With Ontario Regulation 645/2, Queen’s Park has once again demonstrated its affinity for the ‘one size fits all’ approach to policy making: CITY-size. For those of you unfamiliar with this new directive under the Reopening Ontario Act of 2020, it pertains to providing proof one is fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to access a wide array of venues… from “indoor areas of restaurants, bars and other food or drink establishments” to “indoor areas of bathhouses, sex clubs and strip clubs.” In other words, I’m talking about the new Vaccine Passport regulation.
Now, before you get out your flaming torch and sharped pitchfork, let me be clear. I am not an anti-vaxxer. I am a paid-up member of the double-Pfizer club, and am in full accord with the requirement to provide proof of vaccination or its equivalent to enter certain public events. My sincere hope is that this will help to contain the spread of Covid-19 and its variants, and incentivize the vaccine-hesitant to come onboard. Nevertheless, legislation like this must be tempered with common sense.
As it stands, the Regulation reads: “The person responsible for a business or an organization… shall require each patron who enters… to provide, at the point of entry, proof of identification and of being fully vaccinated against COVID-19.” Now this is no major hardship in the case of for-profit venues like convention centres and banquet halls. They very likely already have security staff that can monitor proof of vaccination, at an additional cost to the person or organization renting the facility.
Where the problem comes in is with small, volunteer-run community and church halls such as the ones in Dunvegan. If the Dunvegan Recreation Association holds an event – say a community Halloween party — in the DRA Hall, there’s no major problem. The volunteers at the door will add vaccination verification to their job description. It will slow things down at the gate, but that can’t be helped.
But what happens if the Kenyon Presbyterian Church rents their hall for a family post-funeral gathering… or the DRA rents out their hall for a two-day firearms safety course? The law states that it is “the person responsible” for the facility who must insure that all who pass through their portals shall be vaccinated… not the person or organization renting the facility. In other words, the folks arranging the wake or the course are not allowed to monitor admissions. A member of the DRA or the KPC would have to check passports at the door. This means that on top of finding volunteers for their own events, the DRA and the church now have to find volunteers to act as de facto security guards for the duration of each third-party rental event. Good luck.
History in full colour
September must be ‘golden horseshoe’ month for the Glengarry Pioneer Museum, at least weather-wise. One couldn’t have asked for a nicer day than the Sunday of the Harvest Fall Festival a couple of weeks ago. And although forecasters had originally predicted the skies would be bleak and the ground wet, this past weekend’s weather at the museum’s 1812 Living History event turned out sunny and dry. At least until Sunday afternoon.
Not surprisingly, attendance was down this year due to Covid-19 and competing events such as the Apples & Arts tour. Over the course of the weekend, 150+ visitors took advantage of the perfect opportunity to immerse themselves in the period and learn about life in the early 1800s through one-on-one interaction with re-enactors. They talked with the blacksmith as he worked at his forge; chatted with historian Richard Feltoe and marvel at his array of artifacts; watched as wool was being spun right before their eyes; and learned about the challenges faced by early land surveyors as they laid out the concession roads and township boundaries that still stand today. Our guest from Montreal was especially taken by Mr. Feltoe’s collection of household items, like cups and spoons, made from animal horn. Horn was the ‘plastic’ of its day.
I’m also told that visitors and re-enactors alike took advantage of the DRA’s food canteen, where volunteers Olivia Robinson and Peyton Russett served homemade chilli and beans, dessert squares, drinks and coffee. “They did a great job,” DRA vice-president Kim Raymond told me.
One of the primary attractions of the Dunvegan museum for re-enactors is that it can provide ample space to erect their tents, cook amazing food over open campfires and enjoy the company of other like-minded history buffs. Friendly, knowledgeable people who are passionate about what they do, re-enactors also take great pride in sharing their love of history with the general public. “Everyone I spoke with was thrilled to have been here on this beautiful weekend,” curator Jennifer Black told me in an email. “And the museum was delighted to have them bring colour and life to the museum grounds.”
Farewell Tina Mae
On Election Day last week, I emailed our old friend Ken McEwen in Blackburn Hamlet. I hadn’t heard from him for a while and wanted to check if everything was okay. Needless to say, you could have knocked me over with a feather when he wrote back a short while later that his wife and companion of 64 years, Christina (Tina) Mae, had died peacefully in the night.
Chris, as she became known as later in life, was born and raised “at Skye,” one concession north of Dunvegan. The daughter of Duncan J. A. and Bella MacLeod, Tina Mae had three brothers: Angus John, Kenzie and Irvine. The family lived in the 9th Concession and she attended S.S. #5 & 20 (Caledonia and Kenyon) better known as Skye School. After graduation, Tina Mae went on to study at Alexandria High School. As luck would have it, though, in 1949, the Maxville High School district was expanded to include Dunvegan and Skye. And, for the first time, school bus service was introduced. “Prior to that if you wished to attend Maxville High, you got there one your own hook,” Ken told me.
At the start of the school year, Ken’s Grade 12 pals had given him a heads up that a pretty redheaded girl had arrived on the Dunvegan/Skye bus. Ken, who as you may recall lived two concessions away in the 7th, admitted to me that it took him until the following spring to work up enough courage to ask her out. She accepted and the two went on a double date with another couple to see a movie at the Capital Theatre in Cornwall. Amazingly, Ken even remembers the date: June 2nd, 1950.
Two years later, Ken joined the RCMP and was initially stationed in Saskatchewan. At that time, members couldn’t marry for five years, without leaving the Force. So the couple waited patiently. They kept in touch by mail, and sometimes by phone, (At the time, Tina was a telephone operator in Maxville.) And of course, they spent every hour together they could when Ken came home on leave.As Ken had joined the RCMP on Friday October 10th, 1952, the couple knew they could get married on October 10th, 1957. That would have been a Thursday, so the plan was to marry two days later on Saturday the 12th. But, like all great plans, life got in the way.
The new Queen, Elizabeth II, decided to visit her Dominion and was slated to arrive on October 12th. As many of Ken’s and Tina Mae’s guests were unable to attend because of the Royal visit, the couple — now experts at biding their time — had to postpone their nuptials until November 2nd. As Ken recalls, the Queen enjoyed a beautiful autumn day, sunny with the leaves in full colour. November 2nd, on the other hand “alternately rained, snowed, and sleeted,” Ken told me. Nevertheless, after a small service in Dunvegan and a reception in the Orange Lodge down the road, the couple rode off to spend their lives together.
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