This coming Sunday, June 4th is the Dunvegan Recreation’s sixth annual “Meet Your Neighbours” event, and I’m hoping newcomers to the area (and old-timers as well) will turn out in droves. It’s the perfect opportunity to say hello to old friends and meet those who have recently chosen our little community as their home. Towards this end, if a new family has just moved in near you, why not invite them? Often, new arrivals aren’t yet readers of the News and may not keep an eye on the community bulletin board at the DRA Hall.
Assuming the weather cooperates, the event will be held at the DRA Park start across from the church starting at 12 noon. To help build bridges, the get-together is once again being timed to coincide with the church’s post-service Coffee Hour. Kenyon Presbyterian Church volunteer Heather McIntosh has graciously offered to provide the coffee. And on the DRA side, Kim Raymond will be bake her famous Caterpillar Cake and Mona Andre will organize activities for the children.
Organizers are well aware that this has been an exceptionally wet spring. So they’ve made plans in case Mother Nature refuses to cooperate. Note: the neighbourly gathering will move to the church hall if the weather turns nasty.
Ringing Anvils & Chili Dogs
The sound of ringing anvils will dominate the airwaves from 10 AM to 4 PM on Saturday, June 3rd as more than a dozen blacksmiths from across Ontario, Quebec and the USA gather at the Glengarry Pioneer Museum for its 2nd annual Smith-In Blacksmith Festival.
Along with the general store and post office, the blacksmith’s shop was one of the epicentres of pioneer life in the 19th century. The blacksmith kept horses shod, made and repaired the tools needed for agriculture, transportation and logging and fashioned countless household objects. The village smithy was also a social hub where farmers shared gossip, ideas and political news. Dunvegan was lucky to have two blacksmith shops that I’m aware of… one at the southwest corner of the hamlet’s crossroads and the other at Fiske’s Corners.
Come Saturday, the Williams Pavilion will play host to modern smiths demonstrating their talents and displaying their wares. The museum’s Oliver Hamelin blacksmith shop will also come to life as a group of smiths led by Lloyd Johnston fire up its brick forge to handcraft reproduction gun barrels modeled after a musket discovered in nearby Apple Hill. Plus, the Big Beaver Schoolhouse will feature a video explaining the seven basic blacksmithing techniques and how they can be combined to create a variety of iron and steel objects.
It’s a dynamite event, with something for just about everyone (except those looking for designer fashions and frilly food). There’ll be games and activities for children, an old-fashioned horseshoe pitch near the school and a marketplace featuring local craftspeople, artisans and other vendors that complement the visiting blacksmiths.
And if you get a bit peckish, the old Cheese Factory will be selling hot dogs, snacks and other refreshments… including my personal favourite: chili-dogs. Yeah, I can’t wait. So bring your family and friends to see the sparks fly when hammers meet hot steel! I guarantee that you won’t regret it.
Bags of community pride
I’ve been meaning to mention this for quite a while, but kept running out of space. However, this week, I’m going to shine a tiny spotlight on Bruce and Lynn MacGillivray come heck or high water. Back in the early spring, this quiet couple answered the Township’s “Community Pride” call and set out with a small trailer hitched to their ATV to pick up a winter’s worth of garbage thrown out by ignorant motorists as they sped along Dunvegan Road.
To be honest, I’ve forgotten how many bags of trash Bruce told me they collected from both sides of the road… from the Dunvegan sign at the east end of the hamlet to well past my place. But it was a shocking number, all the more so because it didn’t surprise me. When my family used to sally forth to do this thankless task, I was always amazed how many fast food wrappers, Tim Horton’s cups, drink cans, plastic water bottles and the like were jettisoned by the travelling public.
Thank you Bruce and Lynn for taking pride in our community.
Je me souviendrai
Just before the last municipal election, I discussed the growing problem of visual pollution in the Dunvegan area with one of the candidates for a seat on the North Glengarry Council. Properties that decades ago were a credit to this community, had become eyesores choked with abandoned cars, trucks and trailers, piles of discarded tires and heaps of scrap metal. After driving down Dunvegan Road to survey the situation first hand, this individual agreed that something needed to be done. And yet almost three years after the present Council was sworn in, nothing has been done. What’s more, it’s gotten worse.
So I checked to see if the Property Standards by-law I had been told about actually exists. And it does. According to section 4 of by‐law no. 42 ‐2008, “every owner of a yard or vacant land shall ensure that the yard or vacant land is kept clean and free from: rubbish or other debris; objects or conditions that tend to create a health, fire or safety hazard; wrecked, dismantled, discarded or abandoned machinery, vehicles, trailers or boats… dilapidated or collapsed structures, or structures that are partially constructed and not currently under construction; vermin; and dead, decayed or damaged trees.”
All great stuff, until one gets to the mechanism that triggers an investigation. Section 38 states that “An Officer shall investigate potential violations of this By-Law only upon receiving a complaint in writing…” As this pits one neighbour against another, I wonder how often this happens? However, section 38 also states that potential violations of this By-Law can be investigated “upon the instructions of the Township Council.“ So, why has this not been done?
Perhaps our elected officials should open their eyes as they travel through North Glengarry and help all those ratepayers who DO take pride in their properties and their community. Lady and gentlemen, the time has come to instruct our By-law Officers to investigate property owners blatantly in contravention of by‐law no. 42 ‐2008, starting with Dunvegan. If not, we may want to make this an issue in the municipal election that’s fast approaching.
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