Durham Chronicle 18-19 Issue 04

I don't see being a woman in this field to be 

a barrier...I actually see it as an asset. 

Volume XLVI, Issue 4 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 19 – April 15, 2019 

– See page 3 

Mock 

disaster 

hits DC, 

UOIT 

pages 19-20 

Photograph by Morgan Kelly 

Bowmanville artist 

paints more than 

dresses page 23 

DC, UOIT 

alum lands 

Olympic 

dream job 

page 26 

Photograph by Janis Williams 

Photograph provided by Shannon Galea 

The historical stories of interesting land in Durham. Pages 7-11

2 The Chronicle March 19 - April 15, 2019 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Campus 

BACK 

of the 

FRONT 

DC journalism students look at Durham College and UOIT, 

and beyond, by the numbers and with their cameras 

Farewell from 

Chronicle 

journalism, 

advertising 

students 

This is the final Chronicle issue produced by second 

year Durham College journalism (left) and advertising 

(below) students. Thanks to the DC and UOIT campus 

community for your ongoing support of our work. 

Photographs by Jim Ferr

Campus The Chronicle March 19 - April 15, 2019 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca 3 

Meagan Secord 

Jackie Graves 

The Chronicle 

ANGELA WERNER 

From a curious, athletic girl to a 

university grad working for children's 

advocacy, Angela Werner 

has been helping things run 

smoothly for a long time. 

"Many on campus are not aware 

of Angela's role in convocation because 

she does it so quietly and diligently," 

says Allison Hector-Alexander, 

director of the Office of 

Diversity, Inclusions and Transitions 

at Durham College. 

Werner oversees all aspects of 

convocation, one of the biggest 

events on campus. In 2018, there 

were five ceremonies in spring and 

one in the fall. According to Werner, 

approximately 5,000 students 

graduate, with about 500 students 

crossing the stage at each ceremony. 

Werner is Durham College's 

Executive Assistant to the Executive 

Director/Registrar, Strategic 

Enrolment Services at Durham 

College - a title she herself acknowledges 

as very long. 

She studied psychology at Brock 

University where she earned an 

honours degree before getting her 

masters at the University of Toronto. 

She did multiple placements 

through school, including the Canadian 

Mental Health Association 

drop-in clinic in St. Catharines, as 

well as a placement with the City of 

Toronto helping community organizations 

help write grant proposals. 

“It was a very eye-opening experience,” 

she says. “It was a very 

interesting part of my education.” 

Werner says she moved away 

from a clinical focus as she found 

the work too emotionally overwhelming. 

“I didn’t feel I was as helpful in 

that area because I took a lot of 

stuff home with me," she says. "I 

feel like being able to help in a little 

bit of a different way was just better 

for me personally.” 

She found her way to Durham by 

looking for a local job. She says it 

made sense to stop “fighting traffic 

every day.” 

Every year, Werner says she likes 

to "do something different" and 

takes on new projects. 

Recently, she worked on a project 

to track and review what communications 

students were receiving in 

various Student Affairs departments 

with the goal of streamlining 

content, preventing information 

overload. 

Angie Paisley, Executive Assistant 

to the vice-president of Student 

Affairs, and Melissa Bosomworth, 

Wellness Coach, were the two other 

staff members involved in the project. 

“It was a sort of different project 

to keep it interesting and moving 

forward,” Werner says with a 

chuckle. 

“There’s always another project 

that comes up, and that’s what I 

really like about this role.” 

Werner loves her job because of 

DC's students. 

“The most wonderful thing 

about being at the college is the students," 

she says. "Every time there’s 

a new group of students starting, 

you can feel their excitement and 

their hope. It’s the best thing about 

working at the college.” 

ASHLEY MARSHALL 

As a first generation Canadian 

from a Jamaican family, education 

was not only highly important to 

Ashley Marshall, it became a lifelong 

pursuit. 

"I’m a thinker, I’m an academic,” 

Marshall says. “My version of 

education is get this degree, then 

the next highest degree, then the 

next highest degree.” 

Marshall's grandmother came 

to Canada with her five children 

from Jamaica to provide them with 

a better life. Marshall says she grew 

up with a sense of responsibility to 

be successful. 

“Education and the pursuit of 

knowledge was always an expectation, 

it wasn’t a choice,” she says. “I 

have to be exceptional and I have 

to work twice as hard.” 

However, Marshall says her 

mother assured her she was smart. 

“I always knew I wanted to be 

smart. I wanted to be recognized 

for my ability to think," she says. 

“That’s all I knew.” 

She pursued an English degree 

in the hopes of becoming a lawyer. 

During her degree, she fell in love 

with English and writing then pursued 

a degree with McMaster for 

sociology but later changed course, 

switching to English and Cultural 

Studies. 

“It just lit my world on fire,” 

she says. “I’m a black person, I’m 

a woman, I’m also working class, 

I’m also able-bodied, I’m also 

heterosexual, I’m also in my 20s. 

All those different things you can 

look at from multiple intersections.” 

Marshall eventually found a 

place at Durham College shortly 

after a political campaign job came 

to an end. She teaches communications, 

a job she loves because there 

is a "finesse to communicating." 

In 2018, Marshall presented at 

the Black Portraitures colloquium 

on African American culture hosted 

by Harvard University’s Hutchins 

Center for African and African 

American Research. 

This experience inspired her and 

her mentor, Allison Hector-Alexander, 

to create the Black Student 

Success Network at DC. 

"Blackness comes with unique 

challenges," Marshall says. "We 

started a network where people 

understand your identity." 

MOREEN FEARON-TAPPER 

“Life can be fair or unfair but 

you just do the best you can and 

you don’t allow roadblocks.” 

Moreen Fearon-Tapper, Dean of 

Teaching, Learning and Program 

Quality at Durham College, says 

she was taught by her parents when 

she was young to not give up and 

always do her best: a lesson she still 

follows to this day. 

Her mom, Inez Fearon, is one of 

her biggest inspirations. 

“She inspired all of us as children 

to be our best self,” she says. “My 

mother was the type that when 

we were all going through school, 

she would sit up with us while we 

stayed up till 2 a.m. working on an 

assignment.” 

The lessons her mom taught 

her are similar to the advice 

Fearon-Tapper has for her two 

children. 

Along with being the best version 

of themselves, she says girls should 

be fearless, take time to learn 

things, take a leap of faith, have 

confidence and be open to where 

things will take them. 

“There are very few jobs per se 

that I intentionally set out from the 

start of my career that ‘this is what 

I want to be’,” says Fearon-Tapper. 

“What I did was I did the best 

possible job, even when I worked at 

McDonald’s I was the best cashier. 

You can transfer that anywhere.” 

Born in England, Fearon-Tapper 

moved to Canada when she was an 

infant. She grew up in downtown 

Toronto and Scarborough. 

It was here where she went from 

Photograph by Meagan Secord 

Ashley Marshall (top left), Moreen Fearon-Tapper (top right), Linda Flynn (bottom left), Ana 

Jimenez (bottom middle) and Angela Werner (bottom right) are DC's Leading Women. 

Meet the leading women at DC nominated 

by their peers for International Women's Day 

Lester B. Pearson Collegiate Institute 

to The University of Toronto 

to study political science and sociology. 

She worked at the Michener 

Institute, an academic institution 

devoted to applied health sciences 

education, for four years, and then 

Centennial College for 12. This 

year marks 13 years at DC . 

“I don’t see being a woman in 

this field to be a barrier…I actually 

see it as an asset,” she says. “Not 

to generalize or stereotype but ... 

inherent in us as women is that nurturer, 

that caring.” 

Fearon-Tapper has dedicated her 

career to teaching, supporting and 

helping others. She says her position 

in the Centre for Academic 

and Faculty Enrichment (C.A.F.E.) 

makes it possible to support staff 

and through that, she supports 

students. 

“The people and the impact ... is 

why I love my job,” she says. “We’re 

really lucky and I work with absolutely 

fabulous people, they’re so 

talented and dedicated.” 

LINDA FLYNN 

“I grew up in Oshawa actually. 

I went to elementary school, high 

school and college. I went to Durham 

College.” 

Linda Flynn, associate vice-president 

for the Office of Development 

and Alumni Affairs at DC, is not 

only proud to be an alumni of the 

public relations (PR) program here, 

but to be an employee as well. 

After working in PR for non-profit 

organizations, such as United 

Way and the Children’s Wish 

Foundation for 30 years, Flynn 

came back to where it all began. 

Her DC diploma hangs proudly in 

her office at Campus Corners. 

“This job came up and it really 

married all of the skills and experience 

that I’ve gained over the 30 

years and so I applied for the job 

and got it,” she says, adding if she 

had to pick a legacy to leave here 

at DC, it would be that she “provided 

the support to move projects 

along, projects that help students. 

So whether it's capital projects like 

the new (CFCE) building or engaging 

our alumni as mentors for 

students.” 

Flynn hasn’t stopped her learning 

just because she’s a graduate 

though. She is currently working 

on her Masters of Arts in leadership 

through Royal Roads University. 

She decided to start the program 

when her five children were done 

university and says, “it’s a subject 

matter that I am very interested in 

and it’s just the right time in my 

life.” 

Flynn has many inspirations in 

her job but the people she works 

with are what makes the job enjoyable. 

“I am inspired by the team I 

work with,” she says. “I work with 

some very hard-working, dedicated 

women.” 

ANA BELEN JIMENEZ 

“There has been a lot of moving 

and changes and adapting to different 

cultures growing up but my 

parents have done an excellent job 

at maintaining Chilean culture in 

my family.” 

Ana Belen Jimenez, international 

project support officer for the International 

Office, is in a fitting position 

considering her background. 

Originally from Chile, her family 

moved to Sweden when she was 

two. Three years later, they found 

themselves in Canada, where she 

has grown up. 

“My parents, they are the cornerstone, 

they are the foundation. My 

family is like a little tribe and I 

think being immigrants and feeling 

isolated has kind of made us quite 

a solid unit,” Belen Jimenez says. 

She says her parents upheld 

Chilean traditions, such as speaking 

Spanish and certain cultural 

values, in their household when she 

was growing up which made her 

and her family very close. 

“Their lifelong mission is to enable 

us, their children, to be successful 

and to shine,” she says. “I 

hope I can do that for my kids as 

they get older, to give even a sliver 

of that support that my parents 

gave to me." 

Her parents always encouraged 

her and her siblings, which ultimately 

led to her taking marketing 

and advertisement program at Centennial 

College. 

Afterwards, she worked for the 

City of Toronto’s Tourism Board 

for seven years, where her natural 

talent for mediating shone. 

She says when she was in school 

growing up she always took to the 

liaison role in groups instead of being 

the leader. 

Now, Belen Jimenez coordinates 

international projects at DC. 

“I see myself as a facilitator in 

encouraging staff to engage these 

projects,” she says. 

Belen Jimenez recently coordinated 

the partnership between DC 

and Kenya for the Kenya Education 

for Employment Plan. The 

project connects colleges in Kenya 

with institutes in Canada to help 

revise the curriculum to a more 

hands-on approach. 

“Durham has an incredible 

amount of skilled, inter-culturally 

savvy and driven faculty and 

staff that really want to make a 

difference not just at Durham but 

abroad,” she says.

4 The Chronicle March 19 – April 15, 2019 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca 

PUBLISHER: Greg Murphy 

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Brian Legree 

AD MANAGER: Dawn Salter 

Editorial 

CONTACT US 

NEWSROOM: brian.legree@durhamcollege.ca 

ADVERTISING: dawn.salter@durhamcollege.ca 

Cartoon by Cecelia Feor 

Know the Indigenous land where you stand 

The Truth and Reconciliation 

Commission of Canada was completed 

at the end of 2015, and 94 

Calls to Action were published but 

there is a long way to go in efforts 

of reconciliation with Indigenous 

peoples. 

It is up to Canadians to understand 

the land where they stand. 

A good starting point is land acknowledgement, 

which is the act of 

acknowledging the First Nations, 

Métis, and/or Inuit territories of a 

place. 

For example, the Durham 

College (DC) and University of 

Ontario Institute of Technology 

(UOIT) campus sits on the traditional 

territory of the Mississaugas 

of Scugog Island First Nations. 

Land acknowledgements often 

happen at the beginning of a public 

meeting or ceremony. 

Elder Carolyn King visited 

UOIT in early February to share 

her insight. 

“It [land acknowledgment] is a 

first, good step, that they are starting 

to acknowledge,” King says, 

“but they may not know what it is 

– there could be more background 

material on it, like what does that 

treaty even mean?” 

The more Canadians understand 

the past, the closer we as a nation 

will get to true Reconciliation. 

King shared a story about three 

ten-year-old girls, she met at an 

Indigenous event at Fort York. She 

asked what they knew about First 

Nations and they proudly recited 

the land acknowledgement. King 

told them everyone at the gathering 

that day were Mississauga Indians. 

She says the girls couldn’t believe 

they were actually real. 

King is the founder of the Moccasin 

Identifier Project, an education 

and awareness initiative she 

hopes to introduce to elementary 

schools within the province and 

eventually across the country. 

Similar to the meaning behind 

the Moccasin Identifier Project, 

second-year journalism students are 

required to write an article for The 

Chronicle about the "Land Where 

We Stand" (LWWS). 

Each article takes an in-depth 

look at a historical building or area 

in Durham Region, which holds 

either economic, social or environmental 

importance. 

While many people might think 

of the history of a building being 

held within its aging walls, the story 

goes back even further – to the land 

where the dwelling resides. 

The Oshawa Museum is already 

taking the next step. In preparation 

for the LWWS project, archivist 

Jennifer Weymark spoke about 

going beyond colonial history and 

honing in on the Indigenous past, 

a shift for the museum. 

Jill Thompson is an Indigenous 

Cultural Advisor at UOIT’s Indigenous 

Education and Cultural 

Services Centre located in downtown 

Oshawa. She says learning 

about the Indigenous past is crucial. 

“There are many non-Indigenous 

people who were not taught 

proper Canadian history. This is 

not just Indigenous history, this is 

Canadian history,” says Thompson. 

There are 634 First Nations in 

Canada. They speak more than 

50 unique languages, according to 

The Canadian Encyclopedia. 

It is important for Canadian citizens, 

many of whom are non-Indigenous, 

to acknowledge and take 

the time to learn about the land 

where we stand. 

Indigenous history and culture 

deserves respect. It must be preserved 

and understood. This is 

what the 94 calls to action attempt 

to address and achieve. 

In 2018, the social studies and 

history curriculums for elementary 

and high school students changed 

to include lessons about Indigenous 

peoples, cultures and histories. 

Between 1999 and 2001, a Native 

Languages program was 

introduced to elementary and high 

school curriculums in Ontario. 

Recently, members of the Montreal 

Urban Aboriginal Community 

Strategy Network, a non-profit 

which works to improve the lives of 

Aboriginal people in the Montreal 

area, created an Indigenous Ally 

Toolkit. 

The toolkit emphasizes critical 

thinking, correct terminology and 

how to act accordingly, once armed 

with knowledge. 

All you need is five minutes to 

get started. 

“The more people educate themselves 

on the history and current 

Indigenous issues, the more they 

will understand the need for reconciliation 

and how this country 

can be so much better if we all accept 

each other’s differences,” says 

Thompson. 

Canadians need to take action. 

Cecelia Feor, 

Janis Williams, 

Jasper Myers 

EDITORS: Cameron Andrews, Rachelle Baird, 

John Elambo, Dakota Evans, Cecelia Feor, Peter 

Fitzpatrick, Nicholas Franco, Kathryn Fraser, 

Jackie Graves, Madison Gulenchyn, Leslie 

Ishimwe, Morgan Kelly, Victoria Marcelle, Jasper 

Myers, Meagan Secord, Keisha Slemensky, Janis 

Williams. 

The Chronicle is published by the Durham College School of Media, Art 

and Design, 2000 Simcoe Street North, Oshawa, Ontario L1H 7L7, 721- 

2000 Ext. 3068, as a training vehicle for students enrolled in Journalism and 

Advertising courses and as a campus news medium. Opinions expressed 

are not necessarily those of the college administration or the board of governors. 

The Chronicle is a member of the Ontario Community Newspapers 

Association. 

PRODUCTION ARTISTS: Abishek Choudary, Abhinav 

Macwan, Aidan Miller, Alexandra Spataro, Andrae 

Brown, Andrea Willman, Aritra Ghosh, Brandon 

Arruda, Brianna Dunkely, Emily Southwell, Indraneel 

Bhosale, Kevin Brown, Lewis Ryan, Rayaan Khan, 

Rosalie Soltys, Sedale Rollocks, Shelby Dowe, Jamie 

Ryll. 

ACCOUNT REPS: Amanda Cummer, Ashley Gomes, 

Dana Heayn, Devante Smith, Elyse Duncan, Emily 

Kajuvee, Isabella Bruni, Jacob Clarke, Jordan Stojanovic, 

Joe Ukposidolo, Justin Harty, Matthew Hiscock, 

Andrew Jones, Julian Nirmalan, Kayla Benezah, Kaela 

Wilson, Lisa Toohey, Marlee Baker, Meagan Olmstead, 

Noelle Seaton, Pooja Pothula, Rachel Enright, 

Rebecca Thomas, Sarah Saddal, Sahithi Mokirala, 

Sheila Ferguson, Tatiana Sorella. 

Publisher: Greg Murphy Editor-In-Chief: Brian Legree Editor: Danielle Harder Features editor: Teresa Goff Ad Manager: Dawn Salter 

Advertising Production Manager: Kevan F. Drinkwalter Photography Editor: Al Fournier Technical Production: Keir Broadfoot

chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 19 – April 15, 2019 The Chronicle 5 

Opinion 

Educational institutions aren't up to par 

Jackie 

Graves 

Students aren’t learning the necessary 

skills they need to be employable 

and it’s time to hold institutions 

accountable. Plain and 

simple. 

Post-secondary students in Ontario 

aren’t up to par when it comes 

to numeracy and literacy skills - 

which is a big problem, and you 

can count on that. 

Two studies conducted by the 

Higher Education Quality Council 

of Ontario (HEQCO) surveyed 

over 7,500 students across 20 Ontario 

post-secondary institutions, 

and what they found is both sad 

and highly concerning. 

The studies showed a large number 

of students scored below what 

is “adequate” in order to succeed 

in the current job market. Those 

who scored at a “superior” level 

only made up a third of the students 

surveyed. 

How is this possible when one of 

the primary reasons students pursue 

higher education is to get a job? 

The president and chief executive 

of HEQCO, Harvey Weingarten, 

says while universities and 

colleges insist they prepare students 

for the workplace, employers are 

“frustrated” as students lack critical-thinking, 

problem-solving, and 

communication-based skills. 

It’s important to note this study 

was measuring whether or not 

students can process written and 

numerical information to solve 

problems -- it wasn’t testing if they 

could read or perform arithmetic. 

This speaks volumes as to how 

the education system is handling 

their students’ education. 

Students aren’t learning the 

necessary skills they need to be 

employable and it’s time to hold 

institutions accountable. Plain and 

simple. 

However, it’s fair to say students 

have to ensure they make the most 

of their education. All college programs 

in Ontario have employability 

outcomes in their courses. 

These Essential Employability 

Skills (EES) are critical for student 

success in the workplace regardless 

of their program. According to 

the Durham College website, these 

skills focus on three fundamental 

assumptions. 

They are important for every 

adult to function successfully in society; 

colleges are well equipped to 

prepare graduates with these skills; 

and these skills are equally valuable 

for all graduates regardless of their 

level of credentials or their choice 

in a career path or further education. 

Yet, it isn’t just students in college 

and university who are struggling, 

it’s a large number of Ontarians. 

According to the Community 

Literacy of Ontario, a provincial 

literacy network,15 per cent of 

people in Ontario ages 16 to 65 

scored at and below level 1 of literacy. 

People at this level will struggle 

seriously with reading even the 

most basic texts. 

It doesn’t stop there, however. 

The Community Literacy of 

Ontario also reports 32 per cent 

of Ontarians scored at a literacy 

level 2. 

This means they can read with 

difficulty and likely will have issues 

navigating basic forms and directions 

encountered in daily life, such 

as rental agreements and even 

medical instructions. 

On the numeracy side of things, 

the outcomes are even grimmer; 

22 per cent of people scored at or 

below numeracy level 1, meaning 

they have very limited math skills. 

Thirty-one per cent scored at a 

numeracy level 2, which means 

they’ll struggle with completing 

common and necessary numeracy-related 

tasks. 

This means more than half of the 

people in Ontario have less than a 

numeracy level 3. 

According to the Employment 

and Social Development Canada 

and the Conference Board of Canada, 

you need to at least score this 

level to function well in modern 

Canadian society. 

Clearly, this is not an isolated 

issue, and arguably the current 

education system is at the heart. 

Institutions have teaching outcomes 

in place to ensure their pupils 

are employable. 

Under no circumstance should 

an educated person struggle with 

everyday challenges. 

So, either someone isn’t doing 

their job, or it’s time to reform the 

current system to make post-secondary 

students employable. 

Critical thinking, problem-solving 

and communication skills need 

to be taught and reinforced before 

students begin post-secondary. 

The secondary school curriculum 

should focus less on literacy 

curriculum what is this? from 

2003 and “theory and abstract 

problems” when it comes to mathematics. 

Instead, high-school students 

need up-to-date, practical literacy 

and numeracy curriculum to make 

sure they’re prepared for not only 

for future education but for life. 

As for post-secondary, they need 

to ensure students are meeting the 

employability outcomes for all 

programs by injecting them in the 

classroom. 

Whether it’s through problem-solving 

activities, group work, 

critical thinking through real-world 

situations, or replacing algebra 

with “what a mortgage is and what 

taxes mean” course. 

Suffice to say, something needs 

to change. 

The job market is forever adapting 

and students are expected to 

as well. 

It’s time that their institutions did 

the same. Student employability is 

counting on it. 

How does climate 'change' the weather? 

The ice caps are melting, the sea 

levels are rising, and the temperatures 

are climbing. These are all 

well-known side effects of global 

warming but as recent weather 

indicates, storms are also intensifying. 

Storms in Oshawa, and all over 

the province, have been stronger 

than usual, especially in the last few 

months. 

Heavy snowfall, raging winds 

and slick freezing rain have hammered 

local businesses, affected 

travel conditions and even closed 

post-secondary campuses. Changes 

in climate have been altering our 

weather and increasing the severity 

of storms. 

These stronger systems are created 

as a result of human activity and 

polluting the environment and this 

is a serious problem, a 2017 extreme 

weather studysays. 

Climate change strengthens 

storms no matter the season. To 

understand howclimate change 

strengthens storms, one must 

understand the greenhouse effect. 

The greenhouse effect, a natural 

occurrence, contributes greatly to 

climate change. 

The solar energy we receive from 

the sun heats our planet - NASA 

says some heat from the sun is reflected 

but most of it is absorbed 

through our land and oceans. 

As the earth warms, the planet 

radiates heat known as thermal 

infrared radiation. This energy 

travels up into the atmosphere and 

the radiation is absorbed by greenhouse 

gases such as carbon dioxide, 

nitrous oxide, methane and water 

vapour. 

Kathryn 

Fraser 

Greenhouse gases trap and send 

heat all over but most of the heat 

penetrates the earth’s surface - thus 

producing warmer temperatures. 

Humans are changing the course 

of nature by sending more chemicals 

into the atmosphere, creating 

an ‘enhanced’ greenhouse effect. 

This means stronger, potentially 

destructive and even deadly weather 

conditions worldwide. 

According to the 2014 Fifth Assessment 

Report from the Intergovernmental 

Panel on Climate 

Change, 

“since the industrial revolution 

began in 1750, carbon dioxide levels 

have increased nearly 38 percent 

as of 2009 and methane levels have 

increased 148 percent.” 

Carbon dioxide and methane 

are released through a variety of 

methods such as burning fossil 

fuels, farming and deforestation. 

The more greenhouse gases in the 

atmosphere, the more heat is absorbed 

and trapped in the atmosphere. 

The Fifth Assessment Report 

also identified industrial activities 

have propelled global warming forward. 

Carbon dioxide levels have 

raised from “280 parts per million 

(ppm) to 400 parts per million in 

the last 150 years.” This means a 

120 ppm increase in atmospheric 

greenhouse gas concentration. The 

panel concluded “there’s a more 

than 95 percent probability that 

human activities over the past 50 

years have warmed our planet.” 

Warmer temperatures will also 

lead to more water vapour concentration 

in our atmosphere, creating 

hotter and moister average temperatures. 

This means heavier rainfall, intense 

flooding and more frequent 

lower pressure systems. Through 

forecasting models and remote sensing, 

precipitation data can be interpreted, 

processed and broadcasted 

to the public. 

However, some storms are more 

difficult to read. The link between 

tornadoes and global warming 

is still unclear with little to no 

research concluding additional 

strength or damage associated with 

the disaster. 

The Centre for Climate and 

Energy Solutions says climate 

change could eventually shift the 

timing of tornadoes and their locations, 

which is bad news for us. 

Tornadoes are sporadic, shortterm 

and need the right balance of 

conditions to form. 

Hurricanes are more predictable, 

last for a few days and easily require 

warmer oceans. 

Warmer oceans encourage 

stronger and more damaging hurricanes. 

Hurricane seasons have been 

extending and the storms have been 

more frequent due to atmospheric 

instability. Climate change contributes 

to the speed and power of these 

cyclones. It is still possible to slow 

down the process of climate change 

and avoid wilder weather. 

Small changes in support of the 

Simple ways that you can reduce carbon emissions. 

environment can make a large impact 

on the earth’s carbon footprint. 

The sustainability and future of our 

planet relies on reducing greenhouse 

gas emissions. 

Infographic by Kathryn Fraser 

In order to ensure a safer tomorrow 

for the next generation, 

we must realize climate change is 

real and is escalating the weather 

around us.

6 The Chronicle March 19 – April 15, 2019 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Campus 

Our stories from Kenya 

Durham Journalism - Mass Media students tell the stories of how 

Colleges and Institutes Canada - including Durham - are assisting 

the Kenya Education for Employment Program (KEFEP). 

The stories, told through multimedia Esri story maps, 

can be found at chronicle.durhamcollege.ca 

Screenshot from Chronicle website 

A screenshot of one of the KEFEP Overview story maps, created by students in the Journalism - Mass Media program. 

Sharon Eshuchi, a program 

officer with KEFEP, is 

surrounded by the Durham 

College team in Nairobi, 

Kenya, (from left) Shanelle 

Somers, Danielle Harder, Jeff 

Burbidge, Jennifer Bedford, 

Ana Belen Jimenez, Joanne 

Spicer and Janis Williams. 

Photograph by Amunga Eshuchi

Community chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 19 - April 15, 2019 The Chronicle 7 

Welcome 

to the 

Land Where 

We Stand 

The land where we stand at Durham College and the 

University of Ontario Institute of Technology sits on 

traditional territory of the Mississaugas of Scugog 

Island First Nations, within the territory covered by the 

Williams Treaties. 

Uncovering the hidden stories about the land our 

community is built on is what the The Chronicle's 

feature series, the Land Where We Stand, is about. The 

series is an ongoing collaboration with the Oshawa 

Museum. 

Pages 8 - 11 are some of the stories students have 

created to represent the changing socioeconomic, 

political, environmental and cultural areas of Durham 

Region. 

Read more at chronicle.durhamcollege.ca. 

Follow us @DCUOITChronicle and use 

#landwherewestand to join the conversation, ask 

questions or send us more information. 

Photograph by Jasper Myers 

Photograph courtesy of the Oshawa Centre 

The Camp X monument at Intrepid Park in Whitby. 

The Oshawa Centre in the 1960s, when it was an open air mall. 

Photograph courtesy of Whitby Archives 

Cullen Gardens & Miniature Village was a popular tourist attraction in Whitby. It opened in 1980 and was active for 25 years.

8 The Chronicle March 19 – April 15, 2019 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Community 

History parked at Canadian Automotive Museum 

Cecelia Feor 


The Canadian Automotive Museum 

(CAM) has been driving 

its automotive collection forward 

since opening day on September 

23, 1963. 

Each car has a story, and its history 

remains parked in the museum. 

While many people’s favourite 

memories about CAM may be the 

cars on display, Ted Rundle, 68, 

can’t say the same. 

In 1962, his father, Dr. Ed Rundle, 

bought the building the museum 

now occupies, which, from 

1935-1960, was the Anglo-Canadian 

Drug Company. 

“It smelled like pharmaceuticals, 

it was unbelievable,” Rundle says, 

noting the building was completely 

empty upon his first visit. 

Something else caught young 

Rundle’s attention: the freight elevator. 

The elevator has been a part of 

the building since the first known 

tenant, The Jackson Motor Company, 

in 1921. It was also useful 

for Ontario Motor Sales, who 

later occupied the building from 

1924-1931. The upper level was the 

showroom, ground level the service 

centre and the basement was storage 

for parts. 

“We used to go into that, slide 

the gate shut, and we’d go up and 

down in the elevator as little kids,” 

Rundle says with a grin, noting it’s 

his favourite memory of the museum. 

The elevator is still in use today, 

and helps to move vehicles on the 

second floor. 

Dr. Rundle bought the building 

as an investment, and rented it to 

CAM until 1968, when the museum 

was able to buy it from him 

for $125,000. 

The then-town, now city, of Oshawa 

was able to raise $105,000 for 

the purchase of the building, and 

R.S. McLaughlin donated the remaining 

$20,000 needed. 

The current parking lot of CAM 

was, at one point, Dr. Rundle’s 

practice and home. It was also the 

building Rundle was born in. 

The museum was a project of the 

Oshawa Chamber of Commerce, 

which it shared the building with 

until the Chamber relocated in 

1973. 

While Rundle did not attend 

opening day at CAM, Bob 

Schmidt, 71, did. 

“I don’t remember how many 

cars were in here, but I remember 

being impressed,” Schmidt says. 

He attended opening day with 

his father, who worked at a car 

dealership. 

Over the years, he would make 

the trip from Orillia to visit the museum 

while his wife shopped in the 

Oshawa Centre. 

Schmidt has been a tour guide at 

CAM since 2013, after he retired as 

a teacher and moved from Orillia 

to Oshawa. 

As for Schmidt’s favourite memory, 

it involves family too. 

“Bringing my sons here. They’re 

both gear-heads like me, they both 

love cars,” he says with a smile. 

Schmidt’s sons are both engineers, 

and he thinks coming to 

CAM had an impact. 

“I think they got their love of 

that partly from coming to The 

Canadian Automotive Museum,” 

he says. 

While Schmidt seems to know 

almost every car inside and out, 

he does have a favourite: The De- 

Lorean. 

“Sadly, John DeLorean was a 

very tall man, and so am I, so I 

can’t fit in the car,” Schmidt says 

with a laugh. 

Like Schmidt, Rundle first visited 

the museum with his father, 

but in 1964. 

“It was really cool going through 

it, some of the cars were just awesome,” 

Rundle says. 

Not only did Rundle play in the 

building as a child, he has also donated 

some items to the CAM. 

Recently, he donated lantern 

slides of Chevrolet cars. Despite the 

slides being black and white, Rundle 

says some of the cars were hand 

painted different colours, such as 

red, blue and yellow. 

Rundle’s grandfather, Colonel 

Frank Chappell, was the first 

engineer in Oshawa and helped 

convert and set up the Chevrolet 

division at General Motors (GM). 

Rundle also donated a film 

clip of his grandfather with the 

1,000,000th car coming off the 

GM line. 

CAM has seen an engine upgrade 

in recent years, in part because 

of curator Alex Gates, who 

started in 2014. 

“I’ve certainly learned a lot, 

we’ve been working to connect the 

museum side with the functional 

side of caring, operating and maintaining 

historical motor vehicles,” 

says Gates. 

While many museums have 

smaller pieces that are easier to 

display, CAM faces a unique challenge 

of having a larger and heavier 

items. 

“We have fewer objects, but they 

tell bigger stories,” Gates says. 

Although Canadian is in the museum’s 

name, there are a variety of 

cars on display. 

“That was a decision they made 

back in the 60s, to not just be the 

Oshawa or the GM, to not just have 

a local scope but to tell more of a 

national scope in terms of the stories,” 

Gates says. 

However the history of Mc- 

Laughlin Buicks and GM is an 

integral part of Oshawa’s history. 

The archivist at the Oshawa 

Museum, Jennifer Weymark, says 

CAM has played an impactful role 

in the development of the City of 

Oshawa. 

“Oshawa has a long history of 

manufacturing and the automobile 

industry was arguably the most important 

industry in Oshawa for a 

very long time,” she says. 

In recognition of that, efforts 

were made to expand and improve 

the museum in the 1970s. 

A relocation was also pushed, to 

be closer to Highway 401. The site 

was meant to be the current GO 

Train parking lot. The efforts were 

in hopes of increasing attendance. 

CAM hoped to adopt the name 

AutoCanada, and with its hopes 

came a $3-million price tag and as 

a result, support diminished. 

By 1982, the plans were cancelled. 

The museum renovated the front 

lobby and the entire building was 

used for the museum. 

But the brakes weren’t put on 

after that. 

In 1986, the museum received 

cars from the Craven Foundation, 

whose parent company manufactured 

tobacco products. 

In 1995, the museum acquired 

another 20 cars from the collection 

of John McDougald, a Canadian 

business tycoon. 

The newest car CAM has on display 

has three movies under its belt. 

Photograph by Cecelia Feor and The Oshawa Museum Archives 

The Canadian Automotive Museum as it looked in 1963 (right side of image) and as it looks now (left side of image). 

We have fewer 

objects, but 

they tell bigger 

stories. 

Lightning McQueen from the 

Pixar animated movie Cars is on 

lease and displayed at the museum, 

among the older models. 

Gates says the collection at the 

museum is unique since it didn’t 

come from one collection, and as a 

result can tell multiple stories about 

the cars. 

“To show these cars off as not 

being factory examples that were 

put in a box for 100 years and then 

unveiled here, but having had lives 

and being driven places, and stored 

in garages and washed, adding that 

human element,” Gates says, adding 

that information is a lot more 

interesting to people, a sentiment 

echoed by Schmidt. 

“You like to see that spark when 

people get something, you know? 

So doing the tours is really great 

because you get to tell the stories of 

people who owned the cars, and the 

cars themselves,” he says. 

Even though it’s been a bumpy 

road, CAM continues to drive forward. 

In 2017, it received a Canada 150 

Community Infrastructure grant 

for various upgrades and maintenance 

on the building itself. 

Special guided tours are held 

during specific holidays, such as 

Valentine’s Day and Halloween, 

to emphasize the human story the 

collection tells. 

From selling and repairing the 

newest models, to housing a collection 

which brings a city together, 

The Canadian Automotive 

Museum has definitely made a 

round-trip.


Durham Region home for spies 

Jasper Myers 


Photo provided by Lynn Philip Hodgson 

Camp X telecommunications 

tool, Hydra. 

Growing up, Nancy Davidson, 61, 

never knew much about her father’s 

involvement in World War Two 

(WWII). 

Much like the history of Camp 

X, the spy training camp once located 

on the shores of Whitby and 

Oshawa, Davidson’s father Harvey 

Chambers kept the stories of what 

he truly did during WWII a secret. 

“My dad never talked about the 

war,” Davidson says. “It was not a 

conversation that we ever had ... 

we always watched Remembrance 

Day but there was not a lot of talk 

about it.” 

Chambers is one of over 500 

agents who trained at the camp. 

Camp X was created by the Government 

of Canada and the British 

Security Co-Ordination (BSC) on 

Dec. 6, 1941, one day before the 

attack on Pearl Harbour. 

British Prime Minister Sir Winston 

Churchill instructed BSC chief 

Sir William Stephenson, who was 

from Winnipeg, to create “ ‘the 

clenched fist that would provide 

the knockout blow’ to the Axis 

powers,” according to Lynn Phillip 

Hodgson, historian and author 

of Inside Camp X, as well as the 

website, camp-x.com. 

Hodgson has done an extensive 

amount of research on Camp X, 

but Oshawa Museum archivist, 

Jennifer Weymark, says not everyone 

believes Hodgson’s research is 

accurate. 

Camp X was known officially 

by many names: S25-1-1 by the 

RCMP, Project-J by the Canadian 

military, and STS-103 (Special 

Training School 103) by the Special 

Operations Executive (SOE), a 

branch of the British secret intelligence 

service. 

Hodgson, who has been studying 

Camp X for more than four decades, 

says the camp was important 

to the war. 

“All of what is now Durham Region 

played a very important role 

in the second world war, extremely 

important,” says Hodgson. “So 

much so that, if it [Camp X] didn’t 

exist, it could’ve made a difference 

in the war, in the outcome of the 

war.” 

The camp trained secret agents, 

like Chambers, to cross enemy lines 

in WWII on specialized missions. 

Agents were trained in silent killing 

and unarmed combat. Spies were 

also psychologically trained to always 

be aware of, and respond to, 

their surroundings. 

One notable agent who trained 

at the camp was Ian Fleming, creator 

of James Bond. 

While some people dispute this 

claim, Hodgson and a current 

member of the international special 

operations community who 

has worked with Hodgson, say they 

have proof Fleming was there. 

“[I] sent them the documents 

that proves that Ian Fleming was 

at Camp X in 1943, in the summer 

of 1943,” says Hodgson. He adds 

although Fleming made up the 

Bond stories, the things he did in 

the books were based on what was 

actually done at the camp. 

“We have in multiple cases, 

interviews with Ian Fleming himself,” 

says the special operations 

agent, whose name is being withheld 

for security reasons. “So, we 

have literally BBC and even CBC 

interviews, that go back, they’re 

open source.” 

In a phone call interview, the 

special operations agent says the 

interviews with Fleming talking 

about his time in Canada go back 

to the ‘70s. 

The agent, who works as an instructor 

in the special operations 

community, also says Camp X and 

its training has had a great influence 

on the Canadian military 

today. 

“It was the founding birthplace 

of many of our unconventional 

warfare types of capabilities,” he 

says. “Camp X essentially was 

the most highly classified training 

facility for spies, secret agents, 

saboteurs, in some cases assassins, 

basically in the world in the early 

1940s.” 

Davidson, whose father died 16 

years ago, believes the people who 

trained at Camp X were a special 

group of people, and is impressed 

her dad was part of it. 

“It was such a specialized skill set 

to have and that my dad was part 

of that specialized skillset, that was 

sort of a cool thing,” she says. 

Some of the specialized skills 

agents were taught at Camp X include 

a form of martial arts called 

Defendu. 

Davidson’s father, Harvey 

Chambers, taught this skill to her 

The Camp X monument at Intrepid Park on Boundary Road in Whitby. 

husband, who has studied marital 

arts. 

“My dad said to him ... do you 

know ... how to walk if somebody 

has a gun in your back so you know 

where the rifle is?” explains Davidson. 

“And my husband would look 

at him and say, why would you 

want to know that, and my dad 

said, well it’s a useful skill.” 

It wasn’t until Chambers passed 

that Davidson and her husband 

learned it had been taught at Camp 

X. 

Agents training at Camp X also 

learned how to use traditional 

weapons like guns. Davidson remembers 

her dad using a gun as a 

kid, and how skilled he was. 

“It was pretty spectacular as a 

kid growing up to see my dad use 

a gun, because you’ve never seen 

anybody use a gun like my dad,” 

says Davidson, adding she wouldn’t 

even play video games with him. 

“My husband just said yeah you 

should try playing Duck Hunt with 

him [Chambers] on Nintendo,” she 

laughs. “I was like, forget it. You 

know, he would just look at you like 

‘why are you even trying?’” 

The international special operations 

agent says he uses the skills 

taught at Camp X in his own instruction. 

“I resurrected a lot of the original 

training and trade craft that was 

taught at Camp X by individuals 

like Bill Underwood, William Fairburn 

and different folks like that,” 

says the operations agent who had 

just returned from an overseas trip. 

“I modified many of these, these 

skillsets considerably for a modern 

application.” 

One of the camp’s notable features 

was Hydra, a telecommunications 

tool built by Pat Bayley and 


used at Camp X. Hydra was the 

most powerful communications 

tool of its type at the time. 

“It was the communication, soul 

communications base between 

North America and Great Britain 

during the war,” says Hodgson. Hydra 

was created to link the North 

and South America SOE and the 

European operations of SOE. 

The communications aspect 

was one reason Camp X was built 

where it was on the shores of Lake 

Ontario. The spot was ideal for 

bouncing radio signals. 

The lakeshore site was also 

chosen for its proximity to Defense 

Industries Ltd.(now Ajax), Camp 

30 in Bowmanville, the Oshawa 

Airport, and General Motors 

(GM). At that time, the Oshawa 

Airport was a Royal Canadian 

Airforce and Royal Airforce Air 

Training School and GM was producing 

tanks, machine guns and 

military equipment. 

Most of these places still exist, 

unlike Camp X. 

The monument stands as a reminder 

of what once was. Hodgson 

gives tours of the land, now Intrepid 

Park, for Doors Open Oshawa 

every year. 

Davidson visited Intrepid Park 

after her father died. 

“It’s sort of hard to believe that it 

was so close,” she says. “That it was 

just so close, and yet so far away. 

Nobody knew about it. It was just 

sort of a neat feeling, that he was 

part of there, that he was there.” 

After WWII, the camp operated 

until 1969. But it went by a different 

name. 

Camp X was called the Oshawa 

wireless station. “And what they did 

was, because the radio technology 

was so state of the art, they continued 

to operate from Camp X, in 

the Cold War, with the Russians,” 

says Hodgson, who has travelled to 

Britain to do research for Camp X 

and WWII. 

“Camp X was absolutely active 

in some very, very Cold War 

spyesque, you know, types of activities 

during the Cold War,” says 

the special operations agent, who 

has known Hodgson for 20 years, 

adding a lot of the information 

pertaining to the Cold War is still 

classified. 

In 1969, the Camp X buildings 

were bulldozed into Lake Ontario, 

but one building was restored for 

the Ontario Regiment Museum 

by Durham College’s heritage program 

a few years ago. 

As for Davidson, her father never 

told her about training at Camp X. 

He did tell her husband indirectly, 

but since his death Davidson has 

spent time restoring the parts of 

her father’s story she could through 

her own research. Parts of the research 

were filled in by a neighbour 

Chambers also told. 

This year for the 75th anniversary 

of D-Day, Davidson is going 

to Juno Beach. 

“I’m conducting a choir, we’re 

representing Canada on Juno 

Beach this year,” says Davidson, 

whose father landed on Juno Beach 

on D-Day during the war. 

She says Chambers never returned 

to Juno Beach for any of 

the anniversary celebrations, but he 

did pay for two students from Port 

Perry High School to go because 

he felt it was important for them to 

learn that history. 

“It’s going to be wonderful,” 

she says, choking up. “It’s pretty 

amazing that they did that. I’m 

very proud of him."

10 The Chronicle March 19 - April 15, 2019 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Community 

Geothermal: A hidden energy 

Dakota Evans 


“When I was ten-years-old, I took 

a trip with my family to Germany 

and I saw a wind turbine for the 

first time, in person. Germany was 

very advanced when it came to 

that,” said Hamstra, who has since 

found herself drawn to solutions for 

climate change. 

Geothermal has been identified 

as an important technology to help 

reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 

80 per cent by 2050. 

Recent reports from the Canadian 

Greenbuilding Council have 

identified geothermal as one of the 

key technologies to be implemented 

for heating and cooling built environments. 

“A very small amount of electricity 

is required to do the heat transfer,” 

said Sarah Dehler, communications 

and sustainability specialist 

for Siemens, the largest industrial 

manufacturing company in Europe 

with a branch office in Ottawa. “It 

is a very efficient technology.” 

Many students from Oshawa’s 

Durham College (DC) and the 

University of Ontario Institute of 

Technology (UOIT) have walked 

to the library, attended frosh week 

events or sat and enjoyed time with 

friends at The Polonsky Commons. 

However, right under the feet of 

those students is something special. 

UOIT is using renewable energy 

known as geothermal to conserve 

and reuse heat which comes from 

the earth. 

UOIT has been using a 2,000- 

ton geothermal energy system, 

which has been operating since 

2004, to heat their buildings during 

the cold weather and provide 

cooling during the warmer months. 

“I had no idea, that’s actually 

really cool,” says Crystal Slappendel, 

a third-year accounting major 

at UOIT. 

Durham College’s north Oshawa 

campus will join UOIT and DC’s 

Whitby campus by using geothermal 

this spring. 

Doug Crossman, who has been 

director of facilities management 

at DC and UOIT since 2005, is 

at the forefront of the geothermal 

renovations at DC Oshawa. 

“Durham College’s Whitby 

Campus has also been using the 

geothermal method on their buildings 

for around eight to nine years,” 

said Crossman. 

The Simcoe Geothermal Field, 

which will sit where the old Simcoe 

Building once sat on the north 

campus, will look and work similar 

to UOIT’s but on a smaller scale. 

“We [DC] have gone after significant 

funding which would allow 

us [DC] to install geothermal. 

The capital upfront and cost of the 

system at the start is higher but the 

payback and the operating costs are 

lower,” said Crossman. 

Laura Hamstra, sustainability coordinator for Durham College. 

On March 12, 2018, DC announced 

$14.7 million for funding 

by the province’s Greenhouse Gas 

Campus Retrofits Program. DC’s 

geothermal field will use $9.1 million 

while another $1.45 million 

will go into completing upgrades 

on existing facilities. 

The announcement was part 

of Ontario’s five-year Climate 

Change Action Plan from 2016 to 

2020. 

We [DC] have 

gone after 

significant 

funding. 

In the long run, DC will pay less 

for the energy needed, said Crossman. 

DC’s north campus will be using 

one of three types of Underground 

Thermal Energy Storage (UTES) 

known as the Borehole Thermal 

Energy Storage (BTES) consisting 

of a series of six-inch drilled holes 

600 feet down. 

“These boreholes are filled with 

piping inserted, known as U-tubing, 

which goes all the way each 

way to discharge heat into the 

ground and pull heat from the 

ground,” said Crossman. 

According to DC’s Green 

Team newsletter, the BTES systems 

work by having energy stored 

underneath the ground to be used 

when needed. 

Thermal energy will be deposited 

into the ground during the summer 

months to cool the buildings 

and during the winter months, it 

will be taken from the ground to 

provide warmth. 

The north Oshawa campus 

BTES system will be large-scale 

and at the beginning, will only provide 

energy to the Gordon Willey 

Building. 

The Simcoe Geothermal Field 

will be the foundation for DC’s 

brand new Innovation Centre, a 

new home for experiential learning 

on campus. 

Both the Simcoe Geothermal 

Field and the Innovation Centre 

share the primary contractor Siemens, 

said Crossman. 

“The Innovation Centre will 

provide a first-hand look at the 

equipment supporting borehole 

field and the transfer of thermal 

energy from the ground to the 

building,” said Dehler. 

“It’s important that students who 

will be working in these energy-related 

fields are educated.” 

Currently, there are two groups 

meeting to decide how to implement 

the Innovation Centre space 

into classrooms. 

“Energy Innovation Centre connecting 

Teaching and Learning 

(EICTL) is a group of academic 

leaders from across the academic 

institution who are steering how the 

space will be used by academics,” 

said Dehler, who has worked in the 

sustainability field for 12 years. 

Working alongside EICTL is a 

subcommittee comprised of about 

five faculty members, 

with individuals from the School 

of Skilled Trades, Apprenticeship & 

Renewable Technology (START), 

Science & Engineering Technology 

(SET) and Business, IT & Management 

(BTM). 

Geothermal is 

an underutilized 

resource. 

“At this moment it’s way too early 

to say - we (faculty) have only just 

started to see what it has to offer - 

it may affect some course material 

next semester,” says Philip Jarvis, a 

member on the subcommittee, and 

a professor in the school of Science 

& Engineering Technology. 

As a college, with an outcomes-based 

curriculum, DC focusses 

on hands-on learning and 

the Innovation Centre is yet another 

example. 

“At DC, we live by the words ‘the 

student experience comes first’,” 

Photograph by Dakota Evans 

said Hamstra. 

“Any opportunity to provide 

students with experiential learning 

and first-hand exposure to emerging 

technologies is a benefit to 

the students and the quality of DC 

graduates entering the workforce.” 

The Innovation Centre will allow 

students to observe how the 

equipment takes energy from the 

ground using TV screens. 

The students will also be able to 

watch informative videos on how 

the process of heat transfer works 

and how the geothermal renovation 

is contributing to campus sustainability. 

“The percentage of our greenhouse 

gas emissions that come from 

the built environment is significant 

and we as a society need to figure 

out how to decarbonize the heating 

and cooling of our buildings,” said 

Dehler. 

“Geothermal is an underutilized 

resource.” 

Like The Polonksy Commons, 

DC’s geothermal field will offer 

a new green space on campus for 

anyone on the campus. 

“The most immediate benefit 

of using geothermal energy at DC 

will be a reduction in our [DC’s] 

carbon footprint. 

I’m also excited to see the curriculum 

that will be developed to 

take full advantage of the Innovation 

Centre. 

Plus, a new green space is being 

designed on the field itself, which 

will be a great place to spend time 

during warmer weather,” said 

Hamstra.


Mini village, big nostalgia 

Janis Williams 


For many Whitby residents, the 

mere mention of Cullen Gardens 

and Miniature Village, brings back 

a deep sense of nostalgia. 

But Wayne White says he viewed 

the show garden through a less rosy 

lens. 

He visited Cullen Gardens a 

handful of times with his children 

but his memory of the property 

goes back to his childhood. 

In 1948, a then two-year-old 

White, his parents, brother and two 

sisters moved in to what would later 

become Cullen Gardens’ gift shop. 

The home, which would later 

become known as the Jones-Puckrin 

House, was owned by farmer 

Frank Puckrin, who allowed farmhands, 

like White’s father, to live in 

the house. 

“It was kind of sad to go back 

there because I remember it growing 

up as a kid. I remember climbing 

a fence and there was always 

cows, chickens, pigs and goats 

around the house,” White says. 

“Then all of a sudden, it’s commercialized, 

an attraction – it wasn’t 

like home anymore.” 

The 87 acres of land where Cullen 

Gardens stood, located north 

of Taunton Road and Cochrane 

Street, has transformed over the 

years. From Indigenous land, to a 

farm, to the Miniature Village and 

garden attraction affectionately remembered 

by visitors. 

Whitby Mayor Don Mitchell says 

it’s fair to say Cullen Gardens put 

the town of Whitby on the map. It 

was an integral part of the community 

for a quarter of a century. 

Founder Leonard (Len) Cullen 

created aesthetically pleasing 

colourful gardens housing a miniature 

village based on an imaginary 

Ontario town; the structures 

of the life-like village were made 

to scale, with close attention to intricate 

details. Cullen Gardens and 

Miniature Village opened in May 

of 1980. 

The fictional town was surrounded 

by the natural beauty of 

the trees, hills, ponds and land, 

located at 300 Taunton Rd. W. in 

Whitby. Operational miniature 

boats floated on water while mechanical 

trains chugged by the town, 

which brought imagination to life. 

Whitby’s current mayor, Don 

Mitchell, remembers delivering 

lumber to the Miniature Village 

as part of his first job. He says Cullen 

was a great supporter of local 

business. Mitchell later visited the 

attraction as a father with his kids. 

He fondly remembers Halloween 

as his favourite occasion at Cullen 

Gardens. 

Christmas was particularly 

magical at the Miniature Village. 

The imaginary town became a 

winter wonderland, all decked out 

Cullen Gardens and Miniature Village was open to the public for 26 years. 

for the holiday season. Lights were 

carefully strung from the scaleddown 

homes and Santa came to visit, 

while Christmas music filled the 

air. Visitors also enjoyed carolling, 

skating and the infamous Festival 

of Lights, proving even while the 

garden hibernated, the village was 

in full bloom. 

“It was certainly a source of local 

pride, it was a beautiful place to 

visit because Len was such a genius 

with flowers and horticulture,” says 

Mitchell. 

Cullen’s influence went beyond 

the trails of gardens in Whitby, he 

was known as a visionary and pioneer 

in the horticulture industry. His 

passion began when he worked as 

a teenager for a landscape business 

owned by John Weall. At 22-yearsold, 

Cullen would purchase the 

business. By 1955, he evolved the 

business to become a thriving nursery, 

at a time when garden centres 

were uncommon. 

Ferencz says Cullen was dedicated 

to making his dream of a landscaped, 

show garden come true. 

The landmark allowed Cullen to 

share his passion of horticulture 

with the public. 

Connecting with guests was a 

priority for Cullen. He personally 

responded to each compliment 

and complaint about visitors’ experiences. 

Cullen enjoyed the written 

word and human interaction. 

He wrote his own speech for the 

opening day of Cullen Gardens 

and Miniature Village, including 

a poem inspired by Whitby. 

Cullen Gardens and Miniature 

Village permanently closed its 

doors on Jan. 1, 2006. 

Eight days later, the Town of 

Whitby purchased the land from 

the Cullen family. 

The property was designated a 

municipal park. After the town held 

a public naming competition, Cullen 

Central Park was announced, 

with a plan of open space and parkland. 

Later that year, in August, 

81-year-old Cullen died of pancreatic 

cancer. 

His children say he had dreamed 

of opening up another attraction 

for residents to enjoy, even purchasing 

a Whitby property on a 

whim. Cullen’s dream died with 

him because he didn’t want to burden 

his children to make his vision 

a reality. 

Cullen’s family donated the 

money from all property sales 

to charities of his choice – his 

final thank you to Durham Region 

residents for supporting him 

through the years. 

As for the actual miniature 

pieces from the fictional town, the 

collection was sold to the City of 

Oshawa. After collecting dust in a 

warehouse for years, the Niagara 

Parks Commission (NPC) bought 

the buildings in 2011. They are now 

on display at NPC’s Botanical Gardens. 

Years passed after the Town of 

Whitby took over the space and the 

historical buildings on the lot were 

left untouched. 

White says the buildings, including 

the Jones-Puckrin House, 

seemed forgotten. 

“The longer it went, the more 

dishevelled it was, as the buildings 

started deteriorating, it got even 

harder to go there to see how things 

have changed,” recalls White. 

A couple in search of a historic 

home came across White’s childhood 

house at the former Cullen 

Gardens site. They saw the potential 

behind the homes’ fragile and 

weathered state. The residence 

inherited new residents and a new 

land to stand, on Coronation Road 

in Whitby. 

White says he is at peace with 

his old home’s new location and 

owners, looking as picturesque as 

a piece belonging in the former 

miniature village itself. 

“I was really pleased with the 

way it looks now, it fits well with the 

surrounding area and with everything 

looking new,” he says, “I am 

really happy for the new owners.” 

For now, the land where Cullen 

Gardens and Miniature Village’s 

legacy lives is just property, with 

some ruins from the buildings left 

behind. 

Part of the terrain is about to 

undergo a major overhaul. It is 

slated to become a modern-day 

tourist destination - Nordik 

Spa-Nature Whitby. 

“I think it’s the most eagerly anticipated 

thing in Whitby, period,” 

says Mitchell. 

Recently, a poll was conducted 

on Facebook group Vintage Whitby, 

asking all 8,390 members if 

they were looking forward to the 

spa coming to Whitby. Out of the 

157 people who replied, 61 per cent 

were excited, 24 per cent were indifferent 

and 15 per cent were dissatisfied 

about the spa. 

Public and press director for the 

spa, Marianne Trotier says they 

chose Whitby for the scenery. 

“Cullen Central Park offers a 

beautiful landscape to build such 

Photograph courtesy of Whitby Archives 

facilities,” she says, “we look for locations 

close to an important community, 

as we wish to greet not only 

tourists, but locals as well.” 

Nordik Spa-Nature Whitby projects 

135,000 visitors a year, which 

would significantly impact tourism 

in Durham Region. 

The initial plan for the spa was 

approved by council in 2011. The 

original project did not include a 

hotel, which has slowed down production. 

Trotier says the spa is in the process 

of receiving quotes and scheduling 

construction. The target to 

open in the summer of 2019 has 

shifted, with no tentative timeline 

set. 

Through all of the changes on 

the surface of these grounds, one 

thing has remained the same. This 

piece of property has stunning 

views and the attractions housed 

on the land, have focused on the 

ever-present nature which encapsulates 

the space. 

Cullen penned a book in 1983 

called Dig About It ... And Dung 

It: Tales of a Gardener. 

“I like to walk in the woods in 

the fall, see the wildflowers in the 

spring, I love to create something 

and see others enjoy it,” he wrote. “I 

like the challenge of winning a contract 

and finishing the job on time, 

at a profit. I like building buildings, 

old architecture and Canadian antiques. 

These are some of the things 

that give me pleasure and fill me 

with satisfaction.” 

Cullen Gardens and Miniature 

Village and Nordik Spa-Nature 

Whitby share a field of dreams, 

united by two key pillars – nature 

and community.


DC students develop strategies for seniors 

Victoria Marcelle 


Students at Durham College (DC) 

are brainstorming to make lives 

better for seniors in Oshawa. 

The students, in a program 

called Gerontology - Activation 

Co-ordination, are developing 

initiatives in three areas to assist 

seniors. 

The plans include offering 

guidance regarding roommates, 

creating care boxes and building 

a connection to the services DC 

students offer on campus. 

“There’s always great things 

we want to advocate for [in our 

field] on behalf of older adults. 

So I thought we do a lot of talking 

about it, we learn about all the 

policies and we talk about all this 

change that should happen, but we 

don’t ever put it into action,” says 

Kimberlee Neault, the program’s 

coordinator. 

Two years ago, Neault rewrote 

the curriculum to include a social 

action plan project in the final semester 

of the graduate certificate 

program. 

Neault says the brainstorming 

process starts at the beginning 

of the course, which started 

in January. In Week 2, the 

class discusses ideas of what 

they would like to improve for 

older adults in the community. 

This year, the theme is age-friendly 

communities because Oshawa 

is trying to achieve that type of 

designation for the municipality, 

says Neault. 

“With that, I thought this was 

the perfect theme, that our students 

would work on something that 

would make the community more 

age friendly for the older adults,” 

says Neault. 

The first social action plan is 

called Aging in Place Facilitation 

and Housing plan, which assists 

seniors with the co-housing process. 

“[Older adults] might sell their 

own home and then come together 

with several other older adults into 

one home. They share the rent and 

the facility,” says Neault. 

Photograph by Victoria Marcelle 

Kimberlee Neault, gerontology program coordinator, tells how her students are getting involved. 

The program has a connection 

to four ladies in Port Perry 

called the Golden Girls, aged 65 

to 71, who have been featured on 

television and Zoomer magazine 

after moving in together to share 

housing expenses and companionship. 

The concept is catching on with 

other communities as a feasible 

way to age in place, says Neault. 

Age in place refers to the conscious 

decision to stay in the home 

of choice for as long as possible. 

“Because it’s hard to have your 

own individual home. A lot of 

expenses and that sort of thing. 

This way, you’re sharing the costs 

in one, big open-concept house,” 

says Neault. 

Another group of students is 

working on providing Community 

Care Boxes to people who are 

newly-admitted to long-term care 

or those in the community who 

have been isolated socially, which 

is a big problem for older adults, 

says Neault. 

The boxes are created with 

each individual in mind and may 

include a community resource information, 

a blanket, a game or a 

sensory item to ease anxiety, such 

as a stress ball or snow globe. 

The final project is the Senior 

Solace Centre. 

The plan involves having a hub 

on the DC campus where seniors 

can come to access many program 

resources and services provided by 

students, such as dental cleanings, 

yoga classes or massages. 

“We would also have activities 

for them, just as the Solace Centre 

has for students, we would 

have all those things for seniors. 

That’s what we do as activationists. 

We create environments and 

engaging activities for them, very 

person-centred,” says Neault. 

Uplifting boxes of 

love for sick kids 



Nicolle Georgiev faced a truth no 

parent wants to encounter. 

About six years ago the Pickering 

mom learned her daughter, Sophia 

Megan, was diagnosed with 

leukemia. Megan was still a month 

away from turning two. 

Now, age 8, she is a happy and 

healthy child. She recently celebrated 

five years of being a cancer 

survivor. 

After multiple hours in hospital, 

Georgiev took her experience 

and wanted to help others 

in a similar place. She started the 

Super Sophia Project, featuring 

love boxes – filled with items such 

as toys, books, activities, crafts, 

stuffed animals and clothing for 

infants and toddlers to school-age 

children and teenagers. The love 

boxes are given to children 18 and 

under in hospitals. 

“Sophia’s cancer-free and 

everything else is honestly a 

bonus,” Georgiev says, “she’s 

healthy and she’s inspiring other 

people to be kind, spread love and 

encouraging them to never to give 

up – it really is the best thing.” 

So far in three years, more 

than 3,000 loves boxes have been 

gifted to nine hospitals across the 

GTA, including Lakeridge Health 

Oshawa and locations as far away 

as Sudbury, Orillia and Barrie. 

Georgiev’s goal this year is to reach 

5,000 boxes, share with more hospitals 

and reach more children. 

“People are so good. I’ve encountered 

so many wonderful 

people, they want to help,” says 

Georgiev. 

Megan, who considers herself 

president of the project, is 

very hands-on. Georgiev says her 

daughter often handpicks items 

from her home and packs love 

boxes for other kids experiencing 

medical treatments, like she did. 

The project survives, Georgiev 

says, because of community-based 

volunteers and donations. The 

purpose is to bring kids some comfort 

and occupy their time, while 

they are away from home, she 

adds. 

Georgiev says if people aren’t 

able to create their own love boxes, 

individual donations are greatly 

appreciated, including monetary 

contributions and any handmade 

items, which will then be assembled 

into a package. 

Georgiev hopes people keep 

parents of sick children in mind 

when donating items, suggesting 

gift cards for coffee or toiletries 

for unexpected hospital stays as 

thoughtful gestures for families. 

“It’s [the project] like my little 

baby, it’s in my heart, I can’t stop," 

Georgiev says.

chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 19 – April 15, 2019 The Chronicle 13

14 The Chronicle March 19 – April 15, 2019 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca




18 The Chronicle March 19 – April 15, 2019 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca

Campus chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 19 - April 15, 2019 The Chronicle 19 

Photograph by Kathryn Fraser 

Forensic Science students from UOIT process the scene 

following the explosion at Founders Mall (UB Building). 


Mock 

Participants after the initial explosion at Founders Mall (UB Building). 

disaster 

Some numbers from the 

weekend-long event which 

saw the UB Building renamed 

Founders Mall and the CFCE 

renamed Founders Hospital. 

Infographic by Meagan Secord 

at DC, 

UOIT 


A hostage situation takes place at Founders Hospital (CFCE). 


Firefighting students respond to victims outside Founders Mall (UB Building). 

Continued on next page


Victims escape the Founders Mall (UB Building) explosion. 



Paramedic students load a patient into an ambulance to take them to 

Founders Hospital (CFCE). 

On Feb. 23-24, DC and 

UOIT staged its 

first mock disaster 

titled 'Project Lord 

Ridgeback'. Students 

from 21 programs got 

hands-on experience 

in their respective 

fields by responding/ 

participating in the event. 

Photograph by Kathryn Fraser 

The scene following a wall collapse at Founders Mall (UB Building). 


Victims outside Founders Mall (UB Building) following an 

explosion. 

Photograph by Meagan Secord 

Firefighting students respond to the explosion at Founders Mall (UB Building).

chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 19 – April 15, 2019 The Chronicle 21 

Entertainment 


Brothers Bill (left) and Dave (right) Wilson own and operate Wilson and Lee, which their grandfather started. 

Wilson and Lee approaches its centenary 

Music 

store sells 

records, 

sheet music, 

instruments 

Jasper Myers 


Wilson and Lee has been instrumental 

to music lovers in Oshawa 

for nearing a century. 

The independent, family-run 

music store, has survived the 

switch from vinyl records to digital 

downloads for 96 years. Ironically, 

they’re back to selling vinyl again. 

Ken Perrier – a customer at the 

store since 1980 – thinks he knows 

why the company is successful. 

“They should be charging admission, 

because it’s just such an 

enjoyable visit,” says Perrier. 

He says the service is great, explaining 

that they will get whatever 

he’s looking for, in store or not, no 

matter how hard it is to find. 

Located at 87 Simcoe St. N. in 

downtown Oshawa, Wilson and 

Lee is owned and operated by 

brothers Bill, 79, and Dave, 65, 

Wilson, and sells musical instruments, 

records, sheet music, CDs 

and memorabilia. 

The store’s president, Bill Wilson, 

began working in the shop at 

age 13 and still puts in 55 hours a 

week. He says his grandfather, William 

Wilson, started the business 

in 1922 after working at Williams 

Piano Factory in Oshawa. 

William quit the piano factory 

and started tuning pianos at 

people’s houses. Because he was 

blind his wife, Mary Lee (the ‘Lee’ 

in Wilson and Lee), drove him 

around. When he tuned pianos, 

sometimes he’d find people didn’t 

want them anymore. 

“So he would buy them [pianos], 

take them back to the house, recondition 

them, and sell them,” says 

Wilson, adding his grandfather 

added radios, records, and sheet 

music a little later on. 

When the store originally 

Wilson and Lee as it looked in 1926. 

opened, it was located at the corner 

of Wilkinson Avenue and Albert 

Street. Then around 1925-1926, 

the store moved to downtown Oshawa 

at a different Simcoe Street location 

from where it stands today, 

Wilson says. 

The store moved to its current 

location when his father and uncles 

came back from the war. 

“They came back into the business 

in the ’50s, there was prosperity,” 

says Wilson. “Because after the 

war, people needed everything.” 

Business did so well Wilson’s 

father and uncles borrowed money 

from a few people willing to lend 

it to them and in 1953 built the 

store that stands today, according 

to Wilson. 

He says business was so good at 

that time, he believes the building 

was paid off a few years later. 

In the years Wilson and Lee has 

been running, there’s been a lot of 

change in music. For a while, records 

went out of style but the store 

continued to prosper. 

“We certainly weren’t generated 

by records,” says Wilson. 

“We’re a music store. We’re also 

a record store, but primarily a 

Photograph provided by Bill Wilson 

music store.” 

The store always sold instruments 

and even sold stereos for a 

while. Wilson says they also sold 

accordions in the ’50s, because of 

all the people moving from Europe. 

Right now the biggest seller 

is ukuleles. 

However, Wilson says they 

stopped selling records for a while 

in the ’90s as their popularity decreased. 

“At that point in time I had a 

store full of records I had to get 

rid of, and then, what, 20 years 

later I’ve got a store full of records 

again,” says Wilson. 

When General Motors had a 

plant and its headquarters in north 

Oshawa, Wilson says GM employees 

were good for downtown business. 

“People would come in at lunchtime 

and buy records, buy music, 

sometimes they’d buy guitars,” says 

Wilson. 

With the recent announcement 

of the 2019 closing of GM’s south 

plant, Wilson says there will be an 

impact, but with the college, universities 

and hospital he believes 

the store will be OK. 

The store has been his life and 

he’s seen the store continue to succeed. 

“It’s an integral part of my life, 

it’s what I do, it’s what I know how 

to do,” says Wilson, adding it never 

feels like work to him. 

As for competition, Wilson says 

they aren’t afraid of it. 

“I have no problem with competition,” 

Wilson says. “[Competition] 

is what makes the world go 

round. It would be awful if there 

was no competition.”

22 The Chronicle March 19 – April 15, 2019 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Entertainment 


Tim Packer at his art gallery in downtown Oshawa. 

From police badge to paint brush 



As a Toronto cop for almost 20 

years, Tim Packer came across 

many people who had brushes with 

the law. 

However, in 2000, Packer traded 

his gun for a paint brush and replaced 

his badge for an easel. The 

decision has led to a prolific career 

as an artist, selling some pieces for 

as much as $15,000. 

The Whitby resident of 29 years 

initially chose policing because he 

craved a steady paycheque. Packer 

climbed the figurative career 

ladder. He started as a uniformed 

cop, moved to the crime unit, and 

finished his career on the fraud 

squad, where he says he reviewed 

cases involving millions of dollars. 

He spent 1996 to 1998, as a Toronto 

police sergeant at 31 Division, 

covering the Jane and Finch 

area in Toronto. 

“I had my gun out more in those 

two years than I did in my whole 

career,” says the 57-year-old. 

He wasn’t always a man in uniform. 

Packer started off as a graphic 

design graduate from Toronto’s 

George Brown College in 1980. 

After being laid off from three consecutive 

jobs, he turned to policing 

to ensure a secure future. 

He found his career path after 

a conversation with his uncle, 

a member of the police service. 

According to Packer, he was told 

within three years, he would earn 

an annual salary of $40,000. So 

he trimmed his hair, shaved his 

beard and abandoned his childhood 

dream of becoming an artist. 

“I just really kind of turned my 

back on art for a while and just 

threw myself in my career as a police 

officer,” Packer says. 

Along the way, art slowly began 

creeping back into his life. 

He made caricature cards for 

fellow employees, to celebrate promotions 

or retirements. 

Packer says in 1993, he created 

a large water colour caricature 

for a Toronto Police Service and 

Toronto Maple Leafs charity golf 

tournament which benefited Sick 

Kids Hospital. It sold for $500. 

The next year, Packer says he 

made a print of four Toronto Maple 

Leafs’ hockey players, the last time 

the team came close to the Stanley 

Cup. The piece sold for $2,700. 

After a painting of Wendel Clark 

sold for $4,000, his friends on the 

service questioned why he didn’t 

pursue art on a full-time basis. 

His wife Diane Packer, supported 

his passion. Years earlier, he says, 

she had asked him not to give up his 

secure career – they had two young 

sons with looming post-secondary 

education fees. In time, it became 

obvious to Diane, her husband’s 

artistic abilities were more than a 

hobby - they could also be channeled 

into a successful business. 

At the turn of the millennium, 

Packer threw himself into the art 

scene like paint on a canvas. 

“I went from doing this job I 

really, really liked to being with this 

group of people who were doing 

what I wanted to do and pursuing 

what I loved,” he says. 

He served on the board of the 

Canadian Society of Painters in 

Water Colour (CSPWC), a huge 

coup in the art world. He subsequently 

led the CSPWC as president 

for two years. 

He went from idolizing the work 

of the Group of Seven, to having 

a beer with Doris McCarthy, who 

painted with the Group of Seven. 

She was considered by many in the 

art community as the most famous 

living Canadian artist, before her 

death in 2010. 

“I got to meet so many other successful 

artists and I looked at that 

as my master’s degree on how to 

become a professional artist,” Packer 

says. “I picked their brains and I 

was a sponge.” 

He was focused on portraits during 

this part of his art career but his 

true passion is painting landscapes. 

“I guess I’ll paint portraits to 

make a living and I’ll paint landscapes 

for fun,” is how he reflects 

on his artistic mindset at the time. 

The transition to landscapes 

proved to be personally and professionally 

fulfilling. 

Packer says he experimented 

with everything, from throwing 

paint to working with acrylics, oils 

and watercolours. 

“Eventually, my current style just 

started sort of coming out and then 

when it did, I just knew it was it,” 

he says. 

How does Packer describe his 

landscapes? 

Bright. Colourful. Composed. 

Mosaic. Intense. 

The true-to-life suns in each of 

I got here through a series of 

things I did, that any other artist 

can do to live their dream. 

his paintings are his signature. 

“I really believed in the new 

work but I also knew this was kind 

of make it or break it time,” says 

Packer, “if something didn’t happen 

in the next six months, I was 

going to be putting on a suit and 

looking for a job in corporate security.” 

After he spent $3,000 on his 

credit card for a booth at the weekend-long 

Toronto Art Expo, Packer’s 

risk turned into a reward. 

His van-full of paintings sold 

out and by Sunday he says, he 

was searching his basement for 

“B pieces” to bring for the last day 

of the expo. The weekend earned 

him $28,000 in sales. 

Packer now has a studio in his 

Whitby home and opened an art 

gallery on William Street West in 

downtown Oshawa in 2018. It is 

a family affair with Diane at the 

helm of finance and administration 

and his son Cameron Packer, helping 

with photography, videos and 

social media. Cameron also sells 

giclees (pronounced jhee-clays, a 

french word meaning “to squirt”) 

which are reproductions of original 

paintings, made from digital images 

and inkjet printers. 

Since the business aspect is 

a family affair, Packer’s time is 

freed up to paint. He often listens 

to music, groups like matchbox 20, 

while he spends his time his favourite 

way, in front of the easel. 

Packer says he enjoys sharing 

what’s he’s learned with other artists. 

He posts how-to-paint tutorials 

on his YouTube channel and hosts 

high-end paint along events at the 

gallery. 

A wave of a magic wand didn’t 

bring him his talent, Packer says. 

“I got here through a series of 

things that I did, that any other 

artist can do to live their dream.” 

Packer’s artwork hangs on walls 

around the world, including Australia, 

New Zealand and Germany. 

Much like picking a favourite 

child, Packer says he can’t choose 

just one painting he likes best but 

can narrow it down “to about 50. 

“My favourite is always the one 

I’m working on now,” Packer says 

with a coy smile.

Entertainment chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 19 – April 15, 2019 The Chronicle 23 

Jane Eccles 

threads stories 

through her 

paintings 



When local artist Jane Eccles 

left teaching behind, she says she 

never looked back. Now retired, 

69-year-old Eccles devotes her time 

to painting. 

Until that is, someone she 

worked with at Bowmanville High 

School (BHS) came to see her new 

art exhibit, In These Threads, at 

the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington 

(VAC). 

As Eccles strolled through her 

display at the VAC, at the end of 

last month, her former colleague, 

Thomas Brasch, happened to stop 

in to sneak a peek, not thinking 

he was actually walking into a reunion. 

The two had not seen each other 

for almost twenty years. Like Eccles, 

Brasch also gave up his life as 

a teacher to pursue art, in his case 

photography. He creates commemorative 

circular pieces by digitally 

manipulating photography. 

Brasch takes photos at places of 

tragedy, such as the Pulse night 

club in Orlando. He says his work 

remembers those who have perished 

and gives peace to those who 

were touched by the event and are 

still living. 

He credits his artistic success to 

people who supported him along 

his journey. 

“It’s those key people along the 

way that give you the extra nudge,” 

Brasch says, “Jane is one of those 

key people.” 

Brasch says art tells a story for 

those who will listen. "Jane tells a 

good story." 

Now retired, 69-year-old Eccles 

devotes her time to painting. 

She paints dresses but for the artist 

because, she says, a dress has 

more meaning than its material. 

There isn’t a dress in here that 

didn’t start with word,” Eccles says. 

Eccles, who has called Bowmanville 

home since 1974, paints portraits 

of dresses, intended to share 

women’s stories through her paintbrush. 

She says she is capturing the 

essence of a woman, their lives captured 

through the garments they 

wore. 

The artist carefully picks her 

projects which she calls a “portal 

into the woman’s life.” 

“That’s the key, it has to be 

beautiful for me to paint it,” she 

says, “I’ve turned down as many 

dresses as I’ve painted.” 

The dresses featured in her firstever 

solo show, which just concluded 

at VAC included a mixture of 

well-known and everyday women. 

The common thread is the power 

of their stories. 

The show also featured k.d. lang 

Costume, a wedding dress the 

singer wore with cowboy boots at 

a 1985 Juno Awards performance. 

Ruth’s Dress belonged to Ruth 

Watson Henderson, a Canadian 

composer. She wore the striking 

red ensemble while performing at 

the Eaton Auditorium in 1953. 

Eccles heard back from Canadian 

great Margaret Atwood 

one year after she initially reached 

out. Atwood wears many figurative 

dresses: poet, novelist, literary critic, 

essayist, inventor, teacher and 

activist. 

Atwood sent Eccles the colourful 

dress she purchased in Australia 

while writing Cat-Eye. The novel, 

as it turns out, feels like a biography 

to Eccles who says, “I am 

Elaine Risely,” the main character 

of the story. 

Margaret’s Dress, along with 

a mask Atwood sent along, is the 

“pièce de résistance” of the exhibit. 

Wind Chill is a powerful painting, 

which almost didn’t make the 

show. After careful consideration, 


Jane Eccles reflects on her life while viewing her exhibit at the Visual Arts Centre (VAC) in 

Bowmanville. 

Eccles and Sandy Saad, curator 

at VAC, knew it was needed to cement 

the entire exhibit. 

“[It] symbolized not only that 

women are measured but women 

have these unrealistic expectations 

that society holds them to,” Saad 

says. 

The sculptural piece and the 

painting it inspired, sit side by 

side at the exhibit. The object was 

Eccles' 65th birthday gift from her 

husband, artist Ron Eccles. She describes 

it as a “measuring cage” 

and says even though it is decaying, 

it serves its purpose. 

“Women are always judged, 

they’re always measured,” says 

Eccles. 

Women’s stories are impactful to 

Eccles. Thus far, she has focused 

on Canadian women but has 

reached out to Michelle Obama 

and Hilary Clinton. 

“I’m a feminist, not in the bra 

burning sense, but I believe in 

young women and I believe in 

women achieving what they’re set 

out to do – whatever that might 

be,” Eccles says. “I had the good 

luck of having a series of teachers 

that didn’t see my sex, they saw 

something in what I was doing.” 

Eccles started as a one woman 

show at BHS and grew her art department 

to a staff of five. 

In the beginning, she didn’t 

think she would be at BHS for 

long but her students pleasantly 

surprised her. 

“They were raw pretty much 

and I found I could work with 

them, I found they were phenomenal,” 

Eccles says. 

She was still an artist on her own 

time but says she was distinctly a 

teacher at school. 

“The artist and the teacher are 

compatible but I don’t like a conflict 

of interest. I didn’t like the idea 

I was the artist and they weren’t,” 

she says. 

Brasch remembers Eccles' passion 

to reach her students and push 

them to find their artistic edge. He 

says she was a strong teacher who 

wasn't afraid to challenge the traditional 

education system. 

In 1990, Eccles was one of ten 

recipients of the Marshall Mc- 

Luhan Distinguished Teachers 

Award. She was the sole woman 

with the honour that year. 

Eccles says McLuhan’s wife 

whispered to her “he [my husband] 

always thought that the artist 

knew it [understood life].” She 

then pinned a corsage on Eccles 

and said the men could do their 

own boutonnieres. 

Jane’s Dress, is a self-portrait 

amongst 15 other paintings is on 

display at the VAC. 

A then 40-year-old Eccles went 

to a store in historic Bowmanville 

and said to the lady at the shop, “I 

want a dress you wouldn’t expect 

me to buy.” 

She says she wanted to be transformed 

from teacher to woman, for 

a colleague’s retirement party – she 

calls it her Cinderella moment. 

Outfitted with the flowy purple 

frock, she was the only one dressed 

to the nines at the event, and that 

was okay with her. 

“I’ve grown into my own rags, 

I’ve grown into my own being. 

You’re different at 70 than at 40,” 

says Eccles. 

“Women are always waiting for 

‘the event’, buying clothes for the 

event and then the event doesn’t 

come,” says Eccles. 

Your life, reflects Eccles, is the 

event. 

Jane Eccles paints dresses 

with strong stories behind the 

fabric. Margaret's Dress (left 

photo) belongs to Margaret 

Atwood and Jane's Dress 

(right photo) is a self-portrait. 

on display at the VAC. 

Photographs by Janis Williams

24 The Chronicle March 19 – April 15, 2019 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca 

Sports 

Photograph by Cecelia Feor 

Daniel Cooper is one of six recruited rugby players for the inaugural 2018-2019 season. 

DC, UOIT recruiting the best 

Cecelia Feor 


The Campus Recreation and 

Wellness Centre (CRWC) bustles 

with both Durham College 

(DC) and University of Ontario 

Institute of Technology (UOIT) 

student athletes. 

Sydney Green may be one of 

them next year. 

Green has been playing soccer 

since she was seven, and is a fullback 

for the Nepean Hotspurs, 

a competitive soccer club in Ottawa. 

She admits she’s new to the 

“recruiting game.” 

She clutches her winter coat 

and stands next to her parents, 

who have driven more than three 

hours from Kemptville to Oshawa. 

The family are waiting for 

the DC women’s soccer coach to 

give them a tour of the facilities 

and the school. 

Each year during their sport’s 

season, coaches at both DC and 

UOIT work hard to lead practices, 

play games, and maybe get 

to the playoffs. 

But they are always looking at 

the next season. Coaches double 

as recruiters for their respective 

teams, searching for more than 

the best athletes. 

When they find the right fit, 

they send program books and athletic 

information. Coaches also 

try to get students on campus, so 

they can see where they will study 

and where they will play. 

“All the support they give their 

athletes helps with the nerves,” 

Green says of the tour she went 

on at DC. These supports come 

in many forms, such as study halls 

and athletic therapists. 

Alex Bianchi, DC women’s 

head soccer coach, guided the 

tour. 

“I want players to come to Durham 

because they want to come 

to Durham,” Bianchi says. 

As he walks Green through the 

CRWC building, he mentions the 

perks of being a student athlete, 

such as sports therapy services. As 

the tour continues in the Gordon 

Willey Building, he changes his 

focus to academics. 

Bianchi says he needs to “sell 

parents on the academics” at DC, 

and why it is a good choice for 

both soccer and schooling. 

He says although he is concerned 

with grades, he never 

wants to discuss them with athletes. 

He believes they have 

enough resources. 

“There’s no excuse to fail,” says 

Bianchi, who has spent two seasons 

with the team. 

This is a sentiment echoed by 

many coaches at DC and UOIT. 

Dave Ashfield, Lords men’s 

I care about them as a person, 

as a student, and last of all as an 

athlete. 

soccer coach, says players are 

students first and need to succeed. 

“I care about them as a person, 

as a student and last of all as an 

athlete,” he says. 

Justin Caruana, Ridgebacks 

women’s hockey coach, says he 

won’t shy away from players just 

because their grades aren’t as 

high as someone else’s. 

“We try to tell them that it’s 

not a right, it’s a privilege that you 

get to play hockey while you’re 

going to school,” Caruana says. 

He says he believes people develop 

differently, sometimes later 

in life. 

Curtis Hodgins, Ridgeback 

men’s hockey coach, has the 

benefit of getting players later in 

life. Since players can play for the 

OJHL until they are 20 years old, 

many players come to university 

hockey at 21. 

“When I first came in, I was 

solely looking for good hockey 

players,” Hodgins says. Now he 

also looks for good students, adding 

the dynamic of the team has 

changed. 

Two coaches have wrapped up 

their first seasons this year, at DC 

in men’s and women’s rugby. 

Coach Christopher McKee had 

a tough first season with Lords 

women’s rugby,winning one of 

their 12 games. 

He says he is looking for leaders, 

players who are willing to 

work hard and learn. He’s not 

focused on grades. Yet. 

“(My) approach has changed, 

to be a little bit more open-minded 

to not just good (rugby) programs 

but looking for good players 

in general,” McKee says. 

John Watkins, Lords men’s 

rugby coach, wants to see his 

players be good people outside of 

the game. 

“That’s what we look for… not 

only willing to work really hard 

but also to get involved with initiatives 

outside of practices and 

games,” he says. 

While coaches see academics 

on different levels, they all know 

one thing is the most important: 

the team. 

Caruana, who has been with 

the women’s varsity hockey team 

at UOIT for five seasons, says he 

will target girls for positions he 

knows other girls play who are 

close to graduating. But he also 

wants players who want to be at 

UOIT, who will take pride in the 

university. 

Caruana says he wants the 

“best product on the ice” but 

isn’t always watching what they 

do with the puck. 

“Sometimes I’ll watch (player’s) 

body language, I’ll watch 

how they are when they come off 

on the bench,” he says, adding he 

will look at how supportive they 

are of their teammates. 

Similarly, Hodgins says he 

looks for players who aren’t selfish. 

“In some cases, I’ll know right 

away it’s not a fit,” he says, either 

for the player or for him and his 

team. Hodgins, who has been 

with the men’s varsity hockey 

team at UOIT for three seasons, 

adds the team has a family feel. 

Story continued 

on next page.

Sports chronicle.durhamcollege.ca March 19 – April 15, 2019 The Chronicle 25 

'We take our program seriously' 

While hockey has been at UOIT 

since the school opened, rugby at 

DC faced different challenges 

thanks to its inaugural season in 

2018. 

McKee says coming into the 

season, which was his first, he only 

looked at high-end programs, but 

for next year’s team he’s looking 

more at local high school players. 

He isn’t ignoring the team’s need 

for elite players, though. 

“In sevens rugby, two or three 

elite players can change you from 

being a second last place team,” 

McKee says, adding those players 

could bring a team to the top three 

in the league. 

Watkins had more luck with his 

rugby team in the 2018 season, despite 

recruiting six players before 

the season officially started. 

The rest of the team was comprised 

from open tryouts. 

The men’s rugby team is a team 

players want to be a part of, he says. 

“Players know, coming to our 

school, we take our program seriously,” 

Watkins says, acknowledging 

the successful season the team 

had. 

Another successful team is DC 

women’s soccer, who won bronze 

last year in the playoffs. Bianchi, 

who has spent two seasons with the 

Lords women’s soccer team, wants 

to identify “what (prospective recruits) 

are capable of doing, and 

what they’re not capable of doing.” 

The success of the team helps 

bring in players, Bianchi says. 

They won bronze last year during 

the championships. 

He scouts players from clubs, like 

FC Durham Academy, and says a 

club says a lot about a player: if they 

are a player who cares. 

The motto for the DC women’s 

soccer team? “Soccer comes first, 

school comes second, and nothing 

else matters,” says Bianchi. 

It could be said the same motto 

applies to the men’s soccer team. 

Ashfield, who has been with the 

Lords men’s soccer team for five 

seasons, says he had to cut his star 

player a few years ago. 

He says the player was disrespectful 

to the staff and his teammates. 

“The first year of schooling he 

got nothing, like not a mark, never 

went to class, expected other people 

to do his schoolwork,” Ashfield 

says. 

He says he had to evolve the 

player and explain that is not acceptable. 

Ashfield says as a coach his recruiting 

style has developed over 

time. 

“(I can) see a vision where an 

athlete fits into the team,” he says. 

Ashfield is also concerned with a 

student as a person more than an 

athlete. 

“Really the goals and dreams of 

the athlete, I think, is the biggest 

thing,” he says. 

In his most recent season, Ashfield 

says 75 per cent this season 

recruited and 25 per cent were 

“gifts.” 

As for DC women’s soccer, Bianchi 

says his recruiting style has not 

changed. He says he is looking for 

the right players to make the team 

better than it was yesterday. 

Within one year of coaching, 

Bianchi had the team on-track, 

doing well on the field and in 

academics. He adds it could have 

taken three years to get there with 

the team. 

Also trying to get there is the 

men’s hockey coach, Hodgins,who 

says he “wears many hats” in addition 

to head coach, such as general 

manager and head scout. 

Hodgins wants to put his stamp 

on the program, something he says 

will be a seven-year process. 

Caruana has had more time to 

shape the women’s hockey team. 

In his office, he has a colour-coded 

binder full of all possible recruits. 

He has notes on each of those players 

and whether they have committed 

to other schools. 

He says he already has his team 

set for 2019 and is almost done recruiting 

for 2020 as well. 

“We’re new, we’re young,” 

Caruana says of the team, “We’re 

creating our history now.” 

Speaking of creating a history, 

both McKee and Watkins have 

begun to start a new chapter in 

DC rugby. 

In their favour, they both participate 

in rugby outside the college. 

Watkins is the president of the 

Oshawa Vikings rugby club and 

has coached with them since 2007. 

McKee is a high school teacher 

at Uxbridge Secondary School 

and coaches the girls' rugby teams 

and with the Oshawa Vikings as 

well. 

Building a winning team isn’t 

easy, but coaches at DC and UOIT 

know that. Their experience helps 

with their unrelenting search for 

the right players. 

But they are keen to remember 

a student athlete is a student first. 

As for prospective student and 

sports recruit Sydney Green, she 

hasn’t decided on a college just yet. 

However, current student and 

rugby recruit, Daniel Cooper, was 

one of the six players recruited for 

the inaugural rugby season. 

Cooper is no stranger to Coach 

Watkins, he has known him for 

more than five years through the 

Oshawa Vikings rugby club. 

“He sees everybody for who they 

are, not just a team,” Cooper says, 

adding he thinks Watkins is a great 

coach. 

Chris McKee, DC women's rugby coach. 

John Watkins, DC men's rugby coach. 

Photograph by Durham College Athletics 



Alex Bianchi, DC women's soccer coach. 

Photographs by UOIT Athletics 

and Durham College Athletics 

TOP: Curtis Hodgins (left), 

UOIT men's hockey coach. 

BOTTOM: Dave Ashfield (left), 

DC men's soccer coach. 

Photograph by UOIT Athletics 

Justin Caruana (right), UOIT women's hockey coach.

26 The Chronicle March 19 - April 15, 2019 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Sports 

DC, UOIT grad gets dream Olympic job 

Kathryn Fraser 


After spending years as an elite 

softball player and coach, a Durham 

College and UOIT grad is 

now using her knowledge to support 

other athletes. 

Oshawa native Shannon Galea, 

30, joined the Canadian Olympic 

Committee (COC) as a Game Plan 

specialist last September. 

“It’s a dream come true, it really 

is,” Galea said. 

Game Plan is a program created 

in collaboration with the COC, the 

Canadian Paralympic Committee 

(CPC) and the Sport Canada and 

Canadian Olympic and Paralympic 

Sport Institute Network (COP- 

SIN). 

Game Plan helps both current 

and retired athletes find other 

passions and transform them into 

well-rounded individuals. 

“It’s a very interesting program, 

it’s one of the only programs in 

Canada and it really aligns our 

sport system,” she said. 

Game Plan offers support 

through five areas: medical resources, 

skill development, education, 

networking possibilities and career 

opportunities. 

Game Plan advisors are at the 

forefront, working with athletes 

and supporting players through 

the five areas. The advisors are 

psychologists, life coaches, career 

counsellors, mental performance 

coaches and other wellness leaders. 

Galea’s role, as a specialist, is 

to oversee the work of the advisors, 

provide resources and develop programs. 

Galea earned her degree in G 

eography and Earth Sciences 

at McMaster University before 

graduating from UOIT in 2011 

with a Bachelor of Education. Following 

that, Galea taught health 

and physical education with the 

Durham District School Board 

(DDSB) before continuing to teach 

internationally. 

“Teaching is the foundation for 

everything that I do, it’s full circle,” 

she said. “It’s been the foundation 

for what I create and what 

I change.” 

During her tenure at UOIT, 

she participated heavily in campus 

athletics. Galea was a member 

of the Ridgebacks’ rowing and 

squash teams and helped create the 

women’s flag football extramural 

league, a joint league between 

UOIT and DC. 

Galea also graduated from DC’s 

Sport Business Management Program 

in 2012, then completed her 

master’s degree in Olympic Studies 

and Policy at the German Sport 

University Cologne. 

Photo supplied 

Shannon Galea says she tries to implement Canadian ideals and values into her international 

work. 

As a result of her connections, 

passion and education, Galea 

travelled to more than 40 countries. 

She lived in Holland, Italy, 

Belgium, Malta, New Zealand 

and Australia and played in their 

respective International Softball 

Federations. 

“With the coaching opportunities, 

I’ve been able to develop 

softball in my second nation -- I’m 

actually a dual citizen in Malta,” 

Galea said. “I was able to develop 

softball in my country which allowed 

for NCAA coaches to come 

over and create better opportunities 

for sport for young women.” 

Galea said her international 

travels have made her think more 

critically about Canada and her 

involvement at the COC. 

“I think about the bigger picture 

in a different way,” she said. “It’s 

really helped me grow into, ‘How 

can I bring this back to Canada? 

What can I do to bring my Canadian 

idealism and values [to other 

countries?] How can we unite Canada? 

What can we do to make a 

more active Canada?’ That’s where 

my motivations come from.” 

Initiatives, programs and projects 

are always being developed 

and created to help athletes across 

Canada, Galea said. 

“Right now, we are working on a 

mental health strategy for our athletes,” 

she said. “We have a partnership 

with Morneau Sheppell (a 

human resources company) and it’s 

a transition program for athletes 

who are looking to understand 

themselves outside of sport. [It 

will help athletes] re-identify and 

understand the changes they’re going 

to go through after competing 

at a high level for many years.” 

When she reflects on her own 

athletic success, Galea misses the 

“physical tenacity and challenge” 

of softball. But she also misses 

coaching and teaching. 

“The impact you can have on a 

child and a young elite athlete, you 

can’t describe it,” she said. “I spent 

seven years travelling internationally, 

working with children in every 

international federation I’ve played 

in. I wanted to be a role model for 

the young athletes that I coached 

and for the people that I love.” 

Former CFL player inspires Durham College students 

Jackie Graves 


Durham College (DC) students 

were tossing hacky sacks and talking 

education with a sporting backdrop 

recently. 

Former CFL player turned university 

graduate, Ryan Hinds, was 

invited to DC speak to students 

about the lessons he learned in 

sports and how he applied them to 

his subsequent education. 

Hinds was drafted by the Hamilton 

Tiger Cats in 2009 and played 

there until 2013 before signing with 

the Edmonton Eskimos. He played 

in Edmonton from 2013-2015. 

He was a free agent in 2016 and 

then agreed to a contract with the 

Ottawa Redblacks, before abruptly 

retiring to pursue health-related 

studies. 

The theme of his talk was to 

“bridge the gap between sports and 

academia,” according to Fitness 

and Health Promotion professor 

Lorne Opler. 

Born in Guyana, South America, 

Hinds, 32, is the youngest of four 

children. While he says his family 

“didn’t have much,” he loved his 

country and moving to Canada in 

the mid-1990s when he was “eight 

or nine” was challenging. 

“When I look back on my transition, 

some had it better, some had 

it worse,” says Hinds. 

He says in grade school, he spoke 

perfect English - but his accent 

made it difficult for other students 

to understand him. 

“The struggles of people not 

knowing what you’re saying, oh my 

gosh, it’s so frustrating,” he says. 

It wasn’t until high school when 

Hinds realized he wanted to work 

in health care in order to help 

people. 

“I always wanted to be involved 

in health care, so, I always knew 

that was going to happen at some 

point,” he says. “I just didn’t necessarily 

know when that was going 

to be.” 

Hinds says it’s important students 

have access to knowledge, as 

a lack of it can become a barrier 

for those who aren’t aware of their 

options. 

“The frustrating thing is you 

don’t know what you don’t know,” 

says Hinds. “You could be missing 

opportunities others aren’t.” 

After his retirement from the 

CFL, Hinds decided to continue 

his education. He earned a master’s 

degree in Health Administration 

from the University of Toronto. 

“(Football) camp really makes 

you realize or think about whether 

you really love it enough to do it 

or not. And I was at a point where 

I had decided against it,” he says. 

“It was time to do something different.” 

Hinds engaged students by asking 

questions, such as where they 


Former CFL player, Ryan Hinds, speaks to DC students about 

how sports and education contain valuable life skills. 

were from, what it was like to transition 

from another country and 

their personal struggles. 

As part of his presentation, Ryan 

took four volunteers to the front 

of the classroom. He made them 

stand in front of a garbage bin and 

throw hacky sacks into it. 

Hinds increased the difficulty in 

various ways. He put a chair over 

the bin; told students to choose a 

“challenging but successful” place 

to shoot from; and also asked a 

friend of theirs to choose where 

they should shoot from. 

“Failure can be a deterrent to 

trying again,” says Hinds. “What 

sports teaches you is to get up and 

try again.” 

The purpose of the exercise was 

to emphasize how team sports can 

teach valuable skills such as empathy, 

humility, teamwork, and 

discipline. 

Today, Hinds leads the development 

of a bridging program in 

partnership with the University 

of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of 

Public Health (DLSPH). 

The program aims to provide 

educational opportunities for marginalized 

groups, including foreign 

or financially-challenged students. 

He says he hopes student can 

take away a sense of their “best 

selves” from his presentation. 

“Understand who you are over 

what you do,” he says. “Students 

should really think about what they 

want to accomplish in life and the 

impact (they) want to make before 

they land on what kind of job they 

want to have.”

Durham Chronicle 18-19 Issue 04

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