New one-man musical tells the story of Timmins, Ont.
CBC
A new one-man musical tells the story of the gold rush that helped create what is now the city of Timmins, Ont.
MINE! True Stories and Legends of the Porcupine Gold Rush, has already premiered in North Bay, but will entertain a home crowd at the Timmins Museum: National Exhibition Centre on Aug. 17 and 18.
Will Gillespie, the show's creator and performer, grew up in Timmins but now calls Hamilton home.
Gillespie said it was his partner, Susan Robinson, who convinced him his hometown could make the backdrop for a great musical.
"My partner, Susan, who is also the producer of the play, sort of was pointing out how interesting this history is in northern Ontario and how rare and unique it is, you know, because she grew up in southern Ontario," Gillespie said.
The show includes 12 songs that each tell a different story about the characters that founded the Porcupine mining camp, which eventually became the city of Timmins.
As Gillespie performs the songs, old photos of the real people and events he describes are projected on a backdrop.
A press release describes the play as a "musical journey back in time to a world of prospectors, pioneers, bootlegger-bandits, dog-sledders, high-graders and moonshiners!"
One song, for example, tells the story of Caroline Maben Flower, who was a Manhattan socialite who came to the Porcupine Camp for the gold rush and was known as the "lady prospector".
"And so there's great photos of her, too, where she looks almost like Annie Oakley," Gillespie said.
"She's got a pistol on her belt and she's wearing, you know, a very nice, high end fancy dress."
Gillespie said Flower's double life as a socialite and prospector made her story a great one to tell in the musical.
Although he grew up in Timmins, Gillespie said a lot of the stories he tells in the play are ones he only learned about when he started to research the city's early history.
"It's been a bit of a gift to get to share the stories of my hometown that I was unaware of until now and to get to discover this stuff," he said.
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