I've been to Picton Ontario many times. I suppose I've even been there with Voyageur but it has mostly stayed in the car since we were just passing through. And we love all of Prince Edward County. For several years now we've done mid-winter trips just to tour the restaurants, wineries, distilleries and sugar bushes. And if we're driving from engagements in Ottawa, Montreal or Kingston, the ferry and the county are a far more pleasurable and picturesque route back to Toronto than the 401. So when Krista Dalby - whom we'd met at the SPARC Conference in Cobalt in 2018 - invited us to come and be part of her Ice Box Festival we jumped at the chance. The venue for the festival is Macaulay Heritage Park, comprising the Manse, the gardens, the former church turned museum and the surrounding conservation area. And the festival is designed to bring people out of their winter doldrums to experience art indoors and out, with installations and animations of all kinds taking place over two weekends in February. Our space was indoors at the former St. Mary Magdalene Church, now the interpretive hub for the park. We arrived a day early in order to do an interview at County FM 99.3, get our tech, soundcheck and portrait set up done in advance and to make sure we beat any bad weather - Prince Edward County has its own microclimate, which makes it great for wine growing but unpredictable for winter travel - though we needn't have worried: it was mostly very mild with only the lightest dusting of snow. When Krista booked us for the festival, she let us know that she was also booking long time friend of the project Justin Rutledge , who has been a part-time local in PEC in recent years so we knew the music component of the festival was going to be great. But Justin would be playing a full set on the second day of our stay in the museum so Krista had also booked three local musicians to play Voyageur as part of the "performance pocket" segment of the Saturday presentation: Annelise Noronha, Lisa Bozikovi c and KASHKA . I wasn't familiar with any of them and I feel like an idiot because they are all amazing and the musical touchpoints between these women, myself and the project are deep and varied. We could do a whole show with any one of them and it would be extraordinary. And then, of course, Justin did an amazing set on Sunday - accompanied by the wonderful Burke Carroll on pedal steel guitar - ending with a reprise of his famed "Don't Be So Mean, Jellybean" on Voyageur , which has been so closely associated with Six String Nation since 2006. The festival continues this coming weekend and I'll be back in the County for a school presentation in March. And we'd come back to Ice Box any time! Special thanks to Krista Dalby and her team at the Department of Illumination , Jennifer Lyons at the Macaulay Heritage Museum, technician Emerson Pringle , musicians Annelise Noronha, Lisa Bozikovic, KASHKA and Justin Rutledge , volunteers Jen Bradovca, SaraLou Miller and Trish Van Huesen , Julianne Snepsts and Craig Foster at County FM 99.3, the Picton Harbour Inn, Sarah Gillett, Doug Nicholson, Sarah Keenleyside and baby Jack . And, of course, to everyone who came out to join us for stories, music and portraits at Ice Box 2020!
Unionville Montessori Elementary Principal Dave Treherne (at right) and I go back more than 30 years and Dave's involvement with Six String Nation goes back to the beginning. Dave is the source of the piece of gold taken from Rocket Richard's 1956 Stanley Cup ring that adorns Voyageur 's 9th fret. Dave also had me in to speak to students in his previous role as a public school teacher. Last year he took on this new job and was keen to get me in front of this very bright group of students. Unionville Montessori enjoys a terrific facility for these kinds of presentations - with proper staging, lighting and projection systems and raked seating - a far cry from what we managed to scrape together at Dave's last school. And where some schools depend on whoever on staff knows how to plug in a projector or enthusiastic students from the AV Club, UM has Jim Motton , a professional media tech and sound guy who looks after a few neighbouring schools. So I was really going into an ideal situation on that front. But what was really ideal about my day at UM was everything else: The presentation went really well and the performances were fantastic. For the first song, Mr. Tymstra played Voyageur while Mr. Renglich played piano and lead the Appasionata Singers student choir in a rendition of "From a Distance". For the second song, Dave played Voyageur to accompany student Evelyn Esch singing.... wait for it... "Fish & Bird" by Tom Waits! A clear case of students benefiting from a principal with great musical taste!
My presentation to the congregation at West Hill United Church in Scarborough ON.
