L.M. Montgomery's Muskoka

Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables and many other beloved novels, spent two weeks with her family in Muskoka in the summer of 1922. She was obviously so impressed with the beauty of the lakes and islands that she wrote The Blue Castle, an adult love story and her only novel not set in Prince Edward Island.

  

For a fascinating account of how that holiday inspired her, read “The Muskoka Dream” by Montgomery scholar, Mary Beth Cavert.

Montgomery stayed at the Roselawn Inn in Bala, which is still in existence. Nearby Treelawn, where she and her family ate their meals, is now the Bala Museum dedicated to Montgomery. Touted as one of the best Montgomery museums, it also contains one of the world’s finest public collections of her books, including first editions and rare printings from other countries. The owners, Jack Hutton and Linda Jackson-Hutton, have written Lucy Maud Montgomery and Bala: A Love Story of the North Woods.

It is believed that few people in Bala knew that Maud Macdonald, wife of  Presbyterian minister Ewan Macdonald, was the famous author.

The characters in my Muskoka Novels who survived the war are now back in their cherished lake district, and indeed, not far from Bala and its picturesque falls. How natural for them to run into Maud. Ahhh, the possibilities!

Lusitania Tragedy - 95 Years Ago

She was the fastest luxury liner on the oceans, and the passengers who boarded the Lusitania in New York on May 1st, 1915, included Alfred Vanderbilt, one of America’s richest men, Lady Allan, wife of Canadian shipping magnate Sir Montague Allan, along with their two teenaged daughters, and Josephine Burnside, daughter of mercantile millionaire Timothy Eaton, with her twenty-year-old daughter. But few of them would survive that last voyage.

The Great War was raging in Europe, and tensions had been running high ever since the German Embassy in New York issued a warning to British ships and their allies. But the passengers had been assured that this record-breaking ocean greyhound could outrun any German submarines, and that the British navy would provide safe escort into Liverpool. No one thought that the Germans would attack a passenger ship carrying women and children. But few on board knew that armaments were part of the cargo, making the ship a legitimate target.

It was a sunny afternoon on the Irish sea on May 7, 1915, just hours away from docking at Liverpool, when some of the first class passengers leaving the sumptuous dining room noticed a torpedo slicing through the calm blue water towards them. The Lusitania sank within 18 minutes.

It was amazing that 761 of the 1,959 aboard survived - although very few of the children - many of them immersed in the frigid Irish Sea for two or more hours. Some who were thought to be dead suffered from hyperthermia, but were able to be revived.

Of those first class passengers mentioned earlier, only Lady Allan and Josephine Burnside survived. More than 900 bodies were never recovered, including Alfred Vanderbilt’s, whose family had offered a $5000 reward.

There are many questions still not clearly answered, including why the British navy had not provided the promised escort, and why the ship was running at such reduced speeds in dangerous waters, thereby becoming a sitting target. See Diana Preston’s book, Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy, for a gripping account of this disaster. And join my characters aboard that ill-fated ship in The Summer Before The Storm.

The Monsters Under the Dock

They eat small fish and tadpoles, as well as insects. They move with lightning speed, and can illicit the expletive "Holy sh**!" from the bravest and strongest of men. There are people who have summered on lakes all their lives and have never seen one, because these monsters are skittish. Fortunately. They are dock spiders.

More correctly known as fishing spiders, the adults can be about the size of a splayed hand! I can verify that since I have seen them. The first time was as a young wife enjoying a romantic holiday at a Muskoka lodge. My husband and I were canoeing in the calm of late afternoon, absorbing the sublime beauty of the lake and the thrusting granite cliff that sparkled in the sunshine. He said, “Wow, look at that spider!” pointing to the rock wall mere inches from our canoe. I’ve always been afraid, although not phobic, about spiders, so I was immediately on the alert. I didn’t see it at first because it was SO big. But I finally did, shrieked, and nearly tipped the canoe. I’m sure I would have won a regatta race in my haste to get as far away as possible.

It was at least thirty years before I saw another one. Some lakes, or at least areas of them, seem to be more popular with these critters. They like calm water and wood, and often live under docks, which is how they acquired their nickname. They can submerge themselves underwater for 10 to 15 minutes when frightened, and can even "swim"!

If you’d like a laugh, have a look at this brief video of me at a Muskoka resort - after I had seen a huge mother dock spider guarding her egg sac - about the only time that they don’t skitter away immediately upon hearing noise or feeling the vibration of interlopers on their docks. I’d also seen a few sunning themselves on the lovely rocks where I am perched in this clip, as I had kayaked by the previous day.

My reference to a dock spider in The Summer Before The Storm is definitely symbolic.

Only one remedy for this obsession

I’m obsessed by something that can be dangerous, powerful, deceptive, but also gentle and soothing and exquisite. Water. I love watching it tumble vivaciously over rocks or stretch lazily to distant shores. As soon as I’m near it, I need to divest myself of footwear and plunge in - not always the wisest thing to do. Once, after a week of torrential February rain, we hit a beach in San Diego. I’d walked the length of most of it, unshod, of course, before I saw the warning signs. Beware! The water was contaminated by the run-off from all the flooding. Another time I waded into an enticingly clear and shallow stream in Northern Ontario, and was nearly swept off my feet by the swift current. Even I wasn’t adventuresome (or foolish) enough to frolic on a Welsh beach like a group of schoolchildren did - amid snow flurries in April. But watching from a warm seaside hotel, I could appreciate their joyful enthusiasm as they rolled up trousers and splashed about in the frigid water.

It’s no surprise that swimming is my favourite activity. How sublime it is to be immersed in the silky softness, caressed and buoyed, floating between earth and sky, teased by waves. The next best thing is being in an open-top lake kayak, which makes you feel as if you’re suspended in the water. Just reach out and dip in your hand to cool off. And if you stop paddling, a loon might suddenly surface nearby and treat you to his “insane laughter”, warning you that you’re invading his territory.

I wish it were mine for more than a few snatched weekends each summer. I long to live by a lake and watch the changing moods of sky and water, enjoy the exuberance of summer activities and savour the solitude of snow-shrouded winters.

Water haunts my dreams and speaks to my soul, so it’s little wonder that it always figures in my books - never more so than in the Muskoka Novels.

In the Trenches at Vimy Ridge

The following is an excerpt from a scene in my novel Elusive Dawn, which is set during the Battle of Vimy Ridge, Apr. 9, 1917. Captain Justin Carrington is a young lawyer whose family summers in the lake district of Muskoka, Canada. British aristocrat Antonia Upton is with an ambulance corps near Calais. This has been abridged, leaving out some military details and mention of other characters.

            Justin Carrington was thankful to be out of the deep subway and cave where the slimy chalk walls had begun to close in on him, reminding him of the suffocating mud of the Somme, making him ashamed of the panic that he had to force back into the pit of his belly. By now he should have been used to the sweat and latrine stench of war, but with men packed so tightly together in these underground tunnels grey with cigarette and candle smoke, the oxygen seemed to have been used up. So he breathed deeply of the cold, pre-dawn air.

            Like most of the men, he hadn’t been able to sleep, even if it had been physically possible to find a comfortable place to rest. For months the entire Canadian Corps had been training for this day. Over and over they had practiced behind the lines – their objectives carefully laid out, the timing of their advance coordinated to the split-second – so that every last man knew exactly what to do….

            The men had had their rum ration, and boxes of Canadian Lowney chocolate bars had miraculously appeared. Justin savoured every bite of his, while relishing the reminder of home.

            So now they all stood silently in the trenches, in the rain that was turning to sleet, many up to their knees in icy sludge. 30,000 Canadian infantry strung along the four miles of Vimy Ridge. With another 70,000 soldiers in support roles behind – the gunners, engineers, medics, cooks, and so forth – it meant that the entire Canadian Corps was here, together for the first time….

            Justin checked his watch yet again. 5:15. Almost Zero Hour.

            His company of four platoons would go over in the second wave, leap-frogging those leading the assault at a predetermined line. The first battalions were already in the shallow jumping-off trenches and craters in no-man’s-land.

            After a week of constant shelling that had pummeled the German trenches and defences with a million shells, the silence now was eerie. And taut. Every one of them knew only too well that the Allies had tried and failed to take this strongly fortified and tactically important ridge during the past two years…. Despite some trepidation, Justin felt confident that their intense preparation and unprecedented bombardment would surprise and overwhelm the Germans.

            And he felt buoyed by the latest letter from Antonia Upton. She had written, “We have been evacuating the wounded from the base hospitals in large numbers recently,” which, in the parlance of censorship, insinuated that she realized space was being made for an onslaught of new casualties. She went on to say:

            We often hear the remorseless guns, and I wonder how you can stand the diabolical noise that surely threatens the very sanity of civilization. When we have air raids here, I sometimes find it difficult to muster the courage to keep going, cherishing the sanctity and preciousness of life too much to lose it. There is so much yet to experience, so much promise to fulfill. It seems almost treasonous to admit that I don’t want to sacrifice myself or any of my friends to the dubious glory of the Empire. Forgive my womanly heart, for I do not mean to diminish what you men are trying and dying to achieve.

            I expect you will soon be preoccupied, and trust you will be careful as well as lucky. I enjoyed our perambulations about the Hampshire countryside, and hope we can repeat those when the wildflowers are in bloom and the trees, lushly green. And perhaps you will take me sailing and canoeing when I come to visit your magical Muskoka. I have presumptuously included a photograph of myself in the event that you may wish to recall your correspondent.

            Fondly, Toni

            He had chuckled at the formality of that last sentence, which was no doubt intended to make the gesture appear less intimate. But he was delighted by the photograph and studied it frequently as if he could delve better into her psyche. To him it was evident that she was transparent, her inner beauty reflected in her outer attractiveness. From her perceptive, forthright gaze shone humour and a joie de vivre that captivated him. He had the picture tucked into his breast pocket, and felt the intoxicating stirrings of love.

            Joyfully he had replied to her:

            Your photo has brought me much cheer, but I hope that I may see the real you before long. Not in your capacity as an ambulance driver, however!

            I applaud your womanly heart, and agree with your sentiments. I have done much soul-searching over the past two years, caught between my civilized conscience and the dictates of war. I have seen both the best and the worst that human beings can do, the many and ever more mechanized ways we can slaughter one another, although we are more alike than dissimilar.

            Your friendship has revived in me the determination to survive this war and to make a difference in a world changed forever, but open to new possibilities. Our generation must try to right the wrongs that brought us here and for which so many, as Rupert Brooke so aptly said, ‘poured out the red sweet wine of youth’.

            Be assured that your thoughts and words comfort and sustain me, Toni. I long to sit in the sunshine with you, listening to the birds, but without the guns which now disturb their songs. The larks here seem forever hopeful. So shall I be.

            Affectionately, Justin

            It was snowing now, the wind whipping up a blizzard.

            5:28. Two minutes to go. After a passing whisper, the tiny clinks of bayonets being fixed to rifles coalesced and tinkled down the line.

Once discovered, never forgotten…

That’s the tagline for the legendary lake district of Muskoka. I can attest to its veracity, as could Ruth Gaunt Bennett when she became enchanted by it in the summer of 1932.  In her memoir, Adventures as a Muskoka Maid, she wrote of her first sight of the lakes, “Suddenly I saw that the so blue water held the blue sky captive within its depths…. I wanted to store all this new, exquisite beauty deep within me.”  Even as a maid catering to a well-to-do family at their summer home, she was able to enjoy the delights of cottage country - swimming, canoeing, moonlight cruises, corn roasts, and so forth. Muskoka worked its magic on her, as it has on countless others, and she eventually settled there with her family.

It made me think of my own introduction to this land of sparkling granite, fragrant pine trees, and island-studded lakes. My childhood friend has a cottage, built by her great-grandfather in 1879, on an island on Lake Rosseau. She, her mother, and brother spent every summer there from the time that school ended in June until it began again in September. Her father went up on weekends.

I was first invited there when I was 12, and was instantly captivated by the scenery and the lovely weathered cottage that held within its walls the essence of a different era. It was as if the past still lingered in the scent of old wood and musty books, on the expansive veranda and bedroom balconies, in the vanished spaces that had once housed servants. On rainy days we played vintage records on the ancient gramophone. The cottage still resonates to those long-ago tunes, like “By the Light of the Silvery Moon”.

I heard stories from aged aunts about the old days - the Age of Elegance on the lakes. Even then I knew that one day I would write about that fascinating time. My novels The Summer Before The Storm and Elusive Dawn pay tribute to that era. I’m now working on Book 3 in the series, which takes place in the 1920s.

In some inexplicable way, Muskoka has touched my soul. How lucky that I can reside there in my imagination.

To see more lovely photos of Muskoka, watch my short book trailer on YouTube.

Naked Poets, Freethinking Clergymen, and an “Enchanted Island”

In 1928 when poet Dorothy Livesay was 19 and a student at the University of Toronto, she spent a month in Muskoka helping her cousin, who was the director of a theatre on Tobin Island. It was part of the “Muskoka Assembly” of the Canadian Chautauqua Institute. Founded by Methodist minister Charles Applegath in 1921, the Assembly sought to combine spiritual, educational, and cultural enrichment in a magnificent setting that also encouraged healthy outdoor activities like swimming, golf, tennis, and canoeing. Dorothy, wanting to feel more at one with nature, would go off blueberry picking in the nude with her friends. For her this was just an extension of the then-popular Theosophy, a philosophy that combined Eastern and Western spirituality and mysticism, in which God was nature and beauty, and man, a part of this natural world.

Visitors stayed at the Epworth Inn (later Wigwassan Lodge), while some - clergy mostly - also built cottages on the 200 acre property that stretched along 2 miles of shoreline. In addition to classes and lectures, there were entertainments, which included plays, masquerades, and sunset cruises. 

Applegath also sought to promote Canadian literature and music, so recitals and concerts were performed, and famous literary figures like Bliss Carman and E. J. Pratt spent weeks there not only sharing their works, but also being inspired by the picturesque, rugged beauty surrounding them. By 1928, the Muskoka Assembly had become known as Canada’s Literary Summer Capital. Unfortunately, the Depression took its toll on this innovative endeavour.

So it’s exciting to hear that the Muskoka Lakes Music Festival is reviving the Chautauqua, including the Reading Circle. The public is being asked to submit suggestions for this summer’s 5 “Must Read” books by April 31st. Find out more here about the 2010 Muskoka Chautauqua, which will be held at Red Leaves (J.W. Marriot), not far from the “enchanted island” that once offered sustenance for the mind, body, and soul.

In my Muskoka Novels, The Summer Before The Storm and Elusive Dawn, I’ve very loosely based “The Colony” on the Canadian Chautauqua, albeit pre-WW1.