The Mill of Kintail

 by Rick Book
An article for The Globe and Mail

            On a warm summer evening, the forest is glowing as bullfrogs in the river harrumph for mates.  It’s easy to imagine R. Tait McKenzie sitting here in his kilt, deeply contented, as he gazed across the pond at his stone mill. One of Canada’s greatest doctors, educators and artists, McKenzie returned here to his birthplace late in life to make this his summer home and studio. 

He was born just down the road near Almonte in 1867.  The gristmill had already closed when he played here as a boy with his friend, James Naismith, before they left for Montreal and became doctors, before they left for careers in the States. Naismith invented basketball; McKenzie went to the University of Pennsylvania to head the department of physical education.  He and his wife, Ethel, a concert pianist and poet, lived there happily for 31 years.  

During World War I, McKenzie served as a surgeon in the British Royal Army Medical Corps. He revolutionized rehabilitation of the wounded and pioneered treatments that physiotherapists still use today.  But McKenzie was more than a physician and physical educator. He had another calling - as a sculptor. 

He sculpted athletes, sleek young men in their prime, fleet as gazelles, strong and fit. He won art competitions, designed Olympic medals, studied in Paris and met Auguste Rodin. He became world-renowned, successful, and hung out with the rich and famous of his day.  

On a trip back home to Almonte in 1930, McKenzie rediscovered this mill, now derelict.  He bought it, restored it and gave it the name Mill of Kintail.  The three-storey limestone building draws you in through a weathered wooden door with simple wrought iron handles.  McKenzie’s studio was upstairs, a soaring sunny place with huge south windows, stout beams reaching high across the space.  Their living quarters were one floor below, filled with simple rustic furniture – and a piano.  The McKenzies loved to entertain; Prime Minister King was a friend and frequent visitor.

The mill is a museum now.  Seventy of McKenzie’s works are here, some in bronze, some in plaster. In a window, silhouetted against the sun, The Ice Bird sits poised for flight.  A skater on one leg, the other straight out behind, arms stretched, ready to fly. It is grace frozen in bronze.  McKenzie himself was no mere spectator.  He had been a top gymnast at McGill and was Canadian high jump champion; he could run hurdles, fence, box, swim and, no doubt, skate. 

            Another favourite is of eight speed skaters on a frieze, Brothers of the Wind.  I love it for the name alone; companions of the order of sweat, a fraternity of those who know what it means to swoop across the ice like swallows, feel the cold slap of wind in your face, the hot happiness of exhaustion when the race or game is over.  The rink rat in me stands in awe.       

A plaster of The Joy of Effort is here, too. A trio of hurdlers in flight, it’s one of his best-known works.  The original 269 cm bronze medallion is mounted on the wall of the Olympic Stadium in Stockholm, Sweden to commemorate that city’s 1912 Olympics.  In recognition of his support of the Games’ revival and his enthusiastic influence on them, McKenzie was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame.  

It's easy to imagine Rab, as he was known, working here as light and shadows traced their way across the room, Madame Butterfly playing on the Victrola.  He pushes and prods his clay, molds it in his slim, strong doctor's hands, rips it down, tries again and again, until the clay stops being clay and becomes instead a leg, muscles taut under skin, alive in the artist's hands. Only then can he enjoy a sip of tea Ethel has brought up.

            McKenzie, it’s clear, admired not only the beauty of athleticism but its raw passion as well. His Onslaught is a bronze tangle of rugby players that served as the Canadian senior intercollegiate football trophy.  Like a breaking wave of bodies, it captures the rough and tumble of sport in the seemingly endless summer of youth.

This is a quiet place now, a conservation area.  The river, the birds, the sweeping lawns are all part of a serenity broken only by the laughter of school children on a visit, the trickle of tourists, and every spring, by the graduating class of Phys Ed students from McGill paying homage to McKenzie.  A shrine to a virtually unknown Canadian.

Having seen the terrible cost of war, remembering the fallen was important to McKenzie and he received several commissions for war memorials. The plaster version of his Madonna-like Mercy reaches out with tenderness and compassion, a tribute to the Red Cross nurses who died in WW1. It stands in front of Red Cross headquarters in Washington, D.C.  In another corner of the studio is The Young Scot.  The lad sits in his kilt, rifle across his knees, bent slightly forward, eager to answer his country’s call. Commissioned for Edinburgh's Scottish-American War Memorial, it is a picture of innocence doomed and may just be his finest work.  McKenzie gave his all to this project, as if in payment for some enormous debt.  In his will, he asked Ethel to bury his heart by the statue.  And in 1938 she did.  But his heart still surely beats at this beloved mill, his spiritual home and personal monument to the joy of effort, of being human, fully expressed and profoundly alive.

                                                            -30-

Rick Book is the author of several books including the short story collections, Necking with Louise and Christmas in Canada.

IF YOU GO:

Directions from Ottawa:  HWY 417 west to March Road exit. Take HWY 49 west to Almonte, then HWY 29 north toward Pakenham. Turn left onto Clayton Road and follow signs.

Directions from Toronto: Take HWY 7 to near Carleton Place, turn north on HWY 29 (or take HWY 29 north from 401), to Almonte, continue on HWY 29 north toward Pakenham. Turn left onto Clayton Road and follow signs.

Web Site: http://www.mvc.on.ca/conservation-areas/mill-of-kintail

Email: Kintail@trytel.com

Tel: 613-256-3610

Mill of Kintail Conservation Area, R.R. # 1, Almonte, ON  K0A 1A0.