The Orillia Museum of Art and History (OMAH) Winter Gala 2025 took place on a fittingly wintry and cold Saturday night at Hawk Ridge Golf and Country Club.
The sold-out event saw more that 200 people enjoy a three-course meal, opportunities to mingle and an entertaining talk by well-known Canadian explorer and author Adam Shoalts.
Attendees included board members and friends, sponsors, art lovers, artists, and many others supportive of OMAH’s work in the community.
Abby Sirisegaram-Cole, the vice chair of OMAH's board, who has recently moved to Orillia with her husband and two sons, was thrilled with the sold-out event and OMAH as a whole.
“It’s wonderful to have this excellent museum and gallery in this smaller city, and to be able to be a part of it, and to bring patrons' thoughts and experiences to the board, through my interactions with the community,” she said.
Local realtor Marci Csumrik’s firm, Csumrik and Associates, was a gold sponsor of the event. She attended with members of her team and local friends, including Streets Alive Productions founder Leslie Fournier.
“I believe the arts are so important to a community,” Csumrik said. “And having a museum and art gallery to showcase the arts and our local history is a pivotal part of a thriving community, a community where people want to live.”
OMAH Executive Director Ninette Gyorody welcomed everyone to the event and thanked the sponsors. She also highlighted the work OMAH has done, including partnerships with both Georgian College and Lakehead University museum and media studies students, and what to expect in 2025.
She confirmed the museum will be opening a Gordon Lightfoot permanent collection in June 2025, thanks to a private donor whose contribution made it possible for OMAH to buy several important Lightfoot artifacts at a recent auction.
Gyorody highlighted the importance of establishing an acquisition fund and mentioned that some funds from the event and from the raffle that evening would be earmarked for this important initiative.
Attendees were encouraged to fill out donation forms available at each table. Each donation form was entered into the draw to win one of two spectacular Adam Shoalts photos, printed especially for the event.
The audience thoroughly enjoyed Shoalts' entertaining and riveting talk about his life and explorations.
Shoalts has been called Canada’s Indiana Jones by The Toronto Star, and one of the greatest living explorers by Canadian Geographic.
He has been named the Westaway Explorer-in-Residence of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, a position he was told he could have for life, “unless he screwed up.”
In 2017, Shoalts completed a nearly 4,000-kilometre solo journey across Canada’s Arctic.
He is the author of five books, and grew up in rural Ontario “in the woods, making canoes out of trees with my dad, and exploring the nearby creeks and rivers in them. I knew I was going to be an explorer from the age of five,” he explained in his talk.
Shoalts’ delivery was very engaging and humorous, as he tailored his talk to the audience and drew members in with incredible photos of his travels and anecdotes of moments in his career.
“Many of my expeditions actually start in the archives in a museum,” he recounted. “I look at old maps and diaries of explorers who came before me, and I wonder if I can retrace their trips, see what they saw, or go even further and see what they weren’t able to get to.”
He recounted the story of a trip he took after reading diaries of a Canadian, George Douglas, from over 100 years ago and seeing old photos of his cabin.
“His descriptions in his diaries were so detailed and complete, I thought, I could probably find that. And, being in the north, although his cabin was made of wood, it would probably have survived better than other places that are battling heat and humidity,” he explained.
Shoalts gathered his supplies, hopped in his canoe, and, sure enough, was able to find the remains of that old cabin, and take photos right where Mr. Douglas had been, over 100 years before.
Shoalts brought copies of his most recent books with him, and they were sold out at the end of the evening, proof of the audience’s appetite for Canadian adventure.
Event co-chair Barb Jones, along with Gyorody, was well satisfied with the event.
“It was a perfect evening,” said Gyorody. “Everyone enjoyed it all. We are so happy with all the support from our community. We have been here for 25 years and are looking forward to even more success, partnerships, and engagement in the next 25 years.”
