A local book by a once-local author will be a featured stop on Thanksgiving Weekend’s driving tour of the Into the Dawn Barn Quilt Trail.
On Saturday October 10 2020, from 11 am to 3 pm, former Dawn Mills resident Kae Elgie, author of This Land will have an information display and copies of her book for sale on the grounds of the Czech Hall, St. George Street, Dresden.
The quilts on the driving tour route, which goes from the Oil Heritage Museum, Oil Springs to Dresden, all on paved roads, visually highlight key points in the history of the municipality now known as Dawn-Euphemia Township.
For example, the Sawblade Quilt on the ReRide building at Rutherford depicts one of the many sawmills which turned the township’s dense tree cover into lumber: the SS Dawn School Quilt, kitty corner from the Dawn Euphemia Public School, commemorates the many one-room schools which once dotted the township.
Elgie’s book fleshes out this history. Her book covers twelve thousand years in the life of two hundred acres of land which was part of Dawn Township when its first deed was written in 1824. Once home to mastodons tracked by nomadic Paleo-Indians, by the 1700s southwestern Ontario was the territory of Ojibwa (Chippewa) bands who moved from sugaring camps to fishing camps to hunting camps in
the Sydenham River basin.
Elgie focuses on the two hundred acres her great- great-grandfather George Elgie purchased in 1870, land first“owned”by Captain William Taylor, the founder of Dawn Mills. This land is now part of Fairview Farm where her brothers Earl and Bill and nephew Colin Elgie and their families live and work.
This Land’s story has much in common with the history of Dawn-Euphemia Township which Into the Dawn Barn Quilt Tour highlights. When Elgie’s research came to the at- tention of quilt tour organizers, she happily agreed to write a historical introduction to their forthcoming tour guide.
Published in August 2019, Elgie’s 492-page, richly illustrated book has received great critical acclaim. It is available from Fountain Street Press, 88 Fountain Street, Waterloo ON N2L 3N1 for $50.
The first four orders received before October 26, 2020 will have free shipping, a $20+ saving.
Information: This Land: Kae Elgie 519-635-8951 [email protected] or Into the Dawn Barn Quilt Tour: Leslea Williams 519-683-6382
