The Chronicler of Northern Ontario – by Patti Vipond (Muskoka Region.com – May 16, 2019)

https://www.muskokaregion.com/

British-born author, educator and Order of Canada member Michael Barnes tells how he went from being a Fleet Street copy boy to a backwoods teacher in Northern Ontario’s wilds.

“In Canada 100 years ago, there was an expression that someone was a ‘hustler’,” says Michael Barnes, author of over 50 non-fiction books, a member of the Order of Canada, 2018 Who’s Who in Canada notable and Minden resident since 1999. “Today a ’hustler’ is a low-life character, but years ago a hustler was a guy who really went out there, worked, and received great approbation from other people. I’ve always considered myself a hustler.”

That description of Barnes, using its vintage definition, is entirely apt. As a lad in his hometown of London, England, he worked as a copy boy at the Daily Express newspaper on Fleet Street while also independently fixing and selling old typewriters. When soldiers who had been teachers didn’t return after the Second World War, young Barnes stepped up and taught.

In 1956, he had been teaching a year when a tiny ad in a London paper caught his eye. It read “200 Teachers Wanted for Ontario.” Little did he know but these teachers were urgently needed for rugged one-room schools in province’s northern hinterlands. The inch-high notice would change the course of his life.

“I didn’t even know where Ontario was, but I was interviewed and came to Canada,” recalls Barnes, who is now 84 and recently finished writing his latest book and first novel called The Haliburton ISIS Blow Down. “I went out of the frying pan and into the fire. I was in the bush in an old lumber village called Biscotasing, teaching all grades in a one-room schoolhouse.

There was no hydro and no running water unless you ran for it yourself. I was also the caretaker. Later, I taught in Wawa before the highway went through, and in Lively just outside of Sudbury. It wasn’t ‘lively’ – it was a company town.”

For the rest of this article: https://www.muskokaregion.com/community-story/9357953-the-chronicler-of-northern-ontario/