I’m delighted to report that Muskoka’s Main Street is now available at The Book Nook and Other Treasures, 60 Gore Street East, Perth. In contrast to so many of Canada’s independents, which are closing their doors, The Book Nook is now in its sixth year of business and has recently expanded. This vibrant bookstore frequently hosts readings and book signings, promotes authors of all stripes and particularly local authors, and is staffed by knowledgable book lovers ever eager to introduce customers to new titles and genres.
The next time you travel to or through Perth, do stop in and browse both new and used titles – as well as the “other treasures” – in the fresh new location!
Please save the date! The Ottawa book launch for Muskoka’s Main Street takes place Thursday, September 6, from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Bistro Fifty-Four at Amberwood, 54 Springbrook Drive, Stittsville. Snacks and cash bar will be available, and you can also call to reserve a table for dinner, outside on the patio or inside overlooking the golf course and marsh.
I’ll be there with a glass of wine in one hand and a pen in the other to sign books! Hope you can join me in the celebration.
Welcome to my new website! Take a look around and please let me know what you think of the new site – all the latest on my books, events and workshops.
My blog is here too, continuing the conversation started when Muskoka’s Main Street was “A Work in Progress.” The book is now available and you’ll find all the latest news about that here as well. Be sure to have a look at the two dynamic maps of the road on the site – they’re unique, fun,and informative.
Welcome to new readers, and hello again to my faithful “Work in Progress” subscribers.
The latest word from the printer is that Muskoka’s Main Street will be printed and bound by July 26. Adding a few days for shipping puts us right on target for the August 1 release date.
Lest you think I’m sitting around with nothing to do in the meantime, here’s what’s keeping me busy until then.
My webmaster Lynn and I are putting the finishing touches on my new website. It goes live August 1 and includes two dynamic maps! The Evolutionary Map shows the Muskoka Road’s expansion year by year from its origins in Washago to Nipissing Township. A counter lets you see the pace of the road’s growth, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes stalled altogether. Very cool! There’s also an Interactive Map for adventurers looking to travel the original road today. It shows which sections are driveable, which are now hiking trails, which parts are lost altogether, and also pinpoints some points of interest. This map will evolve over the next few months as I add photos and video. Isn’t technology amazing?
For those of you in Ottawa, please save the date: book launch September 6. 5:00 to 8:00 p.m., details to follow.
Readings and events in Muskoka are also in the planning stages.
The scope of Muskoka’s Main Street is a territory along the 172 kilometre length of the colonization road, stretching from Washago to just south of Lake Nipissing. My personal Muskoka is firmly anchored in a one-acre cottage property that hugs the shore of Green Bay on Three Mile Lake.
Green Bay, Three Mile Lake, Muskoka
This property has been owned by only two families in the past 150 years. The Shea family – one of the first to settle in Watt Township – took possession of it in about 1862, as part of their 200 acres of free grant land. Just over 100 years later, the Sheas subdivided their land and the lot was bought by my in-laws, Joan and Don Smith.
I love the sense of history that I get from roaming the property. I can stand on the strip of beach in the exact spot where a photo from Bert Shea’s memoir shows the pioneer Sheas in two canoes carved from one massive tree taken off Long Point. They grew wheat on our lot; I can imagine William Shea launching his canoe full of grain in 1863, to be taken over water and portage to Gravenhurst and then by pack over the Muskoka Road to Washago and the closest grist mill.
I can also picture my father-in-law sawing a hole through the ice on a winter trip to the cottage (one of my rare winter trips). And my children as babies sitting in the shallow water, their diapers swelling up to alarming proportions. I can hear the chatter that accompanied my sister and I stirring vats of macaroni salad for “Cousin Fest.”
In Muskoka, it’s all about the land, isn’t it? The craggy grey rock with its distinctive pink grain, rising in sheer cliffs or, as on our lot, poking out from the thin, sandy soil. It’s also about the trees: the mixed hardwood forests that still tower out of that inhospitable base. The Sheas named Green Bay not for the colour of the water in late summer, but for the trees that ringed the bay, and still do.
Maybe above all else, Muskoka is about the lakes. The whole of Green Bay was once the playground of the pioneer Shea and Veitch families. Imagine having that as your back yard! I can imagine it. Because part of this bay is my Muskoka, rooted in Muskoka pioneer history and now Smith family history.
I used to define my Muskoka within this boundary. Muskoka’s Main Street has given me an even richer scope.
