Crystal Beach Historical Tours

07/28/2024

Lakeside Books and Art re-stocked my book again...it's selling great this summer. See Karin for a copy....contact me for a walking Historical tour of old Crystal Beach.

07/21/2024

Thanks to all the folks (locals, people from Ohio, Toronto, Miami) who stopped by to buy my book yesterday at Circle of Art......no local politicians stopped by though.

07/17/2024

I'll be at Circle of Art at Queens Circle in Crystal Beach on Saturday. Book-signing......bringing along the mini-Giant Coaster replica and a couple of special guests.

07/11/2024

Installed the lights....

07/11/2024

I have some free time (47 minutes), so I thought I would do another historical post about Crystal Beach....my last post was a share about Frank Ellis making the first Canadian parachute jump in Crystal Beach (see Frank's photo).
Our local history books are filled with photos of float planes landing near the Crystal Beach Pier, taking people for rides.
In 1893 there was even a hot-air balloon ascension in Crystal Beach, off the end of the rickety first pier.
However, very few remember the air-strip in Crystal Beach that was east of the Stadium grounds in the present-day Ryan Avenue area, (see 1920 aerial photo). This air-strip was used for the planes that needed to take off and land on solid ground, not water.
In the 1930s and 40s, parachute jumps into the Crystal Beach Stadium were a favourite event of the spectators.
On June 16, 1940 Robert Ballantyne of the Toronto Parachute Club jumped from a plane from 1000 feet and landed in the infield of the Crystal Beach Stadium.
He was piloted by Ray Chesney (yes of the Fort Erie Chesney family), who was quite a renowned pilot at the time. (see photo).

Crystal Beach has long been about the altitude.........

Gary Pooler (c) 2024

07/09/2024

Thanks to all who stopped to buy a book and see my Crystal Beach Giant Coaster model at Lakeside Books during Ridge Fest....wow, lots of offers to purchase it. Model #001 is not for sale, so I've just made the foam core template for coaster model (s/n #002). This one WILL be for sale...also made of giant coaster wood, same colour scheme and tracks as model #001, letter of authentication included. Inquire privately.

07/05/2024

Will be in front of Lakeside Books and Art tomorrow for Ridgefest, 9-3....Will be signing books, selling prints, unveiling the model Crystal Beach Giant Coaster that I'm working on.....keychains made from the Giant Coaster wood, too.....

07/03/2024

Crystal Beach Historical Tours...great group on the walking tour today....all teachers, from Toronto...first-timers to the Beach...great dialogues today, thanks guys....

07/02/2024

From salvaged scraps of the yellow Crystal Beach Giant Coaster (1917-1989) to a scale replica, handmade entirely of the Giant's own Douglas Fir. Over 100 hours of custom fitting and forming on this prototype. I will have it on display this Saturday in front of Lakeside Books during Ridge Fest. I will also have it at my booth on July 20 at Circle of Art in Crystal Beach. You can feel the energy coming off of it. My grampa Carl Pooler was a carpenter in the amusement park in the 1920s.....I have no idea what he worked on, but it sure drove me to the finish line on this project.....

06/29/2024

For those following my mini Crystal Beach Giant Coaster project, first coat of paint, 2 out of three seats upholstered....

06/23/2024

Today's progress on my Crystal Beach yellow coaster scale model....made from the Giant's actual Douglas Fir....

06/22/2024

With the salvaged wood from the giant Crystal Beach yellow coaster, I'm building a scale replica of a Giant Coaster carriage and a section of track....gonna be bright red...props to Robyn Horton for the multiple rip cuts....progress so far:

06/16/2024

To all my fellow Fathers:
Happy Father's Day.
(ain't it awesome?)

06/12/2024

100 years ago this past week, Hyman Arluck of Buffalo was leading the dance orchestra on the Crystal Beach steamers.
He and his group the Yasnkee Six also played regularly down the beach to the west at the Royal Casino in Bay Beach. They were also the house band at the Crystal Beach Dance Pavillion in the park (not the Ballroom).
After his Crystal Beach days, Harold Arlen (born Hyman Arluck in Buffalo, New York), went to New York City and changed his name to Harold Arlen. The rest is history.
He went on to write or co-write, "Stormy Weather", "That Old Black Magic", "Ac-cent-uate The Positive", and one of the greatest songs ever composed, "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" for the movie The Wizard of Oz. It won the 1939 Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Harold Arlen was one of ours....Western New York and Crystal Beach.

06/11/2024

More info about the wood from the Giant Coaster. I have been swamped with inquiries and will get back to everyone a.s.a.p, I promise...1).It is Douglas Fir, not cedar (Bill Mantel, former Giant worker). 2). Provenance is as follows: Purchased at the site in '89 by Ray Haggerty our local M.P.P...It then made it's way to his son Tim, former town councilor. The 4" X 8" beams then became the longitudinal beams on a hay wagon of a friend of mine, which the wagon deck boards laid across. They were likely the vertical boards as seen in the cover photo from William Kae's book, Crystal Beach, a Century of Screams....This 100-plus-year old wood is still amazingly dry, strong, and free of rot. No wonder the Giant lasted so long!

06/09/2024

On stage today...Last Chance Horse & Pony Rescue benefit concert....lots of very caring, generous people came out today to help care for our equine friends...what a blast !!

06/08/2024

Runnin'/ through for today's Rockin' Rescue Benefit....3 til 9.....I'm on @ 4:00...

06/05/2024

GFESS Grade 11 Entrepreneurship class took my Crystal Beach Historical Walking Tour today....great group with interesting questions...Crystal Beach pier in the background.

06/03/2024

With SkyScene TV Niagara social media – I just got recognized as one of their top fans! 🎉

06/02/2024

Jack Johnson, Beatles, Jim Cuddy, Blue Rodeo, Tom Petty, Van Morrison, Eagles, Neil Young

05/28/2024

Both of my great-great-grandfathers immigrated to Canada in the 1800s. Henry Pooler came to Port Carling in Muskoka in 1881 from Calvington in Shropshire, U.K. with his wife Sarah Heatley and their six children. The youngest of them, William, only 5, thankfully survived the voyage, or I would not be sitting here typing this.
Henry was a farmer in Muskoka Township. Sadly, in 1894 he drowned at the age of 58 in a storm out on the lake with his friend Tom Wroe, who had immigrated with the Poolers back in 1881. There is a Road in Muskoka today named The Tom Wroe Road. Tom's death certificate is an online open-source document, however no death record exists for Henry, which indicates that perhaps he was never found.
Luckily (again) the little boy (William Arthur) who was five when he survived the trip across the ocean in 1881, was by this time a healthy married young man of twenty and was about to sire seven children, one of whom was my grandfather, Carl William Pooler. Carl came to Bertie Township in the 1920s and was a carpenter in the Crystal Beach Amusement Park before becoming an independent contractor. Probably worked for D.H.L. (George Hall, et. al.) during the great park expansion at that time.
My other great-great grandfather, Gordon Michie Ewing came to Monck Township, Muskoka from Aberdeenshire, Scotland in 1855 aboard the "Jane Boyd" with his wife Mary and five children. The only son was again named William, and he too was only five years old. Thankfully, young William Ewing also survived the seven-week ocean journey across the Atlantic, which was recorded in a journal by Gordon every day of the arduous crossing on the rickety, three-masted barque sailing ship. Gordon's journal is a harrowing read, and the original is now the property of the Muskoka Lakes Museum. Thankfully., I have a copy of it.
Gordin Ewing, too, was a farmer and cleared his 150-acre property of trees, in order to fulfill his settler's grant obligation. He became the Reeve and Magistrate of Monck Township for several terms, and has a road named after him in the Bracebridge area.
The Ewing's original settler's cabin still sits on the property where a beautiful modern homestead now exists (not mine). The photo is of the Ewings in 1890 in front of their log cabin in Monck Township, Muskoka.
Gordon's son William, the five-year-old survivor of the treacherous ocean crossing, grew up and had seven children with his wife Elizabeth Lovatt. One of those children, a girl named Katherine, eventually met Carl Pooler, and the seeds of my Pooler-Ewing roots were sewn.....wait......ewww.....Grandma...Grandpa.....

My lesson: I owe my very existence to two tough little five-year-old boys. I couldn't make that trip.......

05/27/2024

Jesse Owens, the hero of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. His four gold medals in what I call the "twitch" events (100metres, 200 metres, Long Jump, 4 X 400 relay) would go unmatched until Carl Lewis in Los Angeles in 1984. His 100m world record would have placed him 6th in the Olympic finals as recently as Rio in 2016, fifty years later! Incredible man and athlete. I have talked to people who were present. His Crystal Beach showdown with Eulace Peacock in Crystal Beach, Ontario is chronicled in my book, Crystal Beach: Out of the Park (an Amazon best-seller in the Sports Journalism category).
The attached St. Catharines Standard article about Jesse's take on Crystal Beach is amazing, because it is exactly what millions of other people from around the globe have said about the hidden little Canadian enclave with the amusement park...."Buffalo's Coney Island", as dubbed by the American media.
Jesse Owens competed only one time in Canada, and that was here in Crystal Beach, Ontario, on July 6, 1935.

05/25/2024

Crystal Beach Historical tours.......

05/22/2024

More Crystal Beach history, 1950s, just after the O.P.P. had taken over from the Village Police Department, as the police cruiser in the background is a '54 O.P.P. Ford Mainliner police package.
Lots of information in this photo.
The view is from Ridgeway Road, just south of Erie Road, looking northwest at Pressey's Texaco station, where the Crystal Chandelier is today.
The fire chief leading the march-by (white hat) is Gus Pietz. Next is village postmaster Robert "Bob" Bruce. Behind him is my uncle, Albert Opatovsky, who was a concrete contractor.
Uncle Albert was the final Reeve of the village when it was absorbed into the Town of Fort Erie in 1970. Contrary to another local myth, Reeve Opatovsky DID NOT read the Riot Act aloud when the Derby Road riot (fight) between Kaapa (Crystal Beach) and Kappa Beta (Buffalo) took place.
You can see the Hebert's Tavern sign in the background on the left side of the road.
I recognize some of the other old-timers, but their names are foggy The CBVFD protected our village and park for over five decades before amalgamation. Solid men who voluntarily served their community with very little reward.

05/22/2024

Mr. Alf Willson, father of future local M.P.P. Bill Willson, in his bus, which was an upgrade from his original horse and carriage service. Mr. Willson used to shuttle people from the Grand Trunk Station in Ridgeway down to the Crystal Beach resort. The John Stickles in the back seat is the father of John Stickles, previous owner of the mill (once Riegel's) on South Mill in Ridgeway. Very interesting interview with Mr. Stickles (Sr.) in the FEPL digital archives in .pdf format.

05/15/2024

Check out my You Tube videos...some C.B. history.....

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10/18/2021