Mourning 'Mr. Gananoque,' a small-town fixture for nearly 100 years

Charles 'Charlie' Donovan, seen here during a celebration of his 98th birthday in 2022, died earlier this month at age 99. His family opened a hardware store in Gananoque, Ont., in 1872. Besides carrying on the business, Donevan developed land he later donated to Parks Canada, which absorbed it into Thousand Islands National Park.

In addition to his longstanding store, Donevan was known for championing the arts scene, helping to found the local Festival of the Islands and donating land that's now part of Thousand Islands National Park.Customers say Donevan was great at finding just the right part for them. Donevan was born in 1924 and, as Beddows put it, lived nearly a century filled with "enormous transitions," all the way from the Great Depression to artificial intelligence.

Landons Bay, a nature area east of Gananoque along the St. Lawrence River that Donevan and volunteers developed as a summer camping area in the 1960s, was also close to his heart, Mary said. Donevan donated land on Landons Bay, located east of Gananoque along the St. Lawrence River, to Parks Canada in the early 2000s. This is the view from the Donevan Trail lookout. Despite his advanced age, Donevan remained committed to the hardware business.

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