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Features
30 IN RETROSPECT
On our 30th anniversary, we dig into our archives to reflect on the recurring themes of aggregates and agriculture
32 A CRICKET CLUB GROWS IN SHELBURNE
After soccer, cricket is the world’s most popular sport – and now it’s rapidly taking hold in Dufferin County
BY EMILY DICKSON
42 TO EVERYTHING THERE IS A SEASON
Inspired by the natural rhythms of life, a host of volunteer gardeners has created a refuge of calm and beauty for the dying and the grieving at Bethell Hospice
BY DON SCALLEN
52 WANDERING DOWNTOWN BROADWAY
BY FISHER MONAHAN
55 MASTER OF THE WORLDS Elite triathlete, car enthusiast and cancer survivor, 75-yearold Bob Knuckey aims to conquer the world – again
BY GAIL GRANT
75 FROM POOL TO POND
How a Mono nature lover transformed her unloved swimming pool into a pond teeming with wildlife
BY EMILY DICKSON
78 SMALL PLANES, BIG SKY
Meet some local pilots who pursue their passion for flying from airfields in their own backyards
BY ANTHONY JENKINS
Special Section
59 HEADWATERS FARM FRESH
This year’s annual guide and map features farms across our region where you’ll find the best locally grown produce and meat, and craft beverages to take home
94 HEADWATERS
A
BY BETHANY LEE
96 OVER
Battling
BY GAIL GRANT
98 AT
BY
TRALEE PEARCE
115 WHAT’S
126 FIND
130 BACK
BY
DYANNE RIVERS
VOLUME 30 NUMBER 2 SUMMER 2023
PUBLISHER & EDITOR
Signe Ball
DEPUTY EDITOR
Tralee Pearce
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Dyanne Rivers
ART DIRECTOR
Kim van Oosterom
Wallflower Design
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Erin Fitzgibbon
Rosemary Hasner
Elaine Li
Susanne McRoberts
Pete Paterson
ILLUSTRATORS
Shelagh Armstrong
Fisher Monahan
Ruth Ann Pearce
Jim Stewart
WRITERS
Johanna Bernhardt
Emily Dickson
Gail Grant
Anthony Jenkins
Bethany Lee
Alison McGill
Dan Needles
Janice Quirt
Tony Reynolds
Nicola Ross
Don Scallen
ON OUR COVER Shelburne cricketers by Rosemary Hasner
REGIONAL
SALES MANAGERS
Roberta Fracassi
Erin Woodley
OPERATIONS
MANAGER
Cindy Caines
ADVERTISING
PRODUCTION
Marion Hodgson
Type & Images
EVENTS & COPY EDITOR
Janet Kerr Dimond
DIGITAL EDITORS
Emily Dickson
Janice Quirt
In The Hills is published quarterly by MonoLog Communications Inc. It is distributed through controlled circulation to households in the towns of Caledon, Erin, Orangeville, Shelburne, Creemore, and Dufferin County.
Annual subscriptions outside the distribution area are $29.95 for 1 year and $53.95 for 2 years (including HST).
© 2023 MonoLog Communications Inc. All rights reserved. No reproduction by any means or in any form may be made without prior written consent by the publisher.
For information regarding editorial content or letters to the editor: 519-942-8401 or sball@inthehills.ca.
Find us online at www.inthehills.ca
Like us facebook.com/InTheHills Follow us twitter.com/inthehillsmag and instagram.com/inthehillsmag
For advertising, contact one of our regional sales managers:
Roberta Fracassi
519-943-6822, roberta@inthehills.ca
(Orangeville, Shelburne, Creemore and areas N of Hwy 9)
Erin Woodley
519-216-3795, erin@inthehills.ca
(Caledon, Bolton, Erin and areas S of Hwy 9)
The ad booking deadline for the autumn (September) issue is Friday, August 4, 2023.
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We acknowledge the support of the Government of Canada.
IS CALEDON THE HAPPIEST CITY IN CANADA?
LIKE MOST EDITORS , I receive a lot of media releases. Most contain worthwhile information about local happenings, but a certain number are random mass mailings from PR companies. Those tend to go straight to trash, but a few weeks ago one of them definitely got my attention. It declared that Caledon is the “happiest city [sic] in Canada.”
The email was a generated by a company that markets real estate data and is a subsidiary of an international real estate software developer. Using various statistical data, it determined that although Caledon did not place first, or even among the top 10, in any of the so-called “happiness” indicators (median income, hours worked, commute times and the like), when all the factors were averaged out, the town was first overall.
The item came sandwiched among the daily diet of Caledon anxieties that flood my inbox, from opposition to the new blasting quarry application in Cataract and the proposed Highway 413 across Caledon’s best farmland to anger over the provincial MZO allowing a 500-acre industrial development on the outskirts of Bolton and the Ford government’s undermining of the Greenbelt and other environmental planning protections that have helped keep some of the development pressures on the town at bay. More recently, the list includes the pending dissolution of Peel, which for better or worse, will force Caledon to fend for itself.
All this to say that several ironic witticisms sprang to mind as I read through the media release, but none could match the headline concocted by the authors themselves: “Caledon Paves the Way.” I don’t know if someone alerted them that the headline was a tad tone-deaf, but the next time I logged on, it had changed, though not really for the better: “Caledon Paves the Yellow Brick Road for More Ontario Cities.”
To be fair, the survey writers did lump together community and environment as one of the categories of happiness. And although it seems they measured that category largely by volume of charitable donations and air quality, they were on to something.
If true happiness is a sense of place, belonging and choice, then it is possible to argue that the very swell of opposition to the existential threats now faced by Caledon’s farms, villages and countryside is in itself a measure of happiness. The citizens of Caledon were once proud to be anointed by another survey as “the greenest town in Ontario.” However perversely, the fact that they are now proud to come together to protect the environment and community they cherish may indeed prove them among the happiest people in Canada.
Meet Three Of Our Dedicated In The Hills Team Members
Dan Needles
Dan Needles’ humour column “Fence Posts” has chronicled country life in these pages since 2012. His works are largely set in the town of Larkspur and Persephone Township, fictional stand-ins for Shelburne and Mono Township where he spent his youth. Dan now lives a few miles north of these hills on a small farm in Nottawa.
A member of the Order of Canada, Dan is a playwright and author whose work – most notably his Walt Wingfield series of stage plays – has been seen on virtually every English-speaking stage in Canada. He received the Leacock Medal for Humour for his novel, With Axe and Flask. His latest book, Finding Larkspur: A Return to Village Life, will be published this fall. It is a humorous reflection on country life past and present, and offers a guide to newcomers to this beautiful part of the world.
Roberta Fracassi
Roberta Fracassi has fond memories of growing up in the hills of Headwaters. And after 19 years caring for patients as a dental assistant – which she describes as her “first love” – Roberta found her calling as a marketing manager at In The Hills. Over the course of 15 years, Roberta has brought her trademark warmth and care to the task of helping hundreds of our advertisers succeed. “I’ve so enjoyed being a part of the small business growth in our area,” she says of her clients in Orangeville, Shelburne, Rosemont and other locations north of Highway 9.
Off the clock, Roberta makes the most out of life with her husband, their two children and her friends – especially when there’s a beach sunset involved. Roberta is also a committed community leader who has given her time to groups including Dufferin Women in Business and 100 Women Who Care Dufferin.
Erin Woodley
In her decade with In The Hills, marketing manager Erin Woodley has applied the energy and focus she needed to win a 1996 Olympic silver medal in synchronized swimming to her work with her loyal advertising clients – in Caledon, Bolton, Erin and other areas south of Highway 9. This was especially true during the turbulence and uncertainty of Covid-19. “I’m proud to have played a role in helping my clients to weather the storm, and to survive and thrive through the pandemic,” says Erin, who has a background in advertising, sales and fundraising.
Erin moved to Orangeville with her husband and two daughters in 2012, and finds it hard to believe they’ll be empty nesters later this year. Not one to stay out of the pool, Erin spends much of her spare time October through March as the volunteer head coach of the Dufferin Dolphins Special Olympics Swim Team.
