The
Citizen
Volume 35 No. 50
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Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County
Thursday, December 19, 2019
Turbine study released By Denny Scott The Citizen
Rockin’ around The students at North Woods Elementary School near Ethel worked hard to get their community in the holiday spirit last week through their annual Christmas concert, which involved some very creative Christmas tree costumes. North Woods wasn’t the only school with
students in the Christmas spirit. Many other schools in the area hosted Christmas concerts for their parents and teachers last week, while The Citizen found time to catch up with some Grade 1 students to ask them questions about the holidays. Pictured are Kayde Smith, left, and Jesa Fischer. (Denny Scott photo)
After several years of work, the final report on the Huron County Wind Turbine Study about Noise, Vibration and Light has been released by the county. The document, which is available on the Huron County Health Unit’s website at huronhealthunit.ca, starts out saying that any causal link between turbines and adverse health reflects “is complex and not well understood.” The key findings of the document provide few concrete statements, likely due to a lack of participation that study author Epidemiologist Dr. Erica Clarke has spoken to The Citizen about previously. The study states that exposure to industrial wind turbines may be connected with sleep disturbance, but participation rate and sample size wasn’t sufficient for the goals of the study. “Results cannot be generalized beyond the participants of the study,” the report states. “This study does not provide a meaningful contribution to the literature on the impact industrial wind turbines have on human health.” Approximately 30,000 Huron County residents were eligible for the report, which sought out experiences from those living within 10 kilometres of an industrial wind turbine. Participants were asked to complete a registration survey then keep a journal once a week every Continued on page 2
Festival to produce Munro play in 2020 season By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen The Blyth Festival’s fourth main stage production of the 2020 season will be the second-ever staging of How I Met My Husband, which is, to date, the only play ever written by local Nobel Laureate Alice Munro. When the Festival announced its season in November, as reported by The Citizen, the slot for the fourth show remained empty as Artistic Director Gil Garratt and other Festival officials worked behind the scenes to secure the rights to Munro’s play, which premiered at the Festival in 1976, the Festival’s second season. In an interview with The Citizen, Garratt said Munro was in the midst of controversy ahead of the 1976 Festival season. Huron County
schools were contemplating banning Lives of Girls and Women and that’s when she decided to write what would turn out to be the only play she would ever write herself (though other plays would be produced based on her work, but written by other playwrights). The play was produced in Blyth that year and then never again. And while the story was published in 1974, Munro’s play based on her story would never be published in that form. Garratt said he discovered a handtyped copy of the show’s script in a drawer in Memorial Hall and fell in love with it on his first read. He said it felt like a play that was ahead of its time in the 1970s and would make a great Festival show in 2020. The story was featured as part of Munro’s 1974 collection, Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You, which
featured 10 other stories in addition to How I Met My Husband. It was her third book, published after the aforementioned Lives of Girls and Women in 1971 and Dance of the Happy Shades, her 1968 debut which also won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction.
How I Met My Husband, which Munro wrote based on one of her own stories, follows a young woman who is in the midst of failing out of school, so she’s sent to work in a small town at the home of a veterinarian and his wife when one night a plane crashes in the field
behind the home. As the young woman develops a bond with the pilot, who had been travelling from town to town offering residents short flights to see their towns from the air, she discovers she’s not alone, as the veterinarian’s wife also develops Continued on page 43
Cottrills now first in Canada By Denny Scott The Citizen Team Cottrill, comprised of Katie and Shawn Cottrill of Belgrave, are currently ranked as the top mixed curling team in Canada. The Cottrills, who earned provincial gold last year and represented Ontario at the national championships, performed well over
the weekend at a bonspiel at the Bayview Golf and Country Club in Thornhill, making it to the quarterfinals, but being edged out in extra ends. The Cottrills now sit at 131.5 points as of Dec. 16. This puts them a full seven points ahead of their nearest competition, Nancy Martin and Tyrel Griffith of Saskatchewan and 11.5 points ahead of third-place
team Kim and Wayne Tuck of Strathroy in the national rankings. According to a schedule posted earlier this year, the Cottrills will next take to the ice in Charlotte, North Carolina for the Southern Mixed Doubles tournament, facing some stiff competition to hold onto their top ranking. For more information, follow Team Cottrill on Facebook.