Guelph, Ontario: Greenies and Artsies?

There’s something both organic and artsy about this town — with caveats on both counts.

This town, of course, is Guelph, Ontario, where I’ve moved this month.

Have lived all my life 45 minutes’ drive down the highway in Hamilton on Lake Ontario. But I’ve had a foot in Guelph for much of my life, starting with my undergrad degree begun in 1980. Fifteen years ago, I returned to my alma mater as a writer. Been there since — more or less — but always commuting from Hamilton.

Now living on the Second Storey here just five minutes’ walk from downtown Guelph. Today I walked that five minutes’ distance to see what I might see and learn about my new-old home in a morning. It turned out to be less about learning and more about reinforcing and questioning.

Organic. Crowds attracted to the Saturday morning Guelph Farmers’ Market. Today special as the market has relocated to its original home near City Hall and Carden Street after a hiatus elsewhere.

Today saw the reopening of the Guelph Farmers’ Market in its original downtown location

Having been a former patron of the farmers’ market in my hometown Hamilton, I know that you have to be careful when you throw around words like “organic.”

Some claims to organic growing are apparently just so much goat manure. Organic certification appears to be the safest bet, ensuring things like no pesticides, no chemical fertilizers, no mechanized vehicles and so on.

Even the term “farmers’ market” is a loose one. In some places, there are fewer true farmers and more vendors whose goods have been trucked in from the nearest food terminal.

A few signs among the stalls in Guelph today proclaimed “No pesticides” and “Pesticide-free.” One apple grower uses integrated pest management in the orchard. “Organic” appears in the names of at least a couple of vendor stalls.

You can find organic choices in the supermarket, of course. Speaking of supermarkets, city council this week approved rezoning in the ever-growing south end of Guelph for a new Sobeys.

Good news for shoppers in that part of the world looking for more choices period, organic or not. Not much consolation for a colleague in the east end of town who has lobbied for a grocery store there since she moved to the area about three years ago.

She perceives Guelph as “anti-development.” Too many building restrictions. Just look at the bylaws in Guelph that prevent developers from obstructing sightlines to the Church of Our Lady and from out-elevating the city landmark. There it is on the skyline in the above picture.

Myself, I appreciate the architecture downtown. And you can`t help liking a place that pays attention to its built heritage, let alone seemingly esoteric things like sightlines. I come from Hamilton, remember, where sometimes it seems people would sooner knock down a heritage building than look twice at it.

Most supermarkets are tidy low-rise affairs. Maybe there’s a way to place a new supermarket on the most easterly outskirts of the east end, where the only thing it might obstruct would be any possible view of Toronto.

My colleague and I also shared some thoughts about the arts community here in the Royal City.

(By the way, the city was named to honour King George IV, whose family name was Gwelf. It was established in 1827 as a base for the Canada Company by superintendent John Galt, a Scottish novelist. Its radial street and grid system was patterned after European town centres, radiating outward from a spot on the Speed River downtown near Galt’s original home.)

Having worked and half-lived here for a while, I’ve always considered this university town as an artsy place, one where arts and culture are intertwined. Everyone seems to know everyone else, maybe not surprising in a city of some 120,000 souls. It’s not six degrees of separation here. Maybe one and a half. Be careful what you say about people here, I’ve been warned.

Within that, the arts crowd has always seemed especially tight. Indeed, there are overlapping circles. Go to one place or event, or talk about one artist, and you can almost see the lines glowing to connect them to everyone else.

At the same time, there can be a disconnect. My same colleague moved here three years ago and says she’s had a tough time integrating with the community, let alone the artistic crowd. Just try breaking in when you’ve come from outside without knowing a soul, she said.

One artist I met downtown this morning for the first time acknowledged the closeness of the arts community here, but also spoke of “layers.” Not everyone necessarily knows or appreciates others.

We might be talking about different issues here. Who ever said artists ever claimed to agree with one another — a different issue from knowing one another or acknowledging one another’s presence?

I plan to look into these questions here and elsewhere. Arts do indeed help to define this town — and offer a way in for someone like me who’s been half-in all along.

My own stroll downtown this morning gives me reason for optimism. After visiting the market, I walked a few blocks to a new arts/music space just down the street called Silence. Funny enough, when I learned of its existence this week, I polled three co-workers: none had heard of it. Silence indeed.

Maybe I have a leg up already. More optimism: I ran into several acquaintances from the university campus where I work. So not alone.

And then there was this, spotted on Carden Street this morning, one of about 10 similar instruments parked around town this month and free for the plunking. Things can’t be all bad in a place where they invite you to share your musical soul, more or less on the spot.

This month brings pianos free for the playing to downtown streets in Guelph.

Bridges to New Beginnings

Nesting time — or maybe an installation performance?

Spotted this creature — and its mate — this week renovating their home. Nest tucked onto a broad windowsill at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario, where I work. Stood and watched them duck in and out with material to refurbish their place, as if watching an installation performance.

It was a warm, humid day — everything still late summer-green, as you can see — but nature has flipped a switch. Early September has brought aerial displays: flocks of geese busy with plans, flocks of smaller avian acrobats mimicking funnel clouds and bee swarms, as if trying out their wings for what’s to come in a few weeks.

Things are on the move. Leaves not yet fallin’ all around, but you can hear echoes of Led Zeppelin’s Ramblin’ On. Here in Guelph, Labour Day weekend brought thousands of students back to U of G campus. It also sent two of our kids to respective quarters at Western and Brock universities. And it brought me to Guelph, nearly full circle.

In 1981 I began my second year of studies at Guelph. Wildlife biology. Completed my degree a few years later but never worked in the field. (Does photographing squirrels through a window count as fieldwork?)

That year I rented an upstairs room in a house downtown. Scroll forward more than 30 years, and I am now living a block down from that second-year rental. Circles. This time, I have the full upper floor of a century home, up with the air and light and trees (and squirrels). Took a week to sort through my jumbled belongings and impose some order in my new nest. Have managed to make something of a home out of the place.

Have also begun exploring my neighbourhood. Last weekend, took a long bike ride around the perimeter of the municipal ward I now call home. Some 20k. Route ranged from established downtown neighbourhoods to new subdivisions to  wild bits on the edge, even a former dump site now converted into parkland and a pollinator park.

St. George’s Church, Guelph, Ontario

Within walking distance is downtown itself, of course, including the iconic St. George’s Church just down a block from central St. George’s Square.

Goldie Mill: Up from the ruins?

Closer to home, just down the hill from the Second Storey, is Goldie Mill Park. History snapshot: first mill established on the Speed River in 1827. Bought by James Goldie in 1866. Saw use as wheat mill, flour mill, tannery, distillery and warehouse.

Ruins still stand in a city park. Trans Canada Trail runs through the property.

You reach the park from my place by crossing a footbridge. A heritage plaque says the bridge was built by the Hamilton Bridge Company. That company began operations in Hamilton just three years before Goldie bought the mill here in Guelph.

Labour Day is still a biggish deal in Hamilton. Until that weekend I had lived for my entire life in Hamilton, apart from those four years spent as an undergrad in several rented places, including that single room just a block up from here.

Circles.

And bridges — to new things.

Having beaten the bounds of the neighbourhood, I plan to investigate my new environs more closely. Will report back here and elsewhere from time to time about people and places that make this place what it is. Maybe it will all serve as a bit of a mirror, giving me a glimpse of what I am, too.

What do your own surroundings say about you? Do you see yourself reflected in your place and vice versa? Do you choose where to live, or does the place choose you?