Oh my god, we're famous.
If readers of Iced Under, The Grey Lady and The River Bride have ever wondered where I got the inspiration for Stollerton, the CBC's hit show Still Standing with Jonny Harris has profiled my gorgeous little village in all its glory. You can watch it here:
Nikki Mantell, interviewed in the piece, was my former boss at the LowDown to Hull and Back News. It looks all slick now, but you should have seen the offices back in the day. Now that was a newspaper office. Her father, Art Mantell, gave me my first real piece of writing advice that I remember to this day: "Where's the story, Nadine? Start at the story!"
The whole town looks slick and happening now. The train was responsible for some of the economic turn around, but the real change (in my opinion) began with the purchase and renovation of the Wakefield Mill. When it was turned into a stunning boutique hotel, it signalled that the village was a place people would pay to visit.
From Iced Under (which was written back in the day):
Named for the family that founded it, the village followed the tips and bends of the Gatineau River with cramped carelessness, squeezed between the mountain and the old railway tracks. Its logging roots showed in the clapboard buildings that were hastily constructed, no one anticipating they’d still be in use a hundred years later. The population hovered perpetually at eight hundred and the economic health of the region was equally stagnant. Nothing to buy, nothing to sell, and what there was, nobody wanted. Like many quaint, picturesque towns in West Quebec, Stollerton hung on to existence with the tenacity of a weed.
Wakefield is likely to suffer for its unique physical beauty and easy-going nature. With COVID, we've seen a dramatic increase in tourist traffic, and while I'm happy for the business owners who have hung in there through the bad times, it makes the village less familiar.
I hope visitors get transformed by the vibe as I did, as so many newcomers did, into calmer, cheerier people who realize there is nothing more important than the person standing in front of you. I hope they slow down on the back roads and look at the turtles instead of running over them.
I hope they put their Tim Horton's cups in garbage receptacles instead of throwing them in the ditches. The ditches offer life to the most beautiful variety of wildflowers. They look scruffy and insignificant, a place to toss garbage--they are not.
I hope they bend to the Hills instead of trying to bend the Hills to them. As a former Torontonian, I can tell you it's easier to give in.
I told a dear friend years ago that Wakefield loved me into being. It's true. Residents believe nothing is impossible and take it on fact that the most remarkable things can be accomplished, and usually with no money. Community centre? No problem. Hospital? Hold my beer. Build a bridge? Just watch us. Heritage museum, parks, trails? No worries.
In my case, it was three crime novels and now a cosy murder mystery series.
(My crime thrillers were formerly subtitled Gatineau Hills Mystery until I realized no one outside of the National Capital Region knew what the Gatineau Hills were. It is now the name of my tiny publishing company.)
Jonny Harris touched on the enormous creative output in Wakefield. Seriously, you can't swing a cat in this town without hitting an artist. Famous authors and musicians have come to the village, but it's the "famous to us" artists, singers, poets, writers, chefs, gardeners, philanthropists, librarians, historians, visionaries and business owners that have kept us going. When no one was here, they were here.
Trains come and go. It's the people who make a place magical.
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