Unique careers offer opportunities for local residents to thrive

A taxidermist, a fish farmer, and a horse therapist walk into a bar… this scenario, though a great set-up for a joke, is a potential reality in Kawartha Lakes. These three professions are thriving in our community, though none are likely to crop up as an answer to the infamous question “what do you want to be when you grow up?”

In Woodville, Ron Armstrong runs the aptly named, Ron’s Taxidermy. He’s been working as a taxidermist for 38 years and counting, with clients that come from all over Ontario, putting their trust in him to produce high quality and lifelike hunting trophies.

“It wasn’t an instant success,” says Armstrong, who took a three-month course at a taxidermy school in Wisconsin during a break from working on his parents’ farm. He did taxidermy on the side for three years before committing to his business full-time. Armstrong says, “then came a point where I said to my dad ‘I’m so busy in the shop,’ and my parents were getting near retirement, so they said ‘okay, we’re going to retire, and you start your career.’” Even with enough work to go full time, Armstrong shares that it was more of a starving artist lifestyle at first, and it took a decade to build his client base to what it is now. He emphasizes that it takes time to build trust with clients, many of whom are bringing in once-in-a-lifetime hunting trophies for him to immortalize in realistic poses, with various facial expressions.

“I’m pretty fortunate, I like my job, it’s not drudgery. I do put in a lot of time, so I have missed out on things,” Armstrong says, he works six days a week Monday to Saturday. “I can easily cut my hours but if I cut my hours, I’m not gonna get the work done. Welcome to self-employment, right?” With his workshop mere metres from his home, it’s easy for lines to blur between life and work. At the same time, as with many people who are self-employed, Armstrong’s passion for his work is stronger than his desire for rest, “if I get one day off and I’m in the house, I almost start feeling ill. Then I come out to the shop, and I feel alive again. It gives me purpose,” he says.

Paige Andrews is a student at Fleming College’s graduate certificate program in Aquaculture. She is thinking of pursuing a career in fish farming, a growing industry in Canada, which is the fourth largest salmon producing country in the world. For Andrews, who completed Fleming’s Fish and Wildlife program prior to her enrollment in the Aquaculture program, her motivation is simple and clear “I’ve always loved working with fish,” she says. Her favourite fish is the sturgeon “because they can grow up to 20 feet long, they have really cute faces with tiny barbels that look like whiskers and are very prehistoric looking!”

When we think of farming, most of us will conjure up images in our minds of barns and rolling fields, a cow grazing or a rooster going about his morning routine and waking everyone up in the process. Not often do we think of fish hatcheries, with their giant tanks and complex mess of tubes that filter water, or baby lake trout shooting out of a hose into their new home (as pictured on our cover). Though, when you think about it, it makes sense that this industry would thrive in this country, given Canada has the most lakes of any country in the world by a longshot at almost 900,000 compared to the next country on the list, Russia, at 200,000. Andrews says that “during Fish and Wildlife, we learned a bit about the aquaculture industry, and I found it fascinating how big it actually is when no one really talks about it.”

In a time where young people coming out of college are making up a larger portion of those who are unemployed, as noted in an RBC report published January 2024, it’s important for people to understand which industries are growing. A report from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization showed that “aquaculture is now the world’s fastest-growing food production system.” Though the number of people employed in the industry has decreased recently, the increasing reliance on aquaculture moving into the future is promising for young people who love working outdoors.

“Something that surprised me about this industry is how interconnected everything is within aquaculture… within a hatchery, everything relies on everything, and you need to have good people to run it,” says Andrews. In the aquaculture research hatchery at Fleming, the wastewater produced by the fish becomes fodder for the college’s Centre for Advancement of Water and Wastewater Technologies. Meanwhile, water sensors and other technology and equipment, all the way down to 3D printed special drain covers that keep fish in the tanks from going down the drain, are often provided by the college’s Centre for Applied Machine Intelligence and Integration Technologies in Peterborough.

About a ten-minute drive from Lindsay’s downtown, you can find Kelly Russell’s therapeutic horse-riding centre THRIL (Therapeutic Riding in Lindsay). Founded in 2014, the Canadian Therapeutic Riding Association certified centre is one of 17 in Ontario. Russell started THRIL after working for other therapy riding centres over the course of her career as a therapeutic riding instructor. Now, she donates 100 per cent of her time at THRIL, alongside two salaried therapeutic riding instructors. Russell says this is a great career option for someone with a background in horse riding who is looking for meaningful and impactful work – combining a love of horses with a passion for helping others.

Therapeutic horse riding and equine-assisted therapy can be used to help manage mental health issues and a variety of physical challenges. Riders’ challenges range from those they’ve had since birth like Cerebral Palsy, Autism, or ADHD, to injuries resulting in limited mobility or amputation, or illness like stroke. Therapy riding has also been used to help those with addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder, and anxiety.

“As a therapeutic riding instructor, you learn a bit about all of these things,” says Russell. The ages of riders at THRIL also range and Russell says, “therapy riding is adaptable, and can help all sorts of children, youth and adults.” Equine-assisted therapy is used by physiotherapists, chiropractors, psychotherapists, occupational therapists, and speech therapists. These specialists use the horse in different ways: horseback riding can help build physical strength and balance, whereas simply interacting with the horse from the ground can help build trust and confidence.

Horse therapy gained popularity when equestrian Lis Hartel won silver at the 1952 Olympics after contracting polio and beating the odds to get herself back on the horse. Russell’s mother, like Hartel, was also a victim of polio. Russell says, “I watched my mom go from being my mom to having to use a cane, then two canes, then a walker. By the time she was in her 60s she was in a wheelchair.” Though getting back on the horse did not work out for her mother, this connection sparked Russell’s interest, ultimately leading her to therapeutic riding later in life. “Years later it came back to me, there was a woman who had polio like my mum that went and rode at the Olympics,” says Russell, who bought her first horse when she was 18 years old.

Russell notes how rewarding it is to see riders at the centre develop skills and self-esteem.

“You watch these riders go from being absolutely terrified to get on the horse, then all of a sudden they’re laughing and trotting down the long side of the arena, recognizing that they’ve got abilities they didn’t think they had.”