedent." Ah yes, RR owed this gentleman one as back in 2005 when RR was actively lobbying for prompt passage of Bill 60 to amend the Ontario Heritage Act the same chap cheerfully endorsed and forwarded her request to his voluminous mailing list. What to do? as sending a signed letter to her MPP would require that she be absolutely certain of such a position and not merely joining a growing chorus of voices.

Thus, it was time to actually read all about an issue that she knew about but had conveniently avoided in spite of the continuous stream of updates re the Port Dalhousie OMB hearing. Time to drop all those self-justifying excuses that what happened over there could not affect what could happen here. Do understand that Rambling Rose has 1) absolutely no legal training; and 2) has never had the remotest desire to deal with lawyers or legal issues. However, in all fairness she owed Mr. Local History a return favour; but beyond that, her personal integrity required she inform herself as best she could before offering up an opinion to her elected representative.

The past six weeks spent digesting four highly complex legal documents are comparable to have double-booked dental sessions every other day for the entire summer. You must know that feeling, gentle, reader,...the patient is prone on her back with the dentist drawing closer with a drill and a soft, seductive tone insisting, "this really is for your own good, you know."

Well, it has been. Highly instructive. Thus, RR found herself deluded when she, as did others within the local heritage (natural & built) community-- as did PROUD in Port Dalhousie-- pointed to the specific Provincial Policy Statement 2005 that assured her that "significant built heritage [or natural heritage] resources shall be conserved." Ah yes, why read the entire PPS 2005 when one was already munching on such a satisfying morsel?

During her first reading of the Campbell decision, RR was heard to mutter, "really splitting hairs, aren't we now, Ms. Campbell?" as Ms. Campbell proceeded to offer up a grammar lesson on the function of the "significant" modifier in legal terms. RR has reconsidered in light of some of her summer rambles-- latest one through several blocks of downtown Hamilton filled to the brim with significant built heritage resources, followed by a photoshoot of the Ancaster Old Mill ( near the original Willson's Mill where Governor Simcoe spent a night on his Detroit walk), and then to the rather insignificant Burford buildings as listed by County of Brant. Already HD documents are grouping buildings according to significance into categories A B C--a sign of future losses and more overheated OMB hearings as all urban downtowns must comply with the 40% provincial intensification target?

In the end, RR has decided not to ask the Minister of Culture to overturn the OMB ruling? How, in all conscience, could this Minister do so as the Campbell OMB ruling is a masterpiece in terms of showing the hierarchy of legislation that must be adhered to in land use planning. All things considered, Ms. Campbell arrived at a fair, balanced ruling.**

Changes, big changes, are coming to all of our downtowns. Just consider this: City of Kitchener is expected to grow at rate of 5,000 pop per year over next 20 years; 2,000 new residents will have to be accommodated in the currently built-up areas = 40,000 (approximately size of Woodstock) will have to find places to live on lots that already have buildings on them. There will be more towers and more demolitions. For now, RR can set aside legal issues to those who earn big bucks appearing before the OMB. Summer is quickly fading into autumn and time to ramble on!

I leave you, gentle reader, with a miscellany of heritage-related quotes to ponder:

“The concept of heritage is both contested and problematic...Heritage designations almost by default arise out of selection criteria which are conflict-prone, value-laden, and emerge from unexamined points of reference....Heritage is always at some level a contested concept....Issues of heritage interpretation and designation fracture along the regular fault lines of ideology, ethnicity, gender and class...." (2)
"The present creates the heritage it requires and manages it for a range of contemporary
purposes."(3)
"The Port Dalhousie Commercial Core...is threatened by the deteriorating economic and social
conditions that make it unsustainable and by those who oppose change...If the businesses that
occupy the heritage buildings are not sustainable, then the buildings themselves are threatened.
They are old buildings that require constant maintenance. If the owners can't afford to fix them
up, they will deteriorate and ultimately be condemned.” -- David Serafino, editor of Dalhousie Pier
Magazine
“Generally, neither the municipalities nor the development industry have seen any point in
retaining or reusing the past as it advanced into the future, and the weak voices of LACACs (Local
Architectural Conservation Advisory Committees), local citizens, and heritage groups have carried
little to no weight in the decision-making process...The emphasis has been on developmentrather than conservation.” (4) <==== written in 1997; OHA 2005 marks significant changes that are only now being implemented; the Campbell decision will become the standard over the next decade
" Pepino [i.e. PROUD lawyer at OMB hearing] stressed that District Plans are going to need much more discussion of both principle and detail, and that it will take highly qualified experts to draft them. Everything of significance needs to be recorded in the Plan, which buildings, landscape elements are to be protected." (5)
Recommended reading and links:

Heritage Resource Centre on heritage conservation districts etc.
Ontario Heritage Act 2005
Ontario Ministry of Culture toolkit explaining how to make it all work together
Heritage Districts Work! study of province's HCD just released

Notes: * selling off city-owned lands could be highly tempting as per today's news item in local community paper: Councillor Gazzola informs his ward that City of Kitchener is expected to run $4,000,000 deficit this year; RR believes Ministry of Municipal Affairs requires city councils to balance their budgets;

** were PROUD & the developer to drop their adversarial positions with the ruling in place in order to agree to work together to enhance the last publicly-owned waterfront on Lake Ontario, they could begin negotiating a better site for the oldest tiniest jail in Ontario that all are committed to preserve. Why not try working together-- initial architectural drawings show this tiny building dwarfed by the tower....just moving it into another location in the public Hogan's Court could prove to be a win-win for all on the waterfront.

Photos: with one exception, all images are representative of built heritage resources to be found in City of Kitchener heritage conservation districts & one cultural heritage landscape (2nd last photo: Sims Estate) currently protected; the misfit? the tobacco stick kilns from outside of Burford speak to the Nortolk Sand Plain's significant built heritage resources but are not mentioned at all in the Brant County heritage driving tour. Will these iconic structures disappear as rapidly as our nineteenth century barns have?

Sources: (1) Terry Pender, Heritage districts made vulnerable by board ruling, The Record 9 July 2009; (2)Robert Feagan, Links Across a Grand Heritage Landscape, address to 4th Canadian River Heritage Conference June 2004; (3)–Graham et al. A Geography of Heritage–Power, Culture and Economy. New York 2000; (4)John N. Jackson, The Welland Canals and their Communities, 1997; (5) Catherine Nasmith, The Road Ahead for Ontario's Heritage Conservation Districts, Built Heritage Newsletter May 6, 2009

the rule of law

2009-08-20T17:55:00.010-04:00

Gentle reader, the following notes have been taken verbatim from Patrick J. Devine & Mark A. Piel, Zoning versus heritage –who Wins? Do the Old Rules still apply? Fraser Milner Casgrain L.L.P. May 2009 This report has been prepared by lawyers for lawyers and reviews heritage preservation issues, the Ontario Heritage Act, and the various OMB rulings & in particular the Denhez and Campbell decisions that are the subject of previous posts to this blog and labelled as such. Please note that this is a partial summary re points that RR found relevant for herself; RR would recommend reading the report in its entirety as it sheds considerable insight into complex planning and heritage issues. Photos of City of Kitchener's historic Governor's House and Gaol dating to the 1850's & the starting point for Berlin/Kitchener's growth into regional administrative centre in the Region of Waterloo.

“No doubt due to portrayals in the popular media, words like “development” are presented as
contrary to “heritage; the former term conjures images of dynamite, wrecking balls and
demolition, while the latter term suggests the perfectly just preservation of buildings and sites of
shared historical significance and value....”development is often considered a vice while” heritage”
–preserving the built landscape...is a virtue.”
2. “Making clear the rights and entitlements of landowners...helps us avoid conflict and helps
resolve disputes in the event of conflict....Zoning provisions provide certainty about associated
levels of risk because they have the characteristics of legislation and the rule of law; ...[whereas]
official plans....are imprecise “statements of intent” to perform a subsequent legislative act and
lack the precise characteristics associated with zoning by-laws.
3. The idea of the “public good”: “Planning goals as diverse as ....efficient land use patterns, the
management of heritage resources both natural and cultural, and protection of health and
safety...are identified in the 2005 Provincial Policy Statement as integral to the long-term
prosperity and social well-being of all Ontarians....
4. A complex regulatory environment, “the notion that development and heritage preservation are
mutually exclusive goals may very well misrepresent their relationship in the regulation of land
uses in Ontario......"
5. 2005 amendments to Building Code Act (BCA), Ontario Building Code (OBC),. And Ontario Heritage Act (OHA) defines applicable law & now includes section of OHA; for example, applicable
law includes municipal zoning by-laws but does not include official plans or heritage district
guidelines; applicable law now includes OHA sections 30(2); 33; 34; 34.5; 34.7(2); 42; 27 (3);
40.1 & Planning Act section 34 or 38; However, bylaws made under OHA sec 41.1 dealing with
HCD designation and adoption of HCD plan are not considered applicable law for purposes of OBC
6. OHA property designation per Ontario Regulation 9/06: “in order to be designated a property
must meet only of the nine criteria listed in the regulations (in three groups: design or physical
value; historical or associative value; and contextual value
7. HCD plans and guidelines: “Because the designation of HCD potentially modifies rights held by
owners of real property within the designated district, the creation of any plan must take into
account the elements of procedural fairness associated with the rule of law.” ====> right of
appeal to OMB
8. However, right of appeal re “double designated” properties (cf. Previous blog re Denhez decision)
“in light of conflicting decisions by the [OMB], it is likely that either further litigation or legislative
amendments will be necessary to achieve greater clarity as to the meaning of these provisions,
and ultimately, greater legal certainty for owners of heritage properties.”
9. Per OMB member: “The Provincial Policy statement, which deals with all of these matters [i.e. “A
myriad of worthy, but often competing, interests] specifically directs the reader to consider the entirety of the PPS and not isolate one area from another.”
10. Intensification may not leave a heritage property in the exact state it was prior to development, but such circumstances beg the question of what becomes of the heritage property if it is not financially viable to invest in its conservation or restoration?
11. Re Port Dalhousie: “the new council met in camera with the city solicitor to review its options with
respect to the appeals. But rather than follow the city solicitor’s advice and recognize the appeals as valid, conduct a public hearing on the repeal of the by-laws, and repeal the by-laws by vote,
council instructed the city solicitor to appear before the Board and communicate that the new
council no longer supported the previous council’s decision and required PDVC to initiate a
concurrent application under the OHA.
a. “This reliance on balance [i.e. conserve significant heritage resources & intensification in
built-up areas] which contributed to the Board’s ultimate findings which did not view
economic prosperity and heritage conservation as competing interests but mutually reinforcing and interdependent.... Port Dalhousie was ....not sustainable, and if the
district was not economically viable, valuable heritage resources or attributes would be
threatened.”
12. “Perhaps an indicator that ‘heritage trumps zoning’ is found at section 68.1 of the OHA. Prior to
Bill 60, section 43 of the Ontario Municipal Board Act provided the Board the power to rehear any
application or to review any order previously made by the Board. However, with the 2005
amendments to the OHA, the legislature expressed its clear intention at sec 68.1 that the powers
of the Board granted under sec. 43 would not apply in cases of applications made to the Board
under the OHA (...with one exception].

Postscript: FYI
The Ontario Government’s Standing Committee on Government Agencies is meeting to review
the operation of The Ontario Municipal Board, (as well as the Ontario Power Generation Inc. and
the Royal Ontario Museum). Many in the heritage community are deeply concerned about the
services and mandate of the Ontario Municipal Board. We have all had heated discussions about
the failures of the OMB. Now is our chance to act, and all our members are encouraged to file
their views. Meetings are to be held September 8, 9 and 10, 2009. Written comments are to be
delivered by Thursday, September 10, to: Douglas Arnott, Committee Clerk,
Room 1405, Whitney Block, Queen’’s Park,
Toronto, ON M7A 1A2
Phone: 416-325-3506 Fax: 416-325-3505 TTY: 415-325-3538

economic stimulus* ( the Hubbard review)

2009-08-17T10:26:00.010-04:00

Although the Ontario Municipal Board delivered its final ruling as summarized in the previous blog, PROUD continued its fight to save its heritage Welland Canal port village by submitting sec. 43 requests for a review of OMB member Campbell's decision. They were supported in this fight by the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, a provincial association who actively lobby for heritage preservation. On 29 March 2009, ACO stated its position in a hand-delivered letter to Marie Hubbard, Chair OMB:

“We are particularly concerned about the variation in interpretation of the OHA between Member Denhez (OMB PL060606) and Member Campbell (Port Dalhousie). It is critically important that there be consistency from the OMB in how it interprets HCD’s in existence prior to the 2005 changes in the Ontario Heritage Act....We have members and branches across Ontario alarmed by the Port Dalhousie decision.
They do not know what level of protection is available for their HCD’s...in particular what status the OMB will give to District Plans for the vast majority of HCD’s implemented prior to the 2005 changes to the OHA (Bill 60). The fear is that the Port Dalhousie decision puts the vast majority of Ontario’s HCD’s at risk of out of scale development or fragmented development.”

Herewith, a summary of OMB Chair Hubbard's response to PROUD per e-mail of 4 May 2009: “The Board is not a court...and is not bound by its decisions when considering new matters. Board decisions are not precedents, and a decision of one panel cannot bind or compel a future Board panel.” However, Chair Hubbard stated: “I acknowledge that the PROUD request correctly points out that two errors are found in the Decision (the interpretation of OHA sec 41.2 (1) (b)**and the transitional provisions to the Growth Plan. However, I do not find that these errors....would have affected the final result.”

1. “The issues raised in the PDVC proposal involved the complex interrelationship between heritage conservation and land use planning. [the OMB] decision characterizes the central issue as one of
determining whether the .. proposal achieves the policy imperatives of heritage conservation and long term economic prosperity of the community of Port Dalhousie.....These policy objectives are
compatible....and need not be viewed as conflicting goals. Economic growth or revitalization in an HCD is certainly not limited to construction of new buildings. Heritage conservation also recognized the importance of rehabilitation, renovation or conversion of existing uses.”
2. PROUD assertion that Campbell interpretation of OHA sec. 41.2(1) (b) conflicted with an earlier OMB interpretation by Board Member Denhez and is incorrect. Per OMB Chair Hubbard: “the correct interpretation of OHA sec. 41.2 (1) (b) is set out in the Decision of Member Denhez.However, .....the Board determined that the PDVC development proposal complies with Port Dalhousie HCD Plan and guidelines... that [were] incorporated into the Local Official Plan.”
3. “HCD plans are not meant to offer determinative checklists of heritage features, such that items that are not mentioned are assumed to be excluded from the list of heritage attributes or reasons for designation....study documents or guidelines need not include a specific reference to each heritage attribute.”
4. Provincial Growth Plan Reg. 311/06 directs “that applications filed prior to June 16, 2006 be disposed of as if the Growth Plan had not come into effect.....Further, the policies of the Growth Plan that were considered are not materially different from the objectives of PPS, respecting intensification of land uses or the promotion of long term economic prosperity and economic vitality.”
5. “The Board determines that this proposal will provide an economic stimulus to this community that will serve to protect the Port Dalhousie HCD in the long term. The previous municipal council at the City arrived at the same conclusion. The current municipal council does not share this view, although this Council too no steps to repeal the official plan amendment and zoning by-law adopted by the previous Council.”
6. “I am satisfied that the Board carefully considered all of the evidence presented and I am in agreement with the Decision... per Marie Hubbard, OMB chair e-mail 4 May 2009

Notes: *phrase" economic stimulus' cf. #5 above is analogous to "catalytic spending" concept employed by City of Kitchener. Thus, City of Kitchener Economic Development Investment Fund @ $110,000,000 over is this city's gamble that public investment into downtown revitalization will prompt matching private investment. This appears to be working as Cadan Inc. of Toronto (private firm) made two major investments locally: a) City of Kitchener investments per EDIF: 1) former St. Jerome's building now Wilfred Laurier University School of Social Work; 2) former Epton site now University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy with adjacent McMaster School of Medicine under construction;====> prompted the following private investments: b) Andrin Development's converstion of the former Kaufmann factory to loft residential condominiums; and c) the Lang Factory complex to be transformed into a multi0use Tannery District Cf. Toronto's Distillery District also done by Cadan; and the Palisades apartment building on Queen Street; Cadan cited City of Kitchener's significant investment into the downtown as rationale for choosing to invest in the City of Kitchener downtown.

**the economic stimulus benefits to City of St. Catherine's/ Port Dalhousie of the now OMB approved development proposal :

Port Dalhousie Vitalization Corp (PDVC): Planning Report Executive Summary prepared by BLS Planning Associates: request for inclusion in Community Improvement Plan (CIP) area to utilize incentives to "undertake significant public works within the public lands associated with Lakeside Park and the [Welland] canal:

a. Improvements to enclosure building for the carousel
b. Assistance in building the skating path (winter ice-skating, summer in-line skating)
c. Provision of water feature to commemorate the first Welland Canal
d. Reconstruction of existing public parking area within the park
e. Maintenance of historic jail

Economic Development Effects:

1. construction jobs over two years: 309-374; of which 231 direct new jobs with 131 employees on
site at busiest time
2. New businesses: 885 new jobs
“This development should serve as a catalyst for other developments in the City and the Region.

Photos top to bottom: 1) Wilfrid Laurier School of Social Work; 2) university of Waterloo School of Pharmacy; 3) Kaufmann Lofts; and 4) Lang Factory Complex currently undergoing restoration/conversion. Rambling Rose has been to Port Dalhousie once-- to ride the carousel at 5 cents per ride and never paused that day's adventure to take photographs of Port Dalhousie. Tomorrow's another day!

the Rum Jungle & Hogan's Alley (the Campbell decision)

2009-08-01T09:03:00.013-04:00

Gentle readers, friends of built heritage, the Heritage Canada Foundation put all of this province's Heritage Conservation Districts on its top ten list of nationally most endangered places.

The Foundation's bulletin reads: 'OMB DECLARES OPEN SEASON": [the OMB ruling"....threatens the integrity of all heritage conservation district designations in the province, and sets a dangerous precedent for heritage districts across Canada."

Herewith, a summary of the relevant decision set out in a 69 page document after 71 days of hearings into the issue.

For anyone interested in preserving our built heritage, this document is tough, weighty, but highly essential reading as it shows the interrelationship of a wide variety of legal instruments that are involved in resolving heritage issues in the public interest.

At this point, Rambling Rose is not sure whether she agrees with the Heritage Canada Foundation stance or not. Thus far, she has completed two readings of two OMB decisions; still waiting for perusal OMB Chair Marie Hubbard's response to PROUD concerns with the Campbell decision.

What is clear is that the revised Heritage Act 2005 & the Places to Grow Act 2006 are linked by the Provincial Policy Statements issued under the Planning Act & that targeted growth areas such as the Region of Waterloo will need to absorb the lessons in the Port Dalhousie decision. Herewith, RR's "shortened" ??? notes of the Campbell decision and two maps of the subject area. Links will follow later this weekend. Hogan's Alley & the Rum Jungle are to be replaced with an open air public space & hopefully, the City of St. Catherine's will regain control over this popular summer drinking destination---cf. Kitchener's King Street brawling bar scene during the 1990's & we still have a parking lot in Centre Block???

OMB decision PL 060850 issued 26 February 2009 by Susan B. Campbell, Vice Chair

1. The legal framework:
a. Planning Act sections 2.1; 17(36); 34 (19); 41.9(12); 42.1(6); sec 31;
b. Provincial Policy Statement 2005 (in its entirety)
c. Ontario Heritage Act 2005 sections 41.1 (2); 41.1(3); 41.1(4); 41.1(6)
d. Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe 2006 reg 311/06; sec 2.2.2; sec 4.2.4(1)(e)

2. The dispute before the OMB:

PROUD Port Dalhousie (Port Realizing our Unique Distinction), City of St. Catherine’s (newly-elected council that opposes a development approved by previous Council)<===link provides access to OMB decisions, the ongoing petition and overview of this historic 5 year struggle that saw $500,000 by the community to support the PROUD case before the OMB

vs

PDVC Port Vitalization Corp & Region of Niagara, St. Catherine's-Thorold Chamber of Commerce, Port Dalhousie BIA) <=== link provides scale models of proposed development re Port Dalhousie Heritage Conservation District (HCD) in City of St Catherine's /Regional Municipality of Niagara, a unique “Welland Canal port lakeside community” designated in 2003 (link provides HD description in national Historic Places register:

At stake is a .46 ha commercial site with heritage buildings ===> 17 storey condo, hotel, theatre, mixed use, underground parking, public open plaza (2004 proposal for 30 storey condo withdrawn, current proposal submitted 2006)=approved by previous council; however, new council does not support this proposal

3. Status of Port Dalhousie Heritage District Conservation Plan & Design Guidelines: a. cf PROUD: “ public interest expressed in last election that gave mandate to current Council to oppose approval of development” ===> OMB “the public interest...is expressed through planning documents (PPS, Growth Plan for Greater Golden Horseshoe, municipal official plans and secondary plan and regional official plans. These documents result from a thoughtful and comprehensive consideration... Public opinion as expressed in the heat of municipal elections or passionately contested board hearings is not necessarily synonymous with the public interest.”

b. cf PROUD: “flawed process” [re previous Council]===>OMB: current Council waived City’s Procedural By-law, did not repeal the By-laws passed by previous Council, met in camera and thus avoided “mandatory public meeting in which all voices could have been heard” = “not a process giving rise to a decision to which the Board will have much regard”

c. City St Catherines 2003 designating by-law appealed & dismissed ====>OMB: “designation ....as HD represents good planning and will not have any undue adverse impacts”; reviewed in 2009, per this OMB: 2003 OMB ruling did not consider merits of that document per OHA since before OHA 2005 did not require heritage conservation district plans; however OHA 2005 requires such plans cf. OHA 41.2(1) and 41.2(2) & such plans to prevail if there is conflict with another by-law===>PDVC: per OHA 2005: “the process must be followed by a municipality to be afforded elevated status; since that 2005 process was not followed for the HD guidelines, they are not a district plan under OHA 2005"===>per OMB: sec41.1(4) provides the same process for the adoption of a post-2005 district plan must be followed for the adoption of a pre-2005 district plan” & sec 41.1(5) sets out the required public consultation process NB sec 41.1(2) reads “if on or before the day the OHA 2005 received Royal Assent, the council ....may pass a by-law adopting a heritage conservation district plan for any of the designated districts”: “the enactment of a by-law adopting a HD plan is appealable to the Board” In this instance, District Guidelines are not a district plan per OHA:

cf. Dan Schneider, ON Ministry of Culture: “[post 2005 HD plans] will prevail over zoning and other by-laws to the extent of a conflict-–while existing plans will not have the enhancements referred to above, they will represent the municipality’s stated objectives and policies with respect to development of the district and should be respected”

ii. City: “the process set out in section 41.1(2) for adopting pre-2005 guidelines as a district plan is not mandatory...”Note: PROUD: “one must accept that HCD plans or guidelines only obtained legal status through the 2005 amendments to OHA. This interpretation has the potential to render ineffective and useless every heritage district plan or guideline adopted prior to Bill 60" ===>OMB: Port Dalhousie HD plans lack “status [i.e. for protection] the City did not follow the process, clearly set out in the statute, to assure the elevated status....[Although process is not mandatory] ....if [the municipality] does not pass such a by-law after following the requisite process set out in sec 41.1, pre-2005 guidelines or district plans will not be district plans for the purpose of sec 41.2(1).

(i) A process, involving the preparation of a plan with specific content, public consultation and the right of appeal has been set out in the statute....[This] process for adopting a pre-2005 district plan...affords substantive right to owners of property in a HCD. The preservation of built heritage is vitally important in this province. Because of that the new Heritage Act, allowing for district designation and the adoption of a district plan can result in the loss of property rights. That loss of rights is justifiable as the preservation of built heritage is of such consequence. However, the loss of such property rights can only happen after a transparent public process has taken place.

Section 41.1 guarantees such a process...the required fair public process must be followed i.e. guidelines require by-law of Council & public process

4. “In a case involving Planning Act instruments and Heritage Act permit, the matters are inextricably linked.” How? the Provincial Policy Statement OMB: “the Board cannot dismiss or disregard the considerable emphasis and priority the Province has placed on intensification in built-up areas. The challenge...is to determine if the provincial goal of intensification can be achieved while meeting the provincial goal of heritage conservation.” ===>the need to read the PPS as a whole

PPS 1.1.1: “promoting efficient development and land use patterns which sustain financial well- being....”
PPS 1.1.3.1 “settlement* areas shall be the focus of growth and their vitality and regeneration shall be promoted” (*”built up areas where development is concentrated and which have a mix of land uses”)
PPS 2.6.1 : “significant...resources are valued for the important contribution they make to our understanding of the history of a place, an event, or a people” cf. PDVC: PPS 2.6.1 “does not require the preservation of everything in the HD–only heritage values, attributes and integrity need to be examined....[and winnowed down] to those elements that are significant and stand out” ===> OMB: “As with a heritage structure, not every element of a heritage district is of equal significance. The significant attributes of the HD should be identified in the district plan or in...the District Guidelines....The PPS implicitly acknowledges that there may be built heritage resources and cultural heritage landscapes which are not significant and which do not warrant conservation. Such an interpretation allows for the balancing of variety of provincial interests as mandated by the PPS... [According to PPS, significant cultural heritage landscapes] ...significant as modifier...must mean that not all elements of a cultural heritage landscape as included in a designated HD are by definition significant.” (P.23)
Growth Plan sec 2.2.2 directs a significant portion of new growth to the built-up areas of a community through intensification;
Growth Plan sec 4.2.4(1)(e): cultural heritage conservation, including conservation of cultural heritage and archaeological resources where feasible, as built up areas are intensified”;

However, Port Dalhousie is not designated as an “urban growth centre” cf City & PROUD: [the development is “intensification in the wrong location” ===>OMB: development application is subject to Growth Plan; therefore, OMB “must engage in a balancing exercise”

5. Niagara Policy Plan 5.5; 3.2; 4: sec 4.A.3: “to assist in development of Welland Canal corridor [includes Port Dalhousie]==>OMB: Region wants to assist such development.”Key nodes should see opportunities for compatible and appropriate commercial development” (Region continues to support development proposal)

6. City St Catharine’s Official Plan sec 16 The Port Dalhousie Neighbourhood Plan cf Friends of Eden Mills v Eramosa Twp 1998 decision: “the policy objectives of an official plan are not restricted to heritage concerns; thus...there must be a weighing and balancing of various interests where there is no detailed and specific direction in the Official Plan”

sec. 4.2(a): continued growth, expansion and revitalization of a diversified commercial land use mix
sec. 4.2.5.1 Design criteria: zoning by-laws are to reflect the built form [in historic commercial areas including Port Dalhousie] to ensure new construction will be compatible”
sec 7.10.7; “City will be guided by applicable HCD plan cf. sec 16 neighbourhood plan purpose “to provide a framework for the development and redevelopment of the Port Dalhousie Neighbourhood but note sec.16.90: “The HCD designation shall not be considered to be a freeze on development in the designated area... Notwithstanding that a HCD shall be undertaken....the municipality shall support the revitalization of this historically significant area by ....encouraging the development of the commercial core for regional (tourism) oriented facilities in order to enhance the economic viability of this historic area” ===>OMB: “must weigh and balance interests” and “harmonize and rationalize (them) in a reasonable way”

7. Port Dalhousie HCD guidelines provides this description: “A compact settlement perched on the table lands of a small peninsula that separates Lake Ontario to the north from Martindale Pond to the South; the distinctive commercial core: centred on Lakeport Road; Hogan’s Alley and Lock Street is distinguished by its nineteenth and early twentieth century architecture of two- and three storey terrace blocks and individual hotels...built primarily of red and buff brick in the Italianate style ===>OMB notes that 1) no mention is made of one-storey, mid- twentieth century buildings (Erskine’s Pharmacy, Hydro Building) or open area behind Lock Street (currently occupied by the Rum Jungle and associated drinking “ ”terraces”==> OMB: a) “post-1950 buildings may form part of HD character or heritage fabric, but only if the Guidelines address them as such”; b) lack of clarity about heritage fabric (streetscapes, landscape features, views, vistas and open spaces)==> Studies and guidelines must speak for themselves. c) no mention made of Main Street or street with no name: thus, the Jail House has not been included in the HD; d) sec 7.4 height; Guidelines recommended that Council amend the zoning bylaw to restrict building height to 9 m. City Council did not follow this recommendation. e) HCD guidelines “are not prescriptive in determining specific design solutions for each building or lot”; f) “boundary edges” of entire district are “emphasized by the significant height of table land and steep banks that separate land from water”

8. Port Dalhousie revitalization objective?
a. “the [Commercial] Core has become centre for the consumption of alcohol especially between Victoria Day and labour Day”
b. expanded tourism with focus on attracting an “upscale clientele”==> thus PDVC proposal of mix of commercial uses to meet needs of tourist market ( boutique hotel, retail and restaurant space, theatre and large public open air space)
c. per OMB: “the commercial core is located in a “settlement area” (per PPS) and “built-up area” (per Growth Plan) & growth is directed to such an area;
d. per OMB: “the HCD designation [does not] render all elements of the district equally significant and requiring conservation at the same level” i. “Either the Study and the Guidelines contain the content required by section 41.1(5) or they “capture an essence.” The Board finds that they cannot do both.”

significant attributes of the commercial core: nineteenth and early twentieth century Lock and Lakeport streetscapes & OMB adds two not mentioned in HD plan: the Austin Hotel & the Port Dalhousie jail, perhaps the oldest in Ontario; however, “to suggest that [the Rum Jungle has heritage value] strains credulity”; today’s Port Mansion has been so extensively renovated that all heritage attributes were gutted
“The Board can only conclude that Port Mansion, like the Hydro Building, Erskine’s Pharmacy and the backside of Lock and Lakeport were not considered by community consensus to be significant heritage attributes until the PDVC proposal appeared.”
“The Board finds that the evidence of Messrs. Chapman and McClelland, witnesses working in the public interest and not for a proponent or opponent is convincing in this matter...As an expert in heritage conservation matters, Mr. McClelland testified that such economic viability is a necessary precondition to conserving heritage resources successfully...The Board finds that Mr. McClelland’s work was one part of the exemplary foundation upon which City Council based its decision on June 2006. It performs the same function for this Board. Mr. McClelland’s work was nuanced and even-handed, something vital to the cause of heritage conservation in this Province.” Cf also Per Mr. Chapman, City of St. Catherine’s staff: “the Official Plan recognized that the more intensive use of land and buildings is inevitable in a maturing urban area.”

OMB decision approves the PDVC site plan & directs a heritage permit issue for demolition, alteration and new construction proposed in PDVC’s heritage permit application subject to the Heritage Conservation Strategy and Heritage Easement Agreements with the City.-–Susan B. Campbell, OMB Vice Chair

the heritage gateway (the Denhez decision)

2009-07-20T15:00:00.013-04:00

Today's photos feature this region's Mennonite Georgian heritage architecture (top to bottom): 1. the Ruby-Snyder fieldstone house in Waterloo; 2) the (Eby) Hammermuller house, Kitchener before being moved and restored; this house was reputed to have been located on the second highest ridge in the Region of Waterloo; 3) stone mason cleaning and repairing the mortar in 2007-- the house appears completely restored with addition of new verandah and can be seen in its new location in the Eby Estates subdivision on Bleams Road, Kitchener; and 4) the fieldstone Becker farmhouse that too will be retained and restored by the developer of the proposed Becker Estates subdivision in Kitchener.

These houses illustrate the heritage gateway concept: the retention of heritage houses to act as a gateway to a new subdivision and to establish the design concepts. City of Kitchener has enacted design guidelines for new neighbourhoods that maximize this City's built heritage resources.

Today's blog deals with a gateway development in the City of Vaughan that involved some controversy re the design of the new construction proposed as an addition to an existing heritage home as well as an attached new development on an adjacent vacant lot. Both properties are located in an existing heritage district established in 2003 but subject to provisions in the revised Ontario Heritage Act 2005. Apparently the City of Vaughan could not impose its heritage district design guidelines as they were never made official through a city by-law. Rambling Rose has summarized the OMB decision as this particular decision has implications for local heritage districts as well. It would be a shame for a community to lose control because of a "technical omission."

Per OMB decision PL060606 by M C Denhez as of 18 February 2009 regarding new construction within the Kleinburg-Nashville HCD, City of Vaughan ON regarding proposed 5 storey post-modern mixed-use addition to the OHA Part IV designated Martin-Smith house (addition to existing house & construction on adjacent vacant lot). Council refused to allow construction as did not meet the Design Guidelines for this HCD & thus appealed to OMB.

Ontario Heritage Act 2005 (OHA) regulates three kinds of designated properties:

individually designated OHA 2005 sec 29
those in an Heritage Conservation District (HCD): "all new construction is regulated with reference to the HCD plan" cf OHA 2005 sec. 41.2 (1) (b); 41.2 (2); 42 (1) & 42 (2)
double-designated-- individually OHA IV and part of HCD OHA V sec 41. (2.2)

however, sec 41.1 only came into effect on 28 April 2005; this particular HD was designated in 2003. In 2005, HCD plans became on OHA requirement; the Kleinburg-Nashville District Plan predates sec. 41.1 & there is "no evidence of an update" = a technical omission by the City.

If updated plan exists, the HCD plan prevails; if not, then OHA Part IV sec. 30 cf. #2 below apply

therefore, this new construction is regulated under sec. 30 & sec. 33to 34.4 (these sections referred to Conservation Review Board) & N. B. 41 (1.2) (b) which reads "if no heritage conservation district plan has been adopted by council of the municipality....."

Ontario Municipal Board Act regulation 20/02: "if OMB considers two or more matters are related to each other by common facts, issues, questions of law or for any other reasons," OMB can consolidate separate appeals.
"Pragmatically, it is manifestly undesirable to draw a line through a building, with one set of standards applying on one side, and different standards applyong on the other. Such a confused outcome is to be avoided."-- M C Denhez

Conclusion? the entire project (restoration of heritage house and new construction) subject to HCD plan.
This particular ruling was cited by PROUD'S appeal of the OMB decision earlier this year. OMB chair Marie Hubbard affirmed "that the correct interpretation of s.41.2 (1) (b) of the OHA is set out in the Decision of Member Denhez." cf source M. Hubbard e-mail dated 4 May 2009 re s.43 requests for review decision ...issued 26 Feb 3009 OMB Case No. PL060850.

heritage fabric

2009-07-20T10:54:00.007-04:00

"The intent of heritage designation at the community level is not just about protecting one, two, or three unique properties of outstanding historical or architectural significance, but also includes protecting the general heritage fabric of the community which gives its distinct character. This character is expressed in the built environment through a collection of individual buildings, streetscapes and areas which reflect different times, materials, styles and uses. Of course, for each individual property which is proposed for designation, the city must be able to demonstrate its historical or architectural importance....Under the Ontario Heritage Act (OHA), a Municipal Council can proceed to designate without the consent of the owner and it uses this power when required in the interests of the public good." (1)

Property owner opposed City of London designation of Ontario Cottage (doorway, distinctive chimneys, bargeboard) in City of London nineteenth century streetscape with high concentration of listed and designated heritage buildings. The property owner "felt that designation had a negative effect on property values since 4 out of 4 real estate appraisals of the property had come to this conclusion; the owner stated "that the value of the building as a residence was $50,000 less than as an office." (1)

Conservation Review Board recommendations*:
1. designation of property because of architectural significance;
2. City develop "a framework for dialogue with owners of heritage property" and that the City "strive for precision and thoroughness in its presentation on heritage significance and processes of evaluation." (1)

Notes: * Conservation Review Board recommends to municipal Council; Council makes the final decision.

Photos: Governor's House and Gaol designated ONA Part IV property: yellow brick and fieldstone construction are characteristic of the Berlin/Kitchener built heritage fabric.

Source: (1) Robert Bowes, Chair Conservation Review Board hearing report "in respect of the intended designation of 308 Richmond Street, London

push and pull

2009-07-17T18:17:00.028-04:00

One fine summer's day, Rambling Rose gave in to the urge to wander and set out to find and follow the Old Stage Road (successor to the Detroit path.

Mile 0 was at the intersection of the mythical Indian Road with the old Waterloo Township boundary. From thence an easy drive south to the intersection with the Governor's Road/Highway 2 west past fields ripe with strawberries to be had for a mere pittance. Our first Lieutenant- Governor who dreamed the military road to connect Burlington Bay with the city of London had ordered Augustus Jones to survey the route in 1793 and named it the Dundas Road. However, Simcoe never lived to see that dream or to even hear the first settler's disparage those lofty ambitions with the phrase, "ah, the governor's road" set with a certain tone of voice. Ah yes, RR well knows how frontier societies use a biting humour to bring about levelling of unrealisitic aspirations. A profoundly Canadian characteristic indeed. (RR has juxtaposed the photos: the Governor's (government) road that failed to materialize & the Old Stage Road built by settler hands and toil.)

Nonetheless, two centuries later Simcoe's influence can still be felt. First, there was the matter of those military roads to defend this fledgling wilderness against invasion: we still follow the Yonge Street route into the northern hinterland (Highway 11) -- this province's longest road right up the US border; likewise, Highway 2 (Kingston-Toronto-Niagara & west to Windsor). The garrison towns of Kingston, Toronto, and Niagara have grown considerably since Simcoe first had them mapped out and settled. York (now Toronto) demonstrates Simcoe, the original urban planner cf. previous blog "gothic verticality" for link to video of Fort York.

Near Woodstock, RR zigzagged left and right and at last found the gravel road leading west that a provincial plaque confirmed to be the Old Stage Road aka the "Detroit Path." Today the road takes the traveller through primarily agricultural lands and some forested areas; closer to Woodstock the road winds through the hamlet of Oxford Centre-- thriving as a bedroom community to Woodstock and Ingersoll. In spite of the plaque's claim, the Old Stage Road deadends before arriving in Ingersoll -- cut off by the 401.

While driving the still-forested portions of the Detroit path (left photo), RR reviewed for herself Simcoe's settlement scheme (we now call these development applications):

British soldiers who had served in the American Revolutionary war were to be rewarded with free grants of land -- as were ordinary folks who had demonstrated their loyalty to the British crown & who would have the initials U. E. appended to their names; he extended his offer of 200 acres of free land to anyone who take the oath of allegiance
immigrants to Upper Canada who would bring in another 40 settler families would be rewarded with townships (the basic land survey unit--comparable to a subdivision now; counties were organized as political units to send reps to the legislative assembly, to organize the militia, to deliver various government functions (courts, jails, etc)
to sweeten the pot, he opened the border to pacifists who could avoid military service by paying an annual fee: thus commenced waves of Amish, Mennonite, Tunker and Quaker immigrations.

Settlement of Norwich Township began with the Otterville Mill (left photo) on the banks of Big Otter Creek (right photo)--
a most pleasant village to live in: quiet streets, beautiful buildings and town park, but unfortunately the museum and mill were closed. A bit more sleuthing was required to locate another strand of the Simcoe legacy to us cf. next photo left.

How many know that Simcoe was the first to propose the outright abolition of slavery? He had to compromise that ideal as many Loyalists had brought slaves with them to Canada -- and yes, Abraham Erb, the esteemed founder of Waterloo, came with a black slave to settle here; and yes, for a while the log structure that was Waterloo's first schoolhouse served as the residence of a black settler in nearby Kitchener. Simcoe's Anti-Slavery Act of 1793 spelled out these terms: slaves already brought into Canada would remain enslaved until death; no new slaves could be brought into Upper Canada; children born to female slaves would be freed at age 25. RR recalls reading somewhere that by 1810 there were no slaves in Upper Canada.

Next stop on this trip was the town of Norwich--and first on the list? the Norwich & District Museum housed in a former Quaker church where RR wanted to examine a rare saltbox house built by that town's first settler Peter Lossing, a Quaker.

In 1810, Peter Lossing and his brother-in-law DeLong, both Quakers in Dutchess County, New York purchased 10,000 acres of land in Norwich Township @ 50 cents per acre to be paid off as settlers took up land. They and their families plus a contingent of other settlers arrived in 1811 to begin clearing the land and farm.
The Lossing story brought to mind the push and pull theory used to explain patterns of immigration to Canada. Basically newcomers arrive as they are pushed out of their countires of origin and pulled to Canada by various factors.

In the Lossing story, the pull of vast tracts of land to be acquired on generous terms was the "pull" factor: apparently he wanted to found an agricultural settlement to advance his fortunes. (cf. the surveyor Augustus Jones' motives-- he asked for payment in land rather than cash to increase his land holdings). The push factor? According to Dictionary of Canadian Biography: "In 1806, the [Oswego Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends] disowned [Lossing] "claiming that Lossing had been neglectful in the attendance of Meetings & married a woman out of the unity of friends after being guilty of fornication with her."-- We are also told that "on the eve of his departure for Upper Canada, Lossing acknowledged his errors and applied, successfully, for readmission to the society. -- Shrewd operator-- he had future customers for all the land he proposed to sell, meetings were initially conducted in his house, acted as surveyor of the township, and became its first postmaster. Photos: 1) the Peter Lossing 1811 clapboard saltbox house-- restored by South Norwich Historical Society: 2) the migration story & Conestoga wagon display inside the museum.

Even as RR paused to enjoy the graceful simplicity of the Lossing home in the wilderness, Governor Simcoe was never far from her mind. In rereading this province's early history, RR has been trying to determine who constituted the "Family Compact" historians frequently referred to. Simcoe, the idealist, dreamed of creating here in this land a better England and hoped to found an enlightened aristocracy here in the persons of the founders of each of the townships as they were surveyed and settled here. However, many of the original landholders accepted their free land holdings and then retired to the home country to watch their colonial real estate portfolio grow-- never bothering to even fulfill the basic settlement duty of clearing the roadway in front of their property ( a lot like not clearing snow and ice off the public sidewalk in winter now).

During the war of 1812-14, Quakers and other pacifists found themselves harrassed for not having served in the war. Resentments started growing among the populace and were targeted against the wealthy, powerful, and well-connected members of the "Family Compact." Thus, RR learned that Norwich had become a "hotbed of treason" and many here had taken an active role in the 1837 Rebellion under the leadership of a local physician, Dr. Charles Duncombe (photo on right).

The museum's closing indicated time to head home but RR chose to detour to Scotland, the site of Duncombe's unsuccessful uprising (cf. plaque photo left).

All in all, an interesting day as RR gathered together the vestiges of various minds and personalities at work in dreaming a new country/land into being. RR continues to marvel at the complexities of Simcoe's mind who devised our transportation system by reading maps sketched in for him on birch bark, who needed to attract settlers to feed the troops at his garrison towns, and then opened up settlement to those whose pacifist ideas were diametrically opposed to his--the career soldier and aristocrat & so put in place a fundamental Canadian trait of tolerance and freedom.

To close, an observation RR found in an early history of this province: “The Canadian immigrant, be he, English, Irish, or Scotch, or even German, or French, will, as time give lines to his face, and gray hair to his head, insensibly lose many of the peculiarities of his race, and in the end sensibly approximate to the character and appearance of the people among whom he has settled. The children of the emigrant, no matter what pains the parents may take to preserve in their children what belongs to their own native country, will grow up quite unlike the parents...The fact at which it is desired to get is that emigrants to Canada, no matter how heterogenous, are gradually moulded into a whole more or less homogenous.That this is observable somewhat in the emigrant himself, but decidedly so in the children.”--William Canniff, History of Upper Canada

the classic Ontario House

2009-07-09T17:15:00.035-04:00

According to ERA Heritage architect Scott Weir, "The Gothic cottage is a small, perfect gem...an architectural type that could be called “great Upper Canadian”....the very archetype of what a house should look like." (1) He goes on to list the basic characteristics of this architectural style:
a. Symmetrical storey and a half facade;
b. Small gable centred above the main entrance;
c. Size? From very small (single storey with three rooms) to large (two storeys, grandly scaled interiors and high ceilings): usually two bedroom houses + living room & kitchen @ 700 sq ft;
d. A simple end-gabled box: pitched roof, centre door balanced by single window either side, and one chimney + centre gable whose peak directed snow away from the entrance stoop & had either a vent or a window.

Photos L to R: updated brick with bargeboarding and finials; vinyl siding covers original finish; original fieldstone with new roof and porch; Port Rowan lacey gingerbread; original limestone.

Architectural historians Kim Ondaatje & Lois Mackenzie prefer to call this style The Ontario House, a classic feature of Ontario landscape from 1824 to 1850's. This was the successor to the one-and-a-half storey log cabin that “hid its upper storey from the taxman* behind its heightened walls.” By the end of the nineteenth century, the walls became higher and the roof pitch became steeper to provide more
head room in the bedroom storey. (2) There are a variety of reasons given for the popularity of this style: 1) tax laws; 2) ease of construction; and 3) availability of plans in pattern books.

Thomas F. McIlwraith provides the best overview of 19C tax laws: Upper Canada law 1807 to 1853 taxed houses according to height: i. One storey (round log, square timber, brick or stone) @ $30**; ii. Two storeys (square timber and brick, stone or framed) i.e. full storeys; square timber @ $30 but brick, stone or framed eg UEL Georgian house @ $60; iii. One (framed) is less than two storeys & refers to the storey-and-a-half which appears to be one storey high viewed from front but has two usable storeys when viewed from end wall–the half storey has sloping ceilings; taxed @ $35. Such houses could be made more economical by rasing the roof & addition of gables and dormers. (3)

19C North America had high levels of immigration requiring shelter to be built quickly by an uneducated construction trade. (1) Pine & cedar were readily available and after lumber stocks diminished, the houses were built of fieldstone or brick. This basic structure could be constructed easily without carpentry and masonry skills. As time went on, the basic structure was added to with summer kitchens, verandahs/porches. (3) ***

Plans were readily available at the local Mechanic's Institute i.e. American architect Downing’s manuals on house construction; this particular design by architect Downing had won an award at 1851 Great Exhibition in London; architect James Smith modified the design which was published in The Canadian Farmer magazine in 1865 with two versions: Gothic cottage**** and Gothic farmhouse; constructed of local materials readily available (wood, stone. Brick or roughcast (i.e.unpainted stucco). (1) The style applied to the cottage was influenced by its location. In Ontario, with many immigrants from Britain, the style leaned to gothic, with details such as finials, bargeboarding (gingerbread) and window trim carrying the gothic elements. ..These houses were intended to be simple, efficient, economical and
beautiful.(4) *****
Photos L to R and counterclockwise: updated with stylistic changes; City of Kitchener's oldest house dates to 1816 ---with original timber framing restored--note that this structure could have started as simple log cabin and then had roof raised at a later date; abandoned farmhouse left to decay; one of Downing's illustrations; immaculate fieldstone at Speedsville, Wellington County.

Downing explained his approach to residential construction thus:

"This simple design is given to show how a very small cottage, built of wood, may bemade to look well at very trifling cost." (4)
"...the greatest charm of this cottage[ i.e. A Symmetrical Bracketed Cottage] to our eyes, is the expression of simple but refined home beauty which it conveys. No person would build such a quaint yet modest porch as this, no one would give this simple character of beauty to the windows, and no one would reach this exact height of tasteful simplicity in the whole exterior character, unless he had a real appreciation of the beautiful and truthful in cottage life, rather than that false ambition which leads men to make small cottages ape great villas...Altogether, this cottage evinces much of absolute and relative beauty - the universal beauty of form, and the relative beauty of refined purposes." (4)

This classic Ontario House has evolved and endured over time. In the 1850's the basic model was followed by the picturesque Gothic Revival cottage that featured a liberal use of decorative bargeboard (verge board) according to rules of British architect A. W. Pugin in 1841 and the upstairs window became more decorative; the verandah attaches house visually and functionally to its setting. Further variations included pinnacles or small spires rising from peaks; an asymmetric floor plan; and vertical board and batten replaced horizontal clapboard of earlier styles. (2)

Photos: architect Scott Weir's drawing to illustrate terms; architect Adamson's illustrations showing the basic layout; red brick with later addition in Gorrie-- this village has wonderful brick buildings; Cedar Hill original Ontario house with later additions that provide a fabulous study of changing architectural styles-- this house just kept on growing.

As co-author Marion Macrae noted that she gave architectural, heritage activist guru Anthony Adamson the first and last word, RR shall do likewise:

“A true vernacular, shaped by the people and the climate from the land itself... the functional form of dwelling for the North American woodlands, where conservation of heat is the major consideration for nine months of the year, and the greatest nuisance for the other three...The Upper Canadian began life in the colony as the last Georgian. The lineal ancestor of the Upper Canadian vernacular style is the smaller Georgian house, a storey and a half in height, in plan a long rectangle bisected by a centre hall. This little
house kept growing with the addition of working tail: summer kitchen, a laundry, a smoke-house, a wood-shed, privies and carriage-shed...The little vernacular house, still stubbornly Georgian in form, and wearing its little gable with brave gaiety, became the abiding image of the province. It was to be the Ontario Classic style.” (5)

Notes: *Excellent photos and discussion board here: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?p=4330098
** RR is using $ symbol as can't locate the symbol for British pound as that was currency in effect at that time; *** there are some structures with a "suicide door"--an upstairs door leading to a non-existent upper porch; **** aka "the working man's cottage"; ***** The American architect Downing was a student of the British architect John C. Loudon, who had published in 1830 his influential An Encyclopaedia of cottage, Farm, and Village Architecture: containing numerous designs for dwellings...(full title can not be twittered) in which he demonstrated farm improvements and building construction. (5)

Sources: (1) Scott Weir,The tiny, perfect home, The National Post 24 February 2007; (2) Kim Ondaatje & Lois Mackenzie, Old Ontario Houses, Toronto 1977; (3) Thomas McIlwraith, Looking for Old Ontario,Toronto 1997; (5) Marion Macrae in constant consultation with, and sometimes in spite of Anthony Adamson, who
wrote the first word and the last word and made the drawings, The Ancestral Roof: Domestic Architecture in Upper Canada, Toronto 1963 rev 1967 (4) http://www.cabbagetownpa.ca/Pages/11Workers.html

the detroit path

2009-06-26T18:42:00.034-04:00

Gentle reader, and one in particular whom we shall address as snowbird, what follows is a work in progress-- an exploration of a variety of maps, photos, and texts in an attempt to uncover vestiges of our past.

Shall we begin with the first map first introduced in the post, "blow sands 21 June 2008, wherein Rambling Rose opined that this province's first lieutenant governor John Graves Simcoe either canoed or portaged 600 miles round trip between Niagara and Detroit? Not so, as he either walked overland or on ice and sometimes in moccasins most of this winter journey; however, he managed to hitch a ride in a cariole (a sleigh pulled by horses) for a partion of the trip either way. The diarist Littlehales who recorded this trip and drew the map tells us that the distance from Niagara to Detroit was 270 miles going, but would have been a bit longer going back as Simcoe detoured to the forks of the La Tranche (now Thames River) to dream Upper Canada's new capital-- variously called Georgina, New London, and now London. Here's Littlehale's map with the Detroit path highlighted in pink.

Maps and backroads excite RR's imagination and itchy feet as there are always new landscapes to be explored and stories to uncover as one by one the narrative questions are answered: who? did what? where? when? why? how?

First portrait is of Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe (in whose honour, we take our annual Civic holiday). Historians tell us: " Simcoe decided to make a journey overland to Detroit. He left Navy Hall on the 4th February, 1793, and returned on the 10th March. His travelling companions were Capt. Fitzgerald, Lieutenant Smith...Lieutenants Talbot, Gray, Givens and Major Littlehales."--oops, there's something missing here....names of their native guides as 1) there were no roads overland at that time and 2) this was Simcoe's first trip cross country---without roads or signposts? someone had to guide him. Photo on the right was taken at Battlefield House National Historic Site during this year's Battle of Stoney Creek re-enactment. RR is wondering if the Governor and his soldiers wore full battle dress--those wonderfully brilliant scarlet uniforms for a hike in the backwoods? She's not certain as having read more of Simcoe's accomplishments she learned that as a commander of British forces during the American Revolution Simcoe was the first to have soldiers wear green camouflage.

But on with the story: the where? question awaits us: "The journey was made partly in sleighs, but chiefly on foot. Littlehales kept a diary of the occurrences on the way. The route was by Ten-mile Creek, Nelles' house at the Grand River, the Mohawk Indian village (a little below Brantford), the portage route to the Forks of the Thames (London), and then down or along the River to Detroit." Two maps then to accompany this trip diary: The first map from Newark (now Niagara) to 40 mile Creek (now Grimsby) & for a closer look just click with your mouse and the map opens up in greater detail as every creek they crossed & friends they stayed with & date are noted on the map. This particular map is noteworthy for two reasons. First, it has been drawn by none other than the power behind the big man--Mrs. Elizabeth Simcoe who accompanied her husband frequently on such trips & who served as his secretary and with her skills as an artist left us visual images of this province at that time. The second? the route this band of men followed is sometimes called the Iroquois trail and connects across the Niagara River with the Mohawk (Iroquois) trail from Albany to Niagara and was used by many settlers to immigrate to Upper Canada. Today that aboriginal trail has been covered over by old Highway 8 (now regional road 81) between Hamilton and Niagara & is named King or Queenston Street within municipalities.

Next map (courtesy Mrs. Simcoe) shows the route between Burlington overland to Detroit. RR highlighted for herself settlements as of 1793.
As far as RR has been able to ascertain the historic Iroquois trail would have traversed Cootes Paradise, the Dundas Valley, and climbed the Escarpment to arrive at Ancaster (not Highway 8 as that highway heads towards Galt) & Simcoe's party was headed towards Brant's Ford (now Brantford) in order to cross the Grand River.

In her diary, Mrs. Simcoe provides us with a sketch of Her Majesty's Royal Chapel of the Mohawks as it appeared in 1793--noteworthy as this was the very first Protestant church built in Upper Canada. At the Village of the Mohawks, Simcoe's party grew larger:
"Joseph Brant (photo of Thayendaga/Joseph Brant memorial in City of Brantford) with about a dozen of his Indians accompanied the party from the Mohawk Village to Delaware, doubtless to furnish them with game and guide them over the long portage." ===> Possible route? Brantford to Paris via the Governor's Road that skirts along the high banks of the Nith River? from thence following Highway 2 via the Old Stage Road south of Woodstock? cf. map-- a very pleasant drive that RR highly recommends and escape from the elephant trail (the 401)-- and thence to the Longwoods Road from London to Delaware and points west? --formerly Highway 2 but thanks to
to the Harris government has been downloaded and downgraded from provincial highway status. That's ok too as RR frequently uses Old Highway 2 for a stress-free jaunt to Windsor & smiles when she observes all those trucks on the 401 passing her by.

After saying goodbye to Brant and his Mohawks at Delaware, the party soldiers on: "In proceeding down the river the Indians discovered a spring of an oily nature, which upon examination proved to be a kind of petroleum. On the 17th, after a journey of four or five miles, they passed the Moravian Village which had been begun in May,1792. The Delaware Indians were....making progress towards civilization [sic--that phrase would have to be excised now}, and already had corn fields and were being instructed in different branches of agriculture. "At this place every respect was paid to the Governor, and we procured a seasonable refreshment of eggs, milk and butter."....Before this, the Governor and his lads considered porcupine flesh a fine feast indeed.

Next photos: Fairfield Oil & Gas Museum and the powerhouse at Bothwell; Tecumseh memorial at roadside park just past Bothwell but before Thamesford. Great rest area--just remember to take picnic lunch. Take note that petroleum was discovered and produced right here in Ontario long before Alberta cashed in on black gold.
Littlehales' trip diary continues: "3rd.—We were glad to leave our wigwam early this morning, it having rained incessantly the whole night; besides, the hemlock branches on which we slept were wet before they were gathered for our use.—We first ascended the height at least 120 feet into a continuation of the pinery already mentioned; quitting that, we came to a beautiful plain with detached clumps of white oak, and open woods; then crossing a creek running into the south branch of the
Thames, we entered a thick swampy wood, where we were at a loss to discover any track; but in a few minutes we were released from this dilemma by the Indians, who making a cast, soon descried our old path to Detroit. Descending a hill and crossing a brook, we came at noon to the encampment we left on the 14th of February, and were agreeably surprised by meeting Captain Brant and a numerous retinue; among them were four of the Indians we had despatched to him when we first altered our course for the forks of the River Thames."

Per historian: "At this period the overland route from Detroit to Niagara was apparently well known. There was an annual "Winter-express" each way, which Simcoe met on his westward journey on the 12th February and on his homeward route on the 5th March. Littlehales mentions a Mr. Clarke as being with it on each occasion. On their first meeting, the express was accompanied by a Wyandot and a Chippawa Indian. The second time, Mr. Augustus Jones, the surveyor, (cf. left statue of Jones in Old Towne Square, Stoney Creek) was either with or following it."

In retelling the story, only one question remains: why this trip overland during a bitter Ontario winter? Simcoe, ever the soldier and military strategist, was anticipating an American invasion & strategically set up forts at key waterfront locations (Kingston, York(Toronto), Newark (Niagara), Chatham and Fort Malden. Like the Romans before him, he chose to connect them with roads that were to be immediately surveyed and built by his troops, the Queen's Rangers he had brought with him. The Dundas Road (highway 2) was surveyed the next year and work was begun but never completed as Simcoe, exhausted by frontier life and battles with his superior, took sick leave in 1796 and returned to his wife's estate in England to recuperate. That incompleted road was mocked by the settlers with the derisive term, "The Governor's Road."

Gentle snowbird, you asked recently, "How do you do these blogs?"-- mmm? like piecing together jigsaw puzzle-- Some years back, RR discovered the Old Stage Road and knew there was a story there but how to find it---took this long to learn about the Detroit path. Another time someone told her about the existence of an old map used by settlers to get to Wilmot Township-- apparently the map had a line marked the Indian Road-- a straight line that connected Lake Erie to the Wilmot Line in Region of Waterloo. RR studied current maps and test drove her theory but was not sure she had found the road as it could have begun either in Port Dover or Port Ryerse-- until she did the Norolk sand plain posts and was able to determine that Port Ryerse had the harbour and shipping capacities to bring immigrants via New York--Albany-- Buffalo/Fort Erie to Port Ryerse. RR has yet to find the map. A few winters back four region archivists and one WLU archaeologist checked and told her none available that matched that description. We shall see-- as these maps have been culled from diaries & there have to be more diaries archived somewhere.
In the end, it's all about the stories hidden behind covers somewhere, is it not?

Footnotes culled here and there:

"Various figures were delineated on trees at the forks of the River Thames, done with charcoal and vermillion; the most remarkable were the imitations of men with deer's heads." ===> Rambling Rose has long wondered where have all the big trees gone? (chopped down to outfit the British navy or to furnish English castles, etc.) where are our aboriginal trails as trails & associated artifacts are still being uncovered in British Columbia today? (covered over by modern roads as the aboriginals instinctively followed the best travel routes across this highly varied landscape) ===> guarding the Skeena River to this day is a stone carving of the legendary chieftain Legiac visible from the highway; the only easily accessible hieroglyphics can be found at Petroglyphs Provincial Park just east of Peterborough; cf. photo of old growth tree at Chiefswood on the Six Nations Reserve
"According to Rochefoucoult, Brant's manners were half European, and he wa accompanied about England by two negro [sic] servants. Thayenanegea is described as being a man of animal courage, and possessing all the noble qualities of a soldier- tall, erect and majestic, with the aire and mien of one born to command..."
"Mrs. Simcoe...is bashful, and speaks little, but she is a woman of sense, handsome and amiable, and fulfils all the duties of a mother and wife with most scrupulous exactness. The performance of the latter she carries so far as to act the part of secretary to her husband."
"A sporadic stage coach service ran along the Detroit Path after the war, with regular passenger service only after 1832. The fare was $4.50 for a two-day journey from London to Hamilton. Drivers were paid ten to twelve dollars per month, and many small boys wanted to be one. Drawn by a 4-horse team, a coach was huge, awkward and uncomfortable. Its body, slung on rawhide straps over the wheels, carried nine passengers inside and as many as had a strong grip, on the top. It was the heyday of taverns, with 30 between London and Brantford. Coaches stopped at each one, and passengers were always thirsty. At the best of times, coaches travelled at 3 mph, though in spring the road became so muddy in places that male passengers had to get out and push. By 1839, parts of the Governor’s Road had been graded and paved with three-inch pine planks and travellers used it instead of Old Stage Road. Once the planks wore out, in ten years, business returned to the Detroit Path."
"Civilization consists, in the eyes of Americans, in just those views, theories, beliefs, and proceedings, which belong to the Great United States, and nothing can emanate from their government that is not in strict accordance with civilization, –their civilization. It so happens that one of their beliefs is that destiny manifestly intends that they shall possess all of North America."--Canniff 1869 ===> frequently cited as 1 of 4 causes of the war 1812-4; cf. blog about Security Prosperity Partnership (just enter the phrase in search box top left corner this blog & blogger software will take you to the post)
Primary source: 1793 trip to Detroit: Journal written by Edward Baker Littlehales (major of brigade, etc.) of an exploratory tour partly in sleighs but chiefly on foot, from Navy Hall, Niagara, to Detroit made in the months of February and March, A.D. 1793, by His Excellency Lieut.-Gov. Simcoe [microform] (1889) cf link here: http://www.archive.org/details/cihm_09129; secondary source:The Country of the Neutrals, by James H. Coyne St. Thomas 1895

paradigm shift

2009-06-22T09:39:00.007-04:00

The Long Point Region 2005 Report on Water Quality notes some progress towards healthy, sustainable watersheds draining Norfolk County lands into Lake Erie: from a low of 11% forest cover (note: 30% is considered healthy), currently there is 20% forest cover in Norfolk County comprised of: i. Deciduous forests (maple, beech, ash, and oak); and ii. Carolinian Life Zone tree species (tulip tree, black gum, sassafras, black oak, cucumber tree) that are rare in Canada and habitat for endangered species. However, it is important to note that the entire Carolinian Canada ecosystem remains at risk: 25% of Canada’s population lives in the Carolinian zone which covers only 0.25% of Canada’s area; this region has more endangered species than any region of the country. As well, St Williams Crown Lands @ 1,308 ha preserves and is working towards restoration of nationally rare ecosystems: oak savannah, prairie and sand barrens. The report also notes that Big Creek today has 20% forest cover; 40% riparian**, wetland and forest cover based on 15 m buffer at each edge.

The most significant statement in the Water Quality report states: "Riparian areas, wetland and forest cover are hydrological features to provide water quality and quantity benefits to all users; considered green infrastructure and provide an integral ecological contribution to ecosystem and community health, source water protection and long term farm sustainability.” ===> This concept of ecological contribution needs to incorporated into all land use planning decisions & landholders who choose to preserve and enhance such ecological contributions must be compensated financially.

Two maps have been chosen to illustrate the paradigm shift that has taken place over few decades. The first map shows the original surveys into townships and 200 acre farms that have been measured off on a gird with a military precision. All lots appear equal and lines are drawn without regard to the natural contours of the land. The second map reveals watershed-based planning that is now required by provincial source water legislation; within the long Point Region Watersheds, Big Creek is by far the largest watershed of the former Dust Bowl (orange circle) but all of the lesser creeks too are evaluated individually for their contribution to water quality and quantity in the Lake Erie Source Protection Region. ***

Rambling Rose provides the following summary of the most recent 2005 report on water quality:

“The inherent geology and current land use practices appear to be driving some of the chronic surface water quality issues within the Long Point Region. For example, watershed draining the clay and till plains tend to have the highest non-filterable residue and nutrient concentrations...most of the land area is designated as agricultural of which a high percentage is now cropped & tile-drained. Land use of this type can result in waterways becoming enriched through runoff of fertilizer and erosion of soils.”
"Highest number of surface and ground water takers of any area in southern Ontario: The numerous permits to take water, online impoundments and tile or municipal drains, could
eventually have a negative effect on base-flow levels, which in turn could negatively impact water quality.... adequate protection of natural recharge areas (such as wetlands and moraines) should be developed.”
"High agricultural use (row-cropped and tile-drained) ===>runoff of fertilizers and erosion of soils impacts surface water quality negatively: “Big Otter Creek has been identified as
Canada’s largest source of sediment contamination to lake Erie; reacts to even flows extremely quickly & tends to be flashy resulting in increased erosion and sedimentation;
compounded by soil type, lack of riparian vegetation, and deeply incised banks."
“The warming trend in summer water temperature values across several watersheds (e.g. Bit Otter
Creek, Big Creek and Lynn River) is of obvious concern to maintaining the current cool and cold
water fisheries. Many of the tributaries within the Long Point region ...have been described as
thermally stressed.”
"Watersheds draining clay or till plains eg Nanticoke Creek have highest non-filterable residue & nutrient concentrations."****
"Extensive irrigation required by specialty crops (tobacco, ginseng, vegetables, fruit and root
crops)*****
" significant groundwater recharge area "
The report acknowledges the historical record thus:

”Alteration of plains and surrounding heavily forested lands has had a significant impact on the surface and groundwater quality and quantity" ====> the long term consequence of the uncontolled nineteenth century lumber trade within this watershed?
"Reforestation and the tobacco industry, through the establishment of wind breaks and cover crops, resulted in the stabilization of the old Norfolk soils, transforming the area into one of the most productive and profitable agricultural regions in Ontario."

Notes: *forward-thinking scientists are actually calling for a 100 m. buffer to streams; **cf federal guidelines state 75% of streams should be naturally vegetated to achieve healthy ecosystem; *** Grand River watershed is also contained within the Lake Erie Source Protection Region; this source protection region contains most inland rivers and streams flowing directly into Lake Erie **** of considerable concern to Region of Waterloo readers of this blog should be the frequent references to difficulties with the Nanticoke water intake pipe in this report; the Region is currently studying the feasibility of a water pipeline from the Nanticoke intake to supplement this Region's water supplies within 20 years; ***** as indicated in the dust bowl map above.

Sources: notes have been combined and condensed from the following reports: Susan Evans, Water Quality in the Long Point Region: Summary of the 2002-2005 Conditions and
Trends, GRCA July 2007; Long Point Region 2005 Report on Water Quality; Long Point Region Watershed Characterization Report 2008.

2009-06-22T09:08:00.006-04:00

“Although the tremendous increase in tobacco production initially resulted in further forest clearing, it has also brought substantial benefits to the regional landscape. Tobacco plants are susceptible to direct wind damage as well as the sand blasting effect of wind erosion. Consequently, tobacco production necessitated
the planting of extensive windbreaks and cover crops, which provided a microclimate that favours tobacco
growth. The need to minimize wind erosion and the small number of acres required to produce tobacco
compared to that of cereal grains, resulted in farmers retaining substantial woodlots on their properties. Due to the high nutrient requirements of tobacco, it is generally planted every second year on a crop rotation with rye or winter wheat. The cover crop, which is planted in the fall, is subsequently plowed into the soil in the spring prior to planting tobacco. This serves to increase the humus content of the soil which provides more favourable conditions for tobacco production. A major benefit of this farming system is that it provides soil cover during the winter, thereby substantially reducing wind and water erosion." (1)

Ontario Ginseng (genus Panox) was first discovered in 1716 by the Jesuits and exported to China. However, there was only a brief trading period as “the trouble consisted in the actual destruction of the plant, from gathering it too early in the season, whereby the plant was killed.” (2) In 1896, one of the Hellyer brothers near Waterford saw a newspaper advertisement with a picture of a ginseng plant which stated if anybody [had] this growing on their property to mail it to a New York address and they would be sent money for payment. They did, and the money came, which eventually resulted in a new farm crop for Norfolk County. (3) Two brothers, Clarence and Albert, began to grow North American ginseng in Ontario, with seed cultivated from wild roots. Their descendants are still producing ginseng in southwestern Ontario, and the strain that the Hellyer brothers developed is still used in today’s ginseng gardens. (3) Waterford now bills itself as the "ginseng capital of Canada" and is surrounded on all sides by fields of ginseng grown under wooden and fabric shade curtains; almost the entire Norfolk County harvest is sold for consumption in the Orient.

Photos chosen to show Norfolk County's changing agricultural landscape L to R: mechanized tobacco production & lettuce fields near Burford, Ontario.

Sources: (1)Dr. Scott Petrie, The settlement and early agricultural development of "Old Norfolk County"; (2) Wm. Canniff, Settlement of Upper Canada, Toronto 1869.

blow sands*

2009-06-21T16:02:00.018-04:00

Historian Careless speaks of the great myth underlying this country's relentless expansion: "The great myth, dating virtually from European settlement, that Canada's natural resources truly were unending, and there was always more good country somewhere out there -- a factor in the historic westward frontier movement across North America. Yet European minds, dazzled by sheer space and a galaxy of resource discoveries, took very long to accept that even a wilderness continent might eventually run short of new bonanzas. Perhaps only in the last few decades have the Canadian public come increasingly to recognize that there is no limitless bailing-out, no more "countless" forests or "inexhaustible" wealth always waiting in the ground. (2)

What follows, gentle reader, is a cautionary tale drawn from our historical record that speaks of apparently inexhaustible resources that have been squandered over the past seven generations and left those of us who follow to inherit and harvest the wind (literally).

The first map records four journeys made by Upper Canada's (now Ontario) first governor Simcoe (1792-96) undertaken to survey the lands he was to govern in British North America. He travelled through unbroken forests of pine and oak by birch bark canoe or foot across native trails and portages. Ever the soldier and military strategist concerned with defending this infant colony against American invasions, Simcoe roughed in future roads to naval military outposts (Yonge Street north from York (now Toronto) to defend Penetanguishene; Dundas Street west to Sandwich (now Windsor) on the Detroit River, east to Cataraqui (now Kingston) and southeast around Lake Ontario to Newark (now Niagara), In 1795, he visited Long Point and noted the strategic military importance of the protected harbour in the Bay & commanding bluffs over the Point. Simcoe encouraged favoured officers & other United Empire Loyalists to settle there by offering them free grants of land. After 1796 settlement was opened to anyone who took the oath of allegiance and encouraged with offers of free grants of 200 acres of land. (3)

Post-Loyalist Americans soon occupied the shores of Lake Ontario between the Bay of Quinte and the
capital of York, spread from the head of the lake through the western peninsula to the Detroit
border, and thrust inland up Yonge Street from York itself. (2) Early settlement factors were 1. flat plains, more easily cleared; 2. transportation on Lake Erie; 3. Moderate climate; 4. Abundant fish**, wildlife, and fur.(3)

The next map narrates the quick progress of settlement and the process of clearing the land for agriculture:
a. By axe;
b. Firing the woods to kill the trees & next year they would be burned in order to save labour;
c. Girdling =cutting bark all around tree in order to kill them to be burned the next year.
Some generations later, the historian Wm. Canniff observes: “It is no ordinary undertaking for one to enter the primeval forest, to cut down the tough grained trees***, whose boughs have long met the first beams of the rising sun, and swayed in the tempest wind; to clear away the thick underbrush, which impedes the step at every turn; to clear out a tangled cedar swamp, no matter how hardy may be the axe-man; .... it requires a determined will, an iron frame and supple muscle, to undertake and carry out the successful clearing of a farm...When the land was everywhere covered with wood, the only thought was how to get rid of it.” (4)

"The cheerless toil of the backwoodsman affords little to attract our attention, or to divert the mind
from the full and dreary realities of life. But after some years of privation and patient endurance, we
emerge from the solitude of the woods, a brighter prospect breaks upon the view, and we behold
the once trackless forest, cut through in every direction by good roads, exhibiting long lines of
beautiful farms, teeming with life, and diversified by scenery of the most charming description."(5)

Initially settlers used water transportation**** across Lake Erie to secure their land grants; however, in 1804, Thomas Talbot and others, all from Long Point or Port Talbot, were given £250 to spend on a road starting from near the native village on the Grand River (now Brantford), passing through Sayles Mills (now Waterford) and linking up with an old aboriginal trail through the townships along Lake Erie. Although surveyed by John Bostwick in 1804, this road was never completed because the funds ran out in
1806. In 1811 Talbot Road (now Highway 3) was surveyed by Mahlon Burwell to open Elgin County (The Talbot Tract)*****; as well, each settler was required to clear the roadway adjacent to his land and soon a system of corduroy roads began to take shape: "The roads newly made, were full of stumps and fallen timber, and to wind round and through these, with a yoke of oxen and a rude cart, frequently through morasses, over rudely constructed causeways, commonly called corduroys, with very broad stipes could only be accomplished with much labour and patience.....Frequently they preferred going by water, a distance of 60 or 0 miles, in a boat, along the shores of Lake Erie to Long Point, o get a few bushels of wheat ground." (5)

In 1816, Long Point Furnace Co was established at Normandale ******; this was the only iron furnace in western Ontario to manufacture stoves, kettles, pots, ploughs to 1852 when local iron ore supply exhausted. By this time, there were saw and grist mills established wherever there was a creek and the foundation was in place for future growth through export of two staples: wheat and lumber. "The most important staple export, by value, was wood: pine and oak. The market was mainly Britain, though exports of lumber to the United States began in the 1840s, at the latest. Exceptionally tall pine trees were `broad arrowed' by the Admiralty, that is, reserved to become masts on naval vessels.******* The oak was used in ship construction. Most of the Red and White Pine exported was used for whatever wood was used for during the industrialization and urbanization of Britain in the first half of the nineteenth century." (7) The logging industry peaked 1860-1880.

Thus, lands that in the1790's had been heavily forested with pine and oak were in less than one century stripped clean. The removal of forests resulted in miles of lost shoreline; extensive logging and intensive agriculture depleted forests & vegetative cover; soil erosion by wind and water resulted in “soil depletion with desert-like conditions; large blowouts resulted when ridges were cleared. "(3) Big Creek was major transportation route to carry logs to mills @ Port Dover, Port Rowan, and Port Royal at the mouth of Big Creek was important shipping centre; by 1900 Big Creek forest cover decreased to 11%. (8) Because of light sandy soil & prevailing winds, Norfolk County had become the “Dust Bowl” of Ontario characterized by blow sands and abandoned farms.

Since then,

1908 Reforestation @ St. Williams****** forestry station to provide tree nursery stock i.e. pines and other conifers planted in blown sand to stabilize the sand; tall cedar hedges as windbreaks to prevent further soil erosion
1920 first tobacco farm Chrysler Farm at Lynedoch===> corporations purchase land to begin
tobacco production: crops are rotated with rye, wheat, potatoes, other grains to allow soil to regain
its natural nutrients (9)
1921 Long Point Provincial Park
1986 Long Point UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve
2005-06 Erie Shores Wind Farm in Houghton Township

"He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind." --Book of Proverbs

Notes: *Blow sands develop where the stabilizing cover of vegetation on sandy soils has been destroyed. In places, they form sand dunes which may be over 30 m deep, and they may advance over a region at a rate of nearly 30 m. a year. **one historian tells of first settlers using baskets to scoop fish out of the waters; *** The pine trees grow to the height of 120 feet and more, and from 9 to 10 feet in circumference. The trees of a resinous quality supply pitch tar and turpentine. The maple furnishes sugar, and with the beech, ash, elm, &c. will also serve for the potash manufactory. Cedar is converted into glue for the roofs of houses, oak into ship timber; firs into deal planks and boards. (6) ****"It is necessary that the settler should first look out for a market for his produce, and for some navigable river, or good road to convey the same, otherwise it is of little consequence that he obtains four or five hundred acres of land for four or five pounds."(6) *****note Norfolk County Regional Road 42 (Lakeshore Road, Front Road, Radical Road) was a pioneer trail from Niagara west to Long Point (3); ******acquired by UEL Joseph VanNorman & renamed the Normandale Foundry; ****** the nineteenth century lumber industry was as wasteful as during the early settlement years cf. this practice: "the square-hewing by broad-axe of giant "sticks" of timber (2); ******closed in 1998 by province=privatized to ForestCare Coporation;

(1) Sources: (1) Karl F. Wenger, Forestry Handbook; (2) J.M.S. Careless, CANADA: A Celebration of Our Heritage
Heritage Publishing House, 1994-7; (3)Unterman McPhail Associates 2007 Norfolk County Lakeshore Special Policy Area Secondary Plan CHL and Built Heritage Study; (4) Wm. Canniff, Settlement of Upper Canada, Toronto 1869; (5) Èrmatinger, Life of Colonel Talbot --note Ermatinger was a contemporary of Colonel Thomas Talbot who brought in many of the first settlers to Lake Erie; (6) 1820 Emigrant Handbook
(7)Upper Canada in the Canal Era; (8)History of Long Point
(9)Norfolk tobacco heritage driving tour in Delhi Tourism Study link

the giant (empty?*) land

2009-06-09T06:19:00.012-04:00

Historian J.M.S. Careless tells us that "the Canada we know today is crucially a historic product of the far later arrival of Europeans around 1500 A.D., to start their own advance westward across the continent." (1) Two maps then to show the historical events that created the foundation for the geographical-historical entity we now call Canada.

The first map, North America 1755-60, highlights the extent of explorations and "discoveries [aka conquests] by England (red shading), France (green), and Spain (blue)shortly before the following wars & treaties redefined political boundaries:

The Seven Years' War 1756–1763** and involved all of the major European powers of the period. The fighting in America is sometimes considered a separate war, the French and Indian War (1754–1763). This war was the North American chapter of the Seven Years' War, known in Canada (particularly in Quebec) as the War of the Conquest (French: Guerre de la Conquête). The name refers to the two main enemies of the British: the royal French forces and the
various American Indian forces allied with them. The conflict, the fourth such colonial war between the nations of France and Great Britain, resulted in the British conquest of Canada. The outcome was one of the most significant developments in a century of Anglo-French conflict. To compensate its ally, Spain, for its loss of Florida, France ceded its control of French Louisiana west of the Mississippi. France's colonial
presence north of the Caribbean was reduced to the tiny islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon.
American Revolution 1776-1783 following the 1776 Declaration of Independence; the 1783 Treaty of Paris*** effectively ended the Britain vs France struggle to control North America & established new political boundaries. When this war was over, 40,000 Loyalists left the United States and migrated into the British colony of Quebec.****

Thus, the stage was set for the continued westward expansion of European settlement of this continent. In his history, Careless highlights: a) "the distinctive political, social and cultural traditions themselves emerged within the rising Canadian national domain in North America;" b)"distinctive economic activities and interests developed in each of the great regions*****"as newcomers sought to avail themselves of the "stored-up wealth of soil, mineral and energy resources" & " abundant plant, forest, and animal life." (1)

According to Careless, "rooted in Canadian experience" is the ever-present need "to adapt and respond to the demanding problems of environment" as newcomers to this giant land encountered "massive geographical barriers across the land,..[the] stiff restraints of climate, and over all, [the] stern limits set on human dealings with a difficult physical world." ******

This country described by Jacques Cartier as the "land God gave to Cain" and by Samuel de Champlain as a place where one must expect "six months of winter" has proven challenging. Careless draws attention to the following:

"Yet one must always recall that this huge inheritance was not just a ready store of wealth open
for the taking, of unbounded resources leading to inevitable "progress". The limits of Canada's
environment were real and unrelenting. Human mischance or mistake could bring disaster; the
best of plans and efforts might be tossed aside by incalculable physical forces; and the misuse of
natural bounties, through ignorance, waste or simply human greed, in the long run could cost
dearly -- even to the very ruin of environment." (1)
"Canada's temperature range, even in its milder regions, imposes a constant annual expense for
heating homes and workplaces beyond what is required in the more southerly United States, let
alone in warmer climes elsewhere. These higher costs of heat energy (and of lighting, too, for the
longer northern dark of winter) inevitably load heavier charges on the work and products of
Canadians as compared with many foreign competitors. So do the greater expenses of keeping
highways and railways open through repeated snows, dealing yearly with ice-bound city streets,
or even with rust and weather damage to vehicles and routes." (1)

Notes: *Historian Careless speaks of the "the giant land " in his introduction: RR has used the word "empty?" to challenge the historical assumption that this land was empty & ripe for the taking. In fact, the entire continent was peopled by aboriginals who aided the European newcomers in their explorations of discovery. Example: Sir Alexander MacKenzie's first sighting of the Pacific Ocean would never have happened without the assistance of the Carrier Sekani who guided him along the 10,000 year-old grease trail across the mountains to the Pacific.

**The outcome of this war was the creation of British North America & a key Canadian constitutional document: Royal Proclamation of 1763 which defined and continues to define the treaties whereby land for settlement was to be acquired.

***The 1783 peace treaty with Britain, known as the Treaty of Paris, gave the U.S. all land east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes, though not including Florida (On September 3, 1783, Britain entered into a separate agreement with Spain under which Britain ceded Florida back to Spain.)

****Quebec comprised the lands that eventually became Upper (Ontario) and Lower (Quebec) Canada per Constitutional Act of 1791. cf second map

*****Per Careless, "the six main historic regions in Canadian past experience and present life, all of them deeply shaped by the physical forms and conditions of the land itself: the largely tundra world of the Arctic and Subarctic North, the Atlantic East, Quebec and Ontario dividing Central Canada between them, the Plains West, and the Cordilleran Far West."===> Driven by economic necessity and sustained by Grace, RR has been privileged to call four of these regions home; insight into the geography and history of each region does reveal essential cultural differences among all these regions that continue to this day and inform Canadian politics even as we struggle with the Great Recession. It is the land itself that has bred in us all a most distinctive Canadian character that binds us together and permeates this land from sea to sea to sea.

****** Margaret Atwood explores this theme in Canadian Literature in her literary landmark publication: Survival.

Sources: (1) CANADA: A Celebration of Our Heritage -- Under Construction Author: J.M.S. Careless Published by: Canadian Heritage Gallery Copyright © 1994, 1995, 1996 and 1997 by Heritage Publishing House; note: only the first half of this online book has been published; nonetheless, it's worth visiting this cyber cemetery for the pre-Confederation history and the various graphics that have been archived there;

architectural salvage

2009-06-05T21:26:00.028-04:00

Photos L to R: 1) Ruins of the developer-owned Schoerg barn following 2) 2004 demolition/disassembly and 3) city-owned Betzner barn located on Kitchener's Historic Ridge, the site of the first inland settlement in southern Ontario ca 1800; these ruins and materials salvaged from the Schoerg barn are slated for reuse .

"The Clarica Lookout is to be developed on the site of the historic foundation of the former Betzner farmstead located on Joseph Schoerg Crescent, on what is now City land adjacent the former Schoerg farmstead and Pioneer Memorial Tower. Though the barn superstructure was demolished, the original c.1830 barn foundation remains, and is to be conserved and used in developing a scenic lookout overlooking the Grand River valley. Early design concepts envisioned introducing a vertical feature on top of the stone foundation, which would provide a visual suggestion of a barn structure, while maintaining open views from the historic ridge to the Grand River valley below....With the conclusion that the Schoerg Barn timbers are not suitable for use in the construction of the Clarica Scenic Lookout, City staff are focussing on the request from the Region to use some of the historic Schoerg barn timbers in the design and construction of the new Regional History Museum. Moriyama and Teshima Architects originally expressed an interest in acquiring eight 20 foot Schoerg barn timbers to be used as structural columns in the entry corridor of the Regional History Museum. the Region’s consulting architects have advised that the Schoerg barn timbers cannot be used structurally. As a result, they have proposed using the barn timbers as interior cladding on two feature walls of the main entry corridor and lobby space of the museum. The wood cladding in these spaces is meant to be evocative of some of the Region’s early barns and rural roots. To use the wood in this way would involve re-sawing the beams to make them into thinner cladding boards." (5)

===> Gentle reader, the above developments provide a sad footnote to a tale of lost opportunity and this community's indifference to the significant historical resources that have been squandered. Five years ago, two intact homesteads dating back to this province's earliest settlement days still overlooked the Grand River immediately adjacent to the Pioneer Memorial Tower National Historic Site administered by Parks Canada. As Rambling Rose unravelled the self-interested politics that culminated in the loss of such valuable cultural heritage resources, she found a recurring refrain: the land was more valuable than the cultural heritage buildings on them. Where the larger community could have had the real thing, we are left with ruins and a suggestion of what once was and what could have been. We are now working with scraps of our heritage after priceless built heritage fabric has been sold in the marketplace to the architectural salvage industry.

"An architectural salvager’s raison d’etre is the acquisition and sale of architectural artifacts. Additionally, the salvager must provide a safe harbour for these artifacts, be they building materials, building parts or entire buildings. He is not just a broker. His inventory must be resilient enough to withstand the rigors of deconstruction, the ravages of time, and the biggest enemy of all…society’s indifference." (1)

Photos L to R: settler's log cabin in Westfield Heritage Museum, Hamilton-Wentworth ON; log house still in use in the Ottawa Valley; Stauffer log house, Kitchener ON has been lovingly preserved and restored by its current owner.

Anchorbeam Timberworks dismantles and carts away the
unwanted structures [i.e. barns in eastern Ontario] for free.
After that the firm restores and arranges the basic skeletons into "kits" for contractor
clients who re-erect them as charmed, rustic barns or convert them into one-of-a-kind homes.
The barn kits, as well as individual beams, posts and barnboard, are shipped from Anchorbeam
headquarters in Hallville all over the United States and Europe.
So far, he says, they've shipped 30 or 40 complete barns to the United States and three or four to Europe.
Kevin Costner, Barbara Streisand, and the widow of Oscar Hammerstein are among the celebrities
who own spectacular homes featuring wood salvaged by Pajot.
Twelve barns have gone to the state of Connecticut alone, which has proven a particularly strong market." (2)

"The average Canadian’s indifference to our architectural heritage is understandable in the context of a culture and economy based on the concept of Progress. Our society believes that material possessions and spatial environments, if rebuilt more efficiently and inexpensively, can provide universal comfort and abundance resulting in increased happiness...Progress has brought us particle board, drywall, MDF, OSB, Glu-lams, laminates, vinyl, plastics, steel studs, appliqués, alloys, and composites of all types forming labour saving components of mass produced products serving the underlying theme of planned obsolescence." (1)

"Our antique beams typically hail from mid 19th century structures,
themselves built from 100 year old "first growth" trees. As a result, the beams comprise wood that is at least 250 years old!
Shaped by craftsmen using adzes and broadaxes,
structural timbers were usually squared." (6)

"Many of these materials can be recycled, creating another fledgling industry, but is it any wonder that construction and demolition detritus now comprise eighty percent of landfill debris. New and improved products constantly trade economy for durability and quantity for longevity. Replacement is easier than repair." (1)

Left photo: industrial artifact installed corner of Victoria and Joseph Streets, Kitchener ON to commemorate this city's industrial heritage.

"Sticks and Stones Design [ local Cambridge firm] is a full service design firm specializing in custom residential and
commercial projects with a strong focus upon environmental design.
The firm’s design experience includes conventional, log, timber frame, post & beam and panelized construction,
with future endeavors into alternative construction methods, such as, straw bale and green roofs." (3)

"Landfills are a costly & wasteful alternative for re-useable building materials & house wares. Environment Canada has stated, 'Every time a house is built, renovated or demolished, a great deal of waste is deposited in local landfills. A demolished house can add up to 42 tonnes (92 thousand lbs.) of waste to landfill sites, and these materials can account for 15 to 20 percent of total landfill waste. Discarded, reusable materials includes wood products (mouldings, beams, plywood, exterior sheathing), metal products (radiators, piping, fixtures, wiring) and dry products (bricks, stone, marble, glass). Compounding this grave landfill situation is the unnecessary erosion of the world's forest reserves, ostensibly to meet the demand for lumber, ultimately affecting animal habitats & green space." (1)

" The Braden House in Puslinch Ontario, aka the "no furnace, off-the-grid house," is made of log
resalvaged from other buildings. The roof is made of wooden shingles...which will
last 100 years if maintained in comparison to asphalt which has a life of 25 years, then is designated to the landfill...a house that is so airtight and insulated it needs next to no heating...
This is a "net-zero energy home" that makes as much power as it consumes. Using only
photovoltaic panels or backyard wind turbines; a major environmental impact, given that about a sixth of Canada's greenhouse gases come from residences and a drafty older home can have carbon dioxide emissions of 10 tonnes a year, double what spews from the average car." (4)

Photos of marine artifacts that are an integral part of the Havre Aibert's ambience, Les Iles de la Madeleine, Province de Quebec.

"Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten." (1)

Sources: (1)Sven Kraumanis - owner/operator Legacy Vintage Building Materials & Antiques, “Comments on
the state of the Architectural Salvage Industry in Canada; (2)http://www.agrinewsinteractive.com/archives/article-5967.htm ;
(3) Sticks and Stones website has photos of new buildings incorporating antique wood products; (4) MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT, Just don't call him an envirofreak, Globe and Mail Mar. 31, 2009; (5) City of Kitchener staff report:
(6) Cf pricing:http://www.legacyvintage.com/AntiqueHandHewnBeams.html

the common good

2009-06-02T20:25:00.005-04:00

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."--John Donne

"Some citizens seem to feel that their rights take precedence over the principles of the common good of the community, and that they do not have related responsibilities as members of a community. Some appear to feel threatened by broad regulations developed for the good of the community as a whole. This issue is at the heart of many debates about democratic government and their powers as opposed to the "rights" of individuals...Does one person have the right to tear down a building that represents the stories of the life and growth of a community just because he wants a parking space or a newer house? I can produce research that shows the economic benefits of heritage preservation to individual properties by increasing their real estate value; I can produce research that shows the economic benefits of heritage to a city by increasing its tourism potential. I can tell you stories of the history of our city and show you its
magnificent landmarks. But Guelph's cultural heritage is more than just facts and figures. Heritage is the stories of the places where we settle, where we grow, where we get what we need, where we live, where we work, where we do business, where we learn and where we worship -- the stories that make us a special community. Since we do share a common space, we need to develop our common values."--Susan Ratcliffe, Placing the common good over our own rights and wishes, Guelph Mercury December 08, 2008

Gothic verticality

2009-05-24T17:02:00.016-04:00

The Star's architecture critic waxes poetic about City of Toronto's Gothic architecture thus: "Toronto is a Gothic city. Since the 19th century, Gothic is the most popular style that Torontonians have responded to emotionally.In the hands of Victorian Toronto, Victorian Gothic became a style that was all about verticality--all about the yearning to get higher, to reach up to the clouds, and to reach up to the heavens...." Hear the rest of Christopher Hume's architectural rhapsody as he takes you on a virtual tour of the Gothic St. James-the-Less funeral chapel at this link: Christopher Hume video

RR experienced a different post-modern verticality back in the late 60's as the dowager Toronto the Good shed some of her sanctimonious piety and became a thoroughly modern skyscraper city on Lake Ontario

Torontonians have had this weekend to visit a wide variety of architectural marvels as part of the annual Doors Open Event. These range from that city's military outpost beginning as Fort York* to last year's opening of the Swaminarayan Mandir Hindu temple 2008 -- made from 24,000 pieces of marble hand-carved in India & shipped to Canada for assembly.

Doors Open Toronto is a city-wide open house, showcasing up to 175 venues of architectural, historic, cultural or social significance. Complete listing go to City of Toronto complete list & menu options include 1) by day and 2) by region.

Background? The first Doors Open Day (La Journée Portes Ouvertes) took place in France in 1984. The idea
soon spread to neighbouring countries, including the Netherlands, Sweden, the Republic of Ireland, Belgium and Scotland. In 1991, these events were united as European Heritage Days at the initiative of the Council of Europe. In 2003, all 48 signatory states of the European Cultural Convention participated in European Heritage Days. In 2000, the City of Toronto launched the first Doors Open event in North America.**In 2002, the Ontario Heritage Trust launched Doors Open Ontario, the first province-wide event of its kind in Canada. The Doors Open concept continues to spread across North America with events now being held in Newfoundland, Alberta, Massachusetts, Western New York State, New York City and Denver.

Notes: *Toronto’s settlement began in 1793 when a temporary log garrison was built on the present site
of Fort York by John Graves Simcoe – the first Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Upper Canada. The fort’s establishment was linked directly to Simcoe’s desire to build a naval base at Toronto in order to control Lake Ontario in the event of war with the United States.In June 1812 the United States declared war on Great Britain. Less than a year later, The Town of York (Toronto) and the fort were attacked on 27 April 1813. The Town of York and the fort were taken successfully by the Americans and a 6-day occupation of York followed. After the Battle of York, the fort was rebuilt on the original site of the 1793 garrison. It is this fort that is in evidence today. There are seven original buildings and one reconstruction.-- City of Toronto website

** Ontarians owe a debt of gratitude to Catherine Naismith, architect and current president of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario for taking the initiative to transplant such a wonderful concept from her Scottish uncle's home across the big pond to Toronto. Congratulations, City of Toronto, on 10th annual Doors Open & City of Toronto 175th anniversary celebrations.

Photos of statues adorning the equally Gothic St. James Cathedral, Toronto Ontario.

untold stories

2009-04-21T10:41:00.022-04:00

“History is ... the story that tells us who we are, where we came from, what we did, and why we did what we did, and sometimes too, it tires to tell us where we are going. History defines us and makes us human. In fact, some might say that the ability to think historically, to link the past with present, and to speculate on possible futures is a fundamental characteristic of humanity." (1)

First photo: Region of Waterloo official history of the first European inland settlement in Upper Canada ca 1802 as expressed in the Doon Pioneer Memorial Tower, a National Heritage Site.

“ History is also a continuing story that changes our understanding of ourselves. Our increased knowledge means that we can ask different questions about the past. Stories can change with time and with perspective.” (1)

In her PH D thesis The Local History Museum in Ontario 1851-1985: An Intellectual History, Mary Tivy details how W.H. Breithaupt, founder and president of the Waterloo Historical Society*, worked to identify Waterloo County's German identity exclusively with that of the pacifist Pennsylvania-German-Mennonite tradition in order to minimize associations with Germany following World War I. It was during that time period that Berlin was renamed Kitchener. It was W. H. Breithaupt who during the 1920's successfully lobbied the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada for official recognition of the Doon Pioneer Memorial Tower as a national historic site. (2)

"Yet we must not forget that not all stories are given equal time. Not all stories are heard and acknowledged. We cannot separate history from power. There was a time in history when only those with the ability to write could document events. It is still a fact that those who have power are able to write their version of the story and to have it accepted as truth." (1)

Next photo is of the Betzner-Schoerg cemetery immediately adjacent to the tower and overlooking the Grand River. L to R: Samuel D. Betzner headstone adjacent to tree, newer Joseph Schoerg headstone has been inscribed Sherk, an Anglicization of the German spelling that became prevalent following World War I (cf. also descendants of the pioneer Biehn family are now known as Bean). Local history has undergone a 21st century revision in that a street in a new subdivision on the Historic Ridge lands is now named Joseph Schoerg Crescent.
" However, the Aboriginal story is only beginning to be told. Telling it from our perspective is difficult because we do not have power to make others listen . But why should it be so difficult to extend the rafters, to us an Iroquoian term, to include these Aboriginal stories? Whose story is challenged by the inclusion of Aboriginal ones?” (1)

Next photo provides a closeup of seven limestone headstones in the same cemetery that are of unnamed aboriginals who have been buried there. Descendants of the Betzner & Schoerg families recall the close relationship between the pioneer settlers in the early years of this settlement & have affirmed to Rambling Rose that these are aboriginal graves. As RR read WHS volumes, she noted the shift in perceptions regarding local First Nations from positive to the drunken savage stereotype. Only recently did she learn that "In 1840, Indians were banned from Waterloo Township by Upper Canada government order-in-council." (3) Still to be confirmed by further research is the assertion that the first Mennonite settlers coveted "Indian" ** sites as these had already been cleared for aboriginal cultivation of corn.
“History consists of the stories that we tell ourselves about past events. But what happens when a story is incorrectly told, or when a story is missing altogether? When significant parts are missing, then the story is incomplete and understanding is skewed. If the story is incorrectly told, then our understanding of ourselves is erroneous. However, if there is no story at all, then humanity is denied. We do have opportunities and, we believe, responsibilities to fill in omitted story segments, to correct the stories that are inaccurate, and to include missing stories. In doing
so, we acknowledge the humanity of Aboriginal peoples." (1)

For now the boulders in the next photo remain unmarked although acknowledged by City of Waterloo. RR blogged about them previously thus: "These boulders* were presented to Waterloo Park by Jacob Stroh. These great stones have hollows on a flattened side, serving the purpose of holding corn** being pounded to a coarse meal held in the hands...[and] were no doubt kept at regular seasonal abodes, and there used from year to year." Source: WHS 1930, p. 221. Cf. Blog 07 August 2007 the sararas* springs mystery

"The British and French response to the presence of aboriginal peoples is what currently defines Canada. Aboriginal participation in the formation of Canada is ignored. Without the treaty process, which transferred most of the Canadian land mass from Aboriginal control to Canadian control, Canada would not exist in its present form. In addition, the state would not possess the wealth and benefits from the natural resources found in the land mass. A significant portion of the history of Canada is defined by its relationship to the Aboriginal peoples within its borders. To ignore that ongoing relationship is to render Aboriginal peoples out of existence. Canada simply would not be Canada without us." (1)

One Mississauga story has been told by the plaque adjacent to Schneider Creek in Kitchener's Victoria Park: "Sarah Henry/Tuhbenahneequay (1780-1873) who was the daughter of Wahbanosay, a Mississauga chief, is remembered on this plaque* and in history as wife of the surveyor Augustus Jones, mother of the Methodist minister Peter Jones/Kahkewaquonaby "sacred feathers", and sister of the Mississauga Chief Joseph Sawyer/Nawajegezhegwabe "the sloping sky." Since RR posted the blog “the
country wife” 11 September 2007, Wikipedia has provided links to the stories of the two Sarahs who married Augustus Jones and bore his children. It's encouraging to see a revision of history that acknowledges the mutually beneficial relationships between Canada's aboriginal peoples and the first European settlers on this continent.

"David McNab’s article*** on his fur-trade family illustrates the complex, interwoven social nature of Canada and the constant interaction between Aboriginal peoples and newcomers. In fact, it is a story of how individuals from these two groups met, met, married, had children, and tried to make the best of their lives." (1)

McNab traces his ancestry to William Kennedy, Hudson Bay Co fur trader (1814-90) who in the 1830's purchased for his aboriginal wife and children a 50 acre farm where Kaufmann Flats is located; his wife and children went into hiding by marrying German immigrants and becoming Christian; the farmstead was sold in 1912. (4)

historiography = the narrative presentation of history based on a critical examination, evaluation, and selection of material from primary and secondary sources and subject to scholarly criteria

Notes: * Tivy's source is the work of local historian acknowledged thus: "Geoffrey Hayes considers the role of W.H. Breithaupt, as one of several individuals seeking to legitimate and commemorate Pennsylvania-German Mennonites as primary symbols of the community’s past. Geoffrey Hayes, "From Berlin to the Trek of the Conestoga: A Revisionist Approach to Waterloo County's German Identity,” Ontario History Vol.XCI:2, (Autumn 1999), 130-149." Cf Chapter 4 of the Tivy thesis for a summary of Hayes article & Breithaupt's role.

** RR is using "Indian" pending verification that these sites were frequented by the Mississaugas as she supposed that by this time the "Neutral" tribes had been extirpated from the Ontario landscape;

***David T. McNab is a Métis historian who has worked for three decades on Aboriginal land and treaty rights issues in Canada. McNab teaches in the School of Arts and Letters in the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies at York University in Toronto where he is Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies.

Sources: (1)Hidden in plain sight editors Daniel J. K. Beavon, Cora Jane Voyageur, David Newhouse, Wilfrid Laurier University Press 2005; (2)Mary Tivy, The Local History Museum in Ontario 1851-1985: An Intellectual History, 2006 (3) pp 145-80 in Good, E. Reginald. 1998. ‘Colonizing a People: Mennonite Settlement in Waterloo Township.’ In David T. McNab editor, Earth, Water, Air and Fire, Studies in Canadian Ethnohistory (Waterloo ON: Wilfrid Laurier UP): (4) David T. McNab, 'Hiding in Plane View: Aboriginal identities & a Fur Trade Co Family through 7 Generations' in Hidden in Plain Sight cf source (1) above.