Gordon Lightfoot's Home Town--Who Knew?

As I mentioned in my last blog, Monday afternoon and Tuesday we took layover time in Orillia, Ontario, to recover from days on end of too much locking in high heat and humidity. It was a good choice despite the fact that, like every other town we've been in the past ten months, everything goes up hill from the marina. Funny thing about that, water does tend to be at the low point!

With the temps in the low 90s and wicked humidity, we found ourselves a bit short on get up and git. That didn't stop us entirely though. Monday, just after we arrived, we found the Mariposa Market, a really cool store/breakfast/lunch/espresso bar type place with dozens and dozens of homemade jars of pickles, relishes, etc. We both enjoyed the

first good cappuccino we've had in a while, the Admiral with shepherd's pie and me with a delish roast turkey sandwich. After lunch, we shopped for toys for our grandkids who will join us for a week ashore at a cottage on Georgian Bay this weekend and even scored a bottle of Tank 10 at the local LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario).

As we sat eating, however, we pondered the word Mariposa which many of you will know means butterfly in Spanish. However, it turns out that in his 1912 humorous novel, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, Stephen Leacock named the town loosely based on Orillia, his home town, "Mariposa"-- thus the significance of the name in Orillia.

We would learn on Tuesday at the Orillia Museum of Art and History about the Mariposa Folk Festival first held in 1961 in Orillia. Since its founding, it has attracted all of the best folk artists especially from Canada (some years exclusively Canada), the United States, and Great Britain. Artists like Pete Seeger,Joan Baez, Ian & Sylvia in the sixties. Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Neil Young and John Prine in the seventies, and Bonnie Raitt, Arlo Guthrie and Jackson Browne in the eighties. Of course, Gordon Lightfoot was an off and on regular over the years. During its first three years, it presaged what Woodstock would be like and, after 1964, it was banned from Orillia. For decades, organizers held the festival in various Toronto locations and then, starting in 1980, in Barrie, Ontario on the opposite end of Lake Simcoe from Orillia. In 2000, it returned to Orillia where it has been held as a family oriented folk music festival in early July for the past 25 years.

Speaking of Gordon Lightfoot, we found the monument in the photo at the top of the blog featured at the Orillia Opera House and learned more about him in a special exhibit

at the Orillia Museum of Art and History. Quintessentially Canadian and a story teller about this region, Canada, and beyond, Lightfoot never forgot his hometown. A singer from a young age, he grew up singing in local choirs, barbershop groups, and, as a teenager, at local resorts just for "a couple of beers." Needless to say, we enjoyed learning more about his origins and life and even got to listen to cuts from dozens of his songs.

Our visit to Orillia wasn't all cultural. We enjoyed part of an afternoon a short bike ride from the boat at the beach---which we shared with a large group of local kids along with Canadian geese and highly territorial ring-billed gulls. Monday evening, we biked along a high quality bike/ped trail to a very good dinner at the restaurant, Fare, which is part of the Leacock Museum Complex. The next night we Ubered up to and walked back down from the Common Stove which may be Orillia's best restaurant. We had a terrific dinner there.

Today, we had a three hour cruise through a mix of lakes, streams and canals from Orillia to Lauderdale Point Resort--a marina/mobile home complex located where the Severn River and Trent Canal flow into Sparrow Lake. With the weather still soggy hot, we ran the generator and air conditioning most of the way. We only encountered one lock

which we had to wait for while up-bound boats were loaded and raised up to our level. When it was our turn to go down, sitting in the lock itself and holding the lines was blisteringly hot. However, the lock emptied quickly and soon we were back in the comfort of our air conditioned vessel. We also had to wait for two swing bridges, one of which a long, slow freight train was passing over. However, for the bridges, we stood by in the comfort of the boat.

During our trip, we passed ship island which a large flock of cormorants have commandeered for nesting and brood rearing. They built their nests surprisingly high in trees which appear now to be dying, perhaps from being over guanoed (is that even a verb?). We also traveled by a rocky sand bar colonized by royal terns, the first we've seen on the Loop. While we didn't encounter swans today, we did again see hundreds (thousands?) of geese and their young and a surprising number of mallard ducks and their broods. And again, kingbirds were omnipresent.

You never really know until you get there how pleasant and well situated a marina will be and the slip you're given sometimes makes or breaks even the best facilities. At Orillia, we were on the end of an outer T-dock looking out over Lake Simcoe. It was a glorious spot with terrific views and a great breeze.

At Lauderdale Point Resort, we're in a small boat basin tied up on the face dock in front of the marina store and ice cream shop. We're not suffering. The people are friendly and

the ice cream is great. But the ambience??? Not quite the same.