in Chatsworth, Grey Highlands, Southgate, West Grey
July 21, 2025
BY JOHN BUTLER — A river creates and connects communities along its length. That’s why the Grand River Voice of the River Community Play Project is helping Southgate to celebrate the township’s river-role at a public picnic, parade and performances — open to everyone — in Dundalk on Thursday July 31, starting at 6:00 pm and centred in Memorial Park.
The celebration begins with an assembly at Dundalk’s Old Town Hall, 80 Main St East, at 6:00 pm and a parade to nearby Memorial Park (adjacent to the swimming pool), arriving at 6:15. The public can assemble at either the Town Hall or the Park or both, bringing their picnic meals and fixings, non-alcoholic drinks and lawn chairs with them to this free celebration (but people can donate if they are able.) Festivities at the Park will feature music, including two Southgate songs written and performed by Dundalk musicians Debbie Bechamp and Don Black. The recently completed Grand River quilt will also be on display. Organizers are making provisions for shelter if it rains.
A note of advice to those who join the festivities at the Old Town Hall — take a look at the stunning butterfly mural on the side wall of the building, an art work designed and painted by local artist Angela Schermaul as part of Dundalk's recent mural creation project.
A locally-developed short play, Joan and Agnes, in which local Township Councillor Joan John strikes up a friendship with Agnes Macphail, is also featured during the evening in the Park. The play focuses on the importance of ground-breaking inclusion and community-building political action in this area. Says Southgate Deputy Mayor Barbara Dobreen, who portrays Agnes Macphail in the play alongside her real-life friend and fellow Council member Joan John (Joan is the first Black woman elected to a municipal council in Grey County): “Grey County is exceptional at preserving and telling its story. Agnes Macphail has made an impact far beyond Grey County borders. And she continues to be recognized Canada-wide. But we in Southgate, in the former Proton Township, claimed her first! Her values stood the test of time. Agnes continues to be a role model I aspire to, as a woman elected to represent all of Southgate.”
The presence of the Grand River in Southgate is subtle but profound. The river runs for 310 km. from its source near Dundalk, passing through 39 communities and two First Nations territories on its way to feed Lake Erie. A million people live within the river’s watershed. Its visible start is a farm ditch two kilometres east of Dundalk. By the time the watercourse leaves Southgate it’s clearly a river. Yet everyone who sets foot in Dundalk and vicinity is treading on the start of the river — the pooled subterranean groundwater in this area is the mother-ground that feeds the river’s continuous birth.
The celebration in Dundalk on July 31 is a collaboration between the Southgate community and the Grand River Voice of the River Community Play Project. Between June 5 and August 23, the Play Project, co-produced by the Canadian Centre for Rural Creativity and the Grandview Theatre Company, is helping fifteen communities along the river to celebrate their uniqueness and their common connection to a legendary Ontario river system. The Project’s many partners include the Community Foundation Grey Bruce and the Township of Southgate
The Play Project’s core resource is an 18-member creative team led by writer/director and co-producer Peter Smith. Says Peter, “We’ve received much kindness and humility from people along the river. It’s a reminder of how remarkable communities can be when they come together with openness and generosity.” Southgate Deputy Mayor Barbara Dobreen sees the value Peter’s team brings to her community, and to other towns along the watershed. “The Voice of the River production is an opportunity to explore the many unique histories and celebrate those moments and people in time that helped shaped our communities” says Barbara.
Members of this core team came to Dundalk on many occasions to join workshops with local volunteers to shape Southgate’s celebration. On several afternoons Peter and his team helped local people to write and rehearse Southgate’s play Joan and Agnes. On another occasion, Peter’s team helped Southgate volunteers to create a multi-image Southgate banner for the Dundalk parade, as well as a puppet-mask exemplifying local heritage — Southgaters chose the ox as its puppet-mask to reflect the patience, strength and endurance of these animals as helpmates to early settlers (although a frog was also in the running as Southgate’s mascot, given the crucial role wetlands play as one of the community’s gifts to the planet.) His team also worked with renowned local quilter Pam Burgess, who created the Southgate section of the Grand River quilt. The quilt display at the event will include the whole quilt, including Pam’s quilt contribution and her description of what her quilt section signifies in terms of the value of this community and of the river-water it offers to the whole river system. Musicians from Peter’s team also worked with local musicians Debbie Bechamp and Don Black to create the celebration’s soundscape (expect a lot of good music as part of the celebration.)
Peter’s team will be in town as part of the July 31 celebration, bringing with them the puppets, masks, music, banners, fluttering blue river-flags and quiltery created by other communities along the Grand watershed — and the total of all this creativity will come together both in the parade and the events at Memorial Park. Peter is quick to point out that the parade from the Old Town Hall will not be your conventional watchers-on-the-sidelines parade. Attendees are welcome to become enthusiastic participants in the parade itself, and in all elements of the evening’s celebration.
After local celebrations have been held all along the river, a Grand Finale event will take place from noon to 9:00 pm on Saturday August 23 at Chiefswood Park in the town of Ohsweken. It’s a fitting location: Ohsweken is a rural community located within the territory of the Six Nations of the Grand River in Brant County, Chiefswood Park comprises stunning Carolinian forest and prairie grassland on the banks of the Grand, and the Chiefswood National Historical Site is the birthplace of legendary Indigenous poet E. Pauline Johnson. Chiefswood festivities will include a market, story-telling, music, dance and a free concert by renowned Mohawk sculptor, multi-instrumentalist and Indigenous knowledge-keeper David Maracle. People from communities all along the Grand River will be part of the finale, and Peter Smith and his team hope a contingent from Southgate will be there to enrich this final event.
Although this celebration in Ohsweken may be the final event, Peter believes it will not be the final chapter of the story. Fostering vibrant communities has become his life’s work through the Canadian Centre for Rural Creativity, and he hopes the relationships established in Dundalk and other communities along the Grand through this project will endure and grow and yield even more harvests of creativity across the watershed.
The Canadian Centre for Rural Creativity website — highlighting the Voice of the River Project — is at www.ruralcreativity.org.
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