I live less than an hour away, but somehow in all my decades living in Toronto I’d never slowed down enough or taken the time to admire north Durham Region. That’s a mistake I won’t make again. I visited recently over two days and found beautiful art and pottery places, sipped some of the goods at a tasty cider operation, witnessed a truly amazing bit of historic architecture, and enjoyed a nice visit to the Lucy Maud Montgomery Manse, as well as a tremendous play about Montgomery’s time living in the region.
I was extremely impressed by the creativity and cooperative spirit of local business people, as well as by their artistry and passion. They’re also just plain nice people; easygoing, open and country-style friendly.
The local tourism folks are making it easy for visitors by creating two local, self-guided tours: Back Roads of Brock and the Leaskdale Loop. You also can be assured of buying fresh, local food by checking out the Durham Farm Fresh program, which has more than five dozen participating farms.
Don’t forget that the Ontario government is offering “staycation” tax credits for stays at registered hotels, inns and resorts in 2022.
The other day I looked at the Back Roads of Brock program. Today I’m featuring the Leaskdale Loop, a collective of 14 different and unique destinations within a 10-minute drive of each other.
Greenmantle Pottery on display. JIM BYERS PHOTO
Greenmantle Pottery, 11350 Concession Road 6, Uxbridge
A bucolic, picture-perfect house and pottery barn can be found at the end of a winding, dirt road off Concession 6 in Uxbridge. Patricia Cherrie (full disclosure; she’s an old friend) forms beautiful pottery in an old blacksmith’s barn next to a pretty pool. Her husband, Keith, worked on the farm as a young boy and later bought the place. Cherrie lived and worked in Toronto for years and took pottery lessons during the pandemic.
“I got hooked,” she said. Rather than stick with traditional shapes, Cherries prefers more organic forms, mostly in pretty shades of green, blue and white.
“For me it’s all about texture,” she told me. “I like organic shapes. I’m not into straight lines.”
Cherrie, whose house has a large, enclosed porch/sun room overlooking an award-winning garden, said she gets her inspiration by looking out the window.
“I love the tactile nature of it,” she said of her pottery work. “I’m like a kid playing with mud.”
Cherrie and Lisa Anttila from Concession 6 Studio (the next house/farm down the road) came up with the idea of the Leaskdale Loop to help each other out.
“So many people wanted to do things during COVID, and we thought we needed an event or a collective to bring people to the area.
“I’m so proud of the Loop,” Cherrie said. “We’ve really helped people come together.”
Open by appointment, or check for Leaskdale Loop special events.
Lisa Anttila and Glenn Ryzebol, Concession 6 Studio, Uxbridge. JIM BYERS PHOTO
Concession 6 Studio, 11120 Concession Road 6, Uxbridge
I pull up to another old home on a large property and find Lisa Anttila and Glenn Ryzebol. She’s been a painter and artist almost all her life, while he got into woodworking a few years ago.
Glenn tells me he started with a chair and that it was “pretty poor.” But he’s awfully good at it now, and designs all sorts of bits, including lovely wooden boxes, free-form designs and handsome charcuterie boards. It’s terrific stuff.
Lisa does both acrylic and oil works, including bright, modern takes on outdoor scenes you might expect from the Group of Seven.
“It’s funny. I’ll be at shows sometimes and be standing next to one style of painting. People will say, ‘Oh, I like these. But I don’t much like those.’ They don’t realize they’re pointing at my other paintings.’”
In addition to stylish paintings and lovely woodwork, their barn also offers up knitted goods made by Lisa’s mother.
“We like to say we run a sweat shop in Pickering,” Lisa said with a laugh.
They also sell cloth envelopes that a local woman makes. Proceeds go to pay for musicians for Leaskdale Loop events.
The couple also have a small building on the property that’s filled with antiques. Not to mention a group of free-range chickens (click here for my Tik Tok dancing chicken video).
They’re open most Saturdays 10-5 and by appointment.
The Lucy Maud Montgomery Manse in Leaskdale, Ontario. JIM BYERS PHOTO
Lucy Maud Montgomery Manse, 11850 Durham Regional Road 1, Leaskdale
The famed author of the Anne of Green Gables books (and many others) lived in Leaskdale for 15 years, from 1911 to 1926. It’s here that she wrote some of her best-known works, including “Anne of the Island” and “Anne’s House of Dreams.”
Melanie Whitfield does tours of the Leaskdale Manse, which was Montgomery’s home when she moved here from Prince Edward Island with her husband, Ewan McDonald, a Presbyterian minister who was also from PEI but assigned to preach in Leaskdale.
We visit the parlour, which has a large coyote skin on the floor, and is where she wrote most of her books. We also check out her library. There’s an old typewriter on the desk and some of her old books, including Tale of Two Cities, The Long Portage and The Pastor’s Wife, which I find somewhat amusing.
We also tour the bedrooms, which are fairly large for the time, and the small dining room, which Montgomery hated. There was no electricity in the house, and the only toilet was an outhouse. I was told Montgomery didn’t like that too much, either.
Whitfield tells me the character Anne from Anne of Green Gables came from a newspaper story Montgomery had read. She also said Montgomery hated the name Lucy and preferred to be called Maud.
The Lucy Maud Montgomery Society of Ontario relies on contributions to keep the house going, and they get donations from around the world. Whitfield said they’re looking to raise more money to fix the furnace and add new shutters, as well as other improvements.
The tours for the manse and the site in general depend on the time of year. Their summer season, which just ended, includes June, July, and August, when they’re open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily for walk-in tours. If you would like tea/scones with your tour, you need to pre-book. Tours only are $10 pp, with tea $15. You also can book tea at the manse using Montgomery’s china dish pattern (five or six people). From now until mid-December they’re open by appointment only. Call (705) 228-8155 to book. They’re closed January to March.
They also put on yearly performances of “Maud of Leaskdale,” which is a wonderful play. (See below). From Sept. 9 to 27 of this year they’ll be staging the play “Rainbow Valley.” They have an Olde-Fashioned Christmas Concert on November 19, and their Annual Christmas church service with Festive Tea on December 11.
Following the manse tour I stroll across the street to check out Leaskdale Church, where McDonald did his sermonizing. There’s a pretty, small park next door with a bronze statue of Montgomery sitting on a bench, which is popular with photographers.
Jennifer Carroll as Lucy Maud Montgomery in “Maud of Leaskdale.” JIM BYERS PHOTO
I was lucky enough to be in town when local actress Jennifer Carroll was here performing her one-act play, “Maud of Leaskdale.” She’s an excellent actress, and the rich, insightful and sometimes troubling material is lifted directly from Montgomery’s journals during her years here.
At one point the author and pastor’s wife complains that there’s no one interesting to talk to in the village. She also complains about the people of the nearby town of Zephyr, who she found uninspiring.
The play has several jokes about Zephyr, actually.
“I can always tell when people from Zephyr are in the audience,” Carroll tells me with a smile. “They look at me as if to say, “Really? Again?”
While life wasn’t easy on the manse, Montgomery waxes poetic about the birth of her first child, a boy. Her next one, another boy, was stillborn, which sent her into a dark funk. But she had a third boy, and this one lived.
Things get dark when Montgomery talks about the demons that hounded her husband the pastor. But the play is littered with funny bits and the joy she found when her cousin, Frederica, would come for a visit.
At one point in the play, I think near the end, Montgomery talks about the surrounding fields and refers to “wave after wave of sinuous glistening windshadows.” It’s a positively stunning bit of writing; evocative and perhaps even sexy.
“Everyone who lives in rural Ontario knows what she means by that.” Carroll said.
Montgomery wasn’t happy about Leaskdale when she got there. When it was time to move to Narval (near Milton) 15 years later, she was positively devastated.
“It’s so special to have a piece of this,” Carroll tells me after the performance. “It’s such a gift. She’s been turned into a monolith, but she was an ordinary woman in so many ways.”
Carroll has been performing the play for 11 years. She has two children of her own. While Montgomery lived through World War I, Carroll lived through a world-wide pandemic that lasted two years.
“Sometimes I’m not sure where she ends and I begin,” Carroll said.
Patty Ewaschuk of Banjo Cider in Uxbridge, Ontario. JIM BYERS PHOTO
Banjo Cider, 614 Sandford Road, Uxbridge
I stopped in for a tasting and a bite of lunch (fabulous local charcuterie and cheese from The Passionate Cook and Essentials in Uxbridge) and chatted with co-owner Patty Ewaschuk, who started the business with her husband, Tony Brown. They used to raise cows and geese and grew asparagus, but switched to apple cider just before the pandemic began.
They sold their cider out of the window of their home for a while, but now operate a gorgeous facility that features a good-sized tasting room and an enormous patio out back, with cheery red umbrellas and picnic tables. They aim for the drier side of cider, with no more than 27 or 28 grams of sugar. That compares to commercial ciders with 80 to 100 grams, Ewaschuk told me. The Revival cider has zero added sugar and is super-dry and crisp. The Heart of Gold, made from golden russet apples (and a nod to singer/songrwriter Neil Young) is a more conventional cider, but still dry. The Maud, named after Lucy Maud Montgomery, has a lovely salmon colour.
Some cider makers ferment their product for a couple months, but Ewaschuk said Banjo Cider goes a full year for more flavours. They also blend apples for just the right flavours, much like a Scotch maker might do for a blended whiskey or a winemaker making a classic Bordeaux blend.
I quickly learned that North Durham business folks and farmers love to share. One of the things Banjo Cider does is called the Citizen Cider Project, where locals are encouraged to bring in their apples so they don’t go to waste. They also use pears and other fruits, but they don’t want anything that’s been sprayed for pesticides. I had no idea, but Ewaschuk tells me crabapples actually make for good cider as they have complex tannins.
You can buy their products on site, of course, but also at farmers markets in Durham and York Region and Toronto, including Trinity Bellwoods and the Brickworks. Ewaschuk said you’ll also find Banjo Cider at Bossanova Wine and Beer on Roncesvalles Avenue in Toronto’s west end.
They often have live music on the weekends, and the space is available for weddings and other special events.
Ewaschuk’s daughter makes non-alcoholic cider under the Sunflower Juice Company label, and you’ll find a small grouping of sunflowers behind the Banjo Cider patio.
The Thomas Foster Memorial in Uxbridge, Ontario. JIM BYERS PHOTO
Thomas Foster Memorial, 9499 Durham Regional Road 1, Uxbridge
Tucked away on a quiet road in Uxbridge Township is a truly remarkable piece of work, the Thomas Foster Memorial, which is national historic site.
It’s a Byzantine-style building with tremendous tile work inside, as well as painted glass, terrazzo floors, and soaring arches. Foster’s family immigrated to Canada in 1851 and he was born the next year. He spent his first few years living in the west end of Toronto, then moved to live with relatives in Leaskdale when his mother died.
He later became a successful butcher in downtown Toronto and served as mayor from 1925-27. They said he was quite frugal and was known as “Honest Tom.” His daughter, Ruby, died when she was just 10 years old, and his wife died in 1920.
Foster later travelled the world and visited the Taj Mahal, which inspired him to build a tomb near Uxbridge for he, his wife and his young daughter, who are laid to rest on the main floor. It’s one of the most remarkable tombs in North America, and there’s no charge to visit (although donations are accepted).
The acoustics are amazing, and the Friends of the Foster Memorial sponsor a series of Friday night concerts in spring, summer and early fall. The building also is available for weddings and memorials.
They say it would cost upwards of $15 million to build the memorial in today’s dollars, and that’s assuming you could find workers able to do the job. Check the website for hours and tour information.
Durham Region/York Headwaters Tourism paid for my visit. They did not review this article prior to publication.
