Muskoka Activities

Innovation Muskoka

It was great fun on Friday!

Steve introducing the panel of Muskoka entrepreneurs

It was a pleasure to be the Master of Ceremonies for the day for Innovation Muskoka at the University of Waterloo in Huntsville. Innovation Muskoka was created and hosted by Muskoka Community Futures and Muskoka Community Network.

We had 5 successful Muskoka entrepreneurs present a history of their businesses, the successes and challenges, to the crowd.
They were:
Jan Nyquist of Pipefusion – stable floating docks that last, and anything else you can imagine made from polyethelyne pipe.
Amie Colquhoun of Axiom Audio -Loudspeakers; the most exciting, realistic sound experience on the market, designed and built in Muskoka.
James Solecki of Integra Lighting – the finest level of lighting design, custom installation and service to the Muskoka marketplace.
Don Waddington of Cottage Spot -Canadian source for the cottage products that you are looking for; with delivery right to your door.
Wendy Hogarth of Johnston’s Cranberry Marsh – Fabulous cranberries, fun destination, fantastic wine.
These presentations were informative and inspirational to say the least. Would-be entrepreneurs in the crowd soaked up many tips and advice offered by these generous people.

In the afternoon everyone thoroughly enjoyed something called the Innovation Sandbox. As it turned out, 13 people qualified for this event. Each had 5 minutes to “pitch” their business ideas and then were questioned and offered advice to a maximum of 10 minutes. Great fun, and some terrific people, ideas, and pitches.
The three with the combination of the best pitch and most viable businesses were awarded prizes ( an IPad, BlackBerry Playbook and a $250.00 Staples gift certificate).

Check out these Muskoka businesses, now or soon available to you:
Shelley Raymond of Solterra Co-housing
Scott Young of inventory-excess.com
Jenn and Emma of The Grumpy Hedgehog

 

Muskoka Activities, Muskoka Watershed Council, Stewardship

Muskoka Watershed Council Report Card Presentation

I had the pleasure today to do a presentation on the 2010 Report Card on behalf of The Muskoka Watershed Council.

I was invited by John McCaig Vice President of Probus Huntsville to talk about the work of the Muskoka Watershed Council and detail the 2010 Report Card. We had a good session with many, many questions.

According to the surveys, and as I asked prior to the presentation,  there was very little prior knowledge about the Report Card or even the Muskoka Watershed Council itself. Afterward, I was very pleased to see many positive comments about the presentation with most people commenting that their knowledge of the watershed and good stewardship practices was increased substantially. It certainly makes it worthwhile.

Thank you to everyone in attendance, I enjoyed it immensely. -Steve

Bicycles

cottageinmuskoka.ca donates 27 bicycles to a community charity

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Last week while showing a cottage with Catharine on Lake Muskoka, I got a call that some 27 bikes abandoned at a number of Toronto condominiums, were going to to be crushed for scrap the following day unless someone intervened. So we attached our old trailer and headed from Muskoka to Toronto to load up the bikes. We then delivered them to a back alley behind a church; given the recent activities of Toronto’s Igor, the unofficial world champion of bicycle thieves (here’s a NY Times article), our trailer load drew some real attention from good samaritans.

Trailer load of bikes, some with locks still on them.

We were able to support a Toronto charity: Community Bicycle Network (CBN). CBN is a non-profit that repairs bikes, refurbishes and sells donated bicycles, sells new and used parts, rents trailers and bikes at affordable rates, and offer space to practice and learn bike mechanics and cycling skills. CBN has been dedicated to promoting community-based sustainable transportation initiatives since 1993.

Steve with John at Community Bike Network

With just a little bit of time and effort, the donated bicycles will be sold at a very low cost to people that couldn’t otherwise afford them; instead of heading for a landfill.

Listing, property

Port Carling. Work to be done, but strong investment potential.

Right on the main street of Port Carling, we have a listing that is worthy of your attention, but is also in need of attention: maintenance and some repairs. There does not appear to be anything major to be done, and some renovations have already been completed.

So here for a listed price of only $209,000.00 is an opportunity to create a large home on a big, beautiful lot in a great location in downtown Port Carling.  It’s just steps to the Indian River, or the locks, shopping and dining. If you have construction/renovation/restoration skills, this is an opportunity to build equity quickly.

Lake Muskoka, Sailing, Uncategorized

From Maine to Muskoka and 5 years later, we’re sailing again

Sunday was forecast to be a beautiful day: 18 degrees, sunny and steady winds. And, we had the boat fully ready to go. So, after some preparation – we had to tie the mast hoops to the sail and tie one reef in the sail – Catharine and I, and our son Chris and his dog Kirby were going to take the catboat on its first sail in Muskoka. We headed out into Lake Muskoka and tacked through between Pine and Birch Islands.

Catharine tied on the mast hoops one by one to the sail, while I tied in the reef.

You can see the mast hoops in the picture below.

In the lee of Birch Island on Lake Muskoka it was calm enough to go forward for a picture.

For those who aren’t sailors reefing is a way to shorten the sail somewhat so as to not be overpowered by winds. You’ll see the reefing points tied onto the boom in the picture of Chris below.

Catboat, Lake Muskoka

Soon to be sailing in Muskoka again. New launching of old catboat.

Steve with "Dartry" at Muskoka Wharf

 

We brought a sailboat in need of restoration, back with us from Maine some 5 years ago. Today she was officially launched in Lake Muskoka at the Muskoka Wharf. Previously, and still currently named Dartry, she will be re-named Swell for the 2012 sailing season.

We first discovered these wonderful boats while living in Massachusetts. Known as a catboat in New England, these were the working boats in the 1800’s.  Typically using one large gaff-rigged sail, these wide beamed boats – ours is 18 ft. long and almost 9 ft. wide – had lots of room for the work at hand. They were used to unload cargo from much larger sailing vessels, to get good to and from shore. Catboats were also the fishing boats of the time, used for swordfishing, lobster traps, scallops, etc.

As you can see, the mast has not been raised yet so we planned to motor – there is a 4-stroke outboard built into a motor well – from Gravenhurst to Indianhead marina on Lake Muskoka.

Our timing was great and Cath caught a picture of the Segwun just as we both approached the Narrows from opposite directions. We exchanged greetings: two toots from the wonderful steam whistle on the Segwun and two dings from our bronze bell.

Although the weather was mostly overcast, our trip up Lake Muskoka was beautiful. Both the air and the lake were warm and the sun was beginning to dip below the cloud in places.

After five years of on-again, off-again restoration, this was truly a joyful trip. I did not know for sure if there would be leaks somewhere, so I was happy that I had given work on the bilge pump a high priority on the worklist; we made it with a dry bilge.

Mast still on cradle, but the boat arrives at Indianhead

Muskoka cottage life & real estate