What's Up Bracebridge Gravenhurst January 2010

War quilt comes home to Muskoka
By Nancy Beal
As Diane Harrop gently unwrapped
and unfolded a quilt made 95 years ago,
history unfolded as well.
The quilt, sent to the retired Gravenhurst
High School teacher by its protector
in France, was made in 1915 by the
Women’s Patriotic Committee of
Gravenhurst. It has the names of the
committee members, Gravenhurst town
council, two Light & Water commissioners
as well as 280 signatures, presumably
the townsfolk at that time.
“Of all the little towns in the world,
this (quilt) came from Gravenhurst,” says
Harrop only moments after she opened
the package. “It was protected and
revered by a French family for almost 100
years.”
The quilt’s owner, Nicolle Neyrat of
Angers, France, sent a message to Mayor
John Klinck in the spring of 2009 about
a quilt from Gravenhurst that had been
given to her great-grandmother by an
injured soldier during the First World
War. Now, Heyrat wanted to honour her
late father’s wish to repatriate the artifact
back to its origins in Gravenhurst. The
mayor passed the message to librarian
Robena Kirton, who partially translated
it, and then contacted Diane Harrop,
who taught French, to help.
Being an avid quilter and history buff,
Harrop embraced the project with
enthusiasm, and despite some initial difficulties
in getting in contact with Neyrat,
the e-mails started to fly across the
Atlantic, culminating in Heyrat shipping
the quilt to Harrop in late December.
“Nicolle’s great-grandmother received
By Sandy Lockhart
Members of the Muskoka Landowners
Association have begun closing area
snowmobile trails in their fight against
government intervention on their land.
“Landowners and the MLA are putting
all levels of government on notice
that we will not accept or tolerate the loss
or robbery of private property, property
values or our rights to own, use, enjoy or
benefit while so many others including
all levels of government are continuing to
gain financially from our private property,”
says Muskoka Landowners Association
vice president Deb Madill at an early
January press conference in Bracebridge.
The Muskoka Landowners Association
is fighting restrictions placed on private
property, including those through
the Official Plan process, as well as environmental
regulations that can affect
property usage.
“When our local government and
provincial government start to put environmental
initiatives on private property
that take away the private property
rights, and their private property value
and do not allow them to benefit from
their own property, then this is the only
Diane Harrop and Vicki Culham display the 1915 Gravenhurst-made quilt
that just returned to the town after spending almost 100 years in France.
the quilt as a thank you from the soldier,”
Harrop says, explaining the information
in Neyrat’s e-mails. “This soldier was
wrapped in the quilt and his blood is on
it.”
Apparently, the solider either passed
away or left shortly afterward. The family
doesn’t know the identity of the soldier.
way we feel we can get it through to the
government,” says Madill. “And that is
who we are aiming at then if we can’t
benefit from our land, why should anyone
else benefit from our land?”
Muskoka Landowners Association
president Carey-Anne Oke-Cook says
they will support landowners who close
their trails in protest, as well as those who
choose to keep them open. “It’s their
choice,” she says.
At the press conference in January, the
Muskoka Landowners Association
informed media that landowners from
Dwight, Bracebridge, Gravenhurst and
Port Carling had already closed trails.
“We are trying to make the tourist
industry, the resorts, the snowmobilers
and snowmobile clubs understand that it
really isn’t a strike against them,” says
Madill. “We aren’t going after them at all.
The landowners have nothing against
snowmobilers and snowmobiling, anything
like that. It is just a case of taking
back our land, and if snowmobilers and
the tourist industry want to keep trails on
landowners’ property they need to step
up and contact local government, provincial
government and say to them, give
The quilt is 4’ x 7.5’ and in the centre
are embroidered the names of the mayor
(A. Sloan); six town councillors; the
Light & Water commissioners; presumably
the quilt maker; the Women’s Patriotic
committee president Mrs. Abbey;
and six committee members. It’s what’s
known as a signature quilt, with 280
landowners back their property rights
and property values.”
Norm Woods, Muskoka Snowmobile
Region District 7 president, says only one
landowner has notified the MSR of a trail
closure.
Madill claims that’s not the case. “We
know for a fact that is not true,” she says.
“I don’t know where he gets his information
but I can tell you for a fact that’s not
true.”
She is also concerned because the MSR
did not have enough signs available to
mark closed trails and the Muskoka
Landowners Association had to make
signs with their own money.
Woods says the MSR is in the business
of keeping trails open, not closed, so
doesn’t have a large quantity of signs for
closed trails. “We don’t keep an inventory
of trail closed signs because we are
working in the other direction, you
know. This is new to us,” he says.
If a landowner wishes to close their
trail they can contact the MSR and a representative
of the appropriate club will go
meet with them and explain the implications
of closing a trail on their property.
According to Woods, when it printed
neatly embroidered names clustered in
groupings of five across most of the quilt,
including familiar Gravenhurst names
such as Greavette, Ditchburn, Stephens,
Clipsham, Purdy, Clairmont and many
others.
There are red crosses on each of the
four corners and together with the signature
format, could indicate that the quilt
might have been made to fulfil two functions:
each signatory would have donated
funds to the Red Cross and the quilt itself
would be used by an injured soldier.
Tanya Elliott, director of public affairs
for the Red Cross, says she’ll have to do
some digging to discover the typical situation
at that time.
“We had a women’s corps in France
and other volunteer groups. It could have
been shipped with care packages or sent
with an individual soldier,” she says.
Harrop’s research to date indicates that
it likely wasn’t a Gravenhurst soldier and
her research of First World War offensives
found none near the town of Châtellerault
where Neyrat’s great-grandmother
lived. Still, she hopes to discover the
name of the soldier as well as find an
appropriate place for the quilt to be displayed.
She has contacted local and federal
historical authorities and is waiting
to see who will offer the best home for
the quilt, to ensure it is displayed and
properly preserved. In the meantime, she
is hoping that more information will be
forthcoming and that she will learn more
in March, when she will visit Neyrat in
person during a trip to Europe.
“There’s lots of questions and so far,”
Harrop says, “not many answers.”
Landowners close trails, snowmobilers frustrated
Photograph: Nancy Beal
maps last fall, the Muskoka Snowmobile
Region signed trail agreements with all of
the landowners with MSR trails on their
property and believed the trails would
remain open. Last winter the trails were
closed while the Landowners Association
fought the District of Muskoka’s proposed
tree cutting bylaw. The bylaw was
not enacted.
“We are starting to get a little frustrated
with them,” Woods says. “We have
been working with them for over a year
on the tree bylaw and now the official
plan. There doesn’t seem to be a common
ground that they want to move to.”
“From the year I’ve spent working on
this, there is no common ground, they
just don’t want any interference from the
government. I don’t know how you negotiate
with that when there are laws in
place that come down from the province,
and the municipalities and the District
have no choice but to follow the policies
and laws that are handed to them,” he
says. “It is a tough situation, and we are
stuck in the middle. We are not fighting
anybody. We are just trying to do what
we have done for over 40 years of organized
snowmobiling.”
www.whatsupmuskoka.com January 2010 5