Difficult as it remains to believe for fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs born in the 1960s and since, the franchise achieved frequent championship success over the 50 years prior.

Suspended high above the Air Canada Centre ice surface, neatly aligned banners speak to the club’s 13 Stanley Cup victories while similar tributes pay homage to the Hockey Hall of Fame-inducted players who are forever linked with the team’s glory years.

As a lifelong Maple Leafs supporter, Shayne Randall is well aware of the likes of Syl Apps, King Clancy, Johnny Bower and Dave Keon and their respective contributions to the Maple Leafs’ historic past. That said, the Peterborough resident is sharing the unheralded story of “an amazing pioneer” who captained the Toronto Arenas to a Stanley Cup title in 1918 — the first for the Maple Leafs franchise.

“Off the ice, he was a gentleman and a scholar … great to his kids,” says Shayne of his grandfather Ken Randall.

“But there was a Jekyll and Hyde personality. He was mean (on the ice). It’s rumoured he had one regular hockey stick and he had another that he sharpened the end of so sharp that he could shave with. It was a brutal time for hockey.”

The Pepper Kid: The Life and Times of Ken Randall, Hockey’s Bad Hombre relates the story of the life and times of the Kingston-born forward and defenceman who played professionally for two decades, 10 of those years in the National Hockey League (NHL) with four teams — the Toronto Arenas, the Toronto St. Patricks, the Hamilton Tigers, and the New York Americans.

The 428-page book, heavily illustrated with historic photos, resulted from Randall’s mission to have his grandfather nominated for induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

“I have a cousin who was sort of the historian as far as Ken Randall is concerned,” relates Shayne, who at age 76 is the oldest of Ken Randall’s 14 grandchildren.

“We would talk and felt he had such a good career when you look at some of the others that are in the Hall of Fame. I got more interested in it and about 10 years ago, I thought I’m going to try and see if I can get him in (the Hall of Fame), so I got his statistics and found out more about him.”

“My kids got on me about five years ago. They were all bugging me, ‘When are you going to write this book?’ I got really serious about it three years ago and started digging. I got information from the family: stories about him and some of the incidents he had been involved in over the years, people he had met, and so on.”

The end result, says Randall, is “a historical primer for professional hockey” which features his grandfather at its centre; a tale of how the game evolved from the use of a wooden octagon-shaped puck to professional hockey’s development and subsequent popularity south of the border.

“He was first tagged with that name (The Pepper Kid) during his Maritime days,” Shayne says.

“He had hooked on with one of the Toronto teams and played a couple of games. He wasn’t getting much ice time. The guy who owned the Toronto team was a rascal, Eddie Livingstone. He pushed his partners in the NHA (National Hockey Association) so badly that they started the NHL just to get rid of him.

“Livingstone made a deal with the Cape Breton team that had got into the Maritime Hockey League in 1912. He sent two players down there (Randall being one). He was such a star they nicknamed him The Pepper Kid because that’s when he really started to develop his reputation as a tough man and a bad guy and all the rest.”

“When he got back to Toronto in 1915 or 1916, he hooked up with another great defenceman, Harry Cameron, and they were the keys to two Stanley Cup victories. Cameron was a Bobby Orr-type of defenceman, a free-wheeling rushing defenceman, and Randall was a stay-at-home defenceman. They said they went together like salt and pepper. The salt was Harry Cameron because he could score and the pepper was Ken Randall because he was a tough guy.”

In 1925, Hamilton Tigers players — Randall included — went on strike, demanding more money right before the Stanley Cup playoffs.

“It was a long and bitter struggle,” Shayne relates. “The league suspended them and they didn’t even get to play for the Stanley Cup.

“The NHL expanded the following year and sold an expansion franchise to a guy in New York. They bought all the players contracts and he went from making about $900 a year Canadian to a three-year deal for $5,000 US a year. He went from playing at the Mutual Arena in Toronto in front of 5,000 to the first game in Madison Square Garden that drew 17,900 fans.

“He was a radical. He was one of the early pioneers for hockey players’ rights.”

Shayne hasn’t completely given up his effort to have his grandfather inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, but rates his chance of any success as “less than five per cent.”

With an NHL career total of 121 points (including playoffs) in 224 games, to go along with 533 penalty minutes, Ken Randall’s statistics aren’t the stuff of legend. Still, his grandson maintains the breadth of his experience during the professional game’s early years — “He refereed, he coached, he played” — is enough to merit consideration.

Having begun his hockey journey in 1906 with the Lindsay Midgets, Randall last laced up his skates in 1930-31 with the Ottawa Patricias of the Ontario Professional Hockey League. His name is engraved on the Stanley Cup twice — with the 1917-18 Toronto Arenas and with the 1921-22 Toronto St. Patricks. He died in 1947 at age 58 after a short illness.

“He had so many blows to the head,” Shayne says. “That was really his downfall.”

With this project done, Shayne is working on another book, Bag Dragger: Memoirs of a Looper, which details his experiences as a professional caddy from the mid 1950s into the following decade. Among those he caddied for were Jack Nicklaus and Bob Hope. And he has yet another book on the backburner, titled Yesterday’s Peach Pie “about the rise and fall of a guy who goes from the outhouse to the penthouse and back to the outhouse.”

A sports journalist who wrote for The Peterborough Examiner, Shayne’s previous published writing experiences include 2013’s So You Want To Own A Subway Franchise, described as “a cautionary tale about the QSR (Quick Service Restaurant) industry.”

The Pepper Kid, however, is a benchmark for Randall, speaking to his passion for the Maple Leafs as well as his admiration for his grandfather’s paving the way for the game as we know it today.

“When the Leafs trained here (in Peterborough) in the 1960s, I was the assistant pro at the golf course and I got to meet them all and played golf with most of them,” he says.

“I was a real fan but, in the 1970s and 1980s, I lost interest because the game got rather barbaric. I’m enjoying what I see today. It’s become watchable again.”

Would his grandfather be equally impressed with today’s version of the game he was a huge part of it during its growing pains?

“He wouldn’t believe today’s NHL … they’re so big and fast and skilled.”

The Pepper Kid is available at Amazon.ca as well as in an ebook format via Kindle, Smashbooks, and Kobo. As of this writing, Shanye was negotiating with Chapters in Peterborough for its sale there.

For more information, visit the book’s website at www.thepepperkid.com.

On Friday, November 10th, St. James Players opens its 45th musical season by bringing the mirth and magic of Mary Poppins to the stage at Showplace Performance Centre in downtown Peterborough.

Directed by Natalie Dorsett (with assistance from Shelly Moody, Margaret Peiper, Barb Mills, Fred Batley, Jim Mills, and musical director Dustin Bowers), the musical stars Gillian Harknett as the magical nanny and Warren Sweeting as Burt the chimney sweep.

However, Mary Poppins is not just another entry in the Players’ long repertoire of fall musicals. It has become an important show for the Players as the group continues to rebuild its brand as a purveyor of family-friendly theatre.

Natalie was inspired to pitch the show to the St. James Players board after watching a production of the musical last year in Toronto at the Lower Ossington Theatre.

“I saw Mary Poppins in Toronto, in which Kate Suhr played Mary, and I fell in love with it,” Natalie says.

“At intermission, my husband Chris looked over at me and said ‘You want to direct this show, don’t you?’ I knew I had to do this show, and I presented it to the board.”

Although St. James Players has a long tradition of presenting family-friendly theatre, for a number of years recently the group tried a different direction by presenting bigger shows with more mature content. Although the shows were well-received by audiences, as St. James Players strayed further away from family entertainment, the group found itself losing its sense of identity — along with its core audience.

Last year, the group decided to return to its roots with a very successful production of The Wizard of Oz. Mary Poppins is a continuation along that path, re-establishing St. James’ brand in the theatre community.

“This year it’s our 45th anniversary and it’s big,” Natalie says. “We need to come back to who we are. We really all sat back and talked about what had to happen to bring us back to what we used to be. We’ve done some fantastic shows over the years, but they weren’t necessarily the kind of shows our patrons wanted to see.

“St. James tried something new. We had amazing directors that were coming to us with fantastic shows. Les Miserables is an incredible show. Chicago and The Producers are fantastic shows. But our customers didn’t want that. It didn’t have anything to do with the quality of the show, but it just wasn’t a St. James show.

“I think it’s kind of like if The Theatre on King did Mary Poppins. That’s not where you’d go see that kind of show. It could be the best show in the world, but it doesn’t matter if that’s not what the customer wants to see. That’s what we had to get back to at St. James.”

Like many people, Natalie agrees that the key to St. James success has always been presenting shows for the family.

“St. James Players is about family,” she says. “We put on shows where you can bring your grandma, you can bring your Mom, and you can bring your eight year old. It’s what St. James is best at. Those are the kind of shows where I think it showcases us the best. Those types of shows where the curtain opens and there is this fantastic set full of colour. Those are the kind of shows that makes St. James what we are.”

For Mary Poppins, Natalie and her team have brought together a cast of 40 performers of all ages. While attending a Sunday afternoon rehearsal, I could feel the passion and positivity from this tight-knit group of high-energy people.

Despite late nights and a cold virus that was going through the group, the performers stepped up their game to give a performance that was filled with so much joy and life that I couldn’t help but feel the sense of warmth and love that is being put into this show.

In the role of Mary Poppins is actress Gillian Harkness. Although she has been in a number or productions before, Mary Poppins is Gillian’s first starring role. Natalie believes that Gillian, filled with a warm standoffishness, has become the living embodiment of the show’s iconic character.

“Gillian hasn’t had the chance to be given a lot of leads, but she just is Mary Poppins,” Natalie says. “She walks into the room and she has that energy. She’s got that likeable but kind of distant nature that Mary Poppins has. With Mary you are kind of unsure if she’s going to hug you or not. Gillian plays that so well. She understands who Mary is, and she’s so easy to direct.”

“I’m very much a background person,” Gillian admits. “I don’t mind supporting people, but being at the front is a little nerve-racking. But I’ve got great people backing me up in this show. I’ve got so many supportive people that it’s not that hard to take a chance and put myself out there.

“I’ve kind of balanced Mary between the way Julie Andrews played her in the movie, and the way that Mary was in the book. Julie Andrews played her as very bubbly and bright, but in the book Mary was more stern but with a magical element to her that made kids love her. I don’t want to be the strict version, but I don’t want to be excited and over the top about everything all the time.”

“The problem is that the moment Gillian and I step on stage, people are going to start drawing comparisons to the movie,” adds actor Warren Sweeting, who plays the show’s leading male character Burt (who was played in the Disney film by Dick Van Dyke). “What we do is try to create a character that the movie was trying to represent, but step away from people’s preconceived ideas of how Burt or Mary should be.”

Once one of the most prolific leading men in Peterborough musical theatre, Warren has been absent from centre stage for a while now. The role of Burt is a major comeback for this talented and much-loved local actor.

“Warren brings so much experience to the stage,” Natalie says. “He hasn’t done a lot in the last few years because he’s particular, but he has been practicing for Burt for months. He brings a really great presence to the show and a lot of experience, which is really important for the kids.”

Nearly as enigmatic as Mary herself, Burt is an unusual character engulfed in his own mystery. Warren gives his own interesting take on the friendly chimney sweep.

“I read an article where the author tried to break down where Burt came from,” Warren explains. “In that particular article, they figured that Burt was probably the son of the bank chairman and that he left home and rebelled.

“They also figured that Mary Poppins, who is magical and doesn’t age, was actually his nanny and Burt fell in love with her. Burt, not being magical, grew up to a certain age and that’s why he is so infatuated with Mary. So Burt is this wandering happy guy who helps people get back on track with their lives.

“The story also is that all the chimney sweeps are guardian angels. The idea behind the song Step in Time is that they step in, just in time before disaster hits, to move you along and get you through that hard time.”

Although Mary and Burt are the iconic characters of the show, Natalie points out that it’s actually Mary’s wards Michael and Jane Banks, played by 11-year-old Ben Freeman and 13-year-old Macayla Vaughn, who have the most stage time and the majority of the lines. This is a huge feat for these two these two young actors.

“Michael and Jane were the two roles that we knew were going to be the hardest to cast,” Natalie says. “Mary Poppins and Burt are important roles, but the kids would be the hardest. We thought maybe we might go with a fifteen and a thirteen year old. But Macayla came in and blew us away. Her energy and tenacity and stage presence is amazing.

“Ben’s Mom plays Mrs. Banks, and she has two sons and we asked if they would want to audition. When Ben came in for his audition it was the same thing. Dustin Bowen, my musical director, squeezed my hand because he knew that Ben was exactly what we needed. Ben’s got this perfect cheeky nature. Both of these kids are just amazing.”

In the St. James Players production, the roles of Jane and Michael have more of an edge then they did in the Disney movie.

“Michael Banks is a spoiled little boy who lives with a rich family and does lot of mean things to nannies,” says Ben of his character.

“And Jane is a spoiled girl who thinks that she can just rule everyone,” Macayla adds.

“Basically the plot is Mary is trying to fix us,” Ben continues. “In some ways it’s difficult to make a character change, but it’s a gradual change.”

Although both Ben and Macayla have performed in plays before, being pushed into the spotlight has been a big responsibility, but they have taken up the challenge. Ben offers a unique perspective to this, saying that Mary Poppins has given him a chance to actually act.

“In some shows the kids are just there,” he says. “The difference between that and this show is that we have actual lines. When a show has kids that are standing around, they don’t pick kids who can act because they don’t need to.”

Ben and Macayla are two of eight kids in Mary Poppins. When attending the rehearsal I was impressed by how attentive, engaged, and talented the young members of Natalie’s cast are.

“I wanted children involved because they finish this kind of production,” Natalie says. “When all you see on stage are adults for a family show, there is something missing. They add that fine detail and the kids are such a whimsical aspect to a show. When you look at their faces you are drawn right in.

“I also think that when kids are coming to see it and they see other kids on stage, it makes a difference. They realize that they could do this too. That’s the whole point.”

I asked Ben and Macayla, nearing the end of a long and often grueling rehearsal schedule, what they plan to do when the show is over.

“I’m going to sleep,” answers Ben with a grin.

“I’m going to get ready for the next one,” Macayla says. “I like acting a lot because we are all like a family.”

I can’t even begin to express the joy I had from watching the Mary Poppins cast rehearse “Chim Chim Cher-ee” and “Step in Time”. The music, the dancing, the joy, and the energy was addicting. Despite the fact that it was still a work in progress, I smiled so much that my face hurt afterwards.

I know that this show is going to be something very special, and not just because St. James needs to reset its direction but perhaps because all of us need it. Mary Poppins is a chance for us to turn away from the cynicism and disasters we see on the news and social media, and just take a few hours to join Mary Poppins and Burt on their jolly holiday.

“We all need this show right now,” Natalie says. “We all need to shut our TV off, and get out and support each other and enjoy one another. There is so much bad stuff going on in the world. This is an escape. Mary’s flying, and she’s talking to birds, and there’s dancing chimney sweeps on a rooftop. It sounds so ridiculous that it makes it so magical.”

Mary Poppins opens on November 10th and runs until November 18th at Showplace Performance Centre . Tickets are $25 for adults and $20 for students and seniors and available in person at the Showplace box office (290 George St. N., Peterborough), by calling 705-742-7469, or online at www.showplace.org.

Every Thursday, we publish live music and performance events at pubs and clubs in Peterborough and The Kawarthas based on information that venues provide to us directly or post on their website or social media channels. Here are the listings for the week of Thursday, November 2 to Wednesday, November 8.

If you’re a pub or club owner and want to be included in our weekly listings, please email our Nightlife Editor at nightlife@kawarthanow.com.

This November, there is a lot to see and do in Peterborough and the Kawarthas.

The Precarious Arts Festival is happening, a new art gallery and studio opens on Hunter Street, The Art School of Peterborough features Elizabeth Charchuk and launches their Square Art Show and Sale, Christensen Fine Art features Spencer J. Harrison, Evans Contemporary features Jude Griebel, Star X presents ‘Salon des Refusés’ in conjunction with the Precarious Festival, Coeur Nouveau features Mark Reutter, and the Kawartha Artists’ Gallery and Studio hosts a family art show.

All this makes for a jam-packed First Friday Art Crawl on Friday, November 3rd, and more to see throughout the month. There is also the Made in Kawartha Lakes art show and sale happening at the Fenelon Falls Community Centre on November 18th, hooked wall sculptures by Sarah Gibeault on display at the Arts and Heritage Centre of Warkworth, and a new gallery space at The Mount in Peterborough featuring an exhibit by Anne Cavanagh and Ellen Cowie.

Evans Contemporary presents ‘Mess-Maker’ by Jude Griebel

In ‘Mess-Maker’, Jude Griebel creates grotesque and humourous sculptures, hybrid forms made up of garbage, waste, and instances of environmental degradation. In a play on the body and the environment, these dioramic pieces make us wonder about the state of the world, and how we relate to and contribute to this as individuals.

Both fun and interesting, these sculptures will be on display at Evans Contemporary for the month of November. The show opens on Friday, November 3rd and will continue until November 25th. Come out to the opening reception on the 3rd, happening from 6 p.m. until 11 p.m.

Evans Contemporary is located at #2 Banker’s Common in downtown Peterborough. For more information, visit www.evanscontemporary.com or contact Paolo Fortin at evanscontemporary@gmail.com.

Art School of Peterborough features Elizabeth Charchuk in the LAUNCH Gallery

Elizabeth (Lizz) Charchuk will be the featured artist this November at the Art School of Peterborough. Drop in and see her colourful canvasses and possibly meet her, as she is often there teaching classes.

Lizz is interested in representing chaos, death, and time in her work. Drop in during gallery hours to see the work for yourself from Wednesday, November 1st until November 30th.

Also coming up at the Art School is the Square Art Show and Sale, opening on Friday, November 3rd and continuing until December 23rd.

LAUNCH is located at the Art School of Peterborough (174A Charlotte Street, Peterborough). Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Friday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, visit artschoolptbo.org/launch/ or call 705-742-3221.

Star X presents ‘Salon des Refusés’ as part of the Precarious Festival

This group exhibition at Star X is part of the Precarious Festival and features seven local artists: Tara Azzopardi, Jeremy Bertrand, Lyall Brownlee, Daniel Crawford, Rose Katarina Fortin, Leigh Macdonald, and Hartley Stephenson.

This exhibition highlights the struggles faced by artists in society. Historically and still today, many artists do not make what you might call a good living selling their work, and face many challenges along the way.

This show, in conjunction with the Precarious Festival, is drawing attention to these issues by making a reference to the famous Salon des Refusés in Paris in 1863, where the impressionists were rejected by the Paris Salon. Many of these rejected impressionist painters are today considered masters, though they faced many challenges in 1863.

For a full schedule of events happening through the Precarious Festival, visit ttok.ca/precarious-festival/. This festival is already underway, and continues until December 2nd. There is a lot happening throughout November, so check out the extensive list of events, then get out there and see what you can!

Star X is located at 129-1/2 Hunter St. West, 3rd floor, in downtown Peterborough. Hours of operation are Saturday from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Coeur Nouveau Presents ‘Self Comes to Mind’ by Mark Reutter

The abstract paintings of Mark Reutter are rooted in philosophical questions about the nature of consciousness and identity.

Reutter questions the validity of self and personal identity as constructed, self-perpetuating beliefs, and focuses instead on the universality of experience and the mystery of consciousness. For instance, in deep meditative states the individual no longer identifies as an entity separate from the world, but as an awareness which is part of everything.

Reutter employs techniques in his paintings that parallel the creation and curation of personal identity, by removing parts of the surface and also by building up and obscuring other areas — in the same manner one might choose either consciously or unconsciously to remember certain things and gloss over others to maintain a consistent idea of who one is or wants to be.

Drop by and see these works for yourself at the opening reception, and perhaps speak to Mark about his process. The opening for the show will be held on Friday, November 3rd from 6 to 11 p.m.

Coeur Nouveau is located on the 2nd floor of the Commerce Building at 129-1/2 Hunter St. West in downtown Peterborough.

META4 Gallery opens its doors to the public

There is a new art gallery and studio opening in Peterborough. After extensive renovations, META4 Gallery will open its doors on Friday, November 3rd.

Owners and local artists Jennifer Hardie, Birgitta MacLeod, and Bonnie Thomson — who already run META4 Contemporary Craft Gallery in Port Perry — have created a new studio space and offer a unique selection of works by Ontario artists and artisans.

The new space will be very much like their current Port Perry location, with a gallery at the front and a studio in the back. It will have a ground-floor and fully accessible washroom and lots of natural light.

The opening celebration begins at 4:30 p.m. and continues until 11 p.m. Drop in and check out a selection of work by area artists and the new studio space.

META4 Gallery is located at 164 Hunter St. West in Peterborough. For more information, e-mail ptbo@meta4gallery.ca, call 705-874-9444, or visit www.meta4gallery.ca.

Fenelon Falls Community Centre hosts ‘Made in Kawartha Lakes’ art and craft show and sale

On Saturday, November 18th, artists and artisans from the Kawartha Lakes region will be participating in a show and sale at the Fenelon Falls Community Centre (27 Veterans Way, Fenelon Falls)

“Made in Kawartha Lakes” begins at 10 a.m and runs until 4 p.m. Admission is free.

The show and sale is being presented by the Kawartha Lakes Arts Council, an incorporated not-for-profit organization dedicated to serving the arts community in the Kawartha Lakes.

If you’re an artist or artisan and want to participate, the deadline to book a booth has been extended to Friday, November 3rd. For more information, please visit www.kawarthalakesarstcouncil.com or email kawarthalakesartscouncil@gmail.com.

‘Hunt, Hunt Again’ by Sarah Gibeault at Ah! Arts and Heritage Centre of Warkworth

In this series of hooked wall sculptures, artist Sarah Gibeault has used rug hooking to create densely packed pieces, rich with colour and texture. As the title ‘Hunt, Hunt Again’ tells us, the viewer is invited to closely examine and look through the patterns and textures in this new series of work.

Rug hooking is traditionally a craft, used to create floor coverings out of old clothes and bits of yarn, and is a way of reusing materials to create something new and useful. Sarah has used this same process to create these wall sculptures.

This show, curated by Caroline Langill, is filled with inspiring compositions of bright colours and textures and is a real treat to take in. The show is on now, and will be on display at the Arts and Heritage Centre until December 2nd.

Ah! Arts and Heritage Centre of Warkworth is located at 35 Church Street in downtown Warkworth. Hours of operation are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. For more information, please contact Rebecca Baptista, Arts Administrator, at info@ahcentre.ca or 705-925-4450.

Acme Art and Sailboat Company presents ‘This. And That.’ by Bill Batten and new work by Joe Stable

This month, Bill Batten’s ‘This. And That.’, a selection of colourful new work, will be featured in the main gallery at Acme Art and Sailboat Company.

Batten, a well-known former bartender at The Only Café, is a two-time cancer survivor who now makes his living as an artist. His work has been featured locally as well as in Toronto.

Some new pieces by Joe Stable will also be on display in the copper closet.

The show opens on the First Friday Art Crawl on November 3rd from 6 to 10 p.m.

Acme Art and Sailboat Company is located at 129-1/2 Hunter Street West, 3rd floor, in downtown Peterborough. Gallery hours are 12 to 3 p.m. on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and by appointment. Email joe.stable@gmail.comfor more information.

Christensen Fine Art presents ‘Remembering, New Paintings about Memory and Romance’ by Spencer J. Harrison

Christensen Fine Art presents ‘Remembering: New Paintings about Memory and Romance’, a series of work by Spencer J. Harrison.

This show, a colourful meditation on various events in Spencer’s life, opens with a reception during the First Friday Art Crawl on November 3rd from 6 until 9 p.m. There will be light refreshments and the artist will be in attendance. The show will be on display until November 25th.

Christensen Fine Art is located at 432 George Street North in downtown Peterborough. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday to Friday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, visit www.christensenfineart.com.

Kawartha Artists’ Gallery and Studio presents ‘Stretch Marks’ by Donna, Emma, and Dawn Bolam

‘Stretch Marks’ at Kawartha Artists’ Gallery and Studio features work by three women from the Bolam family.

Artist Donna Bolam challenged her daughter-in-law Dawn and her 12-year-old granddaughter Emma to create artwork for this show. It sounds like fun, so get out and see what they have come up with.

The show will be on display from November 15th until November 26th, with the opening reception on Sunday, November 19th from 1 to 4 p.m.

Also happening at Kawartha Artists’ Gallery and Studio until November 12th is “Rural Outlook”, a show and sale of landscape art and other works related to rural life.

Kawartha Artists’ Gallery and Studio is a not-for-profit artist’s co-operative, located at 420 O’Connell Road in Peterborough. Hours of operation are Wednesday to Sunday from 1 p.m. until 4 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, visit www.kawarthaartists.org.

‘Reverence for Life’ by Anne Cavanagh and Ellen Cowie at new gallery space at The Mount in Peterborough

There’s a brand new gallery space at The Mount Community Centre (1545 Monaghan Rd., Peterborough) and the first exhibit in the new space is showing works by Anne Cavanagh and Ellen Cowie.

“Reverence for Life” is on display now until January 14th in the Heritage Room, and features personal and intimate works of art by Ellen Cowie in oils and acrylics and Anne Cavanagh’s evocative breathtakingly beautiful images in charcoal and paint.

An opening reception where you can meet the artists takes place on Thursday, November 16th from 1 to 4 p.m. and again from 7 to 10 p.m.

The exhibit is curated by Cowie, who will also be organizing and curating future exhibits in the Heritage Room.

Local author Barbara Mitchell has written the first-ever biography of the 18th-century Hudson’s Bay Company surveyor — and one of her ancestors — Philip Turnor.

Mapmaker: Philip Turnor in Rupert’s Land in the Age of Enlightenment tells the story of Turnor and his Cree guides who, for 14 years, travelled 25,000 kilometres by canoe and by foot through Rupert’s Land.

Between 1778 and 1792, Turnor produced 10 maps, culminating in his magnum opus in 1794: a map that was the foundation of all northern geographic knowledge at that time. He also taught British-Canadian fur traders and explorers David Thompson and Peter Fidler how to survey.

Rupert’s Land was a vast territory in British North America encompassing the Hudson Bay drainage basin (what is now all of Manitoba, most of Saskatchewan, southern Alberta, southern Nunavut, and northern parts of Ontario and Quebec, as well as parts of the northern United States), over which the Hudson’s Bay Company had a commercial monopoly in the fur trade for 200 years (from 1670 to 1870).

The Hudson’s Bay Company had complete control of the territory, establishing forts and trading routes, with little regard for the sovereignty of the many Indigenous peoples who had lived there for centuries. Cree, Assiniboine, and other Indigenous peoples (as well as the Métis) supplied the company with furs, acted as middlemen, or were directly employed by the company.

Because of the close economic relationship with and dependency on Indigenous peoples, many senior officers of the company also married Indigenous women. Such was the case with Philip Turnor, who had a Cree wife. At a family gathering, Mitchell discovered she was one of their descendants and was intrigued (see the excerpt from the book below)..

Because Turnor’s journals are very technical and contain no personal information (for example, he never mentions his Cree wife), Mitchell intersperses the biographical information in the book with her own narrative, including genealogy and her research expeditions, to bring Turnor’s story to life.

“Mitchell’s style allows the reader to get up close and personal with both the author and her subject, despite Turnor’s bloodless journal notations,” writes Charlotte Gray in her review of the book in The Globe and Mail. “She brings to life the killing cold of the winters, the insufferable mosquito swarms and the near starvation her ancestor faced, as well as her own the thrill of donning white cotton gloves and unfolding a two-century-old map.”

Mitchell will be launching her book at the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough on Thursday, November 2nd, from 5 to 8 p.m. The free public event includes a complimentary tour of the museum at 5 p.m. and a reception at 6 p.m., followed by a talk by Mitchell at 6:30 p.m. Copies of the book will be available for purchase through the museum’s gift shop. The book is also available at major book retailers and online.

In addition to her latest book, Mitchell is the co-author of a two-volume biography of W.O. Mitchell, Beginnings to Who Has Seen the Wind and The Years of Fame. She has also written a doctoral dissertation on the biographers of Charlotte Brontë and has published several biographical essays. For many years, she taught English Literature at Trent University. Mitchell lives in Otonabee with her husband Orm Mitchell.

An excerpt from Mapmaker: Philip Turnor in Rupert’s Land in the Age of Enlightenment by Barbara Mitchell (University of Regina Press, 328 pages, $39.95)

Prologue

Discovery, 24 October 1992

I knew nothing of my family lineage beyond my grandparents, but on this day in 1992 my family multiplied astronomically. I was forty-eight years old.

It was Thanksgiving — the annual family gathering of the eastern branch of the Goff family. Bob, my uncle by marriage and an amateur genealogist, brought a family tree he had been working on for several years. He unfolded it and tacked it on the wall-it was five feet wide, three and a half feet high. A hundred names, with their birth, marriage and death dates, spread out and down the wall. I began with my mother, Dorothy Goff, and her siblings, two of whom, Anna and Vivian, were at the unveiling. I moved upstream through the Goff parents, to the Loutit and then the Harper tributaries, to Joseph Turner Sr., and finally to the source, Philip Turnor, the first name on the chart. “Born in England in 1751,” I read, he was a mapmaker who “produced the first good maps for the company” and who “took his Indian wife back to England.”

That day I discovered a wealth of information I had never known: I was a sixth generation Canadian; I had Orkney-Scots connections as well as English; my ancestors worked in the fur trade; Philip Turnor, whose name I had never heard before, was a significant figure in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s history. And I had Cree roots. Philip Turnor, my great-great-great-great-grandfather, had come to Rupert’s Land in 1778 from Middlesex, England, as a surveyor, in fact the first inland surveyor for the Hudson’s Bay Company. His Cree wife was my great-great-great-great-grandmother.

My uncle Bob recalled the day he was checking the 1901 Canadian Census records and discovered “Cree” listed as my grandmother’s ancestry. Aunt Anna and Aunt Vivian were astonished that they had not known this about their own mother. When I questioned them, Aunt Anna reported, “No one ever spoke of it. It never occurred to me that she was Cree.” Aunt Vivian agreed, “If Mother did know about her Cree ancestry, she didn’t say. I wish I had asked her more.” In fact, my grandmother was of mixed heritage. Her grandfather, John Low Loutit, and her great-grandfather, James Harper, had been born in Rupert’s Land to Orkney HBC servants and Cree women.

So, in 1901 when my grandmother was nineteen and still living at home with her parents in St. Andrew’s Parish (Lockport, near Selkirk, Manitoba), it was acknowledged and recorded that she was Cree, but in 1904, when she married an Englishman, that was kept quiet. She did however mention her Cree ancestry to her male children, Barney and Haig. But, like their mother, they did not discuss it openly in the family.

Aunt Anna recalled that there were “always Cree women around. They would bring their lard pails full of saskatoons to Aunt Jennie’s and sit down for tea.” As young girls my aunts absorbed more than they realized. One New Year’s Day on a phone call, my Aunt Vivian recalled hearing a New Year’s greeting in Cree when she was a child. “Happy Noot Shey,” she said to me. She apologized for her attempt and said she did not know how to spell these words. I asked what else she remembered, and she began counting in what she thought was Cree: “Hanika, banika, dib boose, day”-and she continued to twenty. Although I have not been able to identify her numbering as either Cree or Bungee, a Red River dialect, my questions had awakened in my aunt some long-ago memories of hearing an Indigenous language being spoken by her family and friends.

My aunts recalled for me various traditions of their Cree-Scots upbringing that were practiced in the family during the 1930s. One of their aunts made bannock on top of the old cook stove, and my grandmother told her children stories about the place they went during the summer months, which they lovingly called Buttertown. It was not truly a town, only a pasture area out on their land a few kilometres away where they brought the cattle to graze during the summer. It was one of the great pleasures of her young life, my grandmother told her daughters. They picked berries-wild strawberries, saskatoons, and high bush cranberries. The women made red and purple jellies for the winter and churned butter, which they stored in gallon granite crocks and placed in a hole, dug in the ground, so they would stay cool in the hot prairie summers. Pound blocks would be measured out in a butter pat to sell to their neighbours and relatives.

Unfortunately, this was all my aunts could tell me about this side of my family. The furthest back they could go was to my great-grandmother, Nancy Ann Harper.

Philip Turnor was just as much a mystery to them as he was to me.

***

Work prevented me from pursuing my family history for a number of years, and then I received a letter from my uncle Bob: “At last I’ve looked up some information about Philip Turnor,” he wrote. He had discovered Pearl Weston’s family history, Across the River, and sent me a few pages. At the beginning of her book is this wisp of a story passed down through six generations: “Our Grandma Campbell remembered, when a little girl, her grandfather, Joseph Turner, speaking about stories he’d heard of his Grandfather Philip Turnor travelling rivers in Northern Canada with only the stars to guide him.” Reading that passage, I began to imagine Turnor with his sextant, compass, and watch, and with his Cree guides and my great-great-great-great grandmother, surveying the rivers of Rupert’s Land. This started me on my own travels — to the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, to the Orkney Islands, to England, to Moose Factory-to discover who Philip Turnor was and what he contributed to the surveying and mapping of Rupert’s Land, the territory that came to be the Canadian north.