Chronicle 17-18 Issue 10_FIXED

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18 The Chronicle March 27 - April 2, 2018 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Community Windfields, a majestic farm The land where we stand is the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation. Uncovering the hidden stories about the land our community is built on is what the Chronicle's new feature series, the Land Where We Stand, is about. Shanelle Somers The Chronicle It’s 1966 in Yorkville. The community is small, the central shops are buzzing, and the live band is playing at the theatre. Families are skating at the rink downtown and Don Mills Shopping Centre has just opened. Amidst this quaint little community stands a majestic estate. A swish, swish, swish sounds as she runs into the lush field. Two little girls follow behind. It’s a Saturday night. The sounds of horses emerge. A slow creak of the door sounds as it opens and Marleen Keenan and her friends are in awe of what stands before them. A race horse. Many race horses. This is the land of E.P. Taylor and Windfields Farm. Between 1966 and now, the land where E.P. Taylor’s famous horse Northern Dancer raced across the fields has been developed. What stands there now is a growing subdivision community, two post-secondary campuses and slated plans for a new shopping mall. This is the northern end of the city and the gateway to the 407 ETR Highway and residential, academic and retail development has changed this landscape. Most people at Durham College know E.P. Taylor’s as a campus pub but the businessman, entrepreneur and philanthropist Edward Plunkett ‘E.P.’ Taylor is known for his contributions to the horse racing world. He owned Canada’s largest thoroughbred farm and turned his 1500-acre property into the National Stud Farm after purchasing the land from automobile titan R.S. McLaughlin, founder of General Motors Canada. The farm was later named Windfields Farm. Stretching long from Rossland Rd. N. to Winchester Rd. in Brooklin, Ont., and wide from Simcoe Rd. to Thornton Rd. Oshawa, Windfields Farm was home to famous race horses. Multiple stables, farm houses, and a race track stood on the land at Windfields Farm. The land here was used to train horses. A race horse named Northern Dancer grazed the fields of both the E.P. Taylor Estate at Bayview Avenue in North York and Windfields Farm in Oshawa. The E.P. Taylor Estate stables is where Marleen Keenan and her friends stood in awe of the race horse back in 1966. “We’d cut through the property on our way home from school and run through the fields of the estate hoping to catch a glimpse of the race horses,” says Keenan, who was eight at the time. Northern Dancer became a world historical figure after winning the Kentucky Derby in 1964 and later passed away in 1990. The Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame online has an entire tab devoted to Northern Dancer. Linda Rainey of the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame says the tab on the website was put up in honour of Northern Dancer’s 50th anniversary in 2014. In the Kentucky Derby, every horse entered can be tracked back to Northern Dancer, says Rainey who goes on to say Northern Dancer was not only a great horse but a superstar. “I have a fond memory driving with my parents by the farm and my father pointed out that’s where Northern Dancer lived,” says Rainey. “It was just a magical place.” Author Muriel Lennox’s book Northern Dancer: The Legend and His Legacy, says, “He transcended horse racing, and truly captured the hearts of all of Canadians as they followed his relatively short race career – 18 races in 15 months.” Lennox says Northern Dancer overcame early rejection and physical immaturity to make history while gallantly capturing the Kentucky Derby (the world’s most famous race) and the Queen’s Plate. Northern Dancer became one of the most successful stallions whose influence still dominates. Aside from the rich history in horse racing, the Taylor family was also instrumental in the entrainment of the royal family during their visits to Canada. Today, the Queen stays at the Royal York downtown Toronto on Front St. but in the past, Keenan’s grandmother and mother lined Leslie St. in North York waiting to get a glimpse of Queen Elizabeth II and other royal family members entering Taylor’s estate. Taylor’s elite status in the business world and race horsing business allowed him access to the royal family. But that success has begun to fade into history. By the 1960s, subdivision development was beginning to intrude into the land of the Bayview estate as North York was looking to develop on the estate land. E.P. Taylor and his wife decided to sell for 13.7 million and Morenish Land Developments Ltd. began I have a fond memory... it was just a magical place. One of the last remaining stables at Windfields Farm. development. The estate itself was has been preserved and houses the Canadian Film Centre. Most of the horse breeding and development then moved to Oshawa at Windfields Farm and soon development companies began to encroach on that land too. A Tribute subdivision community was built on a portion of the land north of Conlin Rd. in the early 2000s. Many of the subdivision streets were named after the race horses bred on Windfield Farms. Names like Seabiscuit, Winlord, Pilgrim, Secretariat, and Northern Dancer all anchor each street as you drive through the subdivision. After E.P Taylor’s death in 1989, the farm was left in the hands of Taylor’s son Charles. Charles eventually made the decision to sell 250-acres of the property to Gary Polonsky, former Durham College president. In an Oshawa This Week article from 2004, Gary Polonsky says the process took several years to acquire the first 150- acres due to the complicated legal nature of E.P. Taylor’s will. Overall it took 12 years of relationship building, which Polonsky says turned into a friendship with Charles Taylor. The Oshawa This Week article says Polonsky had estimated as much as 300-acres may become available for purchase. Today, DC and UOIT own more than 800-acres of the Windfields farm land which includes the stables and famous race horse grave sites. Many Oshawa residents became upset when pictures emerged of the Windfields Farm land owned by UOIT in 2012. Northern Dancers’ grave had been forgotten. Weeds had taken over and the buildings were decaying. Jennifer Weymark, the archivist for the Oshawa Museum says, “Many people were upset with state the grave site was in and they were upset with the city even though the city did not own the land.” UOIT released a statement to the public on its university website in 2014. “The University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT), as part of its commitment to proactively preserve historic components of the former Windfields Farm in Oshawa, is Photograph by Shanelle Somers working with the City of Oshawa, Heritage Oshawa and the Windfields Community Group (WCG) to ensure stewardship of the property,” says the UOIT website. Today, the grave sites have been preserved along with the old farmhouse, stable, and barn on the land. However, the land is hard to find and is not publicly accessible. What’s left of the farm, is now tucked away behind private property and no trespassing signs. As land from Windfields Farm was sold off to academics and subdivision building, another portion of the farm property is now owned by developer, RIOCAN. A quick Google search of Windfields Farm will bring you to the big plans for the property as the second search result. RIOCAN plans to build a massive regional retail site. The site will accommodate up to 1.5 million square foot in retail space which equals 26 football fields. It’s 2018 in Oshawa. The community is large, road expansion is changing the landscape, development is creeping closer, the race track is demolished. “Oshawa has grown and changed so much since I worked there,” says Marleen in her cottage home up north. But back in Oshawa is a piece of history forgotten. All is quiet. And all is hidden behind a private property sign. This is the land where we stand. Follow us @DCUOITChronicle and use #landwherewestand to join the conversation, ask questions or send us more information.
Community chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 27 - April 2, 2018 The Chronicle 19 How RMG shaped art culture in Oshawa The land where we stand is the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation. Uncovering the hidden stories about the land our community is built on is what the Chronicle's new feature series, the Land Where We Stand, is about. Alex Clelland The Chronicle The Robert McLaughlin Gallery (RMG) has the biggest artistic contribution to the Durham Region for over 50 years. Its sole purpose as an artistic hub in Durham Region is to connect, explore and engage the community through contemporary and modern Canadian art. Founded in 1967 by Ewart McLaughlin, grandson of Robert McLaughlin, and wife Margaret (painter Alexandra Luke), RMG’s goal from its opening day has been to showcase local talent and build a gallery of formidable Canadian artists. RMG is host to many famous Canadian art pieces, but also showcases various exhibits featuring local indigenous artists acknowledging its traditional land of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation. Sonya Jones, the associate curator for the gallery, says RMG puts forth constant effort to involve local First Nation communities in exhibits and events, because cultural exposure is key. “They were here first. That’s why before we open any public event we do a lands claim, acknowledging the land of the Mississaugas. That’s so key to everything,” Jones says. “They were here first and they need to feel that we are acknowledging them as a key component of our community and culture.” In 1952, Alexandra Luke, a painter from Oshawa, organized an exhibition of abstract Canadian art that opened in Oshawa at Adelaide House in October. The collection had the distinction of being the first exhibition of abstract painting to be assembled in Canada, by Canadian artists, on a national scale devoted exclusively to this art form. She continued to donate money to the gallery and works from her own collection. Until died in 1967 from ovarian cancer, the year RMG officially opened, Before her involvement in creating what we know as the gallery today, Luke was born in Montreal in 1901. She attended Columbia Hospital for Women and graduated as a nurse in 1924. This added to her art style and would help influence the abstract expressionism movement she became apart of during World War II, where artists such as Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock became prominent abstract artists. Shortly after, she returned to Oshawa where her Montreal-native family had its roots. She married Clarence Ewart McLaughlin, grandson of Robert McLaughlin, in 1928. Following the exhibition organized by Luke in 1952, Simpson’s Department Stores (now popularly known as Hudson’s Bay) sponsored an abstract art exhibit in Toronto, Canada, titled Abstracts at Home. At the time, seven artists participated: Alexandra Luke, Jack Bush, Oscar Cahén, Tom Hodgson, Ray Mead, Kazuo Nakamura, and William Ronald. They decided to collaborate and work together as a newly founded artistic group. After holding their first meeting in Oshawa with four other new members, the Painters Eleven was formed. The first public exhibition showcasing work by the Painters Eleven was held in February 1954 at the Roberts Gallery in Toronto. The appeal of this group’s artistic style was in the fact that none of them held similar styles or vision in abstract artistry. Instead, they collaborated their different styles into unique paintings. Luke’s involvement in the abstract expressionism movement and her exposure to different artistic styles during her time with the Painters Eleven was what shaped the gallery itself. As a major donor giving both money and art pieces to the gallery, Luke was one of the biggest contributors and has her own section of the gallery dedicated in her name. The concept of collaborating unique styles into one whole is what made RMG the place it is today, bringing different cultures and communities together into one large showcase of Canadian artistry. The uniqueness of different Outside the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa. paintings is still reflected in the gallery’s community collaboration today. RMG shares a similar vision of collaborating different artistic styles into its gallery. The key aim for RMG is to not only incorporate different art forms and styles in the gallery, but different cultures in various showcases in the area. Jones says that local artists across Ontario are the reason RMG is the gallery it is today. “We have changed in many ways over the years. Now, we have a collection of 4,600 art works,” Jones says. “We show local artists. [RMG] was started by local artists to open an Oshawa-based gallery. Local artists gave us financial support. They founded us, and our past and present is shaped by that.” Over the years, the gallery itself has gone through many changes in the community. In 1987, and $5.4 million expansion was Photograph by Alex Clelland commissioned to give RMG the space to meet the growing needs and changes of the community itself. “Over the years, we have fostered our history in different ways and expanded our audience to include national artists to give our community a different perspective. But at the end of the day, the thing that has shaped us and made us who we are is the artists. We wouldn’t be who we are without artists,” says Jones. For those who wish to learn more about the gallery, RMG hosts its monthly “RMG Fridays” event on the first Friday of every month, and the gallery currently has an exhibition on Alexandra Luke going on until January 2018. Follow us @DCUOITChronicle and use #landwherewestand to join the conversation, ask questions or send us more information. Courtesy of The Robert McLaughlin Gallery Archive Courtesy of The Robert McLaughlin Gallery Archive Courtesy of The Robert McLaughlin Gallery Archive Ewart McLaughlin, husband of painter Alexandra Luke and a founder of the RMG. The Painters Eleven, an abstract painting group from 1952 that helped shaped the RMG to what it is today. Alexandra Luke, a member of the Painters Eleven and founder of the RMG.
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