A Logo that highlights Simcoe North’s close relationship with water
Why I endorse the sailboat motif for the SNGP Logo #votefortheboat
Please note: This is a personal sailor-nerd endorsement from a member-at-large of the Green Party of Canada and the Green Party of Ontario and speaking on behalf of myself only. The opinions expressed here are my own.
If you’re signed up to receive monthly newsletters from the Simcoe North Greens, hopefully you noticed that in the most recent edition (published 3/22/21) there was a request for your input with regard to helping your Green riding associations in choosing a logo that best represents the Green presence in Simcoe North.
I like all the designs and while the two that are an amalgam of the provincial party and the federal party logos are fine and would work, they don’t really say anything distinctly about Simcoe North. I think a boat is a more appropriate symbol and of the two boat logos, the sleeker sloop rigged (single mid-hull mast with a foresail and mainsail on a boom or two) sailboat featured above is elegant and simple and my personal top choice for the following reasons:
Sailboats are the de facto symbol of Simcoe already
It’s about water and our relationship with water. To quote from a letter drafted by our outreach team and published in Midland Today last week:
In our riding of Simcoe North, we are bordered by Georgian Bay, Lake Simcoe, Lake Couchiching and of course the Trent Severn Waterway. In spring we know the power of such rivers as the Severn, Wye, Sturgeon, Hog, Black, Green, Coldwater and North as they rush and rise through their watersheds to the larger bodies of water.
These rivers feed our treasured wetlands like the marshes of the Wye, Tiny and those under dispute in Ramara. Wetlands filter impurities protect our shorelines from erosion and create a buffer in floodwater areas.
Our fresh waters support agriculture and livestock production in our region, provide drinking water to thousands of people in urban settlement areas and recharge aquifers that ensure that rural wells remain viable. Our shorelines provide habitat without which thousands of plants, animals and aquatic life would not survive.*
Any culture that has developed with this constant proximity to water demands the local human population use boats and develop a culture around those boats. We created footwear to walk the earth and boats to traverse the waterways (that has recently become so much more relevant with the ship stuck in the Suez Canal at the moment.)
You don’t have to look far in Simcoe County to find sails and sailboat imagery being used everywhere. It’s on the logo for the County itself, as well as the towns of Midland and Penetanguishene and historical/cultural venues like the King’s Wharf Theatre. Local businesses like to attach their brand to the sailing boat motif even if their business has little to do with water. This riding isn’t just the land, far more so, it is the water that surrounds it and lies beneath. In very real ways, the water is what makes our riding, literally and figuratively.
Sailboats have featured prominently in our history and heritage
Before they became the popular pleasure crafts of today, sloop rigged boats were the main boats used by the people who made their living off the water. Even after the rail system reach the region, the waterways remained the most important way to travel until the highway systems arrived. Sloops were the working boats of the First Nation fisherman since the mid-19th century and still fish the waters off Christian Island today, though with updated boats. The Christian Island lighthouse marked the way equally for French Catholics sailing out of Penetanguishene or English Protestants sailing out of Midland on their way to Parry Sound or Collingwood. The common denominator between Indigenous, French and English sailors was the sloop rigged vessel.
The sloop became the common denominator in the region due to no small part from one of the best boat builders of the time who moved here from Ireland in around 1858. William Watts established himself in Collingwood, building the boats for the people who lived their lives off the water. Watts’ tale is a sad one though as always happens when people live off the water, many die there as well. In 1882, Watt’s son was one of the 125 aboard the ill-fated steamer Asia when it met with disaster and sank. It was Watt’s own boats that scoured the water for survivors. Only two were rescued and Watt’s never did recover the body of his son.
Sailboats connect me to Simcoe North in very personal ways
For much of my younger years, my family had no terra firma home in Canada. When we’d return to Canada for extended stays on Georgian Bay, all five of us lived aboard our boat, the sloop Nahanni II. Those amazing times started and ended our Canadian summer sojourn at the Wye Heritage Marina in Midland.
Yes, for the sake of transparency, I’ll confess, our Nahanni is a sloop rigged vessel. Growing up in this way, from these waters my brothers and I developed a perspective of the shoreline, it’s communities and surrounding environs almost as someone who grew up here a hundred years ago sailing from harbour to harbour, anchorage to inlet. This is when my love affair with this region began.
The reason I’ve chosen a picture of my dad in a dumpster rather than a nicer sailing family action shot or pleasant anchorage sunset is that this event where my dad dug through mountains of trash (my mom did as well. They worked in shifts) was the first time in my life I thought about where trash went after we threw it out. Living on a boat with four other people already meant we were living a very minimalist lifestyle and then the epiphany that came with this moment had me living a life that tried to use less and dispose of fewer things in general.
Living on a boat, I learned how little a person needs, not how much. In this way, I became Green before I knew what that even meant.
Sailboats are Green
The water in Simcoe North is not just of value to the residents, it’s a large part of what draws people to the region from outside. In this way that water draws tourist money, it’s value is economic as well. Everyone loves our water and of all the activities we can do on the water, raising your sail and adjusting it to the wind and current, communing with the natural world around you in reverence and respect for the forces of nature do stand in contrast to loud jet skis and polluting speed boats.
While we struggle for our water, in a battle that is only going to intensify, a boat is a great symbol of our connection to that water. The sailor philosophy, reflected in the following quote by American motivational writer William Arthur Ward, is the evidence based empirically driven focus at the heart of all our Green Values.
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
In short, because Simcoe is already represented by sailing vessels, because they are facets of our history and heritage and reflective of our connection with the water, I hope you decide to chose the sloop logo to represent the Green parties of Simcoe North.
I also hope you can tell I had fun writing about this. In truth, I’m happy with whatever is chosen but I do hope this was at least a bit interesting and reminds you to make your selection while you still can. Voting closes at 11:59 on Monday, March 29th. Don’t forget to voice your choice. #votefortheboat
