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Close to 120 people participated in the wide-ranging feedback survey, available online from mid-September to early October. Some highlights;

• The majority of respondents said Muskoka is in need of opportunities such as those provided by six Degrees Muskoka “very much” or “quite a bit”.
• Nearly 100% of respondents reported high levels of satisfaction with the digital animation classes.
• 90% of artists found participating in the initiative either “very worthwhile” or “quite worthwhile,” even though only 13% found the initiative lucrative in financial terms.
• 70% of respondents participated in the Six Degrees Muskoka initiative
• 14% of respondents made one or more purchases over the summer.
• The majority of sales were inexpensive items such as greeting cards
• Some found the art show themes confusing and the space cluttered at times
• The majority of respondents felt that Six Degrees Muskoka had a “very positive” or “somewhat positive” effect on Muskoka’s arts community, the downtown Bracebridge experience for shoppers, and other retailers in the downtown.
• 93% of respondents have recommended Six Degrees Muskoka to others.

“We want to thank everyone who participated in the survey, and in Six Degrees Muskoka,” said co-founder Don Skinn er. “We have read and considered all of your comments, and we appreciate your participation and your feedback. We hear you and we’d like to continue to support the community.”

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“If only these walls could talk,” said Skinner. “This building has a fascinating history, and we want to learn everything we can about it in order to pay homage to it in our restoration. So we’re appealing to anyone who can share their stories and images.”

The Queen’s Hotel, as it was originally known, was built in 1885 by local entrepreneur Alfred Hunt. In 1892 then-owner John Higgins put a large addition onto the north end, much of which was destroyed by fire in 1910 (and then later rebuilt). It was purchased in the 1930s by the Patterson brothers who remodeled the building and put in the chamfered corner.

In addition to being the site of The Queen’s Hotel, The Patterson Hotel and Hotel Patterson, 63 Manitoba St. has housed a barbershop, billiard room, banquet hall, drugstore, variety store and pharmacy. Al Beverley purchased the build- ing in 1986 from which he operated his paint store and home decorating business, with offices above.

Don and Jen Skinner purchased the building in 2007. It was briefly home to the Lampost, and this summer was the site of Six Degrees Muskoka, a not-for-profit pilot project sup- porting Muskoka’s youth and arts community.

“We’re looking for stories from people who worked in the shops or families who might have had their wedding recep- tion or some other event here,” said Jen Skinner, “as well as photographs, letters, postcards, anything that can help us fill in this wonderful building’s history would be greatly appreci- ated.”

Please phone 705-645-6313 or email tamsen@sixdegrees- muskoka.com to set up an appointment.

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“People were blown away and amazed,” says Jen Skinner, who co-founded Six Degrees with her husband, Don. “It was unexpected. And that’s what we like.”

The 42-question survey gathered the opinion of artists, demonstrators, and community members alike, and nearly all to date have indicated  their support for the gallery.

“So far ninety-three per cent of our respondents recommended Six Degrees to someone else,” says projector coordinator Tamsen Tillson. “And we were very positive about our impact on the downtown experience for shoppers, other retailers in downtown Bracebridge, and the Muskoka arts community.”

Now the gallery has closed, the Skinners are using feedback from the community to help form their strategy going forward. At the same time, they don’t want people thinking Sic Degrees, or its animation studio, Pixel on the Parallel, didn’t make enough of an impact during the summer to carry it through the fall.

“This is an adaptive reuse of a 124-year-old building, and we’re basically building it over,” Don says “It’s a huge priority. A massive amount of resources… We’re rehabilitating the entire thing.”

Though much of the work being done to the building will be completed over the winter, some finishing touches, such as the planned rooftop ribbon (an energy conservation measure which would generate domestic hot water), will come a little later. In the meantime, the Skinners are excited by a forthcoming animation event in Ottawa, which they’ll use to co-ordinate a winter intensive workshop.

“We hope to have a Christmas class and challenge students to create a “short” in time for the G8 Summit,” says Jen.

And come spring, the plan is for Pixel on the Parallel to resume its classes and busy creative schedule. The top two floors of Six Degrees building are already leased to an international firm, and the rest of the space will be adapted to a variety if uses in an effort to make the building sustainable from all angles.

“Sustainability is number one,” says Don. “We see the use of rentable interstitial space as a value-added peice to Six Degrees. And the added culture value of creative content – static art, animated art, visual art, performance art – create a richer environment.”

With winter coming on, the Skinners are now looking for input from the community about how to empower youth and arts.

“Six Degrees is a global community idea about connectivity,” Jen says. “we want idea about how that relates to your creative cultural side.”

Don and Jen Skinner wanted a more hands-on role in their Muskoka business and a different environment for their children, so they relocated from the GTA to Bracebridge over five years ago.

Owners of a number of historic properties in Bracebridge, the Skinners are focused on preserving the architectural and cultural heritage of the downtown while revitalizing and rethinking how the buildings are used.

With those goals in mind, the Skinners created Six Degrees Muskoka, an arts hub at the old Queens Hotel building on Muskoka Street which features an art gallery, retail space, an arts/architecture/culture reference library, and a 10-seat digital animation studio which offers classes for children.

Don and Jen draw on their respective backgrounds in architecture and interior design and in the arts. Together they combine their training and experience with the belief that people, art, the environment, ideas and commerce are all closely interrelated. The name Six Degrees Muskoka reflects that vision by alluding to a French philosophy that everyone on Earth is connected through no more than six other people”

“In Muskoka there’s lots of these relationships,” Don Skinner says “We encounter them everyday in what we’re doing.”

The Skinners are conscious of their role as stewards of an important part of Bracebridge’s architectural heritage and have an ambitious 10-year plan to revitalize Bracebridge’s historic downtown core.

“We’re doing this for the enjoyment of it, not the recognition or notoriety,” says Don Skinner. “We’re just trying to do the right things.”

Nomination Category: Community Advocate

As the son of an architect who owned rental properties, Don Skinner’s career choice is a natural fit. Skinner, who is an architect, owns the Skinner Properties with his wife, Jen. They have holdings in Missisauga and Bracebridge.

The Skinner are three years into a 10-year plan to revitalize the downtown core of Bracebridge by refurbishing five historic buildings they own, which are mostly clustered around the intersection of Taylor Road and Manitoba Street. The space that used to be Al Beverley’s lighting store has been renovated into Six Degrees Muskoka, an art gallery, library and computer animation studio.

“There’s a lot more here in Muskoka than meets the eye,” says Don Skinner, who first visited Muskoka when he was just an infant.

Today he calls the district home, along with his wife Jen and their sons, Indigo, 8, and Jasper, 5.

“It seemed like a wonderful environment to raise kids, in terms of smallness of community values, ” he says.

The Skinners see preserving historical heritage, and connecting it with the present and future, as important.

“We have a master vision of how these things will tie together as a campus that celebrates technology, the future, creativity and the past,” says Skinner, who sees well beyond his 10-year plan. “I’m not going to get off the train in 10 years. I can see where this is going to go to.”

Once inside, you can see the scope of their upgrades to this heritage site.

This is no ordinary feat as they will retain the heritage aspects while using very unique designs and engineering to make this building self-sufficient in heating and cooling.

Don is an award-winning architect and the engineering aspects he will employ are unimaginable for this backyard carpenter.

Despite their hectic schedules, they graciously greeted and encouraged us throughout the summer.

Dynamic Tamsen Tillson was added to co-ordinate the gallery activities and, as usual for Tamsen, she did an outstanding job.

The multitasking twins Emily and Anne Thaler were delightful to work with and the addition of Kevan Anne Murray, an up-and-coming literary and illustration star, made the gallery area vibrant.

Congratulations to the Town of Bracebridge for attracting such an outstanding family interested in preserving the town’s heritage and making the downtown area an even more interesting and beautiful area to visit.

Thank you Jen, Don and family for inspiring us.

Terry Gill
Utterson