Walking in the footsteps of Gordon Lightfoot

Digressions on a brief trip to Orillia, Ontario

I’m not much of a concert guy. It’s not that I don’t enjoy live music. I just don’t like planning three hours of my life weeks or months in advance. So I don’t see a lot of shows.¹ Most of my favourite musical acts are pretty young still. I’ve got time to see them, I hope. The one big exception was Gordon Lightfoot. Was. Maybe there’s not as much time as I think.

If you’ve spent a lot of time wandering the middle of the continent, you can almost see Gordon Lightfoot lyrics. Canada is a big country - so big that it’s hard to know well. Few knew it better than Gordon Lightfoot. Whether you’re on the banks of Lake Superior or looking out at train crossing the prairies, the stories he told stare right back at you.

I was so close to getting to see Gordon Lightfoot before he died. He played Massey Hall in late November, 2021. I had two tickets in my cart. Price was steep, but acceptable. It was walking distance from our old place. But it was still COVID times, so we weren’t ready for indoor concerts. In hindsight, I should have went. Gordon Lightfoot wasn’t young, but it still felt like there was more time. But stories always end.

Gordon Lightfoot was born in Orillia, Ontario. It’s a town of around 30,000 overlooking Lake Simcoe, on the edge of the Canadian Shield. When Gord died, the town decided to honour him with ornamental guitars placed around downtown that would eventually be auctioned off. I wasn’t going to miss this. Well, reader, as you might have guessed, I sort of did. I had the auction day in my calendar. When I tried to confirm the date a few weeks ago, I saw that the auction was happening the next day. So I hit the road the next morning.

Orillia is an easy place to end up by accident if you’re driving to Northern Ontario. Miss that jarring exit to Highway 400 north of Barrie, and you’ll end up in Orillia. But it’s not somewhere I’d spent much time. I used to make the drive between Sudbury and Toronto a few times a month. When you’re putting in 400 kilometers each way, beating GTA traffic is paramount. It means you’re leaving really early, and not making time for stops. So I’m reasonably confident I hadn’t been to Orillia - at least not on purpose.

The drive was nice, once I got through the surprisingly intense mid-day Toronto traffic. The open road was a welcome sight, as were the fall colours after a long, hot summer. I had no time to plan, so I wasn’t really sure where I was going. So I did what I always do in these situations: I found somewhere to get coffee.

Lone Wolf Cafe, Orillia, Ontario

Great coffee can be a bit tricky to find in a city of 30,000 people, though it seems to be getting easier every year. After a few minutes of googling, I punched the Lone Wolf Cafe into my GPS. This was a very good decision. Great coffee, excellent sandwich, beautiful rustic ambiance. I could have stayed there all day.

I didn’t have a lot of time, but there were two things I wanted to see: the guitars, and Lake Simcoe. I knew the guitars were vaguely Downtown, but I didn’t see them around. I got back onto Facebook to clarify, and I saw that the guitars slated for auction had already been taken down. Another near miss.

Fortunately, not all of the guitars were auctioned off. A few seem to be permanent installations.

Walking around Downtown Orillia, I could see the appeal. It has just enough day-to-day amenities, and it’s close enough to Toronto if you only need to be there a few times a month. The pace of life is a nice break from Toronto. I like living in a bigger city, but when that city becomes one big logistical nightmare, well, I can see how people might prefer this.

Downtown Orillia

I’m sure I’ve said this a million times in the short time I’ve been writing this publication, but there are few things I love to see more than well loved old small town mainstreets. Orillia has several of them. It’s got good bones, as urban planners would say.

Orillia Opera House

Of course, it’s also got challenges. Remember what I said about proximity to Toronto? I’m not the first person to have that thought. The GTA real estate crisis is spilling further and further out. Six hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a one bedroom condo in Orillia? Did I read that right? I sure did.

Now, to put this in perspective, Orillia had a median household income of $71,000 in 2020 - $13,000 less than Toronto. Without family help, you’re not qualifying for a six hundred thousand dollar mortgage on seventy one thousand dollars. That’s a problem.

It hasn’t always been like this. I chatted with a tradesman who lives just outside the city. He told me that when he bought his house a few years ago for three hundred thousand dollars, his hands were shaking. He thought he might be making a catastrophic financial decision. He no longer feels that way after seeing houses on his street sell for twice that. It’s the classic southern Ontario real estate story. It’s a little jarring hearing it this far north.

Orillia is a fairly blue collar town. Gordon Lightfoot’s parents made it there as drycleaners. Gord worked for his parents as a teenager, and played concerts in nearby Muskoka for a few beers before he moved to LA to study music. This kind of social mobility isn’t easy to begin with, but it’s especially hard when middle class families can’t get a mortgage.

This is both the challenge, and the opportunity of Southern Ontario. The quality of life is so high that people from all over the country and world want to come here. It doesn’t hurt if you’re on a lake. It’s a good problem to have.

Cities like Orillia are going to have to adapt. There are already a number of condo projects going up that appear to be selling well. If they’re going to keep prices in check, they’ll need more. Besides, it’s beautiful. Plenty of people would love to live there.

On my way out of town I swung by Lake Simcoe. Real end of the summer vibes. Nice way to start the fall.

Lake Simcoe

I’ll confess. It wasn’t just COVID that kept me from that concert. It also wasn’t the right venue. I know, Gordon Lightfoot was a mainstay at Massey Hall. But, deep down, I wanted to see him in some town somewhere. He was, after all, Canada’s everyman. Maybe in Orillia, or somewhere along the banks of Lake Superior. But the gales of November came early, as they often do.

With that, I’m off to see another band on my bucket list.² There’s only so much time, after all.

1. In fact, I’m going to see my first post-COVID show tonight. More on that in my next post.

2. Well, part of it. I’ll explain in a subsequent post.