Total Pageviews

Showing posts with label Al Purdy A-frame. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Al Purdy A-frame. Show all posts

Sunday, 16 March 2025

Jean Baird's Annual report on Al Purdy A-frame writer-in-residence

 From Jean Baird's email report:

March 11, 2025

ANNUAL REPORT & FOUNDATION UPDATE


Dear A-framers:

What if Canadians started buying Canadian books with the same
gusto that they are buying Canadian alcohol? This isn't my idea,
but it sure is worth repeating and thinking about.

We see the Arts under siege in the United States of America.
In a recent Special to the Globe and Mail, Gil Garratt, artistic 
director of the Blyth Festival writes:

"Canadians are booing the American anthem at rinks; bars and restaurants are changing their taps and wine menus; stores are

ripping American products from shelves; politicians are plotting the pinch points of import and export. “Buy Canadian!” we holler. And

 in our stores, we see neat labels – “Made in Canada,” “Product of Canada,” “Canadian Made” – to make it easier to stand in the 

aisle and make a sober choice.

"But what about in our culture? I mean, you wanna talk about trade deficits?

"In 2022, Hill Strategies pegged the U.S.-Canada cultural trade deficit at around $7.3-billion in favour of the United States, a gap that has existed for decades. As a culture worker for the past 30 years, I have watched a relentless flood of American culture spill into Canada. And make no mistake. Culture is one of America’s most lucrative exports."

In difficult times we need the arts more than ever.

The 2024 Annual Report is now up. You can read it at this link, and see what is happing with the Foundation project:

https://www.alpurdy.ca/a-frame-annual-reports/

         

As well as providing the A-frame with a new foundation and basement, thereby doubling our space and our residency season, the project has resulted in a new driveway and we were also able to remove the remnants of the old garage that burnt down many years ago.


Here's Al examining the remains

For the basement to be usable it needs to be finished. We have a wonderful opportunity from a highly skilled contractor. He has offered to arrive in April to do the work in-kind, we only need to pay for materials.

It would be so exciting to get the basement finished before the residency program opens in May.

Please help us get that basement finished.


https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/al-purdy-a-frame-association/

Facebook
Twitter
Link
Website
Copyright © 2025 Al Purdy A-frame Association, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you have supported the Al Purdy A-frame Association.

Our mailing address is:
Al Purdy A-frame Association
401--4542 West 10th Ave.,
VancouverBC V6R 2J1
Canada

Add us to your address book


Friday, 20 December 2024

Update on Al Purdy A-Frame

 Posting from the Al Purdy A-Frame Association newsletter yesterday. I drove to Ameliasburgh in late summer when the project looked extremely daunting. So it was a pleasant surprise to get this email update from Jean Baird yesterday!   

December 18, 2024
 
Double, Double
 
Looking back at 2024 it has been a year of surprises and great opportunities.
 
Because of the significant work happening at the A-frame there was not the usual coming and going of poets and writers but, as reported in earlier newsletters, we did organize a number of events locally and online including workshops, readings, literary walks and a song-writing workshop.
 
But our focus has been the Foundation Project at the A-frame. You will recall that the Purdys built on the flood plain and that over the years moisture had taken a toll so the decision was made to raise the house and put a proper foundation under to preserve the building. Our most ambitious fundraising campaign was launched with a target of $300,000.
 
After we successfully raised a good portion of that target, and with discussions with the contractor, we realized that raising the house would also create the opportunity to winterize and thereby extend our season. The fundraising target was revised to $330,000, a goal that was met (with some pledges) in spring 2024 and work began in July. Up, up it went.


The Flying A-frame


And the writing shed also soars
 
Then the next opportunity was revealed. With the house raised there was the option, instead of a 1.5M crawlspace (the original plan), to create a full basement that once finished would be useable. Double the floorspace.
 
We reviewed the implications and the budget. Double the space and double the residency season. How could we say no? The commitment was made and the basement was created.


The A-frame on its new foundation

New basement

Work will be ongoing through April 2025 and the new basement will have as much finishing as our budget allows. Some things—for example, cabinetry, archival storage space—may need to be deferred until a later date when funds become available.

If you make end of the year donations, please consider the A-frame. As you can see in the photos, the building is now on its new foundation so the place will be dry and protected for years to come. But we still need to raise funds to finish that newly-acquired basement.


Windows in, and the start of the upper tier of the new deck

Sometimes people make donations to note an important event. Recently many have donated in Celebration of Eurithe Purdy's 100th birthday. Since the announcement of the Steven Heighton Fellowship donations have been made in his memory. That guy was much loved.
 
Or you could make a donation in Celebration of Al Purdy’s birthdate, December 30, 1918.
 
In times of turmoil we need the Arts more than ever.
 
Thanks for your interest and support.
https://www.alpurdy.ca/donate/
 

Merry Christmas!  Hanukkah Sameach!  Joyous Kwanzaa!  Blessed Yule!  Happy Boxing Day!  Dōngzhì Kuàilè!  Feliz Navidad!  Yoi Otoshi o!  Feliz Día de Reyes!
 
HAPPY NEW YEAR
 
Facebook
Twitter
Link
Website
Copyright © 2024 Al Purdy A-frame Association, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you have supported the Al Purdy A-frame Association.

Our mailing address is:
Al Purdy A-frame Association
401--4542 West 10th Ave.,
VancouverBC V6R 2J1
Canada

Add us to your address book


Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp


email to local friends

How’re you guys doing? I  keep pretty quiet over the hols - actually most of the time now. Been keeping a regular schedule and going to bed at 11 after watching a DVD every night. Last night I fell asleep just after 11 and then a tapping sound awoke me. Didn’t have the energy to investigate, but wonder if you came by to visit? 

Watched the 3 part Lord of the Rings a week ago, and then binge watched the entire TV series Ted Lasso this week about a soccer team in England. It was filmed in my old hangout of Richmond on the Thames. 

Been exchanging emails with a UK writer, Cassie Steward, who is writing a novel based on my memoir of those days in Richmond and Kingston, when I lived on Eel Pie Island. According to her my book is popular in the UK, although I don’t receive any royalties on it. Aargh 

Went to Callaghan’s on Tuesday for a couple of hours. So far it looks like the barricades are keeping the ATVers out! Still the fallen tree on the path to the bridges, though. In the cold weather I was too stiff to bend under it and had to walk around. Growing old sucks!

Friday, 21 April 2023

Al Purdy Day 2023: Big Al On Point

 


Big Al On Point

for Patrick Connors


Barrow by barrow load
Big Al built his special point on Roblin Lake
waterfront sells by the foot
& tho Al & Eurithe wished for a secluded spot
a small space for coffee meditations, well ...
poets can handcraft more than wordy magic

Always resilient (and poor)
this was before fame
Al lugged his barrow loads for weeks & months
planted some soft maples and a few firs
sat back & drank - composed - relaxed
and let Nature do her work for a few decades

Years on I finally found his reclusive retreat
...  found Al's grave marker first
made many treks from Marmora to A-burg
to honour Al & his best bud, Milt
But it was years before I finally found
the magic landscape of Al & Eurithe's hand hewn refuge

on the work day last summer
prepping for the inaugural A-frame Open House
I gave myself the pleasant task
of gardening Big Al's special point

on the way in for my restorative chore
I wandered the dirt road for a place to pee
for my little dog Chase & me
and I met a neighbour woman with her young in tow

I asked if she had ever met Al Purdy
as her family cottage is but three doors away
& she replied that Al was almost a recluse
so shy that when she was a teen
eager to see the now famous poet's abode
she and a boyfriend (husband now)
paddled slowly towards Al's point

in the shade of his fully grown arbor
Big Al himself sat in a deck chair
reading perhaps, or composing deathless lines

the People's Poet looked up
saw the canoe of teens approaching
abruptly turned his chair away
back towards the A-frame
and his meditations



Chris Faiers



postscript:

in the shallows
blue heron awaits
his old friend



Marmora, Ontario
Jan. 25, 2014

inspired by A-frame email from Patrick Connors


published in Umbrella (Quinte Arts Council magazine) September/October/November
issue 2014, p. 29

published in Crossing Borders, Bruce Kauffman, editor, Hidden Brook Press, 2015, p. 29 




         

                ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


This is a lovely image Chris...the bombastic drunken poet hiding in plain sight on his point of land in Roblin Lake.
Have you been following all the buzz generated from last Monday at the Monarch? Descant interview? etc.
Advance notice - August 30 - we have another event at the Active Arts church in Rednersville. More complete news as soon as I hear back from our Writer in Residence. And the Picnic's scheduled (did I tell you that already?) for July 26.
Exciting times...I can't keep up to it on the blog (which I am sure has an international following hungry for news of Al, she said, sarcastically)
I have been hiding on my own point of land, scribbling an architectural essay for a local magazine.
Is Chase keeping his head above the snow?
Are you?
hugs, Lindi

                      ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


On 2014-09-12, at 11:52 AM, James Deahl wrote:


September 12, 2014
Dear Chris,

         Thank you for sending the new UMBRELLA. I enjoyed your poem as well as Patrick's review of PurdyFest.

Poetry Power!
         . . . James


                  ~  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Tuesday, 3 June 2014

Great idea for a CanLit book ...

I received an email last night from B.C. writer and academic Ron Dart. Ron is currently enjoying a week-long residency at the Roderick Haig-Brown House, & he sent me his following piece on RHB. I thanked Ron for his fascinating article on CanLit history, & find RHB of more improtance than ever as a precursor to the growing eco movements to save our planet from climate change. Ron has promised to send me an update on his stay, which I'll post on Riffs & Ripps.

In this age of folding publishing houses & fewer and fewer economic & even social opportunities for writers, Ron's stint reminded me of the existence of the few established writers retreats in Canada. On my first visit to the nearby ZenForest I met writer Martin Avery. Martin had just completed a retreat of several months at the Pierre Berton House in the Klondike. I've been volunteering with the restoration of the Al & Eurithe Purdy A-frame in Prince Edward County, and the A-frame is scheduled to become the first Ontario writers' retreat. 

My 'great idea for a CanLit' book is a collection, an anthology, of these Canuck writers' retreats, with articles & works created by the various writers during their residencies. 


Here's Ron's piece on RBH:


    Roderick Haig-Brown (1908-1976): Canadian Ecological Prophet

                 The Conservationist-Preservationist Dilemma



          The 988-hectare Adams River recreation area was

          dedicated in 1977 and named for Roderick Haig-Brown,

          the eminent salmon conservationist and writer…..In

          1991 Roderick Haig-Brown became a full Class A park.

                                                                           James D. Anderson

         British Columbia’s Magnificent Parks: The First 100 years

         pgs. 146-147     



 

         As the foremost conservationist in British Columbia from

         the late 1940s to the late 1960s, the internationally known

         fishing writer and naturalist Haig Brown fought conservation

         battles and promoted ecological ideas during a time of

         aggressive industrial expansion into the province’s resource

         hinterland.                         
                    Arn Keeling

        “A Dynamic, Not a Static Conception”: The Conservation

        Thought of Roderick Haig-Brown: (2002)                 



    

        You (Haig-Brown) ought to have a halo, an angel’s halo quivering

        over your head.         
                            Al Purdy   







The historic conflicts about how to view and use Nature that occurred in the United States between John Muir and Gifford Pinchot have played themselves out in Canada in a variety of ways. Pinchot, who became the chief forester in the US Forest Service in 1905, was a “conservationist”. John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club in 1892, was a “preservationist”. The conservationist position tends to see parks as a resource that needs to be managed for sustainable commercial use. The preservationist position sees parks (and much else) as not for profit wildness that should not be a plaything of mining, logging, hunting, trapping, city tourism, hydro, dams and many other entrepreneurial interests.



The founding of Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park in British Columbia in 1977 (a year after Haig-Brown’s death) signalled that the life and writings of Haig-Brown had played a significant role in the conservationist-preservationist horn butting in British Columbia. Haig-Brown published more than 30 books and many articles that dealt with the delicate interplay of nature and humans. The publication of Haig-Brown’s adult novel, On the Highest Hill (1949), articulated and anticipated the emerging ecological crises and “wars of the woods” of the 1950s-1970s just as the timeless and timely article, “Let Them Eat Dust”, in Measure of the Year (1950), established Haig-Brown as a thoughtful writer that could not be ignored on the preservationist-conservationist tensions---the article is still required reading in some university courses and BC schools. Haig-Brown gave a lecture in mid-October 1953 at Victoria College entitled, “Divine Discontent”, and in the provocative and articulate lecture, he summed up his insights well in a paragraph midway through the wise forth telling: “So I urge upon you discontent, discontent with things as they are, discontent with yourselves. But let it be a constructive and informed discontent, not a curdling and destructive one, the sort of discontent that pushes you on to do more and enjoy more and, above all, to be more, for yourselves as well as for everyone else”---Haig-Brown, the prophetic ecologist from Campbell River, was shaping the conscience of a new generation in the early 1950s. It was also in 1953 that the touching and tender, informed and humane NFB film on Haig-Brown, Country Magistrate, was released. It is rare moment when a respected magistrate takes to oppositional front stage in a large public ecological battle, but Haig-Brown did so in a couple of years after Country Magistrate.



Haig-Brown was front and centre in the clash in the mid-1950s over Buttle Lake in Strathcona Provincial Park (oldest provincial park in British Columbia-established in 1911—excellent peaks, including Golden Hinde and Comox glacier, worth the treks and climbs)--his committed participation in the struggle elevated him to a leading figure in BC environmentalism. There are many who have argued that the publication in 1962 of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring birthed, in a new and updated phase, the ecological movement in North America, but the publication of Haig-Brown’s Fisherman’s Summer in 1959 clarified, in the starkest possible terms, the problems with the spraying of DDT.    



Many of Haig-Brown’s later books such as Writings and Reflections (1982) and To Know a River (1996), edited by his daughter, Valerie Haig-Brown, made it abundantly clear that Haig-Brown lived the trying tension that so fragmented John Muir and Gifford Pinchot. The National Film Board short film on Haig-Brown, Fishman’s Fall, has a meditative, almost Zen like quality to it---worth watching many times. Valerie Haig Brown has written a superb biography of her parents, Deep Currents: Roderick and Ann Haig-Brown (1997), which lightly landed on their early years, life in Campbell River and the many published books/articles/lectures on fly fishing and conservation-preservation issues on Vancouver Island and elsewhere. Deep Currents is a fine primer that illuminates the commitment of Roderick and Ann Haig-Brown to face, from a variety of levels, the challenges presented to those who live the trying tension of preservation-conservation.



Adams River in Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park has one of the largest sockeye salmon runs in North America and in the autumn of 2014 (every 4th year), it will be a dominant run. The narrow river channel and gorge that the fish must navigate is a sight to see—indeed,

a Canadian home grown wonder of the world. The fact that both the salmon run is so intense (water thick red at high season) and the park was named after Haig-Brown speaks much about the respect that Haig-Brown earned from those committed to the oft complicated clash between preservationists and conservationists.



The Haig-Brown home in Campbell River is now a Heritage Home and a Bed and Breakfast site worth the staying at for a few days. The intricate and well wrought lives of Roderick-Ann Haig-Brown and family can be followed and entered with growing interest for those keen to get a feel for the ecological challenges faced by those on the front lines of some of the environmental challenges of the 20th century in British Columbia.   



There are 26 KL of trails in Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park (none too demanding or difficult---it`s more what can be seen from the paths and visitor viewer platforms that makes the trail worth the ramble).  There are those who turn to the high peaks and ancient spires as mountaineers and the effort and skill needed to reach such summits are worthy of many a tale to tell. There are also, though, the multiple foam thick mountain rivers that are abundant with life and whose survival often hinges and hovers precariously in the balance. Roderick Haig-Brown was no mountaineer, but the battles he fought in the lowlands to preserve land, water, soil, fish habitats and spawning areas have much in common with those whose preserve the alpine and higher rock regions. The autumn 2014 dominant sockeye salmon run in Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park will be a sight not to miss---indeed, one of Canada’s 7 water wonders.




Appendix I

I had a lovely lingering breakfast April 23rd 2014 with the Hon. John A. Fraser. John was Minister of the Environment when Joe Clark was Prime Minister, Minister of Fisheries when Brian Mulroney was Prime Minister and first elected Speaker of the House of Commons. John was an up and coming lawyer in the 1960s when Roderick Haig-Brown was a Magistrate in the Campbell River area. John spoke fondly of his many encounters with Haig-Brown and the impact Haig-Brown had on his thinking when he was Minister of the Environment and Fisheries. It was John Fraser who played a strategic role in creating South Moresby Park, and it was John Fraser who encouraged Elizabeth May (now the Green Party MP on the Island) to, initially, become involved in Federal politics. In fact, Elizabeth May dedicated Paradise Won: The Struggle for South Moresby (1990) to “John Fraser and the Conspiracy to Save the Planet”. There is, therefore, an ecological lineage and family tree connection between Roderick Haig-Brown, the Hon. John Fraser and Elizabeth May.         



Appendix II

Valerie Haig-Brown, in the Epilogue to Deep Currents, brought her book to a close with these telling words and not to be forgotten insights about her father.

         I am often asked what my father would think of whatever

         current or continuing ecological disaster we have brought

         upon ourselves. My first thought is a silent, “I’m glad he isn’t

         here to see it”. But my answer is that, if you read his books,

         you will know what he would think. He warned of the  

         consequences of our rush towards “progress” from the age

         of sixteen when he wrote a letter to an English paper about

         the effect of the run-off from tarred roads on the streams of

         his native country. And he never stopped pointing out the

         hazards of our behaviour.     




 

Ron Dart    



                ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  ~ ~ ~

hi chris – you know me – i am always up for another “great idea for a CanLit” collection

if you organize it i will publish it

tai

Hidden Brook Press

               ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  ~~ ~        





Thursday, 8 August 2013

Article on A-frame picnic by Richard Turtle




Purdy's words echo outside iconic A-Frame

Posted Aug 1, 2013 By Richard Turtle



Click to Enlarge
 David Sweet (c) reads Al Purdy's poem At the Quinte Hotel on the back deck of the A-Frame on Roblin Lake.
David Sweet (c) reads Al Purdy's poem At the Quinte Hotel on the back deck of the A-Frame on Roblin Lake.
Click to Enlarge
  Station Road's (from left) Eric Pilgrim, Conrad Beaubien, Michelle Simmonds and David Simmonds perform during the First Annual Al Purdy Picnic outside Ameliasburgh last Saturday.
Station Road's (from left) Eric Pilgrim, Conrad Beaubien, Michelle Simmonds and David Simmonds perform during the First Annual Al Purdy Picnic outside Ameliasburgh last Saturday.
EMC News - The work of Al Purdy continues to inspire and impress. And it continues to resonate.

Whether it be a poem penned half a century ago or the small home he built with his wife on the edge of a tiny lake, it has a remarkable and humble durability.

Dozens of people gathered last weekend at the Al Purdy A Frame on Roblin Lake to remember the late great Canadian poet and continue to support and promote plans to create a writer in residence program there.

Purdy, who penned more than 40 books during his career, built the small home along with his wife Eurithe spending much of their time there in the ensuing decades before he passed away in 2000. Eurithe Purdy, who now lives in Belleville, was among those in attendance at the First Annual Al Purdy Picnic, joining the crowd to hear recitations and reflections presented in the open air from the deck overlooking the water.

Organizer Michele Lintern-Mole welcomed the visitors and introduced about a dozen readers who offered a glimpse into the breadth of Purdy's work and his impact on other writers, educators and readers across the country for more than 50 years. Music was provided by quartet Station Road, who played a pair of acoustic sets of familiar country and folk tunes.

Picnic lunches were available for purchase at the Town Hall with regular shuttle service running to and from the A-Frame, where parking was prohibited. Several visitors opted to walk the approximately 1.5-kilometre distance in what turned out to be ideal weather for a backyard reading.

Once onsite, visitors were free to casually walk the grounds and take in the sights and sounds around them. Lintern-Mole also urged those in attendance to take part in a walking tour of "Al's Ameliasburgh" with Conrad Beaubien. Points of interest for many visitors included the "Wilderness Gothic" church, the Purdy Library and the Grove Cemetery. She also thanked readers for sharing their "cultural, literary and social memories."

Work on the A-Frame is ongoing and the Al Purdy A-Frame Association was one of many event partners and supporters.

"This is great," says poet Chris Faiers who travelled from Marmora to attend the picnic. "It's just such an amazing place." Familiar with the locale, the A-Frame and the nearby Grove Cemetery, Faiers, a longtime admirer of Purdy's work, will be hosting PurdyFest for the seventh year this weekend, which will include Another Dam Poetry Reading in Marmora on Saturday.

Purdy's work is also heavily featured in the play Al Purdy At the Quinte Hotel, which will be performed as an A-Frame fund raiser at the converted United Church in Rednersville (116 Barley Road) on September 28.