Week four of our sit-downs with the Kiwanis Walk of Fame honourees brings us to Murray Leatherdale.
His daughters Lauran Larade and Libby Grainger, who sat down with me on a cool fall day, will be representing their late father when the induction ceremony kicks off on November 8th.
“We were very excited to find out that he had been a recipient of a star on the walk of fame,” Lauran said at her home. “I think he would be very proud and honoured to be an honouree.”
“I think he would be more than proud,” Libby said. “I can picture the look on his face, he would have a little smile and we are just totally honoured that this is happening.”
Murray was born in Orillia but after graduating from Chiropractic College in the early 1950s, he and his new wife moved to North Bay where he set up his practice. His practice branched as far as Thorne, which sits on the Ontario-Quebec border, and to Mattawa. During that time, Leatherdale founded the Northern Ontario Chiropractic Association. Later on in life, he would receive a lifetime membership from both the Northern Ontario and Canadian Chiropractic Associations.
Locally, Murray represented the North Bay Chamber of Commerce for 18 years, including two as its President. Through his work with the Chamber, Murray was awarded an Award of Merit in 1980.
One of his passions was dog sled racing, as at one point the family had owned up to 60 husky dogs for the purposes of racing. As such, Leatherdale helped co-found the North Bay Winter Fur Carnival which featured the Towers International Dog Sled Derby.
“North Bay always had a Winter Carnival,” Larade explained about her father. “But the one we are referring to is the North Bay Winter Fur Carnival. This was mid 60’s to mid-’70s and at the time it was the third-largest carnival in Canada and certainly the largest in Ontario.”
As part of his campaign to garner recognition of the carnival, Murray hitched up his dog team and took then Prime Minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau for a run around the tarmac at the Jack Garland Airport. He also took his team to Buffalo along with North Bay Mayor Merle Dickerson, where they ran the team through the lobby of a Buffalo hotel with then Buffalo Mayor, Frank Sedita.
To make sure North Bay was an all-season destination, Leatherdale also co-founded the Ville Marie to North Bay Canoe Race, which drew paddlers from across the country as well as the United States. The event today is known as the North Bay to Mattawa Canoe Race.
To celebrate North Bay’s 50th anniversary as a City, a promotional stunt was made where Murray hitched a 50 sled dog team together and posed for a photo under the City of North Bay “Gateway to the North” archway. The team established a Guinness World Record for most dogs hooked into a team at once.
One of the common themes with the other honourees is, North Bay has come to be their adopted home. With Leatherdale, it is no different.
“After graduation, he moved here obviously because there was a need for chiropractors in North Bay,” Larade said. “By doing so, he realized the beauty of the area, the nature, the lakes, and of course the history because it is a very important historical route.”
“The area is the Trans-Canada Waterway for the explorers, voyageurs, and Jesuits. I think with the history involved in the area, he fell in love.”
History would go on to play a vital role in Leatherdale’s life as through it and research, he rediscovered the portages used by early explorers between North Bay and Mattawa known as the “La Vase Portages” as they would enter Lake Nipissing through the La Vase River.
“The La Vase portages were originally First Nations routes,” Lauran said. “Later it was the Northwest Companies fur trading routes,” explains Larade. “Dad owned the 72 editions of the Jesuit Relations, he pieced things together and different historical accounts and diaries. He walked through the area and you could see evidence as to that’s where they were.”
Throughout his research, he also became convinced that there was an old Fur Trading post located at the mouth of the La Vase River or present-day Champlain Park at the end of Premier road.
“Fort Laronde was a mid-1800’s fort, but it wasn’t truly a fort, it was more a trading post which belonged to the Northwest Trading Company, not the Hudson’s Bay Company. Fort Laronde was really more of a cabin that sat there. Since Dad passed away, it has been verified that Fort Laronde sat at the mouth of the La Vase River.”
That verification came in the form of an archeological dig that took place at the site in 1997.
Staying with the history subject, Murray also wrote a book on the area in conjunction with North Bay’s 50th anniversary in 1975 titled Nipissing: From Brule to Booth.
“What I gather, and this happened long before I was born, but the historical aspect of this area always intrigued him,” Larade stated. “Being from Orillia, in Huronia, the Huron Nation was a big part of his life, the history of them, and when he got to North Bay, he realized how it tied together with the Nipissing First Nation as they wintered together every year.”
“As far as the book goes, he was always reading and studying different parts of Canadian History, the Chamber of Commerce asked him to write a brochure on the history of North Bay and he said ‘I have a lot of research that I could probably write a book’ and they took him up on his offer. My dad handed the manuscript of the book over to the Chamber and it was used as a fundraising project for them.”
“It’s about the Nipissing area spanning the time from the last ice age, into 1610 when the first European arrived here, Etienne Brule, all the way to around 1883 with the arrival of JR Booth, the lumber king. It takes in a couple of hundred years of history.”
In an interview from 1975, graciously provided to me by the family for this publication, Murray explains the interest in writing the book.
“I have been interested in Canadian History as long as I can remember. I moved to North Bay in 1953 and discovered that little had been done in the way of history. North Bay straddles a famous voyageur highway, and I decided to do some research for my own interest and I found out that I had enough material for a book,” Leatherdale said.
As for the research portion of the book, because it had been a lifelong passion, Leatherdale says it was easier than if he had just started.
“The material sort of started to come my way. Surprisingly enough, the earlier material from the 1600s through the Jesuit Relations was much easier to research than things that had happened right into this century.”
Part of his historical ties to the City also led Murray to found the North Bay and Area Museum, where he served as President from 1974-77.
Despite all of his activities throughout the community, Leatherdale still always had time for family.
“As busy as he was, involved in all different kinds of activities, there was always time for me when needed,” Lauran explains. “I felt that I spent a lot of time with him, and he was very fun. He was very well educated, could always ask Dad any question and he usually had an answer. He was just a busy man.”
“From dog sledding to flying his airplane, to telling my friends and I ghost stories. He is somebody I am very proud of, and certainly proud to be his daughter. Everything he did was because he loved doing what he did and to help educate others and to make this a better place to live. I think it was just for love, to give back to the community and get out and do something he loved.”
“Dad was Dad. There was my older sister Trudy and myself, and our brother Myles was just a baby, so we were his fishing buddies,” Grainger explains. “The best thing coming home was he would do donuts in the bay coming home.”
“Yeah he was busy, but he was still our Dad. When I went into nursing, I wanted to make him proud that I could be in nursing school and graduate with honours because number one he was paying for my school and I wanted to make him proud of his field as a chiropractor.”
Sadly Murray suffered a stroke in December of 1978 while researching his second book. As his communication, and storytelling was diminished, he took to creating paintings to get the stories out. Eventually, Leatherdale passed away in 1984 shortly after turning 57.
The headstone in which he rests is inscribed with “In loving memory of one who dedicated his life to the suffering of others and to the betterment of the community in which he lived.” After conducting my own research into his story, it is a fitting remark for a man who did so much.
Ironically, Murray will now be forever a part of this community’s history when his name is added to the sidewalk for the Kiwanis Walk of Fame.
Week one: Ralph Diegel
Week two: Mort Fellman
Week three: Jack Lockhart
Week four: Murray Leatherdale
Week five: George Couchie
