Never Lose Hope ~ An Obituary
NOTL Local – Feb.25, 2024 It was the video clip of a young boy dancing that gutted me. He was wearing a jacket that was way too big, hands waving in the air, while the band played…
Read MoreNiagara-on-the-Lake Bed & Breakfast
NOTL Local – Feb.25, 2024 It was the video clip of a young boy dancing that gutted me. He was wearing a jacket that was way too big, hands waving in the air, while the band played…
Read MoreNiagara on the Lake Local , January 6, 2024 Thanks to local residents, the year ended with a glimpse of…
Read MoreThe Local, November 22, 2023 It’s been almost 14 months since Ceto Reid, a 20 year veteran…
Read MorePart One – Looking Back at Love in…
Read MoreThe Local, October 20,2023 There was a sense of anticipation as the emcee of the concert…
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Read MoreThe Local, July 3, 2023 The story opens with Malaika, a little girl in the Caribbean, who awakens from her sleep after a dream of a flying man carrying a basket of fruit – peaches, apples, and cherries –…
Read MoreThe Local, June 26/2023 Fifty years ago I shared a stage with a number of local musicians for a childrens camp fundraiser organized by John Wiebe at St.Catharines United Mennonite Church. I was especially excited to…
Read MoreNiagara on the Lake Local, June 22, 2023 It was an appreciative congregation who met on Sunday night for the second last Caribbean Workers Outreach Project church service of the season. Hosted by Bethany Mennonite Church for decades it…
Read MoreBuilding Bridges instead of Barriers It started out with a simple list of errands for Barbara Somerwil one summer day in 1992. A vision check was not on her agenda but by the end of the day Barbara viewed…
Read MoreLine a 9×16″ cake pan or 2 smaller ones with parchment paper. Mix dry ingredients together: 2 1/2 C. flour 3 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. salt 1/2 C sugar Cut in 3/4 cup or shortening….
Read MoreThe Local, Dec.27, 2022 Last weeks storm was one for the books. Thanks to the howling wind and plummeting temperatures my memories of it will be frozen as solid as the water buckets in my chicken coop. Christmas preparations were…
Read MoreThe Local – Friday, Oct.28 It happened in a split second – metal on bone, laundry scattered, a twisted bike frame on the side of the street, faces blurring in and out of his vision. It had been a hectic…
Read MoreThe Local, August 4, 2022 Dale Merrill’s life has taken an adventurous turn in recent years, one he likely never could have imagined. He has been a design and build contractor for 40 years, building luxury homes in the U.S….
Read MoreThe Things We’ve Handed Down – Honouring Harvill Maye …
Read MoreThe Local, March 28, 2022 This week marks the 10th anniversary of the passing of Isbrand Boese. A refugee from the war in Ukraine, he arrived in Niagara in 1930 with his parents and 5 siblings. Within a few decades…
Read MoreFor many of us 2022 will be remembered as a time when a caring community shone brightly, despite the second year of COVID related challenges. Last spring the delivery of more than 500 welcome kits to farm workers was a…
Read MoreThump, thump, thump. The noise was a bad omen on a beautiful Sunday afternoon as Kathy Kerr pulled over on a rural stretch of gravel road in Niagara on the Lake. Her tire hopelessly flattened and without a cell…
Read MoreOctober 29, 2021 by Jane AndresCommunity If you’ve ever visited local farm stands in search of the perfect peach you would likely have met Paul Bent at the colourful Epp farm stand on the Niagara River Parkway. Some locals like…
Read MoreOctober 7, 2021 by Jane Andres The parish of Clarendon lies in the heart of Jamaica’s mountainous countryside. Few Niagara locals have even heard of this area, yet many of us have been influenced by or benefitted from the “Clarendon…
Read MoreMaking connections enriches a community July 22, 2021 by Jane Andres It’s a Tuesday night and I’m pulling up to the Serlucca farm on Concession 2, the car loaded with groceries. Dan, the farm owner, greets me with a…
Read MoreGladstone Pusey August 30, 1963 – March 18, 2021 Broken Bank, Rock River, Clarendon A gentleman. Hard worker. Dependable. A man of his word. An honourable man. He liked to joke, to add a little levity when the going got tough…
Read MoreNiagara on the Lake Local ~ February 24, 2021 by Jane Andres Jane Andres, best known in Niagara for creating a caring community and…
Read MoreNiagara on the Lake Local, Dec. 30, 2020 It wasn’t what they expected when they moved to Niagara. It has only been a year and a half since Antonio Illas first set foot on the most fertile soil in Canada,…
Read MoreNiagara on the Lake Local, December 11, 2020 2020 will always be remembered as a year of extraordinary challenges. In Niagara on the Lake it will also be remembered as a time when a caring community shone brightly! The delivery…
Read MoreNiagara on the Lake Local, October 8,2020 By Penny Coles ( Edited version ) Two Niagara-on-the-Lake families are seeking a permanent solution for a Jamaican farmworker who was seriously injured in a 2008 workplace accident here. The story of…
Read MoreNOTL Local, October 2, 2020 https://notllocal.com/2020/10/02/library-books-for-kids-heading-to-jamaica/ In February 2012 Jodie Godwin, her 12 year old daughter Leah and I had the opportunity to visit Jamaica. The purpose of the trip was to meet the families of the men who worked…
Read MoreThe NOTL Local ~ October 2, 2020 It’s no exaggeration that this past season has been fraught with unforeseen challenges for everyone. There were also many times this past summer when a bright sunbeam would slip through a fissure in…
Read MoreThe Niagara on the Lake Local Part 3, June 29 Until the last quarter century, most of early black history in Niagara on the Lake was buried in obscure documents or barely acknowledged by one of our town’s foremost historians,…
Read MoreThe Niagara on the Lake Local, June 22 https://notllocal.com/2020/06/25/farm-worker-struggles-to-get-permanent-resident-status/ It never gets easier. There is a price to be paid for families that are separated for eight months of the year. Men and women working here on the temporary…
Read MoreThere has been much in the news lately regarding the systemic racism which most of us who have grown up in a white dominated culture have been blissfully unaware of, yet benefited from. We have a lot to process, especially…
Read MoreThis year marks a 15 year anniversary celebrating treasured friendships with our Jamaican neighbours. It was in spring 2005 that I was invited to assist with the music at a little church service for Caribbean farm workers. The CWOP …
Read MoreOne of the first signs of spring is the bright red leaves of rhubarb poking up in our garden! Rhubarb Orange Muffins Topping: 1/4 Cup brown sugar 1 Tbsp. orange zest 1/2 tsp. cinnamon Batter 2 Cups flour 1/2 cup sugar…
Read MoreIn the February 12 edition of The Local I took the readers to visit a mountaintop high up in the clouds of St. Catherine, Jamaica with Uton and Linnette Bell. Since that experience in 2008, I have had the privilege…
Read MoreThe NOTL Local~ Feb 12 It was a golden morning in Spanishtown, Jamaica. The brilliant sunshine and rapturous birdsong erased any memories of the dull winter my friend Jodie Godwin and I had left behind in Niagara. We…
Read MoreThe Niagara on the Lake Local – May 10, 2019 The police officer leaned in closer to the squad car radio, listening in disbelief. Dispatch was requesting backup for a traffic situation. An excited driver had just reported a woolly…
Read More“They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad that I’m going to miss mine by just a few days.” ~ Garrison Keiller My father, Ruben Friesen, passed away on Dec.11 at 94 years of…
Read MoreNOTL Local – October 31, 2020 It’s a balmy evening in September and I’m walking with my dog towards a brilliantly hued sunset on Wall Rd. In the distance I can see the headlights of a little silver pickup…
Read MoreThe NOTL Local – Sept.26 September offers a welcome change for those who have been dealing with peach fuzz, long work days, heat and humidity for the past 3 months. For our neighbours on the farms this time of…
Read MoreThe NOTL Local -August 22 Almost 800 meals served! Music and laughter spilling out of the tent and into the picnic grounds. Friends reunited and friendships kindled. The tantalizing aroma of jerk chicken. Lord Mayor Betty Disero twirling on…
Read MoreIt is a perfect Sunday evening, only a week away from the Peach Pickers Picnic. We’ve been distributing posters and dinner tickets to the 75 plus farms in Niagara on the Lake for about 5 weeks now, averaging 2 farms…
Read MoreNiagara Workers Welcome This week the magic happened. It started with a tiny flicker, a momentary reflection catching my eye in a little pond tucked deep among the ferns. A second tiny flash hovered over the path and…
Read MoreIt was a beautiful evening in fall and I was enjoying a quiet time puttering about in my front yard when I heard it. It was a muffled crack followed by an onslaught of men’s excited voices, then abruptly…
Read MoreIn our B and B guest room there is a little basket with a unique contraption tucked in amongst a collection of loose photos. The stereograph was a gift from my husband years ago, a low tech wonder. It…
Read MoreIt is an early April morning and the sun’s rays are hitting the top of the ridge at Kentish, Jamaica, where the lush green sugar cane is heavy with dew. The sunlight moves slowly, a cascade of gold and…
Read MoreDufferin Grove Organic Farmers market – April 3, 2019 In Memory of Debbie Wiecha Our market community grieves the loss of Debbie Wiecha, a long-time vendor famous for her amazing organic peaches and fragrant lavender, and much-loved for her generosity…
Read MoreRemembering a name forges human connection The NOTL Local – March 28, 2019 by Jane Andres Visiting Juan Del Bolas Mountain in St.Catherine, Jamaica, Jane Andres took this…
Read MoreA Hero in Our Own Back Yard The NOTL Local – February 23, 2019 by Jane Andres For many years my daily dog-walking expeditions involved sloshing through the Four Mile Creek with a pair of rubber boots and visiting the old Servos…
Read MoreThe NOTL Local February 6, 2019 by Jane Andres It had all the feels of a long anticipated reunion, the adults hugging and laughing as the children watched with shy smiles, waiting to be introduced. Indeed it was a special kind of…
Read MoreEating Niagara – September 5, 2015 By Tiffany Mayer A pile of photographs sits on Jane Andres’s dining room table.In them, faces beam out at the viewer: middle school-aged students wear caps and gowns to mark the successful end of…
Read MoreNiagara Food : A Flavourful History of the Peninsula’s Bounty By Tiffany Mayer Advertisements
Read MoreHarriet’s Legacies: Race, Historical Memory and Futures in Canada Brock University 2015 In May 2005 I was invited to help with the music at a church service for Caribbean workers. CWOP, the Caribbean Workers Outreach Project, was run by Grace United Church…
Read MoreHarriet’s Legacies: Race, Historical Memory and Futures in Canada Brock University 2015 We live in Niagara-on-the-Lake within walking distance to the shores of Lake Ontario. If you take the path down into the valley behind our home you will find rich bottom…
Read MoreA Collection of Foggy Day Rambles The Last Remnants – Ice House and Cemetery This stone structure was the last remnant of the settlement on Palatine Hill. It had been attached to a wooden building which would have originally been…
Read MoreOne of my most requested recipes! 1 Cup brown sugar 1/2 cup butter 2 tbsp. maple syrup 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts 3 tart local apples , peeled and sliced 4 eggs 1 cup half and half 1/4 tsp pure…
Read MoreA Collection of Foggy Day Rambles Whispers from the Past Over two hundred years ago you would have heard the voices of young John, Daniel or Maggie Servos as they played along the banks searching for crayfish or swinging buckets…
Read MoreA Collection of Foggy Day Rambles The Road to Palatine Hill The only route to Palatine Hill from the town of Niagara on the Lake was via Four Mile Creek Rd. until the mid 1800s when the Lake Rd. bridge was built. Four Mile…
Read MoreFour Mile Meanderings As the Four Mile Creek nears Lake Ontario it twists and turns through the floodplain, intersecting tender fruit orchards and vineyards. Originally a lake bed, the rich topsoil along the Four Mile watershed is some of the…
Read MoreA Collection of Foggy Day Rambles Beasts and Birds: A Touch of the Wild There still exists a path frequented by deer and coyote from Palatine Hill down…
Read MoreA Collection of Foggy Day Rambles If you take a walk down to the Four Mile Creek behind Applewood Hollow you will notice a wooded rise on the opposite bank. On the top of the ridge, nestled in the…
Read MoreBy NICHOLAS KEUNG Friday, May 3, 2013 It is not often migrant farm workers get to party and go to a concert after a long day of back-bending labour in the field.Certainly not a concert dedicated to them, with black gospel, reggae and R&B…
Read MoreBeyond Ordinary Living Magazine May 2008 By Jane Andres It is four in the morning and a city lies resting. On its southern shore it is bordered by the sea, mercurial waves lapping at its shores at this early hour….
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