With a pile of “used lumber, concrete blocks, studdings, beaverboard and the like” Al, Eurithe and Jim Parkhurst (Eurithe’s father) began construction on the now famous A-frame. Al tells the story in Reaching for the Beaufort Sea.

Things happened in that house. Alfred W. Purdy, the "failure" of a man and poet (as Al looked backed on that time), started publishing as Al Purdy. Just as Al and Eurithe composed the A-frame from available materials, Al began to compose poems about Roblin Lake, Ameliasburgh and Prince Edward County. In 1962, Poems for All the Annettes was published. Al considered this book a “watershed” in his development. The following year he submitted the manuscript of The Cariboo Horses to McClelland and Stewart. It won the first of Al's two Governor General's Awards.

Eurithe says Al was always his most productive at the A-frame. “Despite the caviar receptions and gold accolades, he always returned to this jury-rigged little A-frame tacked to a low-slung, leaning bungalow. The whole edifice, he observed, ‘bent a little in the wind and dreamt of the trees it came from.’ Here, he could observe all his poetry’s recurring themes: love, death, ego, ‘the glories of copulation.’”

The Open Door

Even while the A-frame was being built, it became a meeting place – for poets, for poetry lovers, for those aspiring to be poets. Michael Ondaatje writes about Al and Eurithe’s famous hospitality, “We were in our twenties (and I speak for my friends Tom Marshall and David Helwig, who were there with me) and we didn’t have a single book to our names; we were studying or teaching at the university in Kingston . . . And Al and Eurithe simply invited us in. And why? Because we were poets! Not well-known writers or newspaper celebrities. Did Kipling ever do that?

“Did D.H. Lawrence? Malcolm Lowry had done that for ‘Al-something or other’ in Dollarton, years earlier.

“These visits became central to our lives. We weren't there for gossip, certainly not to discuss royalties and publishers. We were there to talk about poetry. Read poems aloud. Argue over them. Complain about prosody. We were there to listen to a recording he had of ‘The Bonnie Earl of Murray.' And sometimes we saw Al’s growing collection of signed books by other Canadian poets (My favourite dedication among them was ‘To Awful Al from Perfect Peggy.’).

“All this changed our lives. It allowed us to take poetry seriously. This happened with and to numerous other young poets all over the country, right until the last days of Al Purdy’s life. He wasn’t just a ‘sensitive’ man, he was a generous man.”

The list of people who travelled to the A-frame (if it would be possible to compile a comprehensive list) reads like a who’s who of Canadian letters – Margaret Atwood, Earle Birney, George Bowering, Lynn Crosbie, Dennis Lee, Steven Heighton, Patrick Lane, Margaret Laurence, Jack McClelland, John Newlove, Anna Porter, Elizabeth Smart, and the list goes on and on.

And it wasn’t just those aspiring to be poets who were welcomed. Poets, publishers, booksellers, academics, pool players, students, radio broadcasters, journalists, photographers, painters, and readers made their way to Ameliasburgh. Linda Crosfield reports the following story: "Over dinner the other night, I mentioned to my husband that I was writing a letter to support the initiative to preserve Al’s house. ‘I went there once,’ he mused, ‘it was 1972, the summer Judie and I drove across Canada with the kids. She grew up around there so we were able to find the place. Al wasn't home, but his wife was, and she opened her house to us as I explained how I’d taken courses from Al at Simon Fraser and was a big fan of his poetry.” This is how Al's house has always been, according to those who have found their way there.

The house draws people in. It's a pilgrimage to see the country, search out the places Al mentions in the poems, find the church spire and the site of Roblin's Mill, visit the Purdy Library in Ameliasburgh, cross the street to stroll down Purdy Lane to the graveyard where Owen Roblin and Al Purdy are buried along with the other pioneers of Prince Edward County – Al’s book-shaped gravestone bearing the inscription “This is where I came to / when my body left its body / and my spirit stayed / in its spirit home."

Continuing the Tradition—Writer-in-Residence Program

The residency program for the A-frame was designed by poets David Helwig, Steven Heighton, Karen Solie and Rob Budde. The poets were selected to include a broad poetic sensibility, geographical reach, breadth of experience with residency programs, knowledge of Purdy’s work and personal experience of the property. Both David and Steven were long-time friends of the Purdys and spent many decades visiting Roblin Lake.

For more information about the residency program, and how to apply see The A-frame Residency.

Upgrades and Preservation

Over the years there have been many changes and transformations. Barn board was retrieved from a demolition site and added as siding. A patio was added at the front, overlooking the lake. Al built a writing studio. Later a deck replaced the patio, then that deck was extended. Plantings on the grounds matured. The kitchen had upgrades. The garage burned down. The house was always an ongoing project.

Under the guidance and direction of Eurithe Purdy, the property has been upgraded to make sure that everything meets current building codes. Improvements continue every year. Some are made to ensure that the property will be user-friendly for writers (for example, the addition of a washer and dryer). Minor damage that had occurred while the building was not occupied has been repaired (ah, those Prince Edward County squirrels). Things that need attention because of age were repaired or replaced (the original deck at the back of the house was completely replaced), and some things that might have created insurance issues were removed or replaced (removal of oil tank and stove, replaced by energy efficient electric heat). All work was and is done, in keeping with the Purdy’s legacy, to make the property as low-maintenance as possible.

Long-term Protection—Heritage Designation

Al was fascinated by the history of the county, and the country. He was a chronicler of local and national history. It is fitting that the house become a permanent part of Canadian history.

Once all major upgrading work is completed, The Al Purdy A-frame Association will apply for Heritage Designation under the Ontario Heritage Trust and the Prince Edward County Heritage Advisory Committee. Designation in perpetuity will help protect the building and its site for future generations.