Bruce Mines Ontario
They wouldn't let me
out at the cemetery. Michael said, “Drive past quick! Lock the doors or we will have to wait for
hours”. I think he remembered the date three years ago when they couldn't lure
me out.
An old cemetery on the hillside, sloping down
to lake Huron Bay, cut by a road now but when it was new it took up the whole
hillside facing west where the steady summer winds sweep in from the lake. Old
graves of young people, typhoid and cholera victims, in the summer around 1850,
when the Bruce gave promise of being the center of a rich and prosperous copper
mining district.
So we passed the
cemetery and drove onto a point of land rocky and wild pointing out to the open
lake, with Saint Joe's in the near distance and the wild North Channel shore to
the east.
The
whitecaps ruled in between the island and the mainland shore. We went rock
hunting. Catherine and Michael and I found pudding stone.
I wonder if Bigsby
ever sat on one of these stones sketching. One of his sketches looks so
familiar!
I showed the children the moss on the rocks
and they wouldn't believe that men boiled it and ate it, and made gummy slimy
stew called “Tripe de Roche” to keep themselves alive when game was scarce.
It is just such a
point that Laura Jameson or Bigsby or Francis Simpson described where they
would camp when"wind bound” for several days.
We found pudding
stone a small stone to build me a fireplace,"small fireplace” said Michael and
marked a boulder on it for the future. The rocks are huge and square and piled.
Square and helter-skelter upheaval stones and then round smooth banks of stone
and scratched- glacial passed ones. Michael found what looks like a hatchet head
grooved.
Mary had to stay in
the car. Nora was crabby from the drive, 35 miles from the Sault to Bruce. We had taken a side trip also. We will find a beach somewhere this summer.
Down the Neebish road, where we had been told there was a marina, picnic tables
and a little store.
We turned off the
road on a side road marked swankily "Bluenose drive”. It was a winding
rocky car path. I can't dignify it with the name of road let alone
"drive" and came to a barrier across it. Swamp all along the
shoreline marked off magnificently as "lot one, lot two etc. etc”. Nothing
but weeds and devils paintbrush and daisies and swamp. The store was boarded up,
the bench was nonexistent ,there was a magnificent blue and mahogany sailboat
up on stilts on the shore, so I guess this justified the name “Marina”.
After Bruce we went
to the “Copper Kettle” for a treat. Mary gave the children each $0.50 for
“passing “. when Mary Anne found out she had to spend her passing money for a
treat she refused to order. Sheila had to go to the washroom, some people eat
when they get bored Sheila has to go. Of course Catherine had to accompany her
and Sheila returned to the table and in a loud voice announced to the
management and assembled tourists “it is dirty”.
Nora slides under the table to retrieve a
dropped a French fry and when discovered eating what she had dropped and
admonished, removes mashed potato chips from her mouth and carefully places
same on the floor. Sheila lost one of her quarters and Mary Anne injured retired
to the car.
We herded
of them out and into the car and then took off under protest to Robbie's
reclaim across the highway.
They wouldn't let us
go to McDonald's Auctions Barn on the Sunday so we just threatened and left
today. Most of the antiques were circa 1920 an old bound copy of scientific
American 1879 would be worth six dollars that they asked for it but I didn't
have six dollars. Mary would lend it to me but I was noble and refused. This is
her affluent first of the month. They get paid once a month.
Works out very nicely!
She is always flush on the first; they get paid once a month and me on the
first and the 15th. The first is our bill paying pay, so I'm always short.
She's broke from the 20th on, so I borrow in the first two weeks from her, and
she borrows the last two weeks from me. Our husbands call it being Gallavanized
(clever, clever, play on our maiden name Gallivan) when we straighten out our
finances.
The drive home was
beset by American tourist traffic trailers. Campers always with six or seven
frustrated car drivers strung along behind for all the world like a large
headed dragon, and a long wiggly tail. Construction all along the way, to make
matters worse, when the Americans are scared of narrow Canadian roads anyway,
and they are always really skittish.
Nora intermittently sang
part of one line of a song, “they rolled around and rolled around.” Michael and
Catherine had a fight over a card game in the back. Sheila didn't have enough
room, and Catherine had to go.
We arrived home at
Ford St. Michael and Catherine playing “touch you last.” Michael had the last
touch out the window of the car, yes, Catherine's hand was in it when he rolled
the window up carefully.
Standing on the
windswept rocky shores today it seemed as if we were intruding in a Tom Thompson
landscape!
Sunday we spent recuperating after Saturday's
trip. Mary baked and cooked for her family and I gardened for mine.
Back to work tomorrow
but Pumpkin Point Kensington, is on our itinerary, as well as Montréal River Michipicoten.
It promises to be a lovely summer.
I asked Jimmy (17) and Michael (14) to come
out after supper to look for the old Korah Cemetery.” Not me” said Jim “I'll be
in the cemetery long enough!” besides “No Peter I can't go out tonight, I'm
helping my mother find a cemetery! MOTHER!”
Paul is going to throw away his golf clubs, Jim
too. “It's only a game” say I innocently,” No it’s a way of life” says Jim
reverently.
Patrick and Michael are caddying in the
women's tournament tomorrow. Pat has drawn the club champion who takes herself
seriously, so seriously that she is not below cheating a bit to win. Michael
has drawn the gal she fought with in open battle on the ninth hole last year.
It's only a matter of time boys, stand clear, watch for swinging clubs, and try
not to get scratched. Lady golfers will be ladies.
Jimmy asked Susan Lang for a date tonight but
she was going to camp. Jimmy discovered girls with a bang last month. He was
aware of them before but he is overwhelmed by them right now. Unfortunately
they haven't yet discovered him!
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