By Emily Stonehouse

Mural, mural, on the wall. Who is the fairest town of them all?

I recently spent a weekend in Huntsville, and I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by the effort put into the downtown core of the tourism town. It’s widely known that the community has a connection to the mysterious story of Tom Thomson – an artist on the fringe of the Group of Seven, whose ghost has haunted local bonfire tales and cabins after the lights go out for decades.

Huntsville leaned into this. They effectively marketed Thomson and the talent and mystery that surrounds his name. Sculptures, infographics, and murals adorn the downtown core; taking pride in their role in Thomson’s life, and as a result, creating a defined pride of place.

I found my eyes naturally drawn to the murals. I spotted a funeral parlour with one, an art gallery, a clothing shop, a cafe. There was no real rhyme or reason to who carried the murals, the only common denominator was a downtown location.

And to me, this seems like some low hanging fruit for a town to create a sense of identity. We have a few murals scattered around Minden, all depictions of paintings by renowned artist Andre Lapine, who perhaps does not have the same revered draw as Tom Thomson, but has certainly made his mark in the arts world.

Beyond having the nearly completed collection of Lapine’s life work housed at the Minden Hills Cultural Centre, this is also a community of incredibly talented artists. Murals seem like an easy option to add a pop of colour to a town that spends half its year under a blanket of snow.

So what’s the hold-up? Is it a lack of interested artists? Businesses who aren’t seeing outside the box? Some sort of hiccup in a by-law that we can’t seem to overcome? Kudos to the River Cone and their recently released mural at the back of their business. That is an example of a business who adds colour and creativity to a world that’s used to the status quo black and white day-to-day.

Perhaps the challenges arise with a lack of formalized direction. It’s not the township’s job to add colour to the community, at least, at this time, they don’t have any one individual or department dedicated to that. When the Lapine murals were added to the town, it was when economic development and tourism was done at a lower-tier level – a job that’s since been shuffled up to the county umbrella of responsibilities.

In Dysart, there is an established BIA – an organization that puts the best interest of community collaboration on the forefront. A Minden BIA is something that’s been in talks for longer than I’ve been around (both professionally and personally) and doesn’t seem to be something that anyone has taken a lead on. Is it the job of the township to designate leaders in this situation, or does it take one eager business to put their best foot forward and hope that others follow their path?

Huntsville and Minden are highly comparable: two little tourist towns, idyllically placed on a waterway that twists and turns throughout the core. There are quaint shops, good food, and a medley of events and experiences that provides our hometown hearts with a pulse.

And who knows if the funding is different, the leadership is different, or the priorities are different, but I think we have a ways to go when it comes to being the fairest of them all.