Kawagama Lake in Dorset, November 2 (via The Weather Network)
As usual, there is a host of activities in the Highlands from which to pick including charity fundraisers and functions, a film festival, world-class entertainment, myriad arts and/or crafts endeavors, Christmas goodies and much more. Check ‘em out!
My music pick is folk songstress, Teresa Doyle who performs at the Haliburton Highlands Museum on Nov 17. Mark your calendars!
Seldom Seen: Traces of War Scott Waters (through Jan 12)
Rails End Gallery
Rail’s End – Echoes
Christmas Luncheon White Elephant and Bake Sale
Christmas Open House
GIVE A LITTLE BIT: Fill the Truck Food Drive in Minden and Haliburton, The Fundraising Bowlathon and Friends of the Haliburton Library 7th Annual Gala:
Food Crusade
Fundraising Bowlathon
Friends of the Haliburton Library 7th Annual Gala
Sixth Annual Haliburton International Film Festival
Yours Outdoors: Gone To Pot
Mom 2 Mom Sale – Minden
The Art Hive Brings You…
Miss Robin Banks
Credit
I’ve got to be straight with y’all: I am not at all a winter person but I do like to get out and then quickly get IN places and stay for awhile. Fortunately, the Haliburton Highlands offers many, many places to go and things to see, some for charitable cause, some for profit, some for free–and best of all for your enjoyment and/or to benefit your community! Just because the weather is a-changing (as I’ll address in a moment) does not mean you have to stay home getting cabin fever. Bundle up and get going. You won’t want to miss a thing!
14-Day Weather Outlook – Nov 3 through Nov 16
As we move into mid-late Autumn in the Haliburton Highlands area, the weather pattern of above-normal nighttime temperatures continues with only about 2 days of very slightly below normal temps overnight. It looks like there will only be a chance of showers 2 out of the 14 days which is well below normal (and hopefully, won’t continue). Conversely, daytime temperatures look to reach normal only 2 days out of the 14 with the rest below normal, significantly so on some days.
UNTIL 1982, Canada Day was known as Dominion Day. I always thought that had more of a ring to it. Beyond the zippy alliteration, it reminded us citizens that our domain of orderly domesticity was graced by the dominant power of our “Dominus.”
And the rights granted therein to us by the glorious English crown through her colonial appointee, the right honourable governor general.
There was another problem with Dominion Day. Dominion was the name of a national grocery store chain. It would be like calling the Fourth of July D’Agostino’s Day.
Independence (now there’s a great name for a day!) came slowly to our country. In 1965, we dumped the old, staid British ensign for our own new flag. in lIt’s the one with the big red maple leaf in the middle. A simple, sweet leaf! We also have moose and beavers on our coins. And we call our dollars loonies because the coin has an image of a loon. Another old bird, the Queen of England, is on the other side of the coin.
I remember singing “God Save the Queen” every morning in school. “Long live our noble Queen!” we belted, thousands of us tubby little obedient Canadians. I guess it worked. She’s still alive. Now they sing “O Canada” in schools and at most sporting events; usually in French and English. Around the time we were changing anthems, dumping ensigns and renaming holidays, the official use of both languages became mandatory, except in Quebec where the required use of English is a bit fuzzy.
Canada Day comes and goes modestly every year. Sure, there are retail sales promotions and a long weekend. But there isn’t bluster or commodity in Canadian celebration. Canada isn’t big on bunting. Or jet flyovers, fireworks, marching bands or military pomp.
Canadians defer. We save our loonies and don’t jaywalk. It’s illegal, eh. We stand on guard at red lights, even when there is no traffic. We wait for clear, green governing lights to signal our turn and lead us on. Then we tuck our heads down, under wooly toques and worn-out scarves, one eye barely open, squinting headlong into the harsh prairie wind, cautiously, quietly, demurely Canadian.
— RICK MORANIS, a writer and actor
Back home, hockey highlights lead off SportsCenter. That is the height of civilization.
— SEAN CULLEN, a comedian
The gourmets say there isn’t a native Canadian food worth remembering after you’ve left the country. The gourmets have never bitten into a Coffee Crisp.
A Coffee Crisp tastes like Canada to anybody who grew up gnawing on that confection, a memorably crisp blend of coffee cream, cookie wafers and milk chocolate as wholesome and satisfying as the Canadian national anthem. It was a square-edged rectangle, like a brick, wrapped in a yellow-going-to-gold paper that seemed to elevate its value above all rival confections. It was unlike other chocolate bars.
I say “was” because no sooner had I left Canada than its originator, Rowntree’s, was absorbed into the giant international food conglomerate Nestlé. Soon enough, factors beyond the ken of the layman led its new owners to “improve on” the faultless original. Coffee Crisps were reshaped to be longer and slimmer and, as the infallible taste buds quickly revealed, reformulated to be less crisp and less coffee-flavored. Nestlé next undertook to expand the brand: Coffee Crisp Orange, Coffee Crisp Raspberry, Coffee Crisp Café Caramel, even Coffee Crisp White and, God save us, Coffee Crisp Yogurt.
But even in its diminished form, the classic Coffee Crisp still ranked superior to all the sticky-sweet American “candy bar” alternatives. I’d snaffle up half a dozen on a Canadian visit and wolf down a couple right away, just to make sure it wasn’t all just nostalgie du chocolat. It wasn’t. Taste memory never fades.
The demands of homesick Canadian expatriates were finally answered, circa 2006, when Coffee Crisp made its debut south of the border. But Nestlé’s efforts at carving a niche in the United States, alas, seemed half-hearted. I never saw an ad, and found only one seedy neighborhood hole-in-the-wall that even sold Coffee Crisps; the single box was all but hidden down on the bottom row of the candy display rack near the dust kittens and lottery-ticket stubs.
A month later the box was still there, its contents by now grayish and moldy and stale with age when the wrapper was torn away. In another month the box was gone. Coffee Crisps slunk back out of the American market in 2008, as quietly as they’d entered.
I suppose the Coffee Crisp debacle proves yet again that Canadian products — with the notable exceptions of Bombardier jets and half the comedians in Hollywood — just can’t compete in the American big time. But all visiting Canadian relatives and friends arrive at my door with pockets mysteriously bulging, or they won’t be let in.
— BRUCE McCALL, a writer and illustrator
In history class, in seventh grade (or as we like to say in Canada, grade seven) we learned the story of the American Revolution — from the British perspective. Turns out you were all a bunch of ungrateful tax cheats. And you weren’t very nice to the Loyalists. What I miss most about Canada is getting the truth about the United States.
— MALCOLM GLADWELL, a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author, most recently, of “Outliers: The Story of Success”
I miss the “u” in color. — LISA NAFTOLIN, a creative director
NOW is the time to give to The Fresh Air Fund—in any way you can:
Summer '94
Literally, all my life I’ve had a beautiful summer place to go.
Thanks to my grandparents, I grew up sometimes spending months on a crystal-clear lake in the breathtakingly beautiful Haliburton Highlands in Ontario, Canada. At the time however, my nuclear family had emigrated to Connecticut–just a stone’s throw from the great state of New York and where I spent the rest of my year. My dad kept the radio on especially in the morning and I’d hear PSA’s for The Fresh Air Fund. It was hard as a child to imagine what it would be like stuck in the suburbs all summer long–never mind the inner city! Later, TV adverts made an even more indelible impression on me that I was exceptionally fortunate as there were many kids who were not.
After over 130 years of giving inner-city children the joy of a summer vacation with volunteer host families and at Fund camps, ‘creating unforgettable memories and fresh possibilities,’ no one needs to remind the not-for-profit The Fresh Air Fund of what a fantastic difference spending some of the summer away from the city can make for children.
Read an excerpt from a recent news story on how summer resources for city youth are going to be even more scarce in summer 2011:
NEW YORK — A rising number of children can look forward to excruciatingly boring school breaks this year as budget crises in places such as New York, Washington, D.C., Houston and Detroit rob them of the activities and programs that have long defined summer in the city for urban youngsters.
Swimming pools are being closed. Recreation centers are locking their doors. Library summer reading programs are suffering. Openings for short-term jobs have evaporated.
Yet, with a shift in perspective, do the kids have to be on the losing end?
‘We can’t afford to have children who don’t have positive places to be during the summer’
In New Orleans, Mayor Mitchell Landrieu this year fulfilled a campaign promise to boost city funding for children’s recreation facilities and summer programs, despite the city’s economic difficulties. While last summer, about 700 children participated in sports and literacy activities through the city’s summer camps for children ages 5 to 18, this year the city is expecting to serve 5,000 campers with the help of local organizations, private partnerships and doubled city funds, said Gina Warner, the executive director of the city’s Partnership for Youth Development.
The city – where nine out of 10 recreation sites were damaged by Hurricane Katrina – will be opening 12 pools this year, up from seven the year before and three the year before that. And libraries will be coordinating with the city summer camps to keep children reading, Warner said.
Warner said that while her city faces the same economic struggles as its counterparts around the country, elected officials see the New Orleans summer programs as not only an investment in children, but also a crime-prevention tool.
“We’re a very tourism-dependent city, and so we can’t afford to have children who don’t have positive places to be during the summer,” she said.
I’m starting a semi-regular feature about what I would do for recreation, meals, and entertainment if I were in the Haliburton Highlands at any given time. When we are at our cottage on Maple Lake I will actually be doing some of the myriad activities that are going on year-round in the Haliburton Highlands. Right now, I can only dream <sigh>.
If I were in the Haliburton Highlands on Mother’s Day, the Pinestone Resort for brunch* is where I’d love to be. Just read the menu or have a look at the websitefor more photographs of why the Pinestone Resort is a superb choice for fine dining & accommodations.
My mom passed away earlier this year and I dearly wish I’d had another chance to have a lovely meal out with her. Don’t put off such a perfect opportunity to show your Mom how much she means to you.
This is a non-paid post in support of the province of Ontario, Haliburton Highlands tourism.
Want to know where heaven on earth is? It’s right here in the Haliburton Highlands!
I’m so excited. After a disappointing spring and summer where I leaned heavily on the ever-gorgeous Reach Harbour, Lakefield and Chapleau River webcams to bring beautiful scenes to the Maple Lake Ontario blog, I found today that several new locations–with functioning webcams(!) have been added! I can’t tell you how welcome this is and despite the shots not being perfect–on all of them I’ve fixed the angle and brought up the contrast, etc., they are beautiful to me because a) they are photos of scenic Ontario, Canada a/k/a “The Motherland” and b) the webcams function when I click for example, “Magnetawan River in Britt” (the name of the river means “swiftly flowing waters” in the Ojibwa language) and Turkey Point (on the north shore of Lake Erie in southwestern Ontario). I have noted, complained actually(on the blog and in emails), that in the case of sponsored webcams–and some so you know, are private–regular folks covering the cost of hosting and the webcam themselves, in the case of sponsored webcams like Halcom Communications in Haliburton they continue to get free advertising and they should give back at least a webcam shot, right? I have not seen a shot of Haliburton, which is among the closest areas to Maple Lake Ontario since last spring. Same goes for Indian River, Port Carling. It used to be one of my favourite scenes year-round and Muskoka Realty Corp is still taking credit–yet no webcam shots–ever since last winter, in their case. So welcome, welcome, welcome to some fresh Ontario webcam locations! I’ll get to the rest and have the weather up later tonight but for today, the first day of October 2010, please enjoy the beauty of autumn in Ontario Canada.
![familyoldtemey022 425x343 Give an Inner City Child A Chance to Enjoy Summer OUT of the City [VIDEO]](http://maplelakeontario.com/wp-content/uploads/familyoldtemey022-425x343.jpg "familyoldtemey022")
