Leith Journal 1

September 28th, 2004

Today we drove from Kitchener to Owen Sound. Most of the way we were on Highway 6, which took us through a section of Ontario that reminded me a lot of certain sections of Wisconsin. Lots of green rolling hills, farms, and sporadic quaint villages. I particularly liked Fergus, which had many historical buildings and a strong Scottish influence.

It took a couple of hours anyway to reach the

south end of Owen Sound. I could see Georgian Bay in the distance, but only briefly, before I was distracted by the steep slope of the road as we descended into a valley. The town is located at the tip of an inlet of the bay called, appropriately enough, Owen Sound. We turned west onto 10th Street, the
main road through town, and then quickly took a right on 3rd Avenue west. I had been told this road would take us out to the tiny village called Leith.

Few people even in Ontario likely know of Leith, but it is a place I heard about often when I was a child. Carl Ahrens and his family summered there for several years and I have a couple dozen photographs of the family on the Leith beach. One of the oil paintings that hangs on my wall was painted there.

We were almost to Leith when we saw a place to pull over and take photos. The wind was fierce and my cousin, Chris, and I needed our coats for the first time on this trip. The water was a brilliant turquoise, despite the waves lapping at the rocks on shore. The ruggedness of the landscape reminded me of

Maine, where I grew up, but the color of the water was unlike anything I've seen anywhere else. I was in love with Georgian Bay at first sight.

We drove a mile or so further and saw the sign for Leith. The town has long since been overshadow-
ed as a port by the larger town of Owen Sound. There is one restaurant, a church and a handful of houses now. We crossed a small stream and I immediately remembered the story of Chloris, my
grandmother, wandering away from the cottage at age two. For an afternoon the whole town feared she had drowned in the creek, but after being missing for eight hours she was found sleeping on the sandbank of another creek - a mile and a half from home. She had simply gone for a walk!

We soon came to the Leith Church. I had read that Tom Thomson, a painter affiliated with the Group of Seven, was buried in the graveyard there. It took no time to find the marker. On the way back to the car a resident of Leith approached us and we told him about the reason for our visit. He said that the church was only open for a handful of services a year but that he had a key if we would like to see inside. It was simplistic in design, but worth seeing. It was the only church in the area, so chances are Carl and his family attended services there.

The historical photos were all taken in the summer of 1914. The
recent photo was taken when I returned to Leith beach in May of 2007. It was shot at the same
location where the photo of the Ahrens family that I am holding was
originally taken.