For a short period of time in the 1980s, I was responsible for the Harold Innis Foundation. That’s not as illustrious as it sounds, but we managed to put on a few conferences and lectures, and eke out some publications (more on those later?). The main thing we did, however, was own and manage a farm and conference centre on Delhi, Ontario, near Tillsonburg (“my back still aches when I hear that word”). It was Harold Innis’s birthplace, and purchased in the late 1960s in order to facilitate conferences around Innisian themes (political economy, geography, communications). It didn’t fulfill its mandate, but certainly provided a great retreat for Innis College students. I was very fond of the farm: it was a place where I felt somewhat at home with my peers (somewhat, but more than usual). It was the site of a certain amount of Dionysian debauchery: a little too much drinking, a tiny bit of shagging, and definitely skinny dipping. That was all overstated, though. I mostly remember making ambitious group dinners with Mike Zryd, Sirje Jarvel, Robin Gibson, and others. And I remember planting trees, sleeping in the “pit”, hacky sack (which followed Innisians wherever we went), and some low level dramas. I started doing this as a student but, by the last time I went, I was responsible for the Foundation, which owned the farm. I convinced the Board of Directors to sell the farm shortly thereafter. When I looked at the finances, I realized that we had been in denial for many years and we were going to lose the farm in any case. We were also jeopardizing various scholarships that were in trust to the Foundation and it was that fact that convinced the Principal of Innis College at the time (who did not want to take the politically unpopular move of selling the farm - who would). And so that was that. There’s more to this story, but probably this is already of interest only to Innis students from the 1980s. The bottom line, however, is that Innisfree (a reference to Harold Adams, of course, but also to Yeats’ great poem) shaped me in ways that I only understand now.
This article, from the Innis Herald, the student paper, gets the story right, more or less. I can’t expect the author to know the little details that I know. PS: more on the Innis Herald, which I co-edited, later. As for the photos attached: yes, that’s Kate MacKay (not a local resident as the article suggests). And, yes, that’s me in the white t-shirt, white socks and white Adidas shorts!
