COBALT - Dr. William Henry Drummond was known and admired in the early 1900s as a great Canadian poet. His popularity was due in part to his ability to capture, with love and humour, the character of many of the French-Canadians he encountered.
A practicing physician from Montreal, Drummond also was managing a family silver claim by Kerr Lake near Cobalt where he had a small home. He died in Cobalt in 1907 at the age of 52.
He was laid to rest in Montreal, but the stone fireplace of his Cobalt area home now stands by the Paul Penna Cobalt Public Library as a tribute to the beloved poet.
Cobalt resident David Brydges has been spearheading the upgrading of the park where the fireplace now stands, and presented a progress report on the project to date to the Cobalt council committee-of-the-whole meeting on August 1.
Brydges related that he undertook the project in 2019 after Drummond was inducted into the Order of the North.
The pandemic delayed his plans for the site, he told council, but this year the final fundraiser took place. The town also provided funding for a contractor to repair the fireplace, adding a new membrane to its roof, cleaning up the retaining wall, and building an accessible sidewalk.
Brydges outlined the work that has been undertaken to date to create a gardened park surrounded by cedar trees and featuring nods to the town's past when Drummond lived.
Brydges said the project was completed with less than $20,000.
"This is Canada's newest memorial poetry park to our country's first national and international poet of fame," said Brydges.
Darlene Wroe is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter with the Temiskaming Speaker. LJI is funded by the Government of Canada.
