They say a well-known storied name begins with a legend. Built on intricately detailed hogback stones from the mother country, historical events made famous by its players, glow back to us from across the sea.
A practical man, Duncan Sinclair was one such builder. Born in Endeavor, Saskatchewan, he was the only child of Dugald and Edna Sinclair. An immigrant from Ross-shire Scotland, Dugald served as the Postmaster on Salt Spring Island in his later years. His wife Edna was a deaconess at a local Anglican Church. The family lived a hard-scrabble existence where frugality meant survival.
At 15, when his father died, Duncan worked as an under-age apprentice with the Canadian Navy out of Halifax. After two or three years, he joined the American Navy to fulfill a dream of working on submarines. He met his future wife, Rosella Jayne Flowers while stationed in Halifax.
Born of aboriginal and Acadian-French descent, Rosella’s family line was closely associated with the Mi’kmaq through intermarriage. Aside from being beautiful, she had an incredible singing voice and a famous cousin in Stompin’ Tom Connors.
Described as a self destructive man trying to regain himself; Duncan remarried and moved his family to Ottawa in the 70s where he and a friend ran a trucking business. Duncan’s best qualities were pride in the places he’d been, his methodical record keeping, knowledge of his family heritage and a beautiful penmanship.
Later in life, he valued most, his time spent with daughter Edna.
If a person could be described by the town they grew up in, that town would be Fredericton, New Brunswick. Along with its small-town charm and community-focused atmosphere, anyone fortunate enough to spend time with or share kinship with Edna Sinclair, is beloved, indeed.
At high school, Edna was literally heads above her peers through her ethnic Viking lineage. Although she won a scholarship for acting, track and field was her escape. Unfortunately, her hopes of travelling to Paris for modeling ended when she became pregnant.
In the grace of being mentored, a close friend whose mother worked as a freelance writer, gave Edna a platform to speak of her experience on a radio program. So often, pregnant teenagers face isolation and are treated like a precautionary tale by teachers, friends and the medical community. ~This was Edna’s experience.
Deciding to keep her baby, Edna put herself through college. Working towards a business degree: she waitressed and bartended at night to make ends meet. Reinventing herself in various careers, Edna sought the Mary-Ellen Walton Ideal.
Born with a 6th sense, Edna was highly aware of people’s emotions. Retreating to a fantasy world she called Avalon, the adult Edna was pulled by the universe to Apple Hill’s Strathmore Road in 2019 where a small farm with lots of land grew out of the earth.
Within a 15 minute drive from her now-grown children and area towns, Edna became a modern-day workhorse: building The Real Muddytoes organics into her own gardening business one year later. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561400159877
Finding connection to her father’s meticulousness to detail, Edna planted anything edible for this climate range; all within the mindset of no pesticides.
In this, Edna hopes to get into agro-tourism and bring the rural experience of her father’s generation up from the past.
As a healer and herbalist, Edna began making tinctures for anything to compliment natural medicines. These items and many others are sold at community markets in both Maxville and Alexandria.
In the sunshine of long-standing friendships, grows a rich harvest of well-rounded experience toward a sort of mothering. In current times or fairy gardens: finding joy in little things is a glow that never wavers.
From Duncan’s humorous penny-pinching, to keeping the fridge door closed: there is a lesson-a legacy in all that came before.
To those looking in, its meteor showers, blankets, pillows and snacks while watching the night sky with one’s kids that’s most reflective in the rear-view today. It’s being in extreme cold, teaching kids to ski. It’s the sound of crisp snow and the wind stealing your breath away.
It’s being your own best friend – holding your own hand | telling yourself to pull yourself up | shake yourself off.
In Edna’s young life sometimes, there was no-one mentor – but different people along the way, through the years.
And although next year’s business focus will be on edible flowers and herbs, there will always be room for mentoring. From those early conversations with Duncan teaching Edna about seed saving and counting markers along the highway: when they were together- the father felt his daughter’s light. As it should be ~
Story for June 2026 ~ Copyright © March 2026
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