Gingers Need Protection

In my family my Grandmother was a Ginger, my Dad was a ginger...my sisters, my nephew, my cousins and my second cousins, all have that red-headed gene.  If you didn't have the red hair, you freckle.  We call ourselves "night-walkers" because we can't go out during the day in the sun.  I reckon Dufferin County is the Ginger Capital of Canada.

Most of the settlers and early farmers came from Ireland during the Potato Famine in the mid 1800s.  If they weren't Irish, they were most likely Scottish or English...hoards of pasty whites crossing the Atlantic to make Canada their home and take advantage of "free land" being given away by the Government.  After several weeks and sometimes months at sea they landed at Fort York (Toronto) to make their final leg of their voyage northward into Dufferin County and beyond.  They became farmers...and I bet they were sun-burned farmers with little to no shade for protection whilst they worked in the fields.  Hats were the only form of defense from the ball of fire in the sky.  Home remedies of cold tea leaves offered little comfort.  Often they were poor when they came to Canada and never returned home.  They stayed where they lived and died where they worked.  They married within their community...Gingers marrying Gingers, passing the sun-forbidden curse of red-hair to the next generation....and so on and so on.

If I look around Dufferin County now, there are a lot of people who need hats.  Our family has Gingers, our neighbours are Gingers...there are many generations of descendants who still call Dufferin home...and they still need hats.  

Our Dufferin County ball cap was created for you...and me... because all Gingers need protection.