Photos from the Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum–Explore Ontario by Bike- Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum –these postcards below are also available for sale on the Delcampe Auction site.

Author’s Note–I read this wonderful essay on Facebook today by Wesley Parsons and he has graciously allowed me to share this with you. I also found some great postcards of Carleton Place also on an auction site that I posted along with the essay. Thank you Wesley!

Canada Day in CP is always a hustle bustle kind of day. When the sun is shining and the weather is right, there are thousands down at the park. This year was no exception, the rains slowed it down a bit here and there, but overall, a great day. My son is 12 now and has recently claimed all of Carleton Place as his biking home turf. He’ll leave from our place over near Notre Dame High School and head to Arklan or to friends on Mississippi or Crampton, or wherever. He’ll explore the town with his friends and come home with tales of discoveries.

Explore Ontario by Bike- Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum

“Did you know there’s a museum in town?”

“We found a path that was dirt and went for miles and it came out, and we were still in town.”

When I was young, that’s how the town was, all of it was home, not just our street, or our neighborhood but the whole town. Heck, at least once a summer we’d bike the back roads to Almonte for an Ice cream at Peterson’s. Folks say it was ‘safer’ back then and ‘smaller’ and a ‘different time’, but now I’m not so sure.

My boy was supposed to check in after being gone for 3 hours on Canada Day and at the agreed on time, I drove down to the park to find him. After 40 minutes of hunting around, getting madder by he minute, I gave up and came home. I decided he could peddle his butt home. (the fact that he was home when I got here did not improve my mood but hey, at least he was home).

Arvilla Moore at Lake Park in 1920’s.

At first my wife was concerned, and we had a big talk with him about checking in on time and safety. After awhile I got to thinking about it–even though I spent 40 minutes searching for him around that park and never found him–I did find 8 people that knew who he was, what he looked like and had seen him several times already in the past couple hours, and at least that many who said they’d let him know i was looking for him when they saw him next.

My point is this, our town is getting bigger, our numbers are getting bigger, but if you stay connected and just be friendly to people, it’ll always have that small town feel, that ‘home turf’ safety feeling that we grew up with. Thanks CP!

Author’s Note–Keep smiling Carleton Place and come and smile July 9th at the Carleton Place Farmers Market. You might win a prize! As Wesley said- let’s stay connected and just be friendly with people.