EDITOR’S NOTE: Manitoulin is being transformed with the influx of new residents and business owners who bring with them fresh ideas, experiences and perspectives that are enriching the area. Some individuals and families are still unpacking boxes, having only moved in the past month or two, while others made the move over the last few years and are now comfortably established in their new communities. Here are some of their stories.
What happens when East meets West? Fireworks, apparently! At least that’s the experience of Margery McDonald, a native of Rhode Island who spent all her summers in Maine and whose family moved to the state permanently when she was in university, and Leon Frisch, originally from the Seattle, Washington area. A chance encounter in 1976 when they were both employed by the East Wind Inn in Tenants Harbor, Maine, where Leon was the chef in its fine dining restaurant and Margery worked as a summer server, resulted in a 45-year long marriage thus far that’s still going strong.
Since then, the couple’s journey has seen them change careers, countries, citizenship and places of residence, most recently becoming newcomers to Manitoulin who have settled in Little Current.
Their relationship didn’t appear promising at the outset when they met in 1976, since Margery had only recently graduated from Lesley College in Cambridge, Massachusetts with a B.Sc. degree in Elementary Education and landed her first teaching job on an island off the coast of Maine. When they met, Leon was in the process of emigrating to Canada and assumed there was little point in pursuing a new romance. However, it took nearly a year to finalize the paperwork required to make the move, by which time they were an established couple.
During his student days, Leon had attended St. Martin’s University outside Olympia, Washington where he graduated with a degree in literature with a minor in business. He then entered a monastery at nearby St. Abbot’s College and decided he wanted to study at St. Paul’s University in Ottawa, renowned for its offering of programs in canon law, theology, conflict studies, ethics, social justice and public service. Leon completed two years toward a degree at St Paul’s when a friend he met in Ottawa sponsored him to become an immigrant to Canada in 1978 – the same year he and Margery married and, soon after, moved to Montreal.
“Aside from studying here, I was just attracted to Canada. I’d grown up in western Washington state and spent a lot of time in the mountains and rural areas. However, I grew tired of all the rain and loved Canada’s four seasons so jumped at the chance to move here when the opportunity came up,” says Leon.
Leon qualified for entry to Canada based on his former occupation as a chef and was soon offered a position as a sous chef at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal. Margery initially worked as a daytime nanny for a local couple until she and Leon had their own two boys in quick succession and Margery focused on raising her young sons.
The couple stayed in Montreal for roughly five years, by the end of which Leon had changed careers and begun utilizing the business and accounting portion of his degree. He became chief accountant with a Montreal shipping company but was limited in promotion opportunities because he wasn’t bilingual and opted to transfer to the company’s Toronto office in 1983.
By 1984 they had enough of big city living and moved to Shelburne, Ontario. Leon commuted to downtown Toronto for another year and a half until he had had enough of that, too, and became an insurance broker. He started his own insurance business in Shelburne offering life and group insurance, as well as financial services including annuities and mutual funds. Margery also became an insurance broker and worked alongside Leo until 2009, when she took a job at St. Mary’s & the Missions in Owen Sound, a position she held until she retired in December 2021. Leon had already retired in 2018.
During their time in Shelburne, Margery wrote feature stories and became a columnist with the Shelburne Free Press. Her first columns centred around raising kids. Another hat she wore was as a children’s librarian, which she describes as “the best job” she ever had. “As well as being able to purchase so many great books for kids, I had a unique relationship with children who frequented the library. I wasn’t their mom, I wasn’t their teacher and they loved talking to me about everything going on in their lives.”
Margery’s newspaper work continued with the Durham Chronicle after the couple bought land in Priceville, a rural community near Owen Sound. Her new column focused on their experience building a home from scratch, which Leon undertook in 1990. The couple joined the congregation at St Mary’s Church in Owen Sound, where Margery eventually became the office administrator and, before long, began writing pieces for the church bulletin.
The couple seized the many benefits of rural living, learning to scuba dive and sail, first buying a 25-foot and, later, 30-foot sailboat that they anchored in Meaford and Thornbury. In 2019, Leon did a solo circumnavigation of Georgian Bay.
That exposure prompted the couple to begin exploring Manitoulin as a possible retirement location. As much as they loved their home on the other side of Lake Huron, the extensive maintenance required to keep up the large house and property, plus the chance to cash in on soaring housing prices at the height of the pandemic, was hard to resist. In September 2021, they brought their trailer to Mac’s Camp on Lake Kagawong and soon began scouting for houses for sale around the Island. Their search took them as far as Meldrum Bay before they settled on Little Current. Upon their return home, they listed and quickly sold their house and moved to Manitoulin in the dead of winter in mid-January 2022.
“We’ve been in paradise ever since!” both agree. “Especially important, our two adult sons and their families, in Collingwood and Orillia, are still close enough to enjoy frequent visits.”
During their many years in Canada, both have become Canadian citizens, Leon in 2009 and Margery more recently in 2022, reinforcing their commitment to their new country and community. The duo is active in local organizations, particularly their church community at St. Bernard’s Catholic Church in Little Current. Margery also has picked up her pen once again and now writes stories for the Manitoulin Expositor on a regular basis. In addition, in recent years she has written and published several books, including a work of fiction based on fact, called Caught Up, about the real-life shooting of three young students that she had taught on Matinicus Isle, Maine.
Leon and Margery look forward to writing the next chapter in their own story as new adventures and opportunities on Manitoulin unfold.
by Heather Marshall
Heather Marshall and her husband worked as journalists and consultants in the National Capital Region for more decades than they care to admit before making their Sandfield cottage their permanent home. A lifelong learner, Heather loves discovering new things and people and relishes the opportunity to write about newcomers to the Manitoulin. If you would like to share your story or know of recent arrivals we should meet, send a message to HAMarshall@proton.me
