The Story That Inspired TradeSpace

As a boy, around the dinner table, my dad would always tell me the story of my grandfather and how he built our cottage himself. He was a roofer by trade, and he worked in a glass factory where they made windows for skyscrapers. In the 1950s, both my grandfather and grandmother were water skiers — some of the best in the country — and they spent their weekends skiing with a bunch of friends up on Lake Simcoe.

In the early ’60s, the group of them went searching for a better lake to ski on, and they found this one up in the Kawarthas. They bought 13 empty lots, side by side, on a new road. They each had their own trade. One of them was an electrician, one a plumber, one a carpenter, and so on. They each set up shop and built their own places with their own hands, from the ground up.

And they helped each other out. When my grandfather needed to run power to the house, he called his buddy the electrician from a few doors down to come wire it. When he needed running water, his buddy the plumber came over. When any of them needed a roof put on, my grandfather was over there on the roof, swinging the hammer. All for the price of a couple beers and some good company to share a few laughs.

What they built was far more important than 13 well-built, beautiful cottages. They built one of the greatest examples of true community I’ve ever seen or heard of. They had a crew of families who were more than just neighbours — they were the epitome of what a community is meant to be: people who were there for each other, who showed up for each other when it was needed, who lent a hand and helped out the best they could.

One of the most amazing things about what they built is that the bonds they created, through the experience of helping each other build their homes, became a community that has lasted beyond any of them. Today, some of the third and fourth generations still live in those same cottages. They still know each other by name, and they’re still a bonded community — through what was built some 65 years ago.

That story was so powerful for me. As I grew up and looked around at the world today, I realized how badly our communities need a little of that magic, whatever it was they had back then. And it wasn’t that they were all perfect people who could just get along and form one happy community. They were all, individually, somewhat of a mess. They probably drank a little too much, smoked too much, and spoke their mind without a filter. But it didn’t matter, because the one thing a community needs above all else is simple. A community isn’t what we consider it today — a group of people who live near each other. A community, by definition, is a group of people who look out for each other, show up for each other, and help each other out. That’s what they did, and that was the bond they built.

The only way they knew how to show up for each other and help each other out was through their skills in the trades — by lending a helping hand with the trade they knew best. I still think that holds true today. I think so much of that magic came from the acts of service they delivered through the trades. The tradespeople of our communities who work to run their trade businesses are some of the only people who still to this day truly live by the need to show up and help, to lend a helping hand when it’s needed. It’s their entire livelihood, their entire business, their entire purpose.

I think the bond people have with their tradespeople (the person they call on when they need a hand) is one of the strongest, most community-like relationships people still have today. And I think that if we shine a spotlight on the people still doing it the right way, if we support them and champion more of it, we could slowly build more of those bridges and build those bonds stronger.

So I made that our objective: find a way to support the people and the businesses of the trades who make it their life’s work to show up for our communities, and build more of those bridges the right way. It’s about the local people in your neighbourhood and your community — the ones you show up for, and who show up for you, whenever it’s needed. I think we could end up with a lot more communities like the one my grandfather built 65 years ago.

That’s the story that inspired TradeSpace. And I hope it inspires you to believe in what we’re building, and what we stand for.