Media
The Weekender, Fri, November 4, 2011
Muskoka Chautauqua Signature Event, June 3rd - 5th, 2011:
A video overview of the Muskoka Chautauqua Signature Weekend. For full videos of each workshop during the weekend, check out our Videos page.
The Muskoka Sun, June 10, 2011:
The Muskokan, June 10, 2011:
| muskokan.pdf |
The Weekender, June 10, 2011:
What's Up Bracebridge/Gravenhurst, June 2011
Open Book Ontario
Check out our profile and scrapbook on the Open Book Ontario site: http://www.openbookontario.com/landmarks/muskoka_chautauqua_reading_circle
This article by Marlene Chan appeared in the March 2011 issue of Amphora, the magazine of the Alcuin Society (www.alcuinsociety.com).
Reviving Chautauqua by Patrick Boyer - Muskoka Magazine
This great article by Patrick Boyer was featured in the August 2010 issue of Muskoka Magazine. Illustrated with photos of the original Muskoka Chautauqua, it traces the origins of the Chautauqua movement to its revival in Muskoka in 2010. Click on the link below to view a PDF copy of the article, courtesy of Muskoka Magazine.
| reviving_chautauqua_-_muskoka_magazine.pdf |
The World of Antique Books
ALL HAIL THE NEIGHBORHOOD ANTIQUARIAN BOOKSTORE
by Marlene Chan
Flying over the equator is said to trigger the experience of magical realism, where strange and inexplicable events are commonplace. Or, as described by the voice of the magical storyteller in Salman Rushdie’s book Midnight’s Children: ‘the place where the outside world meets the world inside you’.
Similarly, it turns out that crossing Algonquin Park to Muskoka country in late autumn around midnight set the stage for an adventure of the magical realist kind for two travelers from Quebec. We were nominally attending a two-day business meeting of the national Arts Network for Children and Youth.
Accommodation at the Marriott hotel resort situated on Lake Rosseau operates as a symphony, seemingly in harmony with Nature herself. Hotel staff succeeded beyond our expectations in the impossible task of anticipating our every need.
The Chatauqua event of Friday, November 19, 2010 at the Bracebridge Library recommended by Arts Muskoka (Gayle Dempsey) and Muskoka Music Festival (Gary Froude) could not have been better conjured in a dream or an imaginary Chatauqua Little Theatre in the Woods production. The presenter, Jason Dickson, the Antiquarian bookstore owner of Muskoka Book House in Bracebridge, located at 49 Manitoba, Suite #303, spoke with passion and awe-inspiring enthusiasm about the history of the book. Samples of rare and out-of-print books over 100 years old were lovingly chosen from his store. Jason commented on each while interweaving anecdotes about the making and selling of books. They ranged from a favorite constructed using vellum in 1550 with hand speckled fore-edge to others with illustrated cloth covers, and included Country Life: A Handbook of Horticulture, Agriculture and Landscape Gardening by R. Morris Copeland (John P. Jewett and Company, 1859), approximate sale value $200.00.
Of particular interest were the examples of books about the Chatauqua movement, one of which was rescued by Gary Froude from a landfill dumpster following the launch speech last year by James Bartleman about his own discovery of books disposed of at the same surprising location. More recently, Jason assessed the legacy of photo albums and other ephemera (over 400 items) acquired by the Muskoka Lakes Library, Port Carling from the Applegath family. During question period, he also expressed a personal penchant for collecting ghost stories.
We hope to return to ‘Canada’s Summer Literary Capital’ next year to actually visit Jason in his clock tower office and to observe poetry readings in the spirit of authors like Charles G.D. Roberts. Roberts and others were known to recite from a canoe to their audience on the shore of Tobin Island.
Marlene Chan, Montreal, November 21, 2010
by Marlene Chan
Flying over the equator is said to trigger the experience of magical realism, where strange and inexplicable events are commonplace. Or, as described by the voice of the magical storyteller in Salman Rushdie’s book Midnight’s Children: ‘the place where the outside world meets the world inside you’.
Similarly, it turns out that crossing Algonquin Park to Muskoka country in late autumn around midnight set the stage for an adventure of the magical realist kind for two travelers from Quebec. We were nominally attending a two-day business meeting of the national Arts Network for Children and Youth.
Accommodation at the Marriott hotel resort situated on Lake Rosseau operates as a symphony, seemingly in harmony with Nature herself. Hotel staff succeeded beyond our expectations in the impossible task of anticipating our every need.
The Chatauqua event of Friday, November 19, 2010 at the Bracebridge Library recommended by Arts Muskoka (Gayle Dempsey) and Muskoka Music Festival (Gary Froude) could not have been better conjured in a dream or an imaginary Chatauqua Little Theatre in the Woods production. The presenter, Jason Dickson, the Antiquarian bookstore owner of Muskoka Book House in Bracebridge, located at 49 Manitoba, Suite #303, spoke with passion and awe-inspiring enthusiasm about the history of the book. Samples of rare and out-of-print books over 100 years old were lovingly chosen from his store. Jason commented on each while interweaving anecdotes about the making and selling of books. They ranged from a favorite constructed using vellum in 1550 with hand speckled fore-edge to others with illustrated cloth covers, and included Country Life: A Handbook of Horticulture, Agriculture and Landscape Gardening by R. Morris Copeland (John P. Jewett and Company, 1859), approximate sale value $200.00.
Of particular interest were the examples of books about the Chatauqua movement, one of which was rescued by Gary Froude from a landfill dumpster following the launch speech last year by James Bartleman about his own discovery of books disposed of at the same surprising location. More recently, Jason assessed the legacy of photo albums and other ephemera (over 400 items) acquired by the Muskoka Lakes Library, Port Carling from the Applegath family. During question period, he also expressed a personal penchant for collecting ghost stories.
We hope to return to ‘Canada’s Summer Literary Capital’ next year to actually visit Jason in his clock tower office and to observe poetry readings in the spirit of authors like Charles G.D. Roberts. Roberts and others were known to recite from a canoe to their audience on the shore of Tobin Island.
Marlene Chan, Montreal, November 21, 2010
Unique Trove of CanLit Treasures Documents Muskoka Chautauqua’s Saga
PORT CARLING (Sept. 2, 2010) – The revival this year of Muskoka Chautauqua got a huge boost here today when a diverse collection of photographs, original letters from luminaries of Canada’s literary scene in the 1920s, annual programs of Muskoka Chautauqua, and other documentary records, were presented to Muskoka Lakes Library in Port Carling.
Donating the unique trove of materials is Douglas Applegath and Molly Applegath Trussler, Tobin’s Island summer residents and son and grandniece of the founder of Muskoka Chautauqua. He says the historic importance of the Chautauqua movement in Muskoka is documented in this collection and that the family wishes to share it with the public. Cathy Duck received the collection at the library in Port Carling at a turn-over presentation at 4 p.m. today.
“We are thrilled that our success this year in bringing Muskoka Chautauqua back to life in the twenty-first century is rising on its earlier foundations, which are so richly documented in these records from the Applegath family,” said Gayle Dempsey, a leader of Muskoka Chautauqua who also is a mainstay of Arts Muskoka.
“Being true to the original purposes of Muskoka Chautauqua will be key to our cultural and educational role going forward,” she adds.
“Chautauqua was a movement a century ago in both the United States and Canada to bring people closer to nature and uplift them through wider understanding of the world, and Muskoka Chautauqua was the most important expression of the movement in Canada,” says Patrick Boyer, who is writing a book on Muskoka Chautauqua.
“The Tobin’s Island gatherings were widely renowned as ‘Canada’s Literary Summer Captial’,” says Boyer.
Muskoka Chautauqua’s annual sessions at Epworth Lodge on Tobin’s Island, Lake Rosseau, were summer-long affairs featuring some of the most notable names from the Canadian literary scene – Dorothy Livesey, Bliss Carmen, Wilson MacDonald, Sir Charles G.D. Roberts, Salem Bland and dozens more. The enterprise folded in 1932 because of the Great Depression.
“The Applegath records include many original letters from these stellar literary artists,” says Dempsey.
Because Muskoka is a rarity in lacking any public archive, the District’s public libraries have of necessity filled the void to ensure unique records of the past are preserved.
Donating the unique trove of materials is Douglas Applegath and Molly Applegath Trussler, Tobin’s Island summer residents and son and grandniece of the founder of Muskoka Chautauqua. He says the historic importance of the Chautauqua movement in Muskoka is documented in this collection and that the family wishes to share it with the public. Cathy Duck received the collection at the library in Port Carling at a turn-over presentation at 4 p.m. today.
“We are thrilled that our success this year in bringing Muskoka Chautauqua back to life in the twenty-first century is rising on its earlier foundations, which are so richly documented in these records from the Applegath family,” said Gayle Dempsey, a leader of Muskoka Chautauqua who also is a mainstay of Arts Muskoka.
“Being true to the original purposes of Muskoka Chautauqua will be key to our cultural and educational role going forward,” she adds.
“Chautauqua was a movement a century ago in both the United States and Canada to bring people closer to nature and uplift them through wider understanding of the world, and Muskoka Chautauqua was the most important expression of the movement in Canada,” says Patrick Boyer, who is writing a book on Muskoka Chautauqua.
“The Tobin’s Island gatherings were widely renowned as ‘Canada’s Literary Summer Captial’,” says Boyer.
Muskoka Chautauqua’s annual sessions at Epworth Lodge on Tobin’s Island, Lake Rosseau, were summer-long affairs featuring some of the most notable names from the Canadian literary scene – Dorothy Livesey, Bliss Carmen, Wilson MacDonald, Sir Charles G.D. Roberts, Salem Bland and dozens more. The enterprise folded in 1932 because of the Great Depression.
“The Applegath records include many original letters from these stellar literary artists,” says Dempsey.
Because Muskoka is a rarity in lacking any public archive, the District’s public libraries have of necessity filled the void to ensure unique records of the past are preserved.
