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Happy Wednesday friends,
Thursday is the International Day of Friendship, which is good timing because our dinner club is back! Saturday is Emancipation Day, and Monday is the Civic Holiday, so we get to enjoy the long weekend as we connect with the rhythm of our region.
with love,
your friendly neighbourhood goose 🦆
How about a map to navigate the newsletter? 🙂
What's in today's newsletter
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CONVERSATIONS & CONNECTIONS
I know we were not supposed to skip July, but, it was a busy month so sorry couldn’t make that work. But, we are back for our 7th 6th round! Kitchener this time but not downtown so parking will be easier 🙂
Come become friends with your neighbours, the wonderful people who make this place beautiful. For our friends who are not familiar, this is how it goes:
✦︎ Take a quick quiz about your interests, food preferences, and the kinds of people you'd love to share a table with.
✦︎ Get matched with a few other Waterloo Region Rhythm community members based on your answers.
✦︎ Receive your invite the morning of the dinner - restaurant details included, no guessing required.
✦︎ Show up, eat well, meet people. Then follow everyone to a secret after-party spot, revealed at the table.
HIDDEN HISTORY
You know those ghost signs on old brick buildings? Faded paint for a shop that closed a century ago, still readable if you look up.
Our region's Black history is like that. It has been here the whole time. Most of us never looked up.
Saturday is August 1, Emancipation Day. It marks the day in 1834 the Slavery Abolition Act took effect across the British Empire, us included. Ontario recognized the date in 2008, Canada in 2021.
Here is the part I did not know.
North of Elmira, past St. Jacobs, there was a place called the Queen's Bush Settlement. Freedom seekers came up from the United States starting around 1820, took land nobody had surveyed yet, and cleared the forest by hand. By 1840 somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 Black people lived there. They built their own churches and schools. One school, Mount Pleasant, was a log cabin eight feet by fourteen. Smaller than a parking spot, and it worked as a classroom, a home and an orphanage at once.
On August 1, 1863, about 2,500 people gathered in Hawkesville for Emancipation Day. A sermon in the town hall, a procession led by the Berlin Band, then 1,500 meals served on Temperance Island. Hawkesville is tiny. Picture it.
Then the government surveyed the land and put it up for sale in the late 1840s. The settlers had cleared it for decades and had no cash to buy it. Most walked away with almost nothing. Today it is farm fields and three small villages: Glen Allan, Hawkesville, Wallenstein. You have probably driven through them.
Want to go look? The plaque is in Hawkesville at Broadway Street and Temperance Road. Stroll Walking Tours runs Black history walks in Kitchener on Saturday August 8 and Cambridge on Thursday August 13.
Good weekend to look up at the faded sign.
The people behind this story, are worth an extra five minutes.
ROLL OUT ROOTS
Work: Data Scientist & other roles, Miovision
Volunteer: Event Volunteer, Royal Medieval Faire
House of the week: Ranch style 70’s Bungalow
Adopt a pet: Lilly, your new cuddle buddy
AT HOME IN THE REGION
You know that moment when you walk into a house and something just clicks? Great. Now here's the part nobody prepares you for: what actually happens next.
Long weekend starts Saturday, and Cheryl Goetz has seven places inside a four hour drive.
Three are beaches, one is thirty minutes away, and one is a village two hours out that she marked on her guide as her favourite spot of the lot.
Where are you going this weekend or Labour Day?
RIDDLE ME
Last week’s trivia: wohoo 79% got it right! Hopefully you saw the Buck Moon today morning.
RIFFS & RIBS
The image below has all the eateries I found playing live music this week.
If you are an artist playing in the region or you have a restaurant / cafe / brewery that invites musicians reach out to share your details!
ROAM & RAZZLE
It still is a busy week with the long weekend. Image links to things to check out this week.
Got an event coming up? Share it here.
What are you curious about? (click and type)
⏩️ Forward this to someone who doesn’t want summer to end ☀
