The Opeongo Line

Back in the Day host, Martina Coulas, interviews Robbie Hanna Anderman about his more than fifty years living on Morninglory Farm in the Wilno Hills. A story of grit and determination, music and art, it's a remarkable memoir like no other.

Back in the Day host, Martina Coulas, interviews Robbie Hanna Anderman about his more than fifty years living on Morninglory Farm in the Wilno Hills. A story of grit and determination, music and art, it's a remarkable memoir like no other.

Back in the Day host, Martina Coulas, interviews Robbie Hanna Anderman about his more than fifty years living on Morninglory Farm in the Wilno Hills. A story of grit and determination I, music and art, it's a remarkable memoir like no other.

Taken from a recording of a live Opeongo Readers' Theatre show performed on August 27th, 2018 in Whitney, ON, this show includes rare readings drawn from early local history including an 1819 trip down the York, an 1829 exploration of  the Opeongo, and David Thompson's 1837 journal of charting the Madawaska. 

Taken from an audio vault of 2018 live performances by the Opeongo Readers' Theatre, this show presents Thomas G. Devine's "On the Opeongo Line," "The Shanty Teamsters Marseillaise," "A Wesleyan Methodist's Ride Through Rockingham," and "The 1874 Inspection of the Bark Lake School."

The Opeongo Readers' Theatre presents the curious story behind the founding of Algonquin Provincial Park. Lesley Betts, Lynn Stewart and Jeff Bowman perform the original writings of two very different men who shared the same wilderness dream.

The Opeongo Readers' Theatre honour three local women -- Helen Dombroski, Teresa Beanish, and Mary Cybulski -- who all made significant contributions to the economic growth of the Upper Madawaska Valley, but whose lives should also remind us of the significant cultural contribution made by local people of Polish-Kashub heritage. 

Born in the Wilno hills on November 12th, 1927, Agnes Coulas was in grade school when her mother died and yet she also unexpectedly met the love of her life, Stanley Chippior, at a church bazaar shortly after he returned from the Second World War. But if there's one thing she knows for certain after nearly 95 years of living, it's to take life as it comes. She chats with 'Back in the Day' host, Martina Coulas.

Born in 1880, Thomas Patrick Murray not only witnessed the coming of the OA & PS Railroad to Barry's Bay in 1894, he helped build it. Tom's great grandson, Graham Conway, performs a one-man show of Tom reliving those early years in his own words.

Thomas Patrick French was no ordinary man who came to Renfrew County in 1855. He was the Crown Land Agent charged with bringing hundreds, if not thousands, of immigrants to settle on free farm land along the newly opened Opeongo Colonization Road. It's was no ordinary job and he was no ordinary man from County Mayo.