David Brydges has been at work for a few months getting poets, artists and musicians aboard, literally. The Cobalt poetry festival is going to start on the train with book launches writing workshops, readings, music, art lectures…The trip takes around 8 hours.
On Thursday May 10 a PoeTrain will leave Union Station, Toronto bound for Cobalt, Ontario (population 1100) and the largest literary festival in northern Ontario; the Cobourg’s which in turn inspired the creation of Versefest.
The poetry will continue the festival throughout the weekend and return back on the special reserved artist car of the Ontario Northland Railway train returning to Toronto for the evening of Sunday, May 13.
For more info on if you can secure a spot, check for contact on the site.
Cobalt is a “petite paradise of poetry“ where the 5th annual literary festival will be held this year.
Cobalt History:
How did Cobalt come into being?
Over 110 years ago the government of Ontario decided to build a railroad to service the agricultural region called the Little Clay Belt. The railway, Temiskaming & Northern Railway (T&NO), is now called the Ontario Northland Railway (ONR). Two men, James McKinley and Ernest Darragh, were employed to supply railway ties. On August 7, 1903, while blasting their way through the pre-Cambrian shield, they discovered silver veins around Mileage 103.
Or, would you prefer the most romantic folklore of how Cobalt found its silver-lining? That September a blacksmith named Fred Larose was credited with being the hero –- a curious fox was nearby spying his lunch. He threw his hammer at the fox (or, some say, rabbits) and struck a rock outcropping exposing a shining brownish mineral. Later it was examined and proved to be silver.
In either case, the great silver rush was on — men and woman travelled (on the same railway that we will travel) to seek their fortune. The mining camp, at its peak, had the richest concentration of silver and ranked 4th in world production.
In 1905 the Irish-born poet/physician William Henry Drummond arrived to help manage his family’s silver mine. He became the first town doctor. Poem Hunter explains that his first book of poetry, The Habitant (1897), had been extremely successful, “establishing for him a reputation as a writer of dialect verse.” A popular, well-read writer, he published 5 books of poetry. Unfortunately, just when he appeared destined to become “the Robert Service of the North”, he died in 1907.
The Spring Pulse Poetry Festival was conceived in 2007 on the 100th anniversary of his death in Cobalt and to further preserve his memory and legacy. The town has designated his poem “Bloom-A Song of Cobalt” as the official town poem. (“The bloom upon Cobalt –– that’s the only bloom for me” [source]) The Dr. William Henry Drummond Poetry Contest, one of the longest-running national poetry contests in Canada, was established in 1970 in Cobalt, Ontario.
Each spring we celebrate Dr. Drummonds life and the creative spirit in our community with Northern Ontario’s largest poetry/arts festival.