Goderich

One of our favourite television shows is CBC’s Still Standing with Jonny Harris. It’s entertaining to see him visiting small places and seeing how they’re coping and recoverying with adversity.

Every now and again, it gets personal. Living where we do now, it was the show dealing with Pelee Island. But, I’m not native to here. Regular blog readers will know that I grew up in Clinton and even wrote about it once in a post called My Childhood Community. Now, the reality is that I haven’t actually lived there since I went to university. Of course, there were trips home to visit parents and now sadly, the cemetery.

We still use it as a destination for a weekend or a week. There’s something special about it and Huron County.

With Still Standing, there’s always something special when the show gets pretty close to home. In Season 2, he visited Vanastra and shared some pictures and interviews that were a nice visit back.

Just this past week, the show featured a visit to Goderich. We watched it and loved it.

On Facebook, we have a closed group called If You Grew Up In Clinton, You Remember and there was a buzz about this show in advance. Some of the group members were from Clinton originally but now also live in Bayfield or Goderich so that was kind of cool.

I remember one afternoon going for a drive and my wife and I were speculating on what the content of the show might be:

• the two-headed calf at the museum
• the Goderich Gaol and Stephen Truscott (also the Courthouse)
• the “Square” which is anything but
• just driving circles around the Square until you find your exit on the third or fourth time
• Culbert’s Bakery (if you’ve been, you know why)
• Tiger Dunlop
• Young Canada Hockey Week
• the Harness racing track
• taking the train to Goderich
• taking swimming lessons at the Goderich Pool because they didn’t offer the course in Clinton
• Holmesville (not mine, do people really care about this if you didn’t live there?)
• the Pav and summer concerts
• the beach and the beach and the beach
• the double sunsets
• the Menesetung Bridge
• the Salt Mine
• Frank & Gus’ Pizza (a weekend destination)
• the Pizza Patio
• Kitchigami
• the Bluewater Detention Centre
• and probably more

I thought that we had racked up a pretty good list for people that aren’t actually from there. This past summer we actually made it a destination and place to stay and explore instead of our usual drive by the beach. It’s a wonderful place and we enjoyed the market and the crafters on the Square. We were also there for the celebration of Mayor John Grace.

One thing that we just knew would be on the show would be a reference to the Tornado that had clobbered the town. It was 12 years ago and I reflected on it, with pictures, here.

I do have a preference for going to the beach and taking pictures of the magnificent sunsets over Lake Huron.

So, we settled in for the show. It was another terrific episode and I can see why the show has lasted for 8 years. There were a number of deep dives into the topics that were covered and we did get a couple of them right. The researchers for the show really did a nice job with the story segments.

The closing was a very touching poem dedicated to the people of Goderich who made it work despite everything.

This most definitely is an episode to watch and watch more than once. It’s a wonderful story about Canadiana and why Goderich is such a special place for so many.