On Thursday morning, the front deck of Sheenboro’s old Fort William hotel was host not to its usual contingent of boaters and cottagers from both sides of the river, but to a different type of crowd – line dancers.

About 20 people, mostly women, from across the upper Pontiac spent the morning practicing their steps under the hot July sun, led by instructors Betty Morris and Phyllis Miller.

The group began meeting in May 2021, when eight people dragged plywood sheets out to a lawn at the Sullivan Homestead to build a makeshift dance floor while respecting COVID-19 social distancing mandates.

Armed with bug spray and a determination to remedy the social isolation caused by lockdowns, the women, who called themselves the Sheenboro Line Dancers, began meeting on a regular basis, and have continued doing so for the past four years.

Today, the group has swelled to around 20 and meets twice a week during the summers at Fort William, and once a week in the winters at Harrington Hall in Chapeau.

The idea was spearheaded by Evelyn Sullivan, who said the thing she missed most during lockdowns was dancing.
In the early days of the pandemic, Sullivan found herself travelling back and forth from Waterdown, Ont., where she lives, and the Sullivan Homestead, which her son owns and operates in Sheenboro to help him open guest lodging.

Doing so, however, meant leaving the security of her own isolation bubble in Waterdown, and swapping it for what felt like utter isolation in Sheenboro.

“It was on one of those drives [when] I was coming back [to Quebec], it just hit me hard because everybody in covid had had their own little groups in the community and so, when I came back, I really didn’t have anybody,” she said.
Sullivan said before restrictions, she would often go to George’s Regal Beagle bar in Chichester to dance.

“It’s a gathering place where we could go and we could dance. And that was, I guess, what I was missing the most with covid,” she said. “You were isolated. You couldn’t socialize.”

So, without any experience line dancing, she called her sister-in-law from the area, Betty Morris, who used to line dance in Pembroke, and schemed up the idea to gather a group of friends at Sullivan Homestead, simply to dance together.

The group’s members didn’t have much experience line dancing when they started out, but Betty Morris, who had some familiarity with some steps, led the group with instructions in the beginning weeks at the homestead.

When spring turned to summer, Phyllis Miller joined the group after returning to the area from Arizona, where she spends winters and has been dancing for about 20 years. Back in Sheenboro, she stepped in to teach the new dancers some moves.

“They’re western here, so I bring in totally new music,” she said, explaining how in Arizona they dance to all kinds of music, which is a bit different from the more traditional Western and Irish dances and tunes this group tends to lean towards.

Also in that first summer, the group moved from the farm to the Fort, owned by Phyllis’ son Trevor Miller, where they could dance on the hotel’s newly built deck overlooking the Ottawa River.

“We are very lucky that Trevor gives us the space. He just keeps saying he does it for his mother,” Sullivan said with a laugh.

“I never thought it would continue in this sense, but it just kept growing as other people heard about it, and wanted to do it, and I think part of it was that everybody was being secluded and hadn’t been doing anything for a long time,” she added.

She mentioned some of the dancers still find themselves at the Regal Beagle from time to time. One evening in particular, when restrictions were just lifting and bars could open again, when music was permitted but dancing was not, a few of the newly formed group found themselves at the local bar at the same time.

Wanting to dance, but also respecting the regulations, they took to the parking lot with the bar door swung open so they could hear the music, and they danced.

As pandemic restrictions slowly disappeared, so too did the distance between the dancers. While they started on plywood, six feet apart, at their most recent practice on Thursday morning, they were high-fiving and weaving through each other on the shared dance floor.

Marie Jessop dances with the group and helps organize their communications. She says they operate under a very casual structure. People are welcome to drop in when they want, and don’t need experience if they do.

That is something Miller touched on as well. She said when they dance at the Fort, they often get people who are just passing through to join in the fun, and when there are more newcomers, the group will take things a little slower or take more time to go over steps.

Morris said running out of dance ideas is not something they see happening anytime soon, because you can always find inspiration online.

She admitted her phone now “bombards” her with line dancing content.

“I look them up online, and if I like it, I teach it,” Morris said.

The group has performed at parades and festivals when it’s invited, but performing is not something it necessarily seeks out.

“I look forward to this. It is good exercise, and the spirit amongst the women is amazing,” said Sharon Thorne-Miller, who has been dancing with the group for a few years.

“I’ve made friends this way. People I never would have normally met . . . It’s amazing.”

“We got through covid, and it’s continuing,” Sullivan said, noting she is not aware of anywhere else in the Pontiac where you can line dance on a regular basis.

“I don’t see it stopping any time soon.”