Sunshine Sketches of Park St. C.I.
Labels: Leacock, Mariposa, Orillia, Park St. Collegiate, Voyageur
Today began a series of events focussed on the town of Orillia, Ontario. My pal Christopher Lusty (that's a name, not necessarily a description) has long been a supporter of the project and it just seems like this year many of his efforts paid off. That and the energy of Leslie Fournier, who for a few years now has been organizing a festival of banners on the downtown streets of Orillia. This year it became kind of a perfect storm because - with the 50th anniversary of the venerable Mariposa Folk Festival just around the bend - there were lots of things to celebrate and lots of ways that Voyageur was a perfect fit.
So, today we visited Park St. Collegiate Institute in Orillia where I delivered a couple of presentations and where we also set up the portrait feature. Now, for those of you who don't know Orillia, it's best known now as a resort town on the shores of Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching and neighbour to huge Casino Rama on the Rama First Nation but it was also once the home of the Tudhope Motor Buggy company - one of Ontario's early forays into the automotive industry at the beginning of the 20th Century.
For musical history, Orillia was a summer home to the great Glenn Gould and the birthplace of another Canadian icon, Gordon Lightfoot. Now, we got a great picture of Gordon playing Voyageur at his 70th birthday party at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto last year and that's been my best Orillia connection so far but today we got a brand new connection as well: You see, the Mariposa Folk Festival got its name from a famous book called "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town" by the late great Canadian humourist, Stephen Leacock, who set the stories in a fictionalized version of his town, Orillia, called Mariposa. My old friend Fred Addis is now director of the Stephen Leacock Museum and he came by Park St. C.I. today to make a very special contribution to the guitar case. The doily pictured above is a his donation from Leacock House at Brewery Bay that we hope to have sewn into the case by the time we return to Orillia for Mariposa in July.
After the school day ended, my photographer Doug headed back to Toronto and Lusty and I went for dinner. In the evening, I did my presentation for group of community folks and sponsors at Leslie Fournier's house. Leslie is bringing me back to Orillia in June for this year's edition of her Streets Alive! Festival and this was an occasion to let people know what she's trying to accomplish, how the Six String Nation fits into it and how they can help. In the manner of Chicago's painted cows or Toronto's moose(s), Leslie will be decorating the streets of Orillia with 7-foot tall artist-decorated guitar sculptures in celebration of Mariposa's milestone and the musical history of the city. It was certainly a great way to wrap up the day so I hope we hit the mark and Leslie got her sponsorships - she certainly deserves to.
Thanks to Leslie, Lusty, Fred and the staff and students of Park St. Collegiate Institute.