Ostensibly celebrating the tipping point for Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland, at ground level the Orange Order gave cover for extreme religious bigotry.
The political importance of the Orange Lodge was its primal control over political life across a wide swath of Ontario. From Toronto, where nobody got elected mayor without Orange endorsement and deployment of the Lodge’s formidable ground forces to Muskoka, Orangemen were loyal to the monarch, devoutly Protestant, militantly anti-Catholic and, by extension, anti-French. At election time, the Lodge rolled out with all guns blazing for the Conservative candidates they’d endorsed – who of course were themselves Orangeman. That’s why Tories won little support from Catholics, Francophones, and less-tribal Canadians.
The Lodge had moderates, but also within Orange ranks were ultra-Protestants. They fit snugly into Muskoka’s thicket of “loyalist” organizations: Sons of England, Sons of Scotland, and Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire; many Church of England parishioners; most adherents of the Conservative Party; other local chapters of fraternal societies patterned on British models, including the Independent Order of Foresters, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and Masonic Lodge. Kindred in general outlooks, these bonding socities shared many cross-memberships.
Each July 12 the Orangemen’s parade and celebrations drew hundreds of members and their families from Muskoka’s 20 lodges, and from beyond, to a single centre. A mid-1950s gathering in Huntsville featured “King Billy,” on traditional white horse, leading the parade. Fife-and-drum bands came spaced at intervals between dozens of lodges on the march, stirring militant zeal. Banners high, Union Jacks flying, marching women wearing white dresses and men in white shirts and navy pants passed by. Their orange sashes added colour. Silver decorations danced on their chests.
The parade ended by Huntsville High School, with speeches, tributes, prayers, and anthems. It concluded. Socializing began, with cold drinks and sandwiches, a “family gathering” reminiscent of church picnics. Loud rhythmic vibrating sounds drifted in. Behind the school sun beat down into a gravel pit. Sweating drummers faced each other in a circle. Their arms flew, drumsticks pounding out on each bass drum’s skin their ever-faster crescendo, their white sleeves rolled high on farm-tanned arms, foam gathering in the corners of their mouths, in war dance delirium. Look out Frogs! Look out, Micks! White-hot Orangemen are in town!
Those warriors for religious bigotry are gone. Their lodges were among the first “public” buildings in most Muskoka settlements, ensuring diverse community uses. The best preserved today has its place, along with a blacksmith’s shop, in the “Pioneer Village” of Huntsville’s Muskoka Heritage Place. Bracebridge’s Orange Hall has morphed, symbolically, into Kelly’s Irish Pub.
