Me n Len: Life in the Haliburton Bush 1900-1940

Joan McGrath is a Toronto Board of Education library consultant.

The history of rural Ontario has for the most part gone unrecorded. Those who lived the rugged life of the Ontario woodlands, like Len Holmes, hunter, trapper, fisherman, and woodsman, were far too busy to spend much time on schooling. And while Len, for example, is a master storyteller, it’s a fairly safe bet that he never recorded any of his reminiscences on paper. It’s a crying shame, and one that can never be remedied, that so many “Lens” carry their stories with them when they go, for they are rollicking tales well worth remembering and passing down through the generations to come, of the times and people gone by, and ways of living now all but forgotten.

Happily for the Ontario historians, and for the aficionado of a darned good visit with a genuinely interesting old codger, Len’s friend Dick Pope decided to write Len’s life story for him, and, to the best of his ability, to write it in Len’s own colorful and idiosyncratic vocabulary. It’s a honey of a book — readable, informative, and (there’s no way to avoid saying it) heartwarming. One’s only quibble, and it’s a minor one, is that this story deserves cloth binding rather than glossy magazine format. Very attractively illustrated with the Holmes family’s own photographs and some highly evocative artwork by Neil Broadfoot. Oh yes, and a very necessary glossary.