150 Miles From Anything Remotely Related to Home

There must have been some ulterior motive for our move to this godforsaken, black fly and mosquito infested wilderness. If there was, I was never privy to it, save to get our lives back and escape from my aunt and two cousins. The plan, there always must be a plan, was that Dad was going to start a summer camp on the north end of The lake of Bays. I guess that seemed logical. He had 100 acres of land, water close by, and, his son went to camp for two weeks. That sure sounded like the winning ingredients for a camp. Well, he thought so but the bank didn't. So, what does a man do with no real job skills, 150 miles from civilization? The balance of what was left of the summer was pretty lonely but Dad made sure I was effectively amussed. The purchase of a Cooey 22 rifle put every living thing at risk of extinction and the acquisition of a 14 ft cedar strip boat with a 10hp motor meant nothing on the lake was safe.

School, when it started, was a joyous affair....back to two rooms, four grades per room. My social skills once more needed to be modified to survive in this new environment. In Dwight it wasn't cool to be cool and everybody had to take a poke at the 'punk' city slicker. By now my skills of self defense, both verbal and physical had become honed to a blunt edge and I decided to fight rather than switch. Fighting, even if winning can be just as lonely as being the outsider so it was time for another attitude check. I was reluctantly befriended by a neighbor kid and eventually fell into the correct social mode.

I learned all the neat things that kids in the far north do....canoeing, fishing, smoking, drinking and all that good stuff. I even got proficient enough, that years later I was able to take off into Agonquin Park for four weeks without adult supervision. It was a high school graduation thing and a bunch of us decided to spend sometime next to nature. The trip would have been more of a success if the beer canoe hadn't capsized the second day.

I completed my elementary school education in Dwight. By the time I graduated they had built a new four room school with most of the modern conveniences, particulary, running water. High school meant a 13 mile treck by bus into Huntsville everyday, at least everyday that I went. I had ambitions of being a graphic artist and when it came time to choose my options it was either french or drafting. I chose drafting as I thought perspective and rendering would give me a leg up in the art world.

Dad had abandoned any ideas of a summer camp and had just about expended the family fortune by the following summer so it was off to the big city of Toronto to find work, which he did. For the rest of our tenure in Dwight Dad spent his time working in Toronto and came home every 2nd weekend. Mother couldn't drive but Dad thought it best to leave the car home for any emergency and would take the bus to Toronto. Mother soon got fed up with being housebound, so by the ripe old age of 13 1/2 I was assigned driver duties and had full use of the family auto, a 1949 Packard. I was doing OK too until I almost ran over my girlfriends father. Ah, he never liked me anyway. He threatened to lower the boom on my driving escapades unless I restricted my self to driving ONLY when my mother was with me.

Claire suffered the most by our exposure to The Great White North. There was no neighbour kids for her to play with, hell, there wasn't even any neighbours to speak of. She had a mad passion for horses, although she had never really been exposed to them, and rode her faithful steed 'Topper' at every opportunity. Claire was an ardent rider and could wear a broomstick handle to a nub in the course of a few weeks. In the summer, her friend Tracy Hickock would take her for walks on the real thing.

Tracy was a summer resident from Rochester NY, heir to the Hickock Leather fortune. Theirs was a rambling summer estate consisting of 5 or more cottages and a main lodge, each one larger than our house.

I actually came to like life in Dwight and certainly my social life was improving with the onslaught of high school. Cars were still relevant in my life but it was hard to imagine a '49' Packard as a sleek European sports car. Nonetheless it provided me with something to hone my driving skills. Trees, bushes and any animal within 10 feet of the roads needed to be very afraid. Fortunately the old Packard was more tank than car and usually whatever it ran up against came out second best. The 13 mile trip on old Highway 60 from Dwight to Huntsville was a killer of cars, it ate them alive. The older teens, with or without licenses would try and do the trip in under 13 minutes. Very few succeeded but the old Packard made it in 12 minutes 15 seconds. We ate some bushes along the way but made it in one piece. The OPP were not very amused and were waiting for me at Hillside on the way back.

Injun Joe's and the Tradin Post were the big tourists attractions in Dwight. Many a summers night were spent outside with Injun Joe (who wasn't even an indian) listening to his tall tales.

Dad and Uncle Syd, resplendent in Indian head gear

As usually turned out to be the case, just when life got reasonably good, it was time to pick up and leave again

By the fall of '58' Mom got pretty tired of the lifestyle and wanted to return to civilization, so return we did.

The saga continues.

A small footnote of consequence.: In 1957 I did get to see my friend Bill again. At 12 years of age Bill had enough of home life and ran away. He showed up on our doorstep two days later, having absolutely no idea where we lived. To this day it is hard to know how he found us. Needless to say, he was promptly returned home by my parents.