Thursday April 22nd., 2010

Ron Brown
will be speaking on his latest book (2009)

"The Lake Erie Shore  
Ontario's Forgotten South Coast"
by
Author Ron Brown

Ron is a Toronto writer and geographer.
His passion for Canada's vanishing heritage landscapes have carried him
from the remote outposts of Newfoundland to the ghosted mining camps of British Columbia.
His books have brought Canadians, and especially those in Ontario,
closer to their unusual landscapes and heritage features.

Ron Brown has been writing books about ghost towns, railways, and other unusual things in Ontario since 1978, and has written more than 20.  He lectures, guides tours, and advises business groups
on the heritage which lies in their own back yards.
He is also past chair of the Writers Union of Canada

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Ron will be talking about his brand new book on Lake Erie. Author of "Back Roads of Ontario". "Toronto's Lost Villages", and "Ontario's Ghost Town Heritage" to name a few.  Ron Traversed the Lake Erie shore to flesh out forgotten stories from the past.

"The Lake Erie Shore" was launched in May 2009.  The complete book wasn't available at the time this went to press, but in the introductory chapter, Ron notes that the shoreline lacks the magnificent geographical formations and bustling urban scapes of better known Ontario places, but that this lack of grandeur may be exactly why Ontario's South Coast is a special place.

Here is a "teaser"

"Here you find the northern reaches of the lush Carolinian forests, plants found nowhere else in Ontario. Here too is one of Ontario's only three UNESCO World Biosphere Reserves, as well as cactus, and tall grass prairies, and one of Canada's Heritage rivers.  The waters of the lake are among Ontario's most dangerous, their shallow depths littered with hundreds of doomed ships. It is a lake of unpredictable tidal waves and some say, its own 'monster'.

"Its shores harbour a string of active fishing ports, home to the world's largest fresh water fishing fleet, and indeed the last fishing fleet on the Great Lakes.  Picturesque harbours contain fish stores, net sheds and historic lighthouses, and is one case, a castle. In other cases, the Erie shore can be a "Ghost coast". Where schooners once set sail with barley or lumber, only rotten cribbing lies, hotels and stores sit empty, mill sites have only their overgrown ponds to tell of busy milling days.

"Then there is its human history of slaves escaping their humiliating servitude, of heroines rescuing the crew of a sinking ship, a 'witch' doctor, an imperious "emperor" after whom many a place has been named, nefarious rumrunners, and the mysterious little-known pre-historic in habitants."

For those of us who are drawn perhaps inexplicably to this area, response to the book is likely to be "yes, that's why" and a desire to read more. Pick up your copy and hear Ron Brown speak at Montgomery's Inn at our Monthly Meeting on April 22nd., 2010

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Lake Erie facts: The lake was called after the Erie, an Iroquoian tribe inhabiting the south shore,
338 km long, 92 km wide up to 64m (210') deep; averages only 19m (62') deep.
Lake Erie has a reputation of being quick to raise waves of frightening size,
a result of it being so shallow.
The shortest water retention time; the highest population density, most farm land
and largest number of major cities of the five lake basins. 

From Canadian Geographic www.canadiangeographic.ca
35 million people live around the lake,
it provides driniking water for 11 million people,
360 chemical compounds and 161 invasive species have now been identified in the Great Lake.