I was at Port Perry Fair 🎡 over the weekend, and it never fails to get me. Horses, cows, a tractor pull, award-winning food made by people who live three streets over from you. Moms and dads with a kid in each hand, wandering the booths and the livestock barns for no reason except that this is what a Saturday in September is for. You don't get that walking into a grocery store. You get it here.
Turns out Port Perry was just the opening act. Orono opens tonight. Uxbridge opens Friday. Sunderland runs Tuesday and Wednesday next week, and Beaverton follows the week after that. Some of these fairs started before Canada did, and every single September they land in the same fortnight, one after another, like clockwork.
So the school year begins, and the region answers with four more fairs in a row.
Also in here: a woman in Whitby gave her stepdad one of her kidneys, and this month the two of them are walking a 5K together because of it. A McDonald's manager in Oshawa just got named one of the best in the country, and her first thought was her crew. And the salmon are back in Bowmanville Creek, throwing themselves up a ladder that a handful of volunteers spent years fighting three government agencies to build.
Pour the coffee. Let's go.
AJAX — 🪨 Victorians hauled a million cubic metres of stone out of Lake Ontario. Ajax is putting some of it back.
Between 1850 and 1920, a practice called stonehooking stripped about a million cubic metres of rock off the Lake Ontario shoreline, and the coast has been eroding ever since. TRCA (Toronto and Region Conservation Authority) has now finished the in-water phase of a project at Ajax Waterfront Park that reverses a little of it, laying cobble and boulder along roughly 250 metres of shore and letting the waves push the stones into place themselves 🌊. The Waterfront Trail is fully open again, with native plantings and trail repaving still to come this fall. I would urge you to visit the website for more information about this project, it is very informative.
Source: TRCA Ajax Shoreline Project · TRCA
BROCK — 🏒 The Cannington arena is back, and it came in under budget.
The Rick MacLeish Memorial Community Centre just finished a full refrigeration overhaul, ❄️ new ceiling, new compressors, new hot water system , and it's ready for the season on schedule. "I am excited to see this important capital project be completed on time and below budget," said Mayor Mike Jubb.
Source: Durham Radio News · Township of Brock
CLARINGTON — ⚽ Clarington just started its first-ever adult rec league.
Clarington Sports Leagues kicked off with co-ed indoor soccer ⚽ for 18 and up, Friday nights in the new dome at the Bowmanville Community Complex, in partnership with the Darlington Soccer Club. No full team? There's a waitlist for free agents.
Source: Durham Post · Clarington
OSHAWA — 🍟 She got named one of the best managers in the country. She wanted to talk about her crew.
Deanna Rose manages the McDonald's on Thoroughbred Street, and she's just been named one of McDonald's Canada's Outstanding Managers of the Year, the top five percent 🏆 out of more than 1,500 restaurants. She's been with the company since 2014. Asked how it felt, she didn't talk about herself. "My immediate thought went straight to my team."
Source: Durham Post • LinkedIn
PICKERING — 📚 Pickering's library just opened a branch inside a heritage centre.
The new Greenwood Heritage Library sits inside the Dorsay Community and Heritage Centre, and the neighbourhood gets its formal welcome Saturday 🎊, with hands-on activities and a limited-edition library card you can only sign up for there.
Source: Pickering Public Library
SCUGOG — ⛸️ The Scugog Arena is turning 50, and they want your old photos.
Fifty years of hockey, figure skating, ringette, and broomball gets a free community open house on September 19, plus a ticketed anniversary dance that night 🎶. Fifty bucks gets your name on a commemorative rink board. If you've got a photo from decades past, they want it.
Source: The Standard • Scugog Township
Photo: John Cavers, Uxbridge Cosmos
UXBRIDGE — 🧓 Two provincial ministers came to Uxbridge to fund a free program for seniors.
A $25,000 grant 💰 is launching Age Well Uxbridge, a no-fee mobility, wellness, and fall-prevention series built for rural seniors. Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy and Minister of Seniors and Accessibility Raymond Cho both showed up for the announcement.
Source: Uxbridge Township • Uxbridge Cosmos
WHITBY — 🏭 A Whitby factory has outlasted three generations of one family, and it just got bigger.
ProAmpac has been running in Whitby for 68 years and just cut the ribbon ✂️ on a 10,000-square-foot expansion. Two hundred people work there full time, and one family has had three generations on the floor. "Advanced manufacturing is one of Whitby's key economic sectors," said Mayor Elizabeth Roy.
Source: ProAmpac • Elizabeth Roy’s Linkedin Post
Shannon Ottonen didn't think twice. Then she thought about it for two and a half years.
Shawn Richter has been Shannon's dad since she was young, stepdad on paper, dad in every way that counts. So when his kidneys started failing and his numbers kept dropping, fifteen percent, then six, then dialysis three times a week 💉, Shannon went and got tested to see if she could give him one of hers.
That was the easy part. The donor assessment took two and a half years. Somewhere in there, doctors told the family Shawn likely wouldn't see the end of this year without a transplant.
On May 4, Shannon gave him a kidney.
She's not interested in the word hero.
I don't really see myself as a hero. If anything, maybe there was something selfish about it. I simply wasn't willing to lose my stepdad.
Last year, Shannon and Shawn walked the Durham Region Kidney Walk hoping a transplant would come through in time. This year, on Sunday, September 27 at Heydenshore Pavilion in Whitby, they're walking it together 👟 because it did.
Support Team Richter, Connected for Life, or just come cheer them on: kidney.akaraisin.com/ui/ONWALKS26/t/TeamRichterConnectedForLife
🌱 Oshawa needs hands in the dirt. Durham Community Health Centre is looking for 8 to 12 volunteers 🙋 for its community garden at 115 Grassmere Avenue, planting through harvest and helping distribute produce to neighbours who need it. Flexible shifts, term runs through December.
Source: Durham Community Health Centre · [email protected] · 905-723-0036
🧠 Community Care Durham needs group facilitators. WeConnect's fall training cohort starts Wednesday, September 16 📅, nine Wednesday evenings at the Garnet B. Rickard Recreation Complex in Bowmanville. No experience running a group required, just a willingness to show up.
Source: Community Care Durham · [email protected]
Ignite Durham Learning Foundation launched its 2026-2027 campaign September 1, stocking the Nutrition Station at the Make a Difference Depot to keep Durham students fed through the school year. Elexicon Energy just signed on with donation bins at four of their offices. Sign up to host a drop-off point of your own, or just make a donation. Source: Ignite Durham Learning Foundation · Donate
Run a Durham group that needs hands? Hit reply and we'll put the word out.
🎡 Thursday, September 10, opens at 5pm — Orono Fair, Orono Fairgrounds. The 172nd running of it, midway, 4-H 🐮, antique tractor pulls, and a Friday night concert with Tenille Townes.
Source: Orono Agricultural Society
🥕 Thursday, September 10, 2 to 7pm — Ajax Markets, Ajax Community Centre north lot. Local farms, bakers 🍞, and live music, free to walk through.
Source: Town of Ajax
🍻 Thursday, September 10, doors 6pm — Raise the Roof: Music, Bingo & Brews, Jackson Hall above Town Brewery, Whitby. Music-themed bingo, a silent auction, and a 50/50 🎟️, with every dollar going to Habitat for Humanity's Whitby build.
Source: Town Brewery
🎭 Thursday, September 10, 7pm — World premiere of "Piggyland," Theatre on the Ridge, Scugog Shores Museum, Port Perry. A new play by Durham playwright Graeme Powell, performed under a tent ⛺, all-local cast.
Source: Theatre on the Ridge
🚜 Friday, September 11 — Uxbridge Fall Fair opens, Elgin Park, running through Sunday. Demolition derby 💥, heavy horse pull, and a cruise-in car show.
Source: Uxbridge Fair
🎸 Friday, September 11, 8pm — Jim Henson's Labyrinth in Concert, 40th anniversary 🕺, Regent Theatre, Oshawa.
Source: Regent Theatre
🎬 Friday, September 11, dusk — Free family movie night, Columbus Park, Oshawa. Final one of the summer series, bring a blanket 🛋️.
Source: City of Oshawa
⛸️ Saturday, September 12, 9:30am to 4pm — Fieldgate Sports Complex grand opening, 2 Gathering Place, Whitby. Elvis Stojko headlines the public skate from 1 to 4 ⭐. Free swim, drop-in pickleball, food trucks, and a full day of it. No skate rentals anywhere in Whitby, bring your own.
Source: Town of Whitby · Durham Radio News
🎉 Saturday, September 12, 11am to 5pm — Cultural Fusion, Dorsay Community and Heritage Centre, Pickering. Food 🍜, live entertainment, and a vendor market, free shuttle from the 407 Commuter Lot.
Source: City of Pickering
🪔 Saturday, September 12, 6:30 to 11:30pm — Garba Night for Navratri, with Rushi Purohit 💃. Held in Ajax (the venue's confusingly named Pickering High School).
Source: Endless Event
🏒 Sunday, September 13, doors 3:05pm — Oshawa Generals vs. Niagara IceDogs, OHL pre-season 🥅, Tribute Communities Centre.
Source: Tribute Communities Centre
🎡 Tuesday, September 15 and Wednesday, September 16 — Sunderland Fair, 173rd running. Two days, $10 Tuesday, $15 Wednesday, elementary students free, demolition derby 💥 Wednesday night.
Source: Sunderland Fall Fair
New in the neighbourhood.
☕ Bean & Basket, 62 Old Kingston Road, Ajax. The little coffee bar and artisan shop 🧵 in Pickering Village reopened this week under new ownership. Same idea as always: good coffee at the counter, and a shop behind it stocked with handmade work from makers around Ajax. Open Tuesday to Friday 9 to 5, Saturday 9 to 4, closed Sunday and Monday.
Source: Bean & Basket · Facebook
🍕 Culture Crust, 472 Taunton Rd W, Unit 9, Oshawa. Four years ago a pizza shop owner in Windsor, the city that calls itself Canada's pizza capital 🍕, decided to put samosa chaat on a pizza. Culture Crust is eight locations deep now, and the newest one just opened on Taunton Road with butter masala, pav bhaji, and tandoori paneer on the menu, plus Jain and Swaminarayan options. Kitchen runs to 1am on weeknights, 2am on weekends 🌙.
Source: Culture Crust · INsauga
The week in good news.
🐾 Beaverton's first dog park opened its gates yesterday. Mill Gateway Park had its ribbon cutting Wednesday afternoon after almost five years of planning ⏳. Large and small dog areas, double-capture gates at both entrances.
Source: Township of Brock
🏒 Whitby Minor Lacrosse just had its best season ever. Five gold medals 🥇 across five divisions, including a first-place finish out of 99 teams in U11 boys, and gold in the U11 girls' division's very first season.
Source: Town of Whitby
♻️ Curbside Giveaway Day is Saturday, September 19. Put anything decent you don't want at the curb marked FREE 🏷️, and bring back whatever nobody takes by 7pm. All eight municipalities.
Source: Region of Durham
🏊 Oshawa's Rotary Pool and splash pads are staying open until September 20. Free for residents with ID or a season pass 🎫.
Source: City of Oshawa
📚 The Friends of the Library book sale is coming, September 17 to 19. McLaughlin Branch, thousands of books 📖, cash, debit, and credit accepted.
Source: Durham Radio News
🎸 Sum 41 is going into the Durham Region Music Hall of Fame. The band formed at Exeter High School in Ajax in 1996 and still live in Durham. They collect the DREAMS! Lifetime Achievement Award on Thursday, September 18 at the Biltmore in Oshawa, on a bill with 94.9 The Rock's Doug Elliott, who takes the Industry Leader Award.
Source: Town of Ajax · INsauga
🐟 For years, almost none of them made it.
Every fall, chinook salmon push up Bowmanville Creek to spawn, and for a long time the run stopped cold at the Goodyear Dam. Big fish couldn't clear it. They got stuck against the concrete and died there, and by the estimates at the time, only about one in a hundred managed to fight their way past it.
Photo: Valleys 2000
A group called Valleys 2000 spent years trying to fix that. Fundraising, planning, and working through three separate government agencies 📋 before anyone would let them touch the creek. In December 2013, the fish ladder finally opened, a side channel built at just the right height for a salmon to leap.
It's running right now, and it'll keep running through mid-October. The trail in is paved the whole way, off Roenigk Drive, about a kilometre north of the Baseline Road lot, easy enough for a stroller or a wheelchair 🦽. Get there in the next few weeks and stand at the ladder for a bit. You'll watch a fish throw itself at the current, get pushed back, try again, and eventually win. It's one of the better free things to do in Durham this month, and almost nobody knows it's happening.
Source: Valleys 2000 · Municipality of Clarington
🐟 Two and a half years of tests. Sixty-eight years on the same factory floor. Five years of paperwork for a dog park.
This region runs on people willing to wait out something slow. Shannon Ottonen sat through appointment after appointment for the chance to give her stepdad a kidney. A family in Whitby has now put three generations through the same plant. And a group of volunteers spent years arguing with three government agencies so a fish could get up a creek 🐟, then stood back and let the salmon do the rest.
Durham doesn't do overnight.
It just doesn't quit.
Until next week…
This is Durham Life!
Be Good. Do Good. ❤️
MiKe Dee
Publisher
Durham Life - Local Media that Inspires
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Covering Durham Region's 8 municipalities: Ajax · Brock · Clarington · Oshawa · Pickering · Scugog · Uxbridge · Whitby