Flashback February

Month-long series of events celebrating the County’s heritage

Flashback February had its start eight years ago as a celebration of heritage in Prince Edward County to coincide with Ontario Heritage Week, which is held during the third week of February. For one week, heritage-themed events were held across the County, coordinated by the County Museums. This year, however, museum curator Jessica Chase said that the celebration is being expanded over the full month. “The museums are the coordinator of these events. They are not all necessarily heritage-focused, but they are being offered by groups who are passionate about this place’s history and want to do something to celebrate it,” she said. This year’s Flashback February kicked off on February 1 with author Gail Hamilton speaking about her book The Tomorrow Country at the Picton Library. The book follows the story of an orphaned child from England who is sent to live with a family in Canada in 1837, one of the so-called “Home Children”. This past weekend there was a presentation at the Picton library about the science of astronomy in the eighteenth century, and a talk at Macaulay Church about aspects of the County’s marine history. The authors of three heritage books spoke about what inspired them to start writing and what research they had to do.

The first author to speak at Macaulay Church was Dan Buchanan, also known as “the history guy of Brighton”. Mr. Buchanan is a genealogist with an interest in the history of the County and surrounding area. As part of his genealogy work he spent some time “cemetery surfing” and eventually ended up telling stories about this region. In 2023, he gave a talk about the Murray Canal, and that talk led him to write a book about the history and construction of the canal, A History of the Murray Canal. During his research he stumbled upon a paper written in 1991 by a summer student, Colin Powles, for Parks Canada about the canal, and that proved a valuable source of material. He scoured the archives and land registry records and created a compelling story about the canal and the people who helped build it. He said the canal, which opened in 1889, and the Bay Bridge, which opened two years later in 1891, ushered in a new level of prosperity for everyone in the community.

“All types of products being produced by the area could be moved much more easily and cheaply, and there was a huge impact on the economy,” he said. He added that the canal cost about $1.4 million to build, and it provided hundreds of jobs to local farmers during the construction phase.

Amy Bodman and Jane Macdonald then spoke about their project to extend and transform the work of the late Suzanne Pasternak, who documented the lives of the South Shore commercial fishing families starting in the 1980s. Ms. Pasternak created a large body of work including photographs, audio interviews and videotapes that have now been digitized. In 2021, she began a project with the South Shore Joint Initiative to create an oral history book about the County’s commercial fishery, and she also received a grant to make a film about the work. Sadly, Ms Pasternak died in September, 2022. However, her project is being continued by Ms. Bodman and Ms. Macdonald, and they have been compiling archival material plus new interviews with still-active commercial fishers and will soon be publishing a new book, A Lifetime Upon These Waters: An Illustrated Oral History of Prince Edward County’s Vibrant Commercial Fishery. Following this presentation, Mark Seguin spoke about his definitive book on County lighthouses, For Want of a Lighthouse: Guiding Ships through the Graveyard of Lake Ontario. He said the genesis of this book was a presentation he gave at the Picton Town Hall about lighthouses in the County. He discovered there were over 50 lighthouses built along the eastern shore of Lake Ontario during the 19th century and into the early 20th century. Some of the information was unclear or incomplete, so he did extensive research at the Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa, as well as at other libraries and archives. Rather than spending time poring over documents at those locations, he took photographs of them that he would later go through in detail at his home, teasing out relevant information. He said the eastern end of Lake Ontario was a convergence point for much of the marine traffic through the Great Lakes, and the shoals and unpredictable currents led to many shipwrecks. Ship captains and ship owners demanded that more lighthouses be built, and eventually there were more than 50 along a 65- nautical-mile stretch of shoreline. “The result was the greatest concentration of lighthouses anywhere in the world,” said Mr. Seguin. His book describes 45 of these lighthouses that were or still are present from Presqu’ile Point to Kingston Harbour. The event was presented by the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario Prince Edward County branch and the South Shore Joint Initiative. It was a fundraiser for the project to digitize material from the Historical Architectural Survey of Prince Edward (HASPE) compiled by Tom Cruickshank in the 1980s, from which The Settler’s Dream was created in 1984.

Flashback February events will continue for the rest of the month. There is a County Trivia night every Tuesday night at the Waring House. This is also the location of the County Jam on February 22, with performances by 20 County musicians in a fundraiser for the Waring’s Creek Improvement Association. CountyFM will present a series of readings on the life and times in the County at Macaulay Church on February 22. County “personalities” will read excerpts from the Picton Gazette from the 1830s to the 1850s at the Royal Hotel on February 26. The final event is a double feature on March 1 at Macaulay Church titled Cemeteries and Statesmen. Sandy Latchford will speak about Glenwood Cemetery and author Tom Harrison will launch his new book Searching for Richard Nixon: Finding Refuge and making a Home in Prince Edward County. For more information about these and other Flashback February events, please visit visitthecounty.com/flashback-february.