Cleaning Up after Toronto's Caribana Parade

Scavengers spend Sunday morning sorting through the remains of Toronto’s Caribana parade.

On Sunday Aug 3^rd at 9:30 am the entire west Toronto lake shore (a green space bisected by a bike path between Exhibition Stadium and Sunnyside Pavilion) was strewn with ALL MANNER of garbage! It was like the park had a 'hang over'; the desultory scene evidenced a wild party. Toronto’s Caribana revelers must have stayed late into the evening. And then in the morning an army of garbage pickers created a real mess as they overturned trash cans and combed through heaps of rubbish on a quest for recyclable beer and wine bottles.

Although the Caribana parade has struggled with its finances in the past, organizers believed this year's event would turn a profit – it must have. I know the island flavoured festival received increased funding this year because there were more sponsors – gun violence, and severe traffic jams due to critical lack of planning blemished the corporate politics of the previous Caribana parades.

Official reports are that tourists who come to Toronto for the gigantic celebration pump almost $300 million into the local economy. There sure do make a lot of unusual garbage.

Among the white shopping bags and Styrofoam containers, there were lots of crazy costume remnants and cool signage, unusual colored fabrics and sticks and broken lawn chairs. I saw an inflatable pool, a bent unicycle, and lots of single shoes and sandals - it must have been quite a party. You couldn't rent this stuff at a Toronto party rentals store... it had to come from home.

Black garbage bags filled with fried rice were split open and some of these bags looked like they’d been stepped on a thousand times – I'm sure a food tent had been erected in the vicinity.

Hundreds of green coconuts were lying open twenty feet away – this was no doubt the remains of an all natural fruit drink stand.

Farther up the path the lawn was absolutely overflowing with debris and the wind was pushing it everywhere – the nearby garbage cans had been turned on their sides. It’s quite obvious that scavengers picked through every single garbage can in their unquenchable thirst for recyclable beer and wine bottles. And I spotted a few stubbies and some questionable foreign beers that had been left behind by the experts.

Dumpdiggers would like you to imagine the Brock St. beer store, at 10:55 am on Sunday morning. That place must have been jammed with people returning thousands of beer and wine bottles.

This Toronto City Worker wouldn't stop to pose for photos. Apparently the Mayor of Toronto, David Miller specifically asked today’s clean-up crew not to allow themselves to be captured in photos or to make any comments to the media. I merely asked her about the different types of scavengers about, and I could see that see wanted to tell me something… I asked some more questions and came to learn there were indeed whole families here picking bottles a few hours earlier, and these were followed by a more degenerate sort who harvested food and other amenities.

Which brings us to Mr X.

At 9:45 am I ran into this hero – a wise old man with the metal detector.

Dumpdiggers hoped to celebrate the presence of this high tech smart guy and write about his wisdom in every detail, but that wasn’t going to happen – when he heard the words ‘Dumpdiggers’ and ‘blog’ he practically ran to his bicycle.

Here is the absolute smartest scavenger of the day, but he definitely didn’t want his picture taken or his story shared. He refused any insight into his genius.

So I can only imagine his routine. He carries a screwdriver as a simple probe and swings his coil over the chlorophyll, listening for the tell tale signs of a lost diamond earring or a gold ring. And coins; I’ll bet he finds lots of fresh nickels, dimes and quarters.

Here’s a question; would the device he’s carrying pick up the signal of a Canadian loonie? I don’t know. What are loonies made of again? I bet it would detect a toonie though as I'm sure that has nickel in it...? right? What are the exact metallurgical compositions of Canadian One and Two Dollar coins? Anybody - reply in the comment box. I wonder how much money he would make in pocket change alone? Dumpdiggers hopes this shy metal detectorist makes more money than the bottle pickers.

Paul R. Johnston, A Forgotten Canadian Painter?

Harold Barrett, the proprietor of Pickwick’s Choice Antiques at 1698 Queen St West spared some time to chat with me and pose for some photos today. This man is a treasure. My Saturday afternoon visits with this colorful character are the high point of my week. Every encounter is different as Pickwick discusses the fascinating trends in his life – I could start an entire new domain on The Life of a Queen St Antiques Dealer. It actually bothers me that his knowledge is wasted in this dusty shop in the antiques ghetto of Toronto. Phone him at 416 538 4419 and ask him anything!

Harold Barrett advises collectors to ‘buy Canadian art right now!’

But some conditions apply. Namely the modern Canadian artists must have some credentials and some record of their achievements and gallery shows. Where did they go to school? Who taught them? What did the critics think of their work? Did they join a movement?

Pickwick didn’t need any persuading to show me one of his best pieces. It’s hanging on the wall right behind the counter, for sale, a bargain at $695. This piece is something of a scarcity in the Canadian art world because it’s from the son of famous painter…

There's no Wikipedia file for Paul Roderick Johnston - the son of Franz Johnston? I can't find any hard data on this man. Even in Frank Johnston's wiki page there's no mention of any children?

Paul R Johnston is how he signed his name to this oil on canvas, entitled Winter Landscape near Wyebridge. It's 20x16 oil on canvas that was priced at $100 in 1945 - the artist dated his work here by writing the numbers 44 behind his signature. Pickwick believes this was sold at a gallery in downtown Toronto in 1945. 'Do you know how much you could buy with $100 in 1945? he asked me and then replied 'It was three months wages for most people.'

According to Pickwick, Paul Roderick Johnston was the son of Mr. Franz Johnston who lived from 1888-1949. Francis or Franz was an original member of the Group of Seven, but only showed in the Group's first exhibit where he displayed over sixty paintings - more than all the other members.

Franz painted differently than the other Group of Seven members. He liked close-ups that often seemed crowded, and demonstrated incredible prowess in simple landscapes with subtleties like clouds reflecting on water.

Here is Franz Johnston's classic LANDSCAPE AND SKY STUDY signed; inscribed "The Weather Breeder" on the reverse, inscribed title – it was sold in November 2006 at Ritchies, and the estimate reads between $7000 and $10,000, but I don’t know how much was actually paid or if the artwork was even sold. This painting is exceptionally beautiful, in this author's opinion. Dumpdiggers proclaims this to be a terrific investment at $10K and a steal at $7K.

According to Harold Barrett of Pickwick’s Choice the artist known as Paul R. Johnson was the son of this famous Franz Johnson. I have to believe him. The back of the painting proudly declares the artist’s pedigree. *Although if you read the comments below, some say Paul was eager to find success without using his father's name. REMARKS - Bright landscape by son of Famous Franz Johnston – ARCA

What does A.R.C.A. mean? Academie de Royal Canadian Artiste hmmm… no?

According to Charles Moffit of Lilith Galleries.

ARCA stands for Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

In Winter Landscape near Wyebridge, Paul paints like his father - Franz Johnston's style became increasingly more realistic throughout his life, evincing a particular fascination for the qualities of light reflected from snow. Like his father, Paul explored river valleys and detailed the bright blue water bending between snow-laden banks. Like his father, Paul also painted the pastoral countryside around Wyebridge, Ontario.

A reader named Jane Christmas emailed me these images of artwork hanging in her home - see below in the comments, the pedegree. She writes, Hi Rob: I've attached some photos of Paul Rodrik's paintings, and one by his daughter Zo Alexis. Thanks in advance for posting them. Jane

Hunting Bottles in an Old Barn

On Thursday July 17th The Glove mustered skilled workers to help him repair a weather beaten structure that stands alone on some property he recently purchased, just west of Warkworth Ontario. Dumpdiggers answered the call - but only so we could rummage about in the forgotten history of the old barn.

This old barn sits alone on the south side of Hwy 29 which bisects a historic local region known as Oak Heights. This structure has survived the farm house and all other buildings on the property and now towers over their cement foundations – it has even outlived the United Church which was the focus a tiny farm community, one century earlier.

The barn was built almost 100 years ago, and was probably erected right on top of a smaller, earlier structure on the same spot. For the last forty years, this farm was owned by Eddie Dudeck who died just a few years ago. He was an eastern European immigrant (Polish?) , a tobacco farmer, and something of a land baron. Many of the local residents worked for him at one time or another, including my own father.

This barn did not exist in the 1870s, when the settlement was first surveyed for the Northumberland Co. 1878 map available in McGill University's Blackadder Digital Collections. Here's a cut away that I fashioned which shows the property belonged to Johnson Brewster. His 200 acre lot also supported the church. On a side note, my own ancestor's original plots are also recorded here. My great, great, great grandfather George Campbell died when a rock he was burying on his land tumbled in on top of him. The family legend is that he's still there somewhere on that farm, underneath that rock.

All around the stone walls outside the building is the best place to find coins, old pocket watches and spent ammunition. The first thing I noticed when I approached the site was how much debris and loose material had collected over time against the stone foundation. It was easy to shovel through this fluffy matter - yes thats cow dung in the right hand side of the picture. Littered with crumbling barn boards, buckets, and straw bales, the surface debris rests on top of some harder sub soil that conceals older relics. I have no doubt that some concentrated digging and sifting on this site would yield all manner of old coins and broken tools.

In some situations Dumpdiggers employ passionate enthusiasts to retrieve surface objects. These people are specially trained professional who don't mind doing a little dirty work when it comes to recovering our valuable heritage. Here's young Alec with a quart of port. When we opened the bottle it still looked remarkably palatable - it smelled pungently like overripe wine vinegar. A distiller could no doubt refine this fluid into the finest moonshine.

The wooden floor boards above the drive shed are carpeted in rotting tobacco, which I tried to photograph, without success. The decomposing plant matter now perfumes the air in a musty fragrance. Underneath the ancient straw in an adjoining hay mow I found fertilizer bags and newspapers, one of which was dated September 1976 - Dumpdiggers believes this pinpoints the last summer the barn was used in any serious agricultural enterprise.

The dividing wall between the hay mows. If I had more time on site I would dig away the straw and loose leaf tobacco from around the short wall that bisects the interior of the barn. This is where Dumpdiggers would have the best chance of finding lost coins, jewelery and spent beverage bottles.

Here are some old beer bottles that have already been recovered on this site. The labels on the bottles read, O'Keefe's Extra Old Stock Ale, Molson's Stock Ale from Montreal, Bradings Old Stock Ale, and IPA. The Glove believes this wide selection of 1970's era paper label beer bottles evidences teenagers dipping into their father's coolers and meeting here in ritual drinking. But I don't agree. I suspect these old bottles are the scattered remains of a late 70's era tobacco season harvest party wherein it was customary to provide young workers with a massive selection of commercial brew craft upon which they might deliberate their first taste of alcohol.

Buying and selling historic lumber sounds like a good business. Here's a Canadian website that buys old barn boards. Pine was the building material of choice for old barns in the 1800's. This abundant local wood survives the elements untreated – pine doesn’t shrink when it dries. All this is because pine has a natural resin (which is distilled to make turpentine?) that coats and protects its fibrous cells. Cedar also has a natural oil, but this wood doesn’t last as long outside and doesn’t grow to the size of pine logs.

The north wall of the stable bears the marks of an unsympathetic addition; the window boxes on the east side are an entirely different shape. This means the barn was expanded at some point and the oldest diggings would be found around the north wall.

Explore the tops of all stone walls. When I ran my hand above the window boxes I encountered all manner of rusted objects – old door knobs and electrical boxes and even a spring loaded wooden mouse trap that fortunately wasn’t cocked. There were spent shotgun shells and a few small tins, oxidized beyond all recognition. Dumpdiggers also found lots of square nails and a broken lock.

This is just one historic property in transition - the rolling hills of Northumberland County seen here in the distance will soon be enhanced by gardens, fruit trees and a cute little animal pasture in the foreground. That's probably how it looked on July 17th 1908 when this barn was the center of activity on the Brewster farm.

The Adventure in The Gut

Dumpdiggers explore the Kawartha Lakes

A trip north of the #7 Hwy in Eastern Ontario is like stepping back in time. That’s the feeling you get when you see the old farms with their tumbled silos and dilapidated barns, and signature red brick Victorian houses. Look closely - there’s still evidence of the insulbrick outbuildings and the ghost of an apple orchard behind the house on almost every one of these properties. The small little fields along the road are surrounded with oversized stone fences piled high with the limestone crumble of the Canadian Shield and dotted with last century’s farm equipment. Old combines and McCormack threshing machines are left to rust within sight of the road – a cry for help?

Some farm driveways feature unusual signage selling home cooked meals, fresh sweet corn, wild blueberries and straw bales. There’s a lot to read, including the names of the local children painted on the pink granite rock cuts, and signposts crowded with surnames on cottage roads.

On Sunday July 7^th 2008, The Glove lead an expedition north from Havelock Ontario into a unique conservation area that’s 400 acres of natural splendor called The Gut. This place is well situated in the scenic Kawarthas cottage country near the Marmora mining district. The geology here is quite spectacular. The Gut is a centuries old rock cut wherein the mighty Crowe River has cut its own path through the quartz streaked green granite of the Canadian Shield.

The Crowe River moves quickly here and makes isolated pools among the rapids. The bottom of the channel is smooth in most places and its fun to frolic in the wash, but swimming is dangerous.

The land is owned by the local Crowe Valley Conservation Authority and they are poor so of course there are no camping facilities, and you'll find only the barest trails here on which there are no picnic tables, no BBQ huts, and no garbage cans or handrails; the place is very natural and a little dangerous.

In several spots wild raspberry bushes crowd the path, their thorny brambles deterring any deviation from the trail. Late July / early August will taste a record crop of wild red and black raspberries this year for it has been wet in Ontario this summer and the wild grape vines and berry bushes up here are loaded with green pimples that will soon be ripe juicy fruit.

Dumpdiggers appreciate the entropy that’s visible from the road in any excursion north of Havelock. Its fun to poke about in piles of debris close to the ditch, and deeper. Dumpdiggers found treasure fields along the historic 'South Road'.

Here’s a 1936 McCormick Deering ‘All Steel’ Mechanical Thresher. This machine separates the wheat from the chaff during the harvest. The belt drive was propelled by the Power Take Off at the side or rear of the farm tractor - these two innovations made it possible for small groups of people, the farm families, to work twice as much land as their ancestors, and put 2x more oats in their granaries, so they could feed 2x more livestock.

Cyrus McCormack patented the world’s first threshing machine in 1834. The first McCormick factory opened in 1847. If you read the company history you’ll note that Cyrus McCormack initiated a patent infringement lawsuit against the Manny Company of Rockford, Illinois in 1855 after the Manny reaper bested the McCormick Reaper that summer in the Paris Exhibition. The Manny Company hired Abraham Lincoln to represent them against Cyrus McCormack and it should come as no surprise that the Manny Company won the case.

For McCormack it didn’t matter anyway - over the next twenty years, the family business boomed until The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed the entire factory and the McCormicks' homes. But even then their manufacturing businesses quickly recovered. After several short term contracts split the business between the McCormick brothers, the whole operation was reformed in 1879 as the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company which is of course the predecessor of International Harvester Inc. and Case IH Corporation.

And what did the Diggers find that day?

Rummaging around in the pastoral roadside dumps did produce some interesting tidbits and minor prizes and pieces of larger puzzles...

Here's a nice dark olive glass Hemingway insulator that’s as common as dirt, but there are some interesting mold marks on the reverse - even the most common insulators have character up here, north of the number seven.

But the best discovery on the whole trip was this blue enameled steel two quart water pitcher – slightly rusted around the handle with one minor bruise along the base. Experts tell me this is the signature color of Eaton’s Catalog enamelware from the 1960s. It might have been connected with one of the first properties in the area and might herald from a time when The Gut was portaged by men carrying canoes.

Toronto Trade Union Badge?

Is this Toronto's first trade union badge?

The decal shows a balpeen hammer, rivet plyers, a trowel and other instruments on the back, along with the words 'Local 37, March 25th, 1914.'

This will be researched in the Toronto Archives under Unions.

Is it the first CUPE trde union badge?

CNE blue ribbon HON DIRECTOR

CNE blue ribbon HON DIRECTOR
Originally uploaded by roberrific

I found this for sale on Queen St on the weekend; it was for sale for $45

Now is this the 1957 CNE - HON DIRECTOR medal?

Is this the director's own blue ribbon symbol of authority?

1957 was the first year that the Queen Elizabeth Bldg was open to the public.

Now who was the HON DIRECTOR?

Inks Found near Toronto’s First Racetrack

Dumpdiggers walked Queen St west all the way to Roncesvalles yesterday. This part of Toronto is littered with cut-rate junk shops trying to be couture and proffer fine collectibles, but their contents are mostly crap. The exception is Pickwick’s Choice Antiques at 1698 Queen St West.

Harold Barrett is an old friend of the Dumpdiggers, and I have personally traded bottles and stories with him since 1996. I see written here on his card that he has been in the antiques business since 1974. Today he sells mostly small furniture and the stuff that young urban professionals use to furnish their 600 sq ft condos, but there was a time when his store was crammed with perfume bottles, pottery, coins, silver cutlery, art deco ashtrays and crystal glassware. Those were happy days when kitsch was cool and old bottles were all the rage.

After some easy conversation on the sidewalk I followed Harold into his store and found two crude English inks basking in the sunlight on an oak table just inside the front door.

Lyons Ink. Less than 3 inches tall. B.I.M., shearlip. Aqua glass. Embossed LYONS INK in a circular pattern at the base of square bottle.

‘Where did you get these inks Harold?’

‘They were found by a backhoe operator working near the old racetrack in Weston.’

‘Hmm… Where is Weston again?’

Inside what is now the City of Toronto, at the intersection of Lawrence and Old Weston Rd, there was once a small mill town on the quiet banks of the Humber river. My research tells me that Carleton Track was located on the southeast corner lots of Keele and Dundas St more than one hundred and fifty years ago. This was the very place in which the Queens Plate was inaugurated on Wednesday, June 27, 1860. Its not really in Weston and not really in Toronto - the Carleton Track was located in between the two urban centers in a place still called 'The Junction'.

Could these inks have been used by Sir Casimir Gzowski or Thomas Patteson to write to Queen Victoria in Buckingham Palace on April 1, 1859 on behalf of the Toronto Turf Club to petition a plate of fifty guineas for a horse race in Upper Canada?

Today the actual trophy, the 'Queen’s Plate' they position in front of the TV cameras, is actually a gold cup, about a foot high? It should be called the Queen's Gold Cup or something more appropriate.

Back in 1860, Sir Casimir Gzowski was a distinguished engineer whose father had been a Polish officer in the Russian Imperial Guard. He wrote a lot of letters and was probably one of the most well connected men in Toronto, which had a population of about 45,000 people.

Here is a photo of Weston Rd in rush hour in the year 1920. Look at how the horse drawn buggies and fine carriages still compete with cars for the road, and I do believe that’s an electric streetcar in the background…? If so that same mass transit system must have connected with Toronto.

Back in 1860, by successfully establishing an annual 'Queen's Plate' incentive, Sir Casimir and Mr. Patteson had made Canadian horse racing “the sport of royalty”.

The Carleton racetrack disappeared as horseracing moved down to the lakeshore area of Toronto to a track called Woodbine (Greenwood) in 1874. A retired innkeeper, Joseph Duggan sold a large parcel of land on what is today Lakeshore Boulevard to gentlemen named Pardee and Howell who ran an unsavory horse racing racket and were soon run out of town.

When legitimate horse racing solidified at Woodbine there was both thoroughbred and standardbred races, the latter was harness racing with sulkys. Gambling was tolerated and police were usually present at each match.

The Origin of American Standardbred Racehorses

According to Betty and Jack on this Ontario harness racing fan site, John Jacob Astor bought an imported British horse named Messenger in 1788 and bred him 'with any easy equine he could get his hands on…' and he had some fast children.

Over time, Messenger’s sons had foals of their own. One odd looking horse in particular, a big-rumped stallion named Hambletonian, was particularly fast.

Over the next 24 years Hambletonian became North America’s premier stud horse producing more than 1,300 foals. Today, the lineage of virtually all American Standardbred racehorses can be traced back to four of Hambletonian’s sons.

Bad News! This ink bottle is just not that old. This vessel was made in England in 1885 tops. Veteran Dumpdiggers tell me that LYONS INK is cheap English crap. They look old because they’re so crude, but in fact they are probably turn-of-the-century manufacture. Was this blown into a mold? Yes and yes that crude top was tooled off in the factory and no attention paid to the appearance of the closure as long as the cork fit snugly in the mouth.

Because I want to know how much its really worth (if anything?) , I put this early aqua LYONS INK on eBay.

DESCRIPTION: Sometimes called a snap bottle, this vessel was made in England in the late 1800s and filled with India ink then packed in wooden gross (144 units) crates and shipped to markets all over the world (in this case, Canada). Sheer top, this aqua colored ink has pronounced vertical ridges on three sides. The fourth side is flat and no doubt once accommodated a paper label. The 3 x3 inch bottle was blown into a mold? I think so. And as you can see in the second picture, there's some embossing in a circular stamp on the bottom of the vessel that reads 'LYONS INK'

The bottle is in 'as found' condition. The stains and blemishes on the glass are well detailed in the third photo. There is also some recent damage to the top.

Does anyone have anything to add about this ink?