The Opeongo Line

Martina Coulas talks with Beth and Johnny Hilderbrandt about how they first met, Beth's first trip to Barry's Bay by train, and Johnny's early life growing up here on a farm.  Forever young, the Hildebrandts offer up great stories about hog-wrassling in the old railway stockyard, sneaking into the Exchange Hotel underaged, and helping to save the old Barry's train station.

The Opeongo Line presents Martina Coulas in conversation with two Lorbetskie women; first, Martina speaks with Julia Lorbetskie who was born nearly 101 years ago near Paugh Lake, four miles north of Barry's Bay. After she married, she moved into town where she and her husband Johnny raised six children, including their youngest daughter, Connie, who Martina speaks with and learns of her abiding jo...

This second interview conducted by Martina Coulas deals with the local history of two Lorbetskie women. First, Martina spoke with Julia Lorbetskie, the nearly 101-year-old mother of her youngest daughter Connie, who in this second interview speaks about growing up in the village of Barry's Bay in the 1950s and 1960s

Lesley Betts and Mark Woermke of The Opeongo Readers' Theatre present new documentary evidence that reveals in significant detail the early life of John Samuel James Watson, Rockingham's man of mystery. An inspirational leader and founder of one of the most productive and progressive villages in Renfrew County in the latter half of the 19th century, Watson was also a man with a shocking secret tha...

Back in the Day host Martina Coulas talks with William J. Goulet, a young man who arrived from Eganville in the early 1960s and established Barry's Bay's first funeral home. And when Bill wasn't getting ready for the next funeral, working in a hardware store, checking hydro meters, driving ambulance, or working for the school board, every Saturday night he was dancing up a storm down at the Lakesi...

'The Local' host Sean Conway chats with Joshua Blank, author of "Stills in the Hills: Moonshine Memories from Around Canada's First Polish Kashub Community," an award-winning article about illegal moonshine made in the Wilno hills.

The Opeongo Readers' Theatre present The Boogie Man, or what happens one summer afternoon in 1897 when Biddy Culhane, a milk-maid from Maynooth meets Taig Harrington, a shepherd from Douglas in the OA & PS Train Station in Killaloe. Performed by Kristin Marchand, Lynn Stewart and Jeff Bowman.

In the first of a two-part series about John S.J. Watson, the much-fabled founder of Rockingham, Lesley Betts and Mark Woermke of The Opeongo Readers' Theatre reveal new documentary evidence about Watson's exotic life prior to emigrating to Canada where he built one of the most progressive 19th century villages in all of Renfrew County.

During the Second World War, Theresa Prince was born near Barry's Bay on a small, hard-scrabble farm with no electricity, no indoor plumbing and no easy chance to live out her dreams.  Yet her story is more than just about her irrepressible courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. It's really a story about the heart and soul of our local culture and heritage. 

Four short stories taken from James Joyce's The Dubliners: Araby, Eveline, The Boarding House and Counterparts, each one a revelation, if not an epiphany.  Read by Jeff Bowman, Cathy Chapeskie, Lynn Stewart and Mark Woermke of The Opeongo Readers' Theatre.

A special Canada Day celebration with Arthur Milnes, a curious Canadian, who regales us with a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at our Canadian Prime Ministers and other world leaders. 

A special Canada Day celebration with Arthur Milnes, a curious Canadian, who regales us with a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at our Canadian Prime Ministers and other world leaders.  

The Opeongo Readers' Theatre present three oral histories collected in the Upper Madawaska Valley in the early 1990s. They include Rose Burchat Chapeskie (1909-2000), Evelyn Hildebrandt Villeneuve (1919-2002) and Bernice O'Grady Billings (1926-2005).

Jeff Bowman, Kristin Marchand and Mark Woermke perform three classic ghost stories as The Opeongo Readers' Theatre presents Saki's Open Window, Edgar Allan Poe's Tell-tale Heart and W.W. Jacobs' Monkey's Paw.

In this year of Covid-19 when every major social event seems to be cancelled, our intrepid Opeongo Readers' Theatre arrives just in time to help celebrate Victoria Day like only Canadians do, and like only a village with a curious Balmoral connection to Queen Victoria can.  Listen to some unique historical moments in the life of the 19th century England, as well as one very giddy British ghost sto...

Mark Woermke of The Opeongo Readers' Theatre performs some of Robert Service's best-loved poems -- The Shooting of Dan McGrew, The Cremation of Sam McGee -- along with some other unique works, appropriate for a pandemic. It's a performance bound to lift your spirits.

Join Rural Roots' host Mark Woermke as he rides in an old half-ton truck with two of the locally-famous members of the 1973-74 Women's Hockey Association Champions, Marie Villeneuve and Judy Whelan, as they relive their glory days.

In honour of the Ottawa Valley Irish and St. Patrick's Day, The Opeongo Readers' Theatre present two of Lady Gregory's best Irish comedies, Hyacinth Halvey and The Workhouse Ward, performed at the Hastings Highlands Public Library in Maynooth, Ontario.

For more than fifty years, the social event of Barry's Bay was the annual St. Hedwig’s Summer Picnic. Launched by a young Father Peter B. Biernacki in 1912 to help build his St. Hedwig’s Roman Catholic Church in 1914, this little village picnic quickly outgrew even his wildest dream. It became so widely known in Eastern Ontario that special nine-coach excursion trains would arrive, adding to the t...

Three short one-act comedies adapted from Anton Chekhov: A Tragedian In Spite of Herself, The Proposal, and The Bear.  Performed in Barry's Bay, Ontario at the old train station on February 9th, 2020 by The Opeongo Readers' Theatre in front of a live audience in honour of St. Valentine's Day. 

In the winter of 1847, a young British physician arrived in Montreal and made his way up through the Ottawa Valley, arriving eventually in a tiny backwoods settlement along its western frontier.  What he experienced there over the next few years, he put into a set of uniquely vivid letters he sent back to England.  Performed by The Opeongo Readers' Theatre at the Pembroke Public Library on January...

One of the great institutions of Barry's Bay, The Balmoral started out as a small railway hotel, built in 1894 by Josh Billings in response to the coming of the OA & PS Railroad.  Over the next 100 years, it became much more to the local community. Joanne Billings-Olsen reminisces with The Local host, Sean Conway about the life and times of The Balmoral, including working there when she was only e...

An adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's "A Russian Christmas Party" performed live at the old Barry's Bay Train Station on Tuesday, December 10th 2019 by the Opeongo Radio Flyers.