Daily Archives: March 17, 2010

By Doug Draper

This coming fall – October 25, to be specific – may seem like a long time away when we’re just entering the first days of spring.

Debbie Zimmerman, Grimsby regional councillor and former Niagara regional council chair, and one of Draper's two picks for regional chair for Niagara's future.

But it is not that long time when it comes to the fact that municipal elections will be held this coming 25th of October, and those elections are now only seven months away.

The decision Niagara’s top municipal politician  – regional chairman Peter Partington – announced this January to not seek another term of office was another clear reminder that 2010 sets the stage for a sea change in municipal governance in this region.

We in Niagara, Ontario are arguably facing one of the most important municipal election years in our region’s 40-year history. And we have to make sure we have the most dynamic, progressive voices we can get on our regional and local council to pull us up from our status as a region that unfortunately hosts one of the highest unemployment rates and lost median incomes for people who still have jobs in the country.

I don’t mind telling you right now that my only two choices at the moment for a new Niagara regional councillor are Debbie Zimmerman, a Grimsby regional councillor who has held the chair’s job before, and who still has the snap, crackle and pop to do it again, and Vance Badawey, the mayor of Port Colborne, and who, along with Zimmerman and very few others, is one of the smartest and most progressive politicians I’ve seen on the regional seen in my more than 30 years of covering municipal politics in Niagara. Continue reading →

 By Tiffany Mayer

Richard Bering is certain everything tastes better with maple syrup.

“We experiment a lot with it,” Bering said. “We put it on pretty much anything. I don’t think there’s anything that you could put maple syrup on that would not make it taste better. It always makes things taste better.

As the sugar shack operator at his family’s White Meadows Farms in Effingham, Bering comes by his penchant for the quintessentially Canadian elixir naturally.

He’ll be able to keep feeding his fancy now that the maple syrup harvest is underway, an annual rite of passage from winter into spring that started in the Berings’ sugar bush March 3. Continue reading →

(The two-century old Willowbank Estate in the Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario community of Queenston is a designated National Historic Site, and remains in the good hands of a group of volunteers known to many as ‘Friends of Willowbank’. This dedicated group holds a number of events through the year to raise funds in support of the full restoration of this grand estate, and the information Niagara At Large is posting below is one you would most certainly enjoy. By the way, it is hard to think of Willowbank without also remembering Laura Dodson, a longtime resident of Niagara-on-the-Lake who made preserving this heritage site one of her many missions in life – Doug Draper at  www.niagaraatlarge.com.)

THE ART OF LANDSCAPE:

THE PICTURESQUE, THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE SUBLIME

A group of celebrated speakers and performers will explore the art of landscape this spring, as Willowbank marks the return of its annual spring lecture series.  The series runs every second Saturday morning, from March 20 through June 12, followed by a reading in early July ofTomStoppard’s Arcadia.

A work by Humphry Repton, a major landscape artist from the 18th and 19th century in England.

“This is an exciting event for us” said Willowbank Executive Director Julian Smith.  “When Willowbank was designated a National Historic Site, it was in part because of the quality of its Picturesque landscape. 

This series will allow us to explore the richness of the Picturesque concept, and of landscape more generally.  Because landscapes are such complex expressions of cultural, social and artistic intent, we have invited artists, writers, musicians, actors and actresses, as well as landscape architects and historians, to interpret and discuss the art of landscape.” Continue reading →