Dragon Boats And A Great Steel Band

Summer. Summer's back again in Muskoka. A bit late getting here and on the heels of the most dismal Spring we've had since oldtimers can remember. The good news: cold days and frosty nights knocked the blackflies and noseeums from a 6 week vacation down to about a week about 2 weeks ago when we had a warm spell.

Cottagers still came early, but it didn't help their humor much. Too blasted cold to do anything but complain. A disaster too for gardeners who planted early and found their flower beds burned by regular and nasty cold snaps.

Now you'd never know. People are smiling, flowers replanted, kids out of school and the cottagers back in action on their seadoos and power boats. A close shave though for the Annual Parry Sound Dragon Boat Festival which looked like it would have been a bust just the day before with thunderstorms brewing that never showed.

Turned out to be a great weekend, well better say an okiedokie Friday for the first day of the Festival and a really great Saturday for the races. Beach weather and ice cream, plus hundreds of folks showed up from the town and as many from out of town, and a few Dragon Boat Diehards from Toronto.

Up until this year it seemed it would have been just a local thing. Suddenly it's the big thing with more boats, more teams and more races. Can't say there was a lot of excitement because you had to be rowing for that, knowing whose time you had to beat. Not a conventional race, but boats going out and circling and coming back and teams changing at the dock and the new teams heading out in the same boats. Best time wins. And various races for various classes, from high school kids racing each other to corporate races for the big box stores and local larger stores and businesses, the newspaper, the radio station, the big drug store. But you couldn't tell who was going out and who was leading, unless you were at the dock asking questions or following the action with binoculars and some guy at your elbow telling you what's happening. Though there were was a big network of pro equipment PA boxes barking out the action, that didn't seem to help. A printed program would have been an idea and maybe somebody had one but you couldn't find anything except the big board for the races that looked Mesopotamian.



No one cared anyway. It was the local color that counted. Being out on a great day at a big event with a lot of people where you could get something to eat for a change at Waubuno Beach, wow, even get a $5 beer at the beer tent and listen to some free live music.


That was the other big thing going on, a gigantic steel band from Sprucedale, the Northern Lights Steel Orchestra. Boggling after seeing little enough live music anywhere. Fiddlers at the Canadian Legion Hall or a rock band at a pub for under 25ers. Suddenly there's 60 guys playing on fancy chromed steel drums from batteries of giant bass drums to small snare steel drums with congas and a drum kit for the beat.

A tinkling and rather mellow Sunday Concert In The Park experience. None of the hi jinks and whistles from the steel bands you might have seen in Jamaica or Trinidad. More like Broadway Show music and old faves translated for a giant steel band. La Bamba was about as far south as we got, but it was still mesmerizing.


With so many drums and so many musicians it cut across expectations and the people at the adjoining beer tent were having fun. Those in the band were concentrating eyes closed, playing without sheet music, so they had to be in on the vibe or they'd get lost, especially when there wasn't a band leader with a baton to wake you up. Yet they put out a professional sound and nobody got lost and nobody wandered from the melody. Kind of inspirational, with a wide cross-section of people from a few youngsters to old folks and everybody in between, few of them with any steel band experience except for the few black guys playing, and most with no musical background either.


So how did they do it? Well they learned on the job. About 10 years ago Mervyn Jordan in Sprucedale started up the Northern Lights Steel Orchestra. With a place to play, some steel drums and free classes on how to play, it grew from there. Not commercial, not subsidized by government, not a charity either as it's a real charity where everyone kicks in their own time and money to make it work. A few private sponsors do the rest. The Northern Lights Steel Orchestra plays for free too. If you want to have them over for a public or private event in Ontario they'll come if you cover their travel expenses and renting a truck. The Orchestra supplies their own tent and equipment.

I should have told Larry Shepard who runs the show that they ought to record and sell CDs. They're that good. I did say though I thought they should expand their repertoire towards the calypso and reggae scene,

but then he shrugged saying it would be a big departure from what they've been doing and it seems that most of their musicians aren't into that sort of rhythm being from white Anglo easy listening backgrounds where you don't build up a sweat if you can help it.

They've been invited every year to play Toronto's Caribbean carnival, Caribana. So far they've declined. Not what you would call a strictly family event, with the music loud and raw, and the crowds at a hot million partygoers, sometimes raunchy and rough. A flashy and electric spectacle, to catch every summer if you don't stick out like whitey's sore thumb and make a habit of treading on toes.

What makes the Northern Lights a formidable experience is you can join. Members come from across Canada and the U.S with some from the Carribean. If you showed up at your local symphony without a horn and no musical experience, how far would you get? You can check out their website www.nlso.ca on how to join and drop Larry an email at info@nlso.ca Sponsors, private and corporate are welcome. Check the NLSO website for a bit of 'steel pan' history and scheduled concerts happening about every week throughout Ontario during the summer and into fall.
















What you need to join the Northern Lights is just the time you want to invest in taking free classes at Sprucedale, Ontario which run year 'round and when you're good enough you can play with the Northern Lights as they travel around Ontario during the summer through October. All you do is cover your own expenses, meals and accommodations. It's
like a music camp that goes on tour.

The Tall Ship Playfair

Summer. The Brigantine Playfair at Parry Sound. Cap'n Weed, if you please, har harr. If'n the Black Pearl be lost at sea, there's a berth or twenty down below, for the likes of your wee teens, wantin' adventure on Georgian Bay. It's the real deal. Toronto Brigantine runs two training ships for high school kids, who'd rather pass on the video arcades and shopping malls for a week or two. For about a $100 a day, all inclusive, you might talk your kids into a working vacation, where they can learn to rig and sail a Brigantine, cook in the cubbyhole galley, and barbecue on a deserted island beach. And meet some other kids. It's character building says our Captain Weed, seconded by his First Mate, Jojo, and it works. It's turned around bored and troubled kids, and polished the rest with a sense of accomplishment, fostering in some a life long passion for sailing. The professional crew of nine, are all alumni of the program, regulars that kept coming back for years, and now training a new batch of kids, 16 on this 11 day leg out from Parry Sound to Midland. The Playfair is a happy ship. Rare for any kid to go home unhappy, even if he or she (it's co-ed) didn't really want to go in the first place. As a registered charity, Toronto Brigantine is doing this for love, not money. Costs are further kept down by sponsors, alumni and volunteers who donate equipment, supplies, and time for maintenance, when their ships winter over in Toronto. Bursaries for some students, are available too. And what's it like? I wandered around on deck and below, talking to the kids and crew. No complaints. But it is so cramped below deck, sardines might be more
comfortable in a can. The mess is really on deck. The galley would fit into your hall closet, berths stacked 3 high, upholstered but hard and narrow. The Playfair was built in 1972, In Kingston, Ontario. It's a Brigantine, a pirate ship in miniature, designed to be maneuvered by a young crew, with a sleek hull, sleeker than than her older cousins, and steel, for easier maintenance and without the timbers creaking and leaking. There's a diesel engine, not much used, but available for dead calms and tricky navigation through narrow or shallow channels and locks. Georgian Bay is mostly where she sails. It's the 30,000 Islands and the rugged coastline that makes her feel at home. Though she sails to and from Georgian Bay, via Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, occasionally venturing to join other tall ships at the festival in Halifax. She might go out more on the high seas, but there are maintenance issues with salt water. Strolling on the big dock to stretch his legs, the Captain pauses by one of the big yachts berthed nearby, wondering what all the fuss is all about. A quarter million dollars for a car on water, with baby buggy plastic canopies. "Usually poorly constructed. You wonder why
they're doing this? The Playfair is overbuilt, so we can push her hard." Of course if you're retired and you've got the dough, you can't push yourself that hard either, though there are plenty of small sailboats that would give you the feel of sailing without the hard work, and the need for deckhands, say your grown-up kids who probably wouldn't show up unless the destination was some Club Med in the Caribbean. But if you feel the urge for more than an adventure out of a DVD box, sailing is still one of the things you can do, even on a budget. It's making a comeback if you read the yachting magazines.
There's skill, of course, even with all the modern navigational aids. And any trip can have an unpredictable factor, usually the weather, that can catch you off guard, like in Lake Erie, a hassle for weekend boaters who have to be at work Monday. Last year Labour Day, says Captain Weed, she was going through the west channel of Lake Erie, very shallow, only 12 feet deep. With shallow water, waves can get whipped up high, and there was a whopping storm. We were stranded for 3 or 4 days. When the coast guard came to check on us, you know these fully enclosed rescue craft, they radioed back, they were turning back. Not going out in that gale, since we didn't really need them. Of course they would have risked it, if we were in trouble. Otherwise the sailing is great,
the best there is in inland waters right around here, all through Georgian Bay. Might be a half million islands. Depends what you call an island. We get a chance to explore some with our students. We've got two big dories for that, plus inflatable lifeboats packed in big drums, if we have to abandon ship. Overcapacity too, it's safety first. Though we let the kids do just about anything you can do onboard, including handling the wheel. Mind you the crew supervises everything closely, so they don't make mistakes or get into trouble. Most of the time we're on the water, only going into port for supplies. So the kids share in the watches 24 hours a day. We hug the shore or sail right across the bay. On this leg we'll be going up to Manitoulin Island, before heading south for Midland. It's a great experience for everyone, the crew and the kids. If you're not a kid anymore, Brigantine does allow for charters and alumni sailings, so you could join them. See http://www.tallshipadventures.on.ca/


2010 Update

For more great pictures of the Playfair sailing, see Yvonne Berg's Tall Ship Adventure.

Climb aboard the Playfair and the Pathfinder in Toronto for the Toronto Waterfront Festival, June 30-July 4, 2010. Sail training 4 hour cruises for groups up to 20 will be available for charter during the Festival from Toronto Brigantine, a not for profit registered charity.

Playfair and Pathfinder 2010 Summer Schedule. Book your kids (13-18) a berth on one to two week sailings through the Great Lakes, part of the Great Lakes United Tall Ships Challenge.

Follow Toronto Brigantine's Playfair and Pathfinder Tall Ship Adventures on Facebook.

Become a Member of Toronto Brigantine and help support 48 years of service to kids.

Rosseau Antiques Fair

Summer. Rosseau Antiques Fair. On weekends local dealers set up their tables around the big antiques barn on the main drag, the 141. It could have more pizazz. It looks more like a flea market, but you won't find DVDs or T shirts. The antiques are the rummage sale variety, in a case you're looking for a Van Gogh cheap. More the nick-nacks you might find in your garage, but among the stencilled dinner plates from the 1950s, the carpenters' tools, the folding rules, the glass and pots, the box of paperbacks, the rusty egg beaters, the old luggage, the wagon wheels, the bits and pieces from an old house, you'll find something you could use at the cottage, or if you get lucky there might be a valuable broach in a glass case of costume jewellery. With me it's been a habit to wander through the tables of bric-a-brac from garage sales to church bazaars or these outdoor fairs, though I'd say a real find over the years is more and more a rare thing. The good stuff winds up in the pricey antiques shops, because the dealers skim through their stock more carefully. Seems too, there's less available even in country antique galleries, with their best pieces going up for auction in the big city. Probably it's the Antiques Roadshow effect. There's also more of a mania for anything old, because it's collectible and a better deal or
investment than something new everybody has. The mania for anything new that started in the 1950s, only survives in electronics. People tend to hang on to what they've got. So the best places for an exciting bargain are the estate sales where most of the dealers go to find their odds and ends, while looking for the best pieces they can turnover fast. So prices are up, way way up. The glut in antiques that also started in the 1950s dried up by the early 70s. The best deals and in enormous variety came from Cuba, with Cubans and foreigners fleeing the Revolution.

A heady time for anybody in the antiques business. The quality of real European antiques was exceptional and the prices were ridiculous, an enormous amount of furniture you think no one would have the time to pack, showing up in gigantic dealer warehouses in New York, and from there everywhere else. You could get a Steinway Grand for a grand, a Majolica pot too rare for an orange tree for $30, an inlaid Boulle desk, maybe by Boulle himself, for $500. For 3 or 4 years it was buyer pandemonium. Dealers buying all this stuff by the truckload, mortgaging themselves to the hilt, couldn't imagine it would end. But to fuel the buying, one thing was missing: Prices didn't go up. Many dealers found themselves stuck with huge inventories, their buyers saturated. With no profits,
buyers lost interest and the bubble burst. Banks foreclosed on cash-starved dealers. The sad thing was that these were mostly the old school connoisseurs, who really loved what was fine and beautiful, and were in the antique business, not really for profit, but to preserve and pass on this legacy to their clients. Their precious finds in the hands of the banks, were knocked down at bankruptcy auctions for next to nothing, a desperate slash and grab by their own business partners, these once friendly bankers. It was a betrayal that's now familiar in these tough times of foreclosures. By the mid 80's there was a recovery of sorts in the antique market, new people in the business and a new breed of collectors and speculators willing to buy paintings by the yard for their bank vaults.