May 25, 1969

On this date, John Lennon and Yoko Ono left the Bahamas in pursuit of their “Bed-in for Peace” demonstration. They were flying to Toronto since Lennon could not at this time fly to the United States, due to a conviction for possession of marijuana. He intended to go on to Montreal but ended up having to stay in Toronto in the King Edward hotel whilst their immigration status was clarified.

In Aurora Ohio, Anne Heche was born. Shortly thereafter, in Ottawa Ontario, Glen Drover, heavy metal guitarist most recently with Megadeth, entered the world. It is unknown which infant screamed louder during child birth. Glen is somewhat louder than Anne today.

On this date, Colonel Gaafar Muhammad Nimeiri, staged a military coup in Sudan. He abolished parliament and outlawed all political parties and installed himself as president. As a consequence, May 25 has been established as a holiday known as Sudan National Day/May Revolution Day.

Midnight Cowboy staring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight was released.

At Kennabi Lodge, Haliburton Scout Reserve, at the breakfast table, J.C. Moore (47-70) announced “Boys, we’re going to take a little trip today.”

The boys were: Dan Peace (65-69), John Waller (66, 68-70). Rod Ioi (65-70), Terry Trussler (65-72) and Warner Clarke (66-70). This was pre-camp 40 years ago. Pre-camp was run by J.C. Moore and usually included returning staff who were going to university. This meant they could start working in early May to prepare the camp for the influx of the summer staff and eventually, the campers. Pre-camp staff generally worked Monday to Saturday doing a number of labour intensive tasks like:

repairing and painting wooden kybo boxes (medium yellow)
repairing and painting 135 wooden rowboats (medium yellow, forest green)
repairing, painting and varnishing 115 canvas covered cedar strip canoes (vermillion)
Grinding off the rust and repainting the bottoms of the steel pontoons on the Barges (white)
repairing and varnishing 15 cedar strip staff boats,
Clearing sites for a guest site

Mrs. M (Muriel Moore (47-70)) cooked for the crew and cleaned up 6 days a week. On Sundays, J.C. wanted to get us out of camp and give Mrs. M a well deserved break.

Now the pre-camp of 1969 had been hot, dry, and productive to date. J.C. believed that at the pace we were working we should have the camp ready open by Labour Day. Notwithstanding, he had decided that May 25, 1969 would be the day that we would go off to visit the Kennaway town site.

History records that the Kennaway Road was started between the Town of Haliburton and the Village of Kennaway. It was built by hand labour and primitive equipment and was completed about 1872. It was named after Sir John Kennaway, the High Sheriff of Devonshire and a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Land and Emigration Company.

The origin of the Village of Kennaway was closely linked to the establishment of a grist mill by Charles Roberts along the creek that joins Fishtail Lake and Elephant Lake. By the 1870's a Post Office was run by Thomas Scott out of his log cabin. A schoolhouse was erected which was also used as a church. Its clergy would travel in from larger nearby towns, the closest being Wilberforce and Harcourt.

By the 1940’s the population declined greatly at Kennaway as the feasibility of maintaining substantially gainful activity through agricultural pursuits meant most bush farms were abandoned. The school shut down for good after serving only two of the hamlet's remaining families.

On the morning of May 25, 1969, J.C. and the boys loaded ourselves and a picnic lunch into J.C.’s International Scout and headed out of camp to look at the townsite. We did not go eastwards via the Kennaway road as neither the existing road bed, nor the roadbed that now bypasses the camp was really navigable in 1969. We drove west back towards highway 121 (now highway 118) and then turned east past Loon Lake to the Essonville cut off.

For those of us riding in the back of the Scout, the voyage, particularly along the Essonville Regional Road, was comprised with a series of moments when the scout would slow to a crawl, and J.C.’s hand would emerge from the left window of the cab, either pointing or gesturing emphatically. The story would conclude with J.C. downshifting the Scout to first gear and resuming the journey.

Before reaching the Elephant Lake road just off highway 648,we stopped at a roadside surplus store operated by Ron Mumford. A stop at Ron’s was remarkable both from the perspective of browsing the range of “stuff” that he had in his building or in the yard, and from listening to Ron interacting with people who had stopped by to shop or chat. On this day, Ron was trying to sell a pair of truck mounted moveable stairs that had been surplussed by an airport. We recall that Dan Peace purchased a tam and Rod Ioi purchased a military jacket and military sunglasses.

We left Mumford’s and drove up The Elephant Lake road and continued on to Benoir Lake. We located the Kennaway Road and proceeded towards the town site. The road was passable using a four wheel drive vehicle but it was slow going. Arriving at the townsite, we noted that one building, the original schoolhouse/church was still in use by a local hunting club. Other residences and the mill were in various states of disrepair. The mill’s roof was visible but the walls had collapsed.

We explored the site, entering some of the buildings that were still standing. Dan and Terry pulled back a piece of wallboard inside one of the buildings, only to wake up about 200 bats which, after scaring the pants off of them, flew out the empty window, startling the rest of us.

Our picnic lunch was remarkable as milk bags had been introduced that month in Haliburton. Milk bag pitchers would arrive in town later in the summer. Much silliness ensued as the six of us negotiated the task of pouring milk from a bag without a pitcher.

The return to camp was uneventful except Warner began to suffer the ill effects of spending the previous day painting row boats in bright sunshine without a shirt (major sunburn entering the “itchy” stage). And the painted saw blade, now residing at the Trapper’s Cabin? The blade was acquired from a derelict shed at the site of a mill on Benoir Lake and painted by Dan Peace in one of the three “official” camp colours of the period.