News from the Archives v04-3

News from the Archives v04-3

• Created by: Albert Fulton
• Date: 1995-09-01
• Provenance: Collected by members of Toronto Island Connections group, scanned by Edward English, OCR by Eric Zhelka, PDF by Eric Light
• Notes: v04-3

SEPTEMBER 1, 1995
AN EVENTFUL SUMMER
The 26-hour power outage of July 13-14 and the recent rash of falling trees are the latest episodes in a long-running Island series.
The blackout was caused by a squall from the lake breaking off 7 old wooden hydro poles in an exposed location just east of the Filtration Plant. Some of the trees lost their limbs in storms; others were old and tired and simply collapsed in the heavy humid weather. Fortunately the trees seemed to know where to fall and surprisingly little damage resulted. We’re also lucky that the blackout happened in summertime, unlike most which have been caused by winter storms.
Some of the most severe damage occurred during the great ice storm of January 1968. Descriptions of this legendary 4-day blackout were recorded by Doy Pohl (9 Nottawa) and Marg Burrows (7 Dacotah). From Doy, written in May 1994:
Hal & Trevor were watching a football game on TV when the lights went out [her husband and #1 son]. We sat around for about an hour and suddenly smartened up to realize that the blower on the floor furnace was not blowing and there would be a great accumulation of soot if we didn’t turn the oil off. Result: in January, it soon became quite cold.
Our dear neighbour Eddie Roe (14 Nottawa) came over to see if we were O.K. and when he saw our predicament he suggested we should bring the boys over to his place as he didn’t have a furnace blower and still had the oil flame. Darren was six months old at the time and Kevin two, so we decided to take Eddie up on his offer rather than sitting around shivering. We just settled in over there when I suggested that perhaps the furnace should be turned up a little because it did feel a bit chilly. Eddie obliged, only to discover that he was out of oil!
We spent four days living in our winter outfits and dashing across the street to pick up any food that could be eaten COLD. Thanks to Janie Jones (7 Seneca) we kept the baby’s food warm on her gas stove. We warmed what we could, mainly coffee, on a wee carafe over a candle.
Nobody had expected the power outage to last so long but by the fourth day we smartened up and hoofed across to 9 Nottawa to pick up our camping stove and lantern. Middle of winter–no fuel! Trevor & I volunteered to head up to Canadian Tire for fuel. We crossed the ice directly out from the OCYC, picked up our fuel and went into the house. Hal lit the lantern so we could see our way and finally cook a hot meal on the camp stove. The very second the lamp was lit the power came on. Trevor dashed over to the TV to watch the end of the football game; alas, no football game!
We had left the taps running and they were all like sticks of ice; however, we managed to chop enough out to make a hot drink. By some stroke of luck the furnace had sympathy for us and did not send up tons of carbon when we turned it back on.
Outside, every tree, bush and shrub was coated with ice and it was a beautiful sight. In the morning when the sun came out the whole street sparkled. We all survived and now it is just another memory that made the Island so different and more humane than any place in the world.
From Marg, included in her 2 2 9
Sunday, January 14, 1968 was a sullen winter day with sleeting rain beginning late in the day. Our next-door –
neighbours [Ernest & Yvonne Kirkpatrick, 5 Dacotah] and ourselves decided for some strange reason to go p a g e H o m e
collecting firewood after dinner. We had heard there was a tempting pile of cut-up logs from tree-trimming west i s a n
of Algonquin Bridge near Snake Island. Having a fireplace is powerful motivation for wood-gathering even on I s l a n d ,
a frightful night.
1 9 8 4 :
ALGONQUI N ISLAND ARCHIVES d/o Albert Fulton 5 Ojibway Ave Toronto M5s1 2C9 203-0921 or 537-5006
The four of us battled our way through what we figured was just mild wet snow, pulling our wagons behind us. We noticed the snow had turned to real rain (we thought) and then it began to stick to coats and sting the face. But we found our pile of cut-up firewood, and by the time we got it home and warmed up with hot rum toddies, we knew we were in for more than rain. The wind howled, the icy sleet pelted. Trees were bent over and started snapping around 10 p.m.
By midnight the crack of falling trees was frightening. Our husbands having gone to bed, Yvonne and I started afoolhardy walk around Algonquin to see the debacle. Branches and whole trees were dropping around us. Wires were down and crackling ominously. We scuttled home to find merry teenagers rolling a massive snow head on our lawn. While standing gazing around at the eerie scene, we heard an ear-splitting crack. Half our front cottonwood tree started to fall. A neighbour’s 18-year old son [who?] pushed me away in time. The huge branch fell a couple of feet from me demolishing a sturdy Cape Cod chair that weathered the winter on the patio. “That’s what would have happened to you, Mrs. Burrows,” he said reprovingly.
The next day nobody got off our Island. We were blocked by fallen trees and wires, even had to claw our way out of the house by the back door. The end of our street where we make the turn to go to the Bridge was an impasse. A neighbour’s tree was resting dangerously on a drooping telephone wire in our backyard–so three of the husbands spent the day winching the tree up to save the wire. Our house ended up being the only one on the street with phone service for days to come. On the other hand because of a fallen tree out front that took our main household wires down we were the last on the street to have power restored. Until Friday that week we used our Coleman camp stove.
A walk around the other Islands revealed the havoc was general. It looked as if a giant hand had haphazardly weeded a tree-garden. But despite the devastation, there was miracle after miracle, with huge trees having missed ahouse, a window, a boat-house or a shed by literally inches. Just a fraction this way or that could have meant calamity. Like the marginal ‘if’ in the confluence of the elements that can cook up a smasheroo of a storm.
Many excellent photos of the storm’s aftermath were taken by Bud Burrows and kindly donated to the Archives by his widow Marg. If you have special memories of this storm or any other Algonquin event, I am always delighted to receive them, written or told to my tape recorder.
FRAM WARD & THE SUNFISH
During World War I Billy Dean brought a Curtiss flying boat named the Sunfish to Toronto Harbour for training pilots. Following is a more or less verbatim transcript of an interview with F r = Ward (1902-1977) about 1970.
Billy Dean got a lease on Algonquin and he built a hangar, all steel with a concrete floor and a track running right down to the Bay where the wall is now. The day he moved the Sunfish to Algonquin he got my old man to bring his oil drums and equipment and stuff on his boat and he said, “You could come over with me if you like, son.” So we’re sitting in it, right in the front, with a pushing engine behind, and we come down the Bay and hit the shore at Algonquin. He wanted to beach it and hold it on the shore until such time that he got his crew and this jig that they were going to run down into the water just like the dolly they have over there at the Queen City to pull their boats out.
He says to me, “You see that pedal down there at your foot? You just push on that when I tell you.” It was twin controlled, so we each had a pedal. So he gets his big rubber boots on and jumps out. He says push it, I push it, and the gall darn thing roars and I thought it was going to take off. He says it’s alright, it won’t go upwards, just keep pushing. He was shoving and finally he got it up on the beach to his satisfaction, and then I got out.
He only lasted about a year and then went out of business. Then a camp from the YMCA took over, Sunfish Camp they called it, and they took the big hangar and put their stoves in there and their tables for eating on. They built little floors outside and set up tents on the floors for the boys. My old man used to rent them a scow that would hold maybe 10 or 12 and theyd paddle it up the lagoon to about where McLaughlins used to Eve [site of the new Fire Hall]. They used the camp for quite a while, and when they moved, some people stole the odd sheet of corrugated tin off the hangar and then it gradually went to pieces. Then they finally took it off.
Photos of the hangar (located south of the present AIA Building) are in the Archives, and a photo of the Sunfish taken by F r = Ward appears in Sally Gibson’s More Than an Island,
published in 1984. Mr Ward was of the opinion that Sunfish Island (Algonquin’s name until 1938)was named after the airplane, but Sally Gibson is dubious. Does anyone have any facts or theories?
The above i s an excerpt from a 37-page transcript which was recently donated anonymously to the Archives. Mr Ward describes in colourful detail many aspects of life on the Island and the Bay. Francis A H (Fram) Ward was a fourth generation Islander and a long-time Island fireman, who lived with his wife Edith at 2 Lenore. After his death, Jim Smith and Terry Maher organized a fund-raising campaign for a memorial plaque to be installed at the Fire Hall, and the unveiling ceremony was held on August 6, 1979. This plaque will be reinstalled on the front wall of the new Fire Hall between the bay doors, hopefully in the near future.
THE HOUSE THAT GEORGE BUILT by Grace Rosamond
George & Grace Rosamond were the original owners of 5 Oneida.
In the spring of 1947, like many Torontonians, we were desperate for a place of our own. Our city home at that time consisted of one rented upstairs room—originally the front bedroom–of a six-roomed, semi-detached two-storey house [at 36 Arlington Ave.] We had a little money saved from our wartime jobs and George’s Air Force pay. But we couldn’t buy a house, or even rent a flat, in all the city of Toronto.
George had just inherited his father’s carpenter tools and fancied building his own house, as his father had done on the homestead in Saskatchewan. George had a friend named Joe [who?] who had built a house on Toronto Island, so the prospect looked interesting. We found we could erect an insulated two-bedroom cottage for about $4000. We didn’t have to buy the land. It was rented from the city on a 21-yearlease, saving an initial outlay of $1000. The Island houses had no basements (a requirement of City building by-laws), but were put up on posts, in the traditional cottage manner. That prohibition saved us a further $1000. With our joint wartime savings of $3000, and $1300 borrowed from a family member, we were able to build a two-bedroom self contained house.
One day I went alone to the Island on the ferry Clarke. It was just after George got the lease on the property. I overheard one man talking to another. “You know that guy George who is building the shed back of Jack’s place? [Fram Ward’s son Jack, 6 Ojibway]. Well, I talked to him the other night. Most guys when you talk to them just keep on working. Not him! He downed tools and talked for an hour and a half. He’s a very interesting man, but he won’t finish that tool shed, let alone the house before freeze-up, at the rate he works.” That was MY GEORGE he was talking about. I stifled the urge to hit the guy. I decided to learn the lesson that if you don’t want to be overheard by the wrong person, don’t broadcast on the Clarke.
It was a very wet cold spring, and it was hard on George working all day on the job and then all evening on the building. We felt it would be easier and cheaper to live on the premises. So on Friday, June 13th, 1947, we gave up our room in the city and moved into our 8’x12′ shed. It was so small we called it “Chez Chien”. It held the studio couch, an ice box, large tool box, and two orange crates on which sat the two-plate grill. We had an extension cord trailing in from the house behind us [the Wards]. A chest of drawers was tucked in a corner and a pole was strung diagonally behind the door, in lieu of a clothes closet. But it was OUR PLACE. How wonderful it seemed to me then! To have a place of my own. No sharing the bathroom, the telephone, the front door with the landlady and other tenants.
On the first night the fog horn kept going all night. I thought I’d never get used to it. It was like trying to sleep inside a drum, with some giant beating a strange rhythm on the outside. I could swear that ruddy fog horn lived under our bed. [At that time the nearest fog born was by the lighthouse at the south end of the east wall of the Eastern Gap.] Mr. Hall, the plumber, put a tap at the street line, and we put our laundry tubs up on cement blocks beside Chez Chien, filling them by the bucketful and allowing the water to drain into the sandy soil beneath them. George didn’t want to waste time putting a roof or door on our privy, so he adapted a plan from some other ingenious soul that looked like this:
We devised a morning routine demanded by close quarters. It began the night before with the filling of my large kettle and setting the alarm clock for quarter to five. When the alarm went off, I would slither down the bed and turn the hot plate on. Then I went back to bed until I heard the kettle boiling. By then it would be 5:30 and time to get up. George and I turned out at opposite ends of the studio couch and had it folded up in a jiffy, so that we had room to move. With the kettle of boiling water, I made porridge and tea, and George washed and shaved. By 6:10 George was on his bicycle riding to the dock to catch the Clarke, on her first run of the morning. He rode his bike tall and straight, with his lunch pail dangling from the handle bars. While George was at work, I tried to help with the building. I still have the scar on my shin where the draw knife slipped when I was peeling cedar logs for the foundation posts.
Owing to a couple of health problems, the building of the house took longer than George had planned. An acute shortage of materials was another problem. The lumber we were able to get had had the birds singing in it the week before. It was advisable to stand back when you drove a nail into it–you might get splashed! I “chased” nails and bricks for the fireplace. I only bought on the black market if there was no other way of getting it. By the end of August the house was only up as far as the floor. The neighbours rallied around, under the leadership of Fred Kemp, bless his heart [13 Ojibway]. On Labour Day weekend, they framed and sheathed the house for us. The Island is probably the only neighbourhood in Toronto where the community would stage a building bee for one of its members.
In November there was a blizzard that sifted through the shiplap siding on the shed. The house stood roofed, dapboarded, almost ready to move into, but the window sashes were not available. George and I put sheets of cardboard over the gaping windows to keep the storm out. I went stomping around Toronto in my visibly pregnant condition, trying to get window sash. Finally we got a little firm that would make them for us. They were tucked in south of Danforth, behind the lumber yard, and east of the railway station at Main Street. While the sash were being made, George and I took up residence at the Manitou Hotel [on the Main Drag at Centre].
On December 17th we moved into our unfmished house. The boys from the Bell had just installed the telephone, a real prize. Many of the Island residents couldn’t get one, because the supply was limited. There was a pay phone at the foot of the bridge. My obstetrician, Dr. McKinley, wrote the Bell and got a phone for me. She said I had a “heart condition”, and needed the service. So, until spring, I had neighbours in and out, using the phone. The day before Christmas, the plumber came to install the kitchen sink. Harry and Eve came for the holiday and helped George insulate the living room ceiling. We all stopped work long enough to have a nice chicken dinner in front of the fireplace. That was Christmas 1947, the first in our new house.
Spring 1948. With the return of the ferry boats, spring came to Algonquin island. The freight boats came once more to the dock at the foot of the street. So we finally obtained replacements for the side door and the one window sash that had been stolen from the main order that had been delivered just before freeze-up in December. We got the cement poured for the septic tank, and it was goodbye to the chemical toilet we had been using all winter.
Everyone else on Algonquin was busy too. On either side of us there were new houses being built as well as many others in this close-knit community. I got a ringside view of the building of the house next door to the south. As I worked at my kitchen sink, I could see the whole operation, from the digging of the post holes to the shingling of the roof. Bert Barker and his crew knew exactly what they were doing. It was a pleasure to see how well they worked. In about two weeks they had that house built! They built about 6 houses on Algonquin, and roofed over some tent sites on Ward’s. It was a good deal—to get a professional carpenter and his men to put up your house for you and then finish the inside yourself. It cost a little more, and all Barker’s houses were of the same design, but it was a lot easier than building your own home from scratch in your spare time.
The winter of 1948-49 was a little easier but the house was still far from finished inside. Then again, I was pregnant, which was just as well. If we had put off having a family until we had the house finished, we would probably have been too old to cope with children!
Bert Barker’s own house was at 4 Ojibway and the one she described next door was the Mazza house at 3 Oneida. Can you pick out the other Barker lookalikes on Algonquin? The above is a slightly edited excerpt from a 24-page Island memoir which Mrs Rosamond gave to Babs Lye, who in turn recently passed i t on to the Archives. She describes many aspects of the early days on Algonquin, with special emphasis on the Island arrangements for childbirth, including the two of her own. One woman from Centre gave
birth on the tug Dixon and named her daughter Dixie. The captain drove in circles around the Harbour until both the birth and the baby were wrapped up, before picking up a new load of passengers. “Everybody was late for work that day!”
In 1955 the Rosamonds sold their dream home to Bert Barker’s son Roy and his wife Gloria. The Barkers are still there, 40 years later, in “The House That George Built”.
OUR NEXT LANDLORDS?
From Jane Beecroft, President, Community History Project, August 5, 1995: Some time ago I notified Toronto City Council that no government in Canada owns the Toronto Islands. Nothing happened.So I notified the province and again nothing happened. Finally, I notified the federal Minister of Indian Affairs who wrote back to say, in effect, “Yes, we know”.
The Mississaugas of the New Credit with whom we work quite closely told us some years ago that the Islands had never been included in the Toronto Purchase, i.e. were never ceded. They have a researcher who works on their land claims who is a first-rate historian and she had assembled some information which she shared with
us. Then Bill Daniels, 0.L.S., who was doing some research for us, discovered the evidence right in the Metro Library and told us about it. By this time, we had learned that the negotiations for the Toronto Purchase had begun in 1783 and the final documents had not been signed until 1923.Subsequently, we found out from the J.L. Morris research for the government of Ontario in the late 1940s, that the province has known all along. The entire Mississauga nation is involved in the legalities of all their land treaties, not just the Mississaugas who happened to live in a given area. First we asked the Mississaugas of the New Credit about what they were doing and ended with meetings with all of the chiefs of the Mississauga nation…
We asked the Mississaugas if they wanted the Islands back, and they smiled and said that they wanted a fair deal. We agree. We asked if they would consider separating the Islands out from the rest of their land claim in the hope that this much could be settled. They discussed the matter among themselves and with the Indian Land Claims Commission for some time and reported back their agreement to this initiative. We could see several options open: a) to leave them in place as the owners and let them regulate what happened on the Islands; b) for governments to settle the land claim and buy the Islands (city, Metro, Ontario, Canada?); c) for joint ownership and administration; d) for a completely separate body to be created to administer the Islands after the ownership was settled which would directly benefit the owner(s)…
If anyone is interested in pursuing this matter, you may read Jane’s full 3-page letter.
MARINE MUSEUM ART EXHIBITION, until September 4
This year’s collection of Toronto Harbour in Art contains several Island scenes, including the Algonquin Bridge and the QCYC. Jerry Englar has an Ongiara panorama, and Laurie Joneshas 3 paintings of freighters. Of the 60 works, Laurie’s Three Sisters won second prize. Congratulations, Laurie! An entry by Donna Seymour (29 Seneca) in the 1990 exhibition, of the ice boat Silver Heels on the lagoon with the Bridge in the background, was purchased by the Toronto Historical Board and is currently hanging in the hall outside the art gallery aspart of the Museum’s permanent collection. Silver Heels belonged to Tom Swalwell (11 Ojibway) and is now owned by the Museum, though not presently on display.
ELECTION RESULTS (June 8)
Fort York Totals:
Rosario Marchese ND? 10,587;Bob Wong Liberal 8,326; Joel Ginsberg PC 5,902;Kevin Ells Green 298; Paul Barker Libertarian 262; Matthew Shepherd Independent 139; Maurice Seguin Natural Law 131; John Steele Communist 128.
Algonquin:
Marchese 87, Ginsberg 19, Wong 17, Ells 1, Seguin 1.
Ward’s:
Marchese 125, Ginsberg 24, Wong 10, Ells 2, Steele 2, Barker 1.
Haven’t we heard of Ginsberg & Wong in some other context?
WHICH HOUSE IS THIS?
From the newsletter of the Writers’ Union of Canada, Fall 1984:
Always wanted to live on Toronto Island? Cosy 2-storey Algonquin home for sale. Three bedrooms, gas heat and woodburning stove. Plus winterized newly-built studio with skylights—detached from house. Ideal for writer…
RECENT ACQUISITIONS
Enid Cridland deposited a set of TIRA and TRUST newsletters for 1992-1995. Dudley Davey donated photos which he took at the Christmas Boutique held at the Church in 1989, the year of the AIA fire. Fran Ford deposited a thick file of Island correspondence left by her father-in-law Charlie Millen (15 Dacotah), mostly concerning the Church and the long Save Island Homes campaign. Charlie served as People’s Warden and Rector’s Warden at the Church, Chair of the Inter-Island Council in 1963-65 (a forerunner of TIRA), and co Chair of TIRA in 1971. Julie Ganton donated a copy of the Harbour Commission’s 8-year plan of 1912 for the development of the waterfront from the mouth of the Humber to Ashbridge’s Bay. The impressive 10″x14″ book contains numerous photos, and the fold-out coloured maps and cross-sections are beautifully drawn. Much of the eastern and western work was completed, but thankfully the Island component of the central plan was largely abandoned. It called for l ift bridges across the Eastern and Western Gaps with a wide boulevard snaking its way between. Sandy Krzyzanowsld donated a Pirate 90 and an Island Cafe T
Bernecky and Miche Pouliot (34 Lakeshore). Malcolm (Mac) Murdoch contributed a
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beautiful 12″x16″ oil painting of the Wiman Building at Ward’s which he painted in the mid
s h i r t
1950s shortly before it was demolished. The 2-storey Wiman Baths, as it was originally
.
called, and the 3-storey Ward’s Hotel, both with central towers and similar architecture, were
P i
built in 1882 on opposite sides of Withrow just north of Channel, and they faced the Ferry r a
Docks. Ward’s Hotel, stripped of its tower and third floor, was operated as a general store t e
by Tony Hopp (3 Seneca) during the 1950s and early 1960s, and the building met its final 9
demise in 1966. Mac and his wife Thelma (Tommie) lived in the upper duplex at 170 Lake 0
Shore until it was demolished in 1968. Tommie lent the 200 high quality 8″x10″ photos taken (
by George Lofts (164 Lake Shore) which were on display during the Archives’ Seawall 8
Exhibition o f September 1994. These photos showed spectacular splashes along the 9
boardwalk before the addition of the Spit, as well as construction work on the present splash .
cap in high water 1952. Copies were made o f several o f the photos and added to the Archives’ Seawall album. Doy Pohl donated an 8″x10″ photo by Al Schoenborn of herself,
9
husband Hal, and Ruth Putt examining a rock collection at a hobby show at the MA. She
o
also provided an 8″x10″ group photo of the 1952 Centre Island Tennis Club and colour
n
snapshots of a variety of former Islanders as well as sewer construction on Nottawa in 1984.
t
Ray Putt donated a bench which used to stand in front of the Lamantia Bros grocery store
h
on the Main Drag at Centre. It was given to Ray’s wife Ruth by Peter Lamantia when the
e
store was demolished in 1958, and Ruth always called it “Peter’s Bench”. Peter’s Bench joins F
the Pitcher Pew in the breezeway at the Archives to provide comfort for those at the head M
of the line waiting their turn to get into the Archives for a regular Sunday afternoon open d
house! L u Schoenborn deposited her correspondence with Premier Davis, Chairman i
Godfrey, and Commissioner Swadron in 1980-82, and other papers pertaining to the Save a
Island Homes campaign. John Walker donated a copy of an illustrated article from the Star l
Weekly of September 4,1965 about the Patricia. The Patricia was a well-maintained 52′ gaff-
rigged sloop belonging to T K Wade, the bachelor Commodore of the RCYC. After his death, his 4 nieces decided that a burial at sea would be preferable to allowing the Patricia to suffer potential indignities at the hands of another owner. Eighty boats from the RCYC attended her funeral, 2 miles out on the lake on Sunday, June 27, 1965. George Walker (John’s brother) donated copies of photos and newspaper clippings of the Island Canoe Club of 1939-40, when he was a member. Adam Zhelka donated 10 photos of the Algonquin Bridge taken during its time of stress in September 1994. He also kindly deposited a goodly pile of recent Island ephemera.Please let me know if I have omitted your contribution.
OLYMPIC ISLAND
Because of its name, the CBC is considering using Olympic Island as the location for a piece about the upcoming 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics. [Paul Henderson (4 Oneida) fought long and hard to have them known as the Toronto Olympics.] The producer would like to know i f there is in fact a connection between the 2 names. A Toronto Harbour Commission map of 1912 calls it Toothpick Island, and a THC map of 1918 calls it Olympic Island. None of the oldtimers I’ve contacted is aware of the reason for the change in name. Does anybody know??
TOURIST INFO
From an Olde Town bus tour guide, as reported in Toronto Life, July 1995: The green building with a tower in the middle is the Metro Police marine unit. We need police in the harbour because about three years ago, two pizza companies bought little rubber boats with motors on the back, and they’ve been flying around the last couple of years delivering pizza to some of the yachts out in the harbour. The cops got to keep an eye on those guys.
From a boat tour guide, as overheard by a Seneca resident: “The people in those houses didn’t pay any taxes until last year.” The listener reported this comment to the boat tour operator!
SUNFISH CUT
The channel is about 10′ west o f the markers. Branches and other debris have been removed and ye olde bedspring has been dragged through a few times. The black bedspring rope is looped over the end o f the fallen tree on the Algonquin side opposite the southernmost marker. Feel free to drag it through the channel any time you feel like it. Any other dredging possibilities?
LESLIE SPIT
At 6 am on August 19 I was dragged Out of bed to take a flock of 6 birders over to meet a bird expert on the Spit. This turned out to be a very interesting experience. The visitors were attending the Snake Island Watershed Conference, and our leader and birdcaller was MNR employee Jarmo Jallava, who visits the birds on the Spit on average once a week. Emily & I have been exploring the Spit for many years, but Jarmo led us down woodland paths redolent with birds, rabbits and wildflowers that we didn’t know about. We shall return, and i f you would like to join us at the more civilized hour of 10 am on a Sunday in September or October, give us a call. Bring your binoculars and telephoto lenses. We will be back by noon.
SOMETHING TO RAVE ABOUT
At 5 am on August 20 I was awakened by deep booming sounds from the east. At 5:30 I called the police and was told that the source of the continuing noise was 11 Poison St. After breakfast I went over to investigate and, judging from the size of the venue and the vast amounts of garbage strewn about, it was a BIG party. The boom boxes were stacked up virtually at water’s edge. Among the litter were hundreds of glossy handbills advertizing a Harvest Rave on September 2, “From 9 pm to Whenever”. Hotline: 498-4017. I asked a member of the clean-up crew where it was to be held, and he said maybe at a hangar at the Island Airport. Since Ticket Master is one of the 16 stated outlets ($15 in advance, $20 at the door), I called to confirm the location and was told that the venues are never advertized in advance. The customers (“average age 17”) call a hotline on the day of the rave, or in this case they will assemble at Nathan Phillips Square and be bused to the location. Maybe we’ll be treated to another all-nighter tomorrow, from the other end of the Harbour.
On Monday (August 21) I went back to 11 Poison and had a long chat with the owner of the complex in his office. Our conversation was somewhat philosophical in nature, covering many aspects of life in the big city and the necessary adjustments for such inconveniences asnoise. He admitted that he had received previous complaints and stated that he had told the rave producers to turn down the bass and aim the speakers away from the Harbour. When asked the date of his next rave, he said that as of that minute he had no future bookings.
A number of Islanders are working on this noise pollution problem and if you would like to help out, I’ll tell you whom to contact. In the Archives are a NOW article of August 24 which gives some details, letters from Councillors Pam McConnell and Dan Leckie re their efforts on our behalf, and useful information from the city Noise Control department.
If there are further problems from 11 Poison, possibly our bestresource is the owner, who has the most to lose. He and the rave producers are enjoying huge profits and if he loses his permit, the producers will simply move to another location. His permit allows for 1240 persons, the NOW article mentions 2000, and a police estimate was 5000 (with 5 pages of complaints about the August 19 party). The owner calls himself a real estate developer, and he thus requires City Hall co-operation from the building and zoning departments. His rave parties do not have to be so disruptive; the south wall of his dance hall opens to face a large deck, where the speakers were located on August 19. If the speakers were inside and the wall was partially closed, there might not be a problem. If future disturbances do occur, maybe a call to the owner might help to remind him of his good citizen responsibilities. (Ask me for his name and number.)
SOMETHING TO HOWL ABOUT
Last Thursday evening Emily & I had a howling good time in Algonquin Park. Each Wednesday night in August the Park Rangers attempt to locate a vocalizing pack of wolves. If they are successful, the public are invited to visit the pack on Thursday night. On that cool still night we were treated to 3 wolf concerts, after which the human howler remarked, “It doesn’t get any better than this!” The BBC were along to record and film the event,and Peter Moon of The Globe & Mail wrote a front page story for August 30. If you are interested in attending a howl, or in wolves in general, you may pick up a copy of the G&M article at the Archives.
INTERLINK COMMUNITY CANCER NURSES (Star, July 1995)
Interlink was founded in De cember, 1987, by nurses Gay Evans and Joan Foy. It started out in two basement rooms on Bayview Ave., wit h t he t wo nurses working long hours to serve as many people as possi- ble.
Today, it has six nurses, an executive director and some support staff and is housed in a suite of offices in the new Prin cess Margaret Hospital on Uni versity Ave.
Each Interlink nurse carries acase load of about 40 clients. The organization serves about 800 clients a year, plus their family members.
It costs about $520,000 a
year to run Interlink, most of that mon ey coming from corporate and founda- tion donations. The health ministry has picked up Interlink’s shortfall f o r three years now. No one has ever calculated how much the nurses have saved the tax payer by enabling cancer patients to stay at home instead of in hospital, but
it would be an impressive sum. “Our funding is always tenuous,” says executive director Jean Jackson. The service has been on the brink of dosing more than once for financial reasons. Once it was preserved and ex panded by a grant from Torstar Corp., the parent company of The Star. year, a last-minute grant from the health ministry kept it alive.
Interlink tikes to see people as early as possible, Jackson says. The diagno- sis itself can be traumatic and lead to a confusing mass o f information and choices.
“Sometimes by the time they phone us, people are in chaos and despera tion,” says board chairman Pat MacK ay. “We’d like t o see people learn about Interlink before they get to the point where they are floundering or in distress.”
Sometimes the nurse can help a cli ent and family to ask the questions they need to of the medical experts, and sometimes to understand the an swers.
“If an advocate is needed, I’ll go with a patient t o an appointment,” says nurse Brenda Caldwell. She gets a lot out of the “kitchen table” aspect of her
work, sitting around the table together talking everything over, she says. “You walk into someone’s life and within an hour, you’re told all the things that matter most. It’s really quite an honor, the level of trust people put in us.”
In 1989, Interlink branched Out to include children with cancer and their families. One of the six Interlink nurs es is a specialist in pediatric cancer and is based at the Hospital for Sick Children.
The service was so effective wit h these f amilies t h a t Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation Canada approached Interlink about serving as the administrative arm of a program to place f iv e pediatric cancer nurses around the rest of Ontario, doing Inter link work with children and their fami lies.
A grant from the Trillium Founda tion made this possible, and the first nurse has been hired for the Sudbury area. Four more will be added over the next two years. Interlink maintains close ties with doctors, hospitals, visiting nurse or ders, homemalcing agencies, and many government agencies.
“We learn so much from our pa tients, and we try to bring that infor mation to the decision-making people at the health ministries and in hospi tals,” says Jackson. “We’re here if peo ple need help.”
For more information, about Inter link Community Cancer Nurses, call (416) 599-5465.
Skyshow hasfiery fallout
By IAN HARVEY
Toronto Sun
Some Ontario Place fireworks fans got a bigger bang than they expected when a wind shift showered them with sparks and debris.
“We were rained on with dust, gunpowder, sparks and huge chunks of debris,” said Gra ham Scott, 40, of North York, a spectator at the Wednesday night show. “I got dust in my eyes and when I went to the washroom there was a lineup of people flushing out their eyes. Our blanket was also burned.” “I’ve been going for years,” the small busi- ness consultant said. “You might get smoke and the odd chunkette but nothing like this.”
Severalpeople treated
Ontario Place general manager Max Beck said several people had their eyes. treated after being hit by dust and grit from explo sions during China’s show in the Symphony of Fire international fireworks competition.
No one was seriously injured, he said. To morrow’s grand finale will go on as planned. Toronto Fire Department fire prevention Chief Ted Scovell called the incident a “fluke” but safety measures will be reviewed_ He’s in structed the producers of tomorrow’s finale to monitor wind conditions closely and stop the show if similar conditions develop again.
The Scovell family (parents Bill & Doris) lived at 402 Lake Shore, near the Filtration Plant where Bill was foreman, until the house was demolished in 1958. They then bought 6 Dacotah, which they owned until 1980, renting it to a series of tenants from about 1974.
tORONtO a R
t
1995 Grants to Visual/Film/Video Arti s ts
Toronto arti s ts may apply for the c reation of plastic and/or time-based art, including painting, instal lation, audio, S C O U
digital/electronic, s culpture, holography , multiples l book work s ), performance, photography , printmak ing, ‘fibre, fi l m and video.
N
•-DEADLINE: October 16, 1 9 9 5 • GRANT: Up to _S12,000
For information and an application, call
C I
Toronto Arts Council 392-6800
JERRY ENGLAR: Island resident Toronto Arts Council’ is an arm’s length agency of the City of Toronto 1 _
Real Estate News. Friday, August 18, 1995
dent sports sticker at city hall meeting.
Insul-brick homes fading away
think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who could honestly say they liked insul-brick.
Basically imitation brick • and stone imprinted on an asphalt shingle-like base. this miracle siding of the
1930s is quickly and quietly disappearing from the land
OURARCHITECTURAL HERTTAGE
By George Duncan
scape. Most would say “Thank goodnessl
– Surprisingly, however. there are those in the heritage conservation com munity that are taking no tice and creating some interest before the remain ing examples are swept away.
It seems as though every age has its wonder siding that revolutionizes home building. In the I800s. there were stucco and woo den imitations of fine stone work. By the turn of the century. pressed metal ren- ditions of brick and stone enjoyed a period of
popularity. It is doubtful that anyone was meant to be fooled into believing they were looking at the real thing.
Closer to recent times. aluminum then vinyl sidings have largely replaced wood as the standard alternative to brick. It will likely be only a matter of time be fore these become old
fashioned and usurped by some amazing new product. It is easy to forget that insul-brick. invented by Building Products Ltd. in 1932 and manufactured into the early 1980s. was a popular innovation that people used with the idea they were improving their frame buildings.
Flogged qualities
Promotional literature of the day flogged the esthet ic. insulation and fire proofing qualities of the material. It came in a wide variety of colors and pat terns, mimicking brickwork, stone or woodgrain. Insul-brick was installed in interlocking panels with felt-like backing. or in roll form much like asphalt roofing. Special corners and stripes of soldier-coursed bricks were available to dress up the basic effect.
Of course. insul-brick was never intended to be used on the bener class of build
ings. Those property own ers could afford the authen tic materials that the insul brick strived to allude to.
Instead, insul-brick was
an affordable way for aver age owners of frame build ings to improve the look of their home and create the
low-maintenance exterior
that we continue to strive after today.
Examples of insui-brick
are becoming harder and harder to find. This is in
part due to the fact that
mortgage lenders are reluc tant to finance houses sid ed with it.
If you are looking for
insul-brick. the best place to find it is in depressed
rural areas with a high per- – – r centage of frame buildings o t
)Be sure to take a photo graph because it won’t be
_
long before insul-brick will t 4 5 , 7 4 /
be seen no more.•
1
George Duncan is a mem ber of the Canadian Associ
– – –
ation of Professional
Heritage Consultants.
S 4 –