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2008-09-09 - Lunch stop, Brockport, N.Y.
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08-09-09 - Erie Canal, Brockport N.Y..
We're on our way east to the Adirondacks and later Quebec. We take the
scenic route from the border crossing at Queenston. Brockport, on the Erie
Canal, suggests the possibility of a canal trip someday. Apparently, you
could travel all the way to the Hudson River and then north, through Lake
Champlain, and into Quebec.
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08-09-09 -
The canal is dotted with old towns like this, ideal places to stop for
supplies and sight-seeing.
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08-09-09 -
2008-09-10 - Mt. Jo and Heart Lake.
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08-09-10 -
Camping at Crown Point, we drive next day to Adirondack Loj,
near Lake Placid. Mount Jo, overlooking Heart Lake and Algonquin
Peak, is reputed to offer one of the most cost-effective climbs in the
Adirondack mountains: The best view for the least effort.
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08-09-10 - Mount Jo summit.
Some kindly fellow traveller offers to take our picture on the summit of
Mount Jo. A smaller peak like this allows you to look across at the flanks of
higher mountains. The farthest horizons are obscured, but you can get a better
idea of the folds and undulations of the terrain, within a single day's
radius.
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08-09-10 - Mt. Marcy, right centre.
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08-09-10 - Avalanche Pass, Algonquin Pk.
The Pass is marked by the two exposed rock areas to the left of Algonquin's
flank.
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08-09-10 - Algonquin Peak, Indian Pass, right.
We ascended Algonquin Peak, 5114ft, back in 1996 via a trail that leads to
the right of that closer hill on the left, and up the valley. We returned to
our campsite via Avalanche Pass. This was a grueling 12 hour hike.
If you're viewing via the WWWB windows app, stop the slide show to see a
few pictures and sketches from 1986 and 1996, or to digress to our 2006 trip
to the Adirondacks.
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08-09-10 - Mt. Marcy, right centre.
We climbed Mount Marcy on our first trip to the area in 1986. Marcy Dam and
reservoir with its campsite lies behind the nearer hill on the right. From
Marcy Dam the trail is a long slog through the woods till you reach the rocky
shoulders of the peak itself. Mount Marcy is the highest mountain in New York
state, 5344ft.
Heart Lake.
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08-09-10 - Heart-throb, Heart Lake.
There's a bench here to sit on and contemplate the view. Or you could
make a sketch as Derek did on a previous trip.
n33p103
96-08-20 - McIntyre Range, beyond Heart Lake.
The sketch is dated August 20th, but reddish leaves were already
showing at that date in 1996. The outline is in ink with coloured pencil.
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96 - 1996: Algonquin Peak, Heart Lake
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08-09-10 -
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08-09-10 - Algonquin summit just visible.
A side trail leads to Wright Peak which is a sister to Algonquin Peak. So if
you have the energy, you can bag at least two peaks on the same day.
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08-09-10 -
We swam here in warmer weather back in 1996. The swimming area was crowded
with kids paddling and demure ladies in conservative bathing suits. On
today's date, September 10, all those demure ladies are busy back in
Poughkeepsie, New York, ferrying kids to and from school, piano lessons
and soccer practice. But today we're free to be rootless nature buffs.
2008-09-10 - Whiteface summit.
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08-09-10 -
We drive up Mount Whiteface via the Veterans' Memorial Highway. Only $14
admission per car. Derek went up here with his parents sometime in the late
1940s.
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08-09-10 - The summit "castle".
We have lunch at the summit "castle" and are served by the same waitress as
on a previous trip. No, we didn't find out why the flag was at half-mast.
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08-09-10 - Inside the castle.
The lunchroom and souvenir shop is upstairs.
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08-09-10 - Portal.
Perhaps this is the dungeon. Doesn't every castle have to have a dungeon?
Summit trail, Whiteface Mtn.
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08-09-10 -
The climb to the summit observatory is moderately strenuous despite stairs
and handrails.
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08-09-10 -
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08-09-10 -
That's the weather station on the summit. It is also reachable via a
tunnel and an elevator from the castle.
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08-09-10 - Looking back, "castle" roof.
Notice how flat the surrounding terrain looks in this picture.
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08-09-10 -
Needless to say, we chose the footpath. The railings are a considerable help
in negotiating the rocks of this ridge. Gripping the railings, Derek is
reminded of his ape heritage. (Brachiating biped?)
Whiteface summit.
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08-09-10 -
At the top, 4967ft, the view is spectacular. However, one issue is
that from these higher summits you can see the profiles of only the more
distant surrounding peaks.
Summit observatory, Whiteface Mt.
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08-09-10 -
This part of the building houses the elevator leading back down to the "castle"
and parking lot.
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08-09-10 -
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08-09-10 -
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06-09-02 - 2006: Summit trail, Whiteface.
Back in 2006 we had less luck with the weather. The summit was almost
totally socked-in with cloud.
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06-09-02 - 2006: Observatory, Whiteface.
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06-09-02 - 2006: Scenic viewpoint, Whiteface.
Welcome to the world of Zen mountaineering.
2008-09-10 - High Falls Gorge.
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08-09-10 -
High Falls Gorge, near Lake Placid, is a commercial scenic area very similar
to Ausable Chasm south of Plattsburg. The walkways give a close and
intimate view of the rushing water and the potholes. Well thought-out signs
explain the geology and ecology of the area.
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08-09-10 -
Our Victorian forbears used to dote on these rugged beauty spots. Perhaps
partly because they conveyed a kind of natural morality. People
expected to experience a sense of awe and wonder, the sublimity of God's
creation. At one time we were even told we should fear God.
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08-09-10 -
Perhaps not quite fear exactly, but a sense that religion was to be
taken seriously.
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08-09-10 -
The catwalks, although totally artificial, permit you to view something
natural and dangerous that would be totally inaccessible otherwise. Perhaps
it's these contradictory qualities that make the experience interesting.
Something like a dramatic presentation or a film that lets you witness mayhem
at no personal risk.
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08-09-10 - Pothole.
These holes bored in the rock were apparently created when a crack allowed
water to leak from one level to the other. Particles of grit and stones
carried by the flow of water then swirled down the channel gradually
enlarging it by impacts against the sides.
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08-09-10 - Pothole.
Changing water levels might eventually transform the pothole into a stagnant
well.
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08-09-10 -
With a little creative brushwork this picture could be transformed into a
cliff-hanger. OK, maybe a lot of brushwork.
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08-09-10 - Rootscape
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08-09-10 -
There's a certain fascination in simply contemplating the materials the
world is made of. The bulk and massive strength of stone. The filligree
agitation of water. The constructive qualities of wood, suggesting props,
beams, or even bridges across the abyss.
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08-09-10 -
Another pothole, now given over to ferns and lichens. A sunken
garden.
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08-09-10 - Brink.
The brink of a waterfall, the lip of a cascade, where the flow moves from
glassy smoothness to turbulence in a few feet, seems to have an almost
cautionary quality. Like a moral fable. A story from a children's book
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08-09-10 -
Poised one moment, hurled into chaos the next. Up a creek without a paddle.
Out on a limb. Take stock for the morrow. A stitch in time saves nine.
2008-09-10 - High Falls Gorge.
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08-09-10 - The jumping-off point.
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08-09-10 -
Abandon hype all ye who enter here.
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08-09-10 - Foam thing.
Lest you end up a formless blob.
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08-09-10 -
A ray of hope, in a world of navigational hazards.
2008-09-11 - Burlington, Vermont.
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08-09-11 -
Arriving in Burlington Vermont, we're glad to see that the city hasn't
abandoned its pedestrian walkway. This is mid-morning, and pedestrian traffic
is beginning to build up.
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08-09-11 -
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08-09-11 - Unitarian Church, 1806.
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08-09-11 - Burlington main st.
Derek wonders how they get from that gazebo thing, up to the windowed
area above. No sign of a ladder. Aha! what looks like a
trapdoor, inside that middle arch. 11 o'clock, time to hunt up some lunch.
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08-09-11 - Lunch on a park bench.
We buy sandwiches at a European deli restaurant on a back street, and head
down toward the harbour where we've parked the car. This view looks
approximately south-westerly, in the direction of Plattsburg across the lake.
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08-09-11 -
We eat our lunch on a park bench overlooking the yacht anchorage and
alongside a pedestrian and bike path. This view looks more northwest, with
the Canadian border somewhere to the right of the picture.
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08-09-11 -
2008-09-11 - Lac Ste. Georges
Soon after lunch we head north toward the Quebec border, reaching our
destination in the Eastern Townships by late afternoon.
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08-09-13 - At the cottage.
This is Merle and our friends Denise and Normand in their cottage back yard
on Lake Saint George, near Windsor Quebec. We stay with them for
a few days after our visit to Lake Placid in the Adirondacks.
2008-09-12 - La Poudriere, Windsor, Quebec.
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08-09-12 -
The first full day in Quebec is rainy. A visit is organized to an old
explosives factory where gunpowder was manufactured. The park area has an
interpretive centre plus the remains of dams, waterworks and the foundations
of buildings where the powder was prepared. In a few places you can see the
ruins of buildings that were destroyed in explosions that periodically
brought the operation to a standstill.
This place was a major source of explosives during the US
civil war and the construction of the CPR.
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08-09-12 -
The factory operations were run by water-power.
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08-09-12 -
All through the woods these concrete supports are all that remain of
aqueducts and conduits that brought water to the water wheels of many
separate pieces of machinery.
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08-09-12 -
Even a relatively recent archaeological site like this would be difficult to
interpret, without the supplementary evidence of documents and photographs.
Because of the dams and aquaducts, it is clearly an industrial site, not a
cemetary or a temple. But how would we be able to tell what was manufactured
here. Gunpowder manufacture would likely leave no clear chemical residues
that could be analysed by later generations. Unlike metal smelting, for
instance.
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08-09-12 - North Hatley.
This is one of the area's great beauty spots and tourist watering places, if
we could only see it through the drizzle.
2008-09-13 - Ag. proj., Lac S. Georges.
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08-09-13 -
The local farmers got together and built this monumental holstein as a
cooperative project. But not without a certain amount of bickering we hear.
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08-09-13 -
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08-09-13 -
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08-09-13 - View from the top.
This is deep, deep Quebec, seen from the top of Madam Moo-moo's head, looking
eastward, inward, toward the misty mountains of national identity. Actually,
they are probably the Stoke Mountains, near the town where Derek grew up and
where he climbed his first mountain.
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08-09-13 -
We set off down the road on Derek's voyage of inner discovery.
2008-09-13 - Danville, PQ.{danville}
Derek's home town.
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08-09-13 - Burbank Pond, Danville.
Young Derek's woodsy stamping-ground is on the horizon. The green fields
behind the right bank lead back to the apartment building where he lived in
war-time years.
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08-09-13 -
Within these reeds sheltered the ducks that Derek and his friends used to
spy on.
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08-09-13 - The apartment building.
That tower was accessible from the second floor apartments. Derek used to go
up to that room with the round windows at the top and read old 1920s copies
of the National Geographic Magazine. At the front of the building, on the
ground floor was a wide porch. Here the brick is lighter than the part
exposed above it.
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08-09-13 - Richards: 2nd, 3rd floors.
The Richards apartment was on the second and third floors, right of the
tower. Derek's bedroom, top right. Our entrance was from a hallway just under
that present-day balcony. There used to be a garage where the cars are now
parked. The Brock family, Diana and Cathy, lived in the second floor of that
wing at the back.
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08-09-13 - Side yard, the apartment.
The Richards garden was up at the back of that yard. Derek also had a weed
garden in the trees. Back of the hedge, was an orchard where we sneaked
apples.
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08-09-13 - Neighbours.
Patsy Dawson lived here. She was the model for the girl with the tea set in
the Richard Peters novel: Premonitions of the Past.
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08-09-13 - View downtown.
Here we are looking back toward the town square from somewhere near the
apartment. Derek used to ride his wagon down that sidewalk on the left.
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08-09-13 - Derek's school, Danville.
This is on the same street as the apartment. It is now a girls' convent
school, but used to be Danville High School.
AL05-006A
45 or 46 - Derek, middle rt. ca'45 or '46.
DR did grades 1 to 4 in this school. 1943-46.
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08-09-13 - Neighbours.
On what used to be Academy Street.
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08-09-13 - Daycare.
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08-09-13 -
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08-09-13 - Town square.
The Cenotaph, war memorial is in the centre of the square. Derek remembers
watching a parade commemorating the end of World War 2 from the sidewalk in
front of the brown building.
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08-09-13 -
On Saturday night, during the war, farmers' buggies used to be drawn up in a
continuous line while the shopping was being done.
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08-09-13 -
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08-09-13 - Toward the old RR station.
Derek would walk his father down to the RR station on Sunday
nigts at the end of a "48" furlough. And come back home with
tears in his eyes.
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08-09-13 -
zWe got our get our hair cut in this building or the one beside it. The
barber had a speech impediment and used to resent bitterly being called "the
dummy" by thoughtless people.
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08-09-13 - United Church, right.
Albert Hinton's charge in the 1940s.
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08-09-13 - United Church.
Derek attended many a service through that front door, not having much idea of
what the lecture was about, but listening for big words like "democracy",
"war", "politics". It seems that grandfather Hinton may have been a bit of an
Old Testament philosopher. In any case Derek inherited his first philosophy
book, The Mansions of Philosophy, from the man who held forth in that pulpit.
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08-09-13 - United Church.
Sunday school was held in the basement. Derek also remembers being fascinated
by his first lantern-slide lecture, held by a visiting missionary from South
Africa in the darkened basement.
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08-09-13 - The U.C. manse, Grove St..
Enid and Derek lived here with the maternal grandparents, the Reverend Albert
and Lucy Hinton, on first coming to Danville. We moved to the apartment
across town, on Academy St., in 1944 or 1945.
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08-09-13 -
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08-09-13 -
The room, top right, was Derek's bedroom. This was done up in a
small repeated pattern floral wallpaper that gave him
nightmares.
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08-09-13 - Neighbours.
This is the house across from the manse, the one that we thought had been
demolished. Derek remembers attending a salvage day in the back yard during
the late 1940s. The Boy Scouts and Cubs had the job of sorting and stacking
artillery shell ammunition containers that had probably been used locally for
field excercises by the army. Everything reuseable for the war effort was
recycled in those days. Metals, cardboard, paper, even fat left over from
cooking. Probably used to make soap or nitroglycerine.
Cottage, Lac Ste. George.
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08-09-13 -
Friends Normand and Denise. We're relaxing in the garden beside the lake
after a strenuous day of nostalgia.
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08-09-13 -
2008-09-13 - Apple picking.
Not far from Lac Ste. Georges.
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08-09-13 -
We visit a pick-it-yourself apple orchard.
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08-09-13 -
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08-09-13 - Not plastic apples!
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08-09-13 -
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08-09-13 -
These mountains are far to the south, possibly the Jay Peaks, across the U.S.
border.
2008-09-13 - Mine, Asbestos, Que.
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08-09-13 -
The pit is several kilometers across and over 300 metres deep. Deep enough
that the Eiffel Tower at the bottom would barely reach ground level.
We are looking across this hole at ghostly town streets that were dug
up and discarded to make the pit.
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08-09-13 - Interpretive display
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08-09-13 -
Picturesque bits of mine machinery.
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08-09-13 -
Derek and his Dad, Eric, walked out here one day from Danville.
Three miles by road, one hour. But this was when the mine was
still a busy, dusty worksite. Today the operation is more
discreet. Some underground workings have apparently been
reopened recently, but back then, the day when we would take a
nostalgic interest in our industrial heritage was still far in
the future.
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08-09-13 -
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08-09-13 - Don't tread on my toes.
Thoughts on leaving Asbestos: These iron toes, painted a nice
public-relations green, seem to symbolise, for Derek at least,
the way in which an industrial juggernaut can turn a community
into featureless gravel.
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08-09-14 - Breakfast, Danville.
At La Binnerie de Caree, pardon my French, The Beanerie on the Square, a
popular resort for Sunday breakfast. Particularly for those who have
contrived to escape going to mass.
2008-09-14 - Mount Ham ascent.
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08-09-14 -
After not going to mass we embark on an ill-fated ascent of Mount Ham.
We did reach the summit, in a near gale of wind, lashing rain and 30 yards
visibility.
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08-09-14 -
This picture is to provide documentary proof that we at least reached the
interpretive centre.
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06-09-02 - 2006: Scenic viewpoint, Whiteface.
Although this is a different mountain, you probably get the idea.
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08-09-15 - Morning after the climb.
The day after, we need much strong coffee to speed our recovery.
2008-09-15 - Winery, Lake Magog.
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08-09-15 - Le Cep d'Argent.
Who of us from Niagara would have thought that Quebec has a budding wine
industry. We sampled their offerings and bought several bottles.
As near as I can figure, the name means something like The
silver root-stock, or perhaps, The Affluent Vine? Isn't there
a story about Jacques and the Vine-stock?
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08-09-15 - Grape press from France.
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08-09-15 -
2008-09-16 - Peddle-paddle, departure.
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08-09-16 -
On the morning of our departure for Montreal we decide to loosen up with a
little boating excursion.
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08-09-16 -
The water is an almost glassy calm. Derek is undeterred by the fact that our
paddle boat is exactly the same kind that gave him a ruptured disk at
Martin's cottage long ago. Oh well, it wasn't the boat's fault.
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08-09-16 -
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08-09-16 - The porch of Eight windows.
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08-09-16 -
This is Denise and Normand's cottage, in the middle, seen from the lake.
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08-09-16 -
2008-09-16 - Montreal, botanical garden.
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08-09-16 -
Arriving in Montreal from the Eastern Townships, via a detour up to
Drummondville, we find nobody home at Nathan's place. So we walk
over to the botanical garden.
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08-09-16 -
The tower of the velodrome is just visible behind the trees.
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08-09-16 -
It is immediately clear that the Code Napoleon is still operative in Quebec
society.
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08-09-16 -
In Quebec horticultural society, that is. Attack unexpectedly, and in
overwhelming force. The goddess Flora is on the side of the big botanical
battalions.
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08-09-16 -
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08-09-16 - Interloper.
But beware of spies in the ranks.
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08-09-16 -
They can be the cause of all sorts of unexpected complications in the
strategic Grand Design.
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08-09-16 - Giant Ironweed.
(Free association: Ironweed = Iron duke?)
The weed army may have a Duke of Wellington on the
attack...
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08-09-16 -
Leading troops of a different colour uniform.
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08-09-16 - Looks almost edible.
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08-09-16 -
It is edible: kale. Didn't Wellington once say that an army marches on
its stomach?
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08-09-16 -
Is this amaranth? Shocking, the sort of edible stuff the
Commissariat will come up with. Looks like something you might
find growing on a coral reef.
"Magic lanterns", Chinese garden.
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08-09-16 -
We move to another part of the garden with an unusual art installation.
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08-09-16 -
This turns out to be more in tune with Derek's mood of fanciful nostalgia that
you may already have noticed.
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08-09-16 -
The difference is that this is not Derek's nostalgia, but somebody else's.
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08-09-16 -
However, there is a nostalgic connection.
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08-09-16 -
A connection that should be mentioned since we're already doing the right
kind of mental gymnastics.
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08-09-16 -
Many years ago, probably in the late 1940s or early 1950s, Derek was brought
here with his Dad, Eric, by uncle Fraser. This was in the early days of the
garden when this was basically still open fields. He remembers tramping
over various generic plots and flower beds.
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08-09-16 -
But the thing that stuck in his mind was a licorice plant. The curator gave
him a small stick of the plant's root to chew on. It seemed amazing at the
time, that this could taste just like the familiar licorice candy. An
inversion of cause and effect. The candy flavour was the basic datum. How
could the candy cause the root to taste that way? Oh! The other way round
... dawning understanding.
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08-09-16 - Bonsai interlude.
Within the Chinese garden is an enclave of bonsai plants: potted plants
cultured to simulate trees and small bits of scenery.
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08-09-16 -
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08-09-16 -
Derek had a brief go at bonsai cultivation during his various botanical
phases. He once experimented with an indoor parsely plant. Its leaves had the
fine irregularities that made it look like a miniature tree. From certain
angles.
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08-09-16 - Lotus seed head.
Ah, the rotus, always a potent symbol of something or other.
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08-09-16 -
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08-09-16 -
Let's hope this dragon is a symbol of good luck.
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08-09-16 -
Looks friendly. Could we add The Friendly Dragon to our symbols of Peace,
Order and Good Government around the parliament buildings?
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08-05-12 - For instance ...
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08-09-16 -
Even this rock is a kind of mountain, a landscape in miniature. Something
like the summit of Mount Ham, you might think, although we climbers never
got to see it.
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08-09-16 -
Floating through a sea of impressions, we ...
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08-09-16 -
Make our way to the botanical garden exit ...
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08-09-16 -
Where we are sped on our way by the oriental knight: Don Quixote, or was it,
Quixote Don? I never can get these oriental names right.
2008-09-18 - Walk downtown, Montreal.
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08-09-18 - A Rapunzel tower
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08-09-18 -
A brief excursion into the student quarter, U.Q.U.A.M., before we pack up
and head to Ottawa.
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08-09-18 -
2008-09-19 - Ottawa.
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08-09-19 -
A digestive walk after a dinner with Dimitri in the Byward Market. This is
the Natural Gallery, Home to Canada's most distinguished pieces.
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08-09-19 -
The building itself is a work of art, here caught by the setting sun.
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08-09-19 -
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08-09-19 -
Looking west, up the Ottawa River. Is that the sillhouette of a canoe we see
heading up-river? A little late in the season to reach Fort William before
freeze-up.
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08-09-19 -
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08-09-19 - Bye-bye.
On the eve of a national election, our thoughts turn away from nostalgic
mountain climbs in the Adirondacks, meanderings in the daisy fields of the
Eastern Townships, and botanical excursions in Montreal, the city of Derek's
birth. ... Tomorrow, we travel home via highway 7 and onward to
highway 407. A brief respite from freeways and parking lots, as we explore
the towns east of Ottawa.
The End.