Outdoors_lol_08-30
Back toHome
Outdoors in the LandO'Lakes - July 31, 2008 Great Big Snakes of the Land O’Lakes Outdoors in the Land O'Lakes by Steve Blight
Black Ratsnake at Bobs Lake(photo by Steve Blight)
Fatal_fire
Back toHome
Feature Article - August 7, 2008 Fatal fire on Kashwakamak LakeBy Jefff GreenIt was the kind of call that volunteer firefighters in lake country dread. At 1:45 a.m. last Saturday, August 2, firefighters were called to a location on the Smith Road near Ardoch. After driving 7-8 kilometres down the Smith Road, crews turned onto a small private cottage road which they had to try and squeeze their trucks and equipment though.
“Cottage roads are our worst nightmare,” said a tired North Frontenac Fire Chief Steve Riddell when contacted two days later, “and with all the rain we’ve had, this one was so soft that we could only get our tanker truck to about 100 metres from the fire.”
Crews from three stations (Clar-Mill, Ompah, and Snow Road) around 20 firefighters in all, responded to the fire, but there was little they could do to save the cottage, which was fully engulfed in fire when they reached it.
“It was disheartening because we found out right away that someone had been in the cottage and had not gotten out,” said Riddell.
Two young men were sleeping on the porch of the cottage and they had tried to rescue the man inside, but to no avail.
Other visitors and family members, all of whom were visiting for a family reunion on the long weekend, were sleeping in other cabins. Everyone had gone to bed early because there had been a blackout at around 9 pm.
At first light the body was discovered, and later in the day it was sent for analysis to determine the cause of death. The name of the deceased had not been released as of Tuesday afternoon.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Chief Riddell said investigators have “a pretty good idea. They are looking at a couple of things, based on eyewitness accounts. Electrical problems and carelessness are two possibilities.”
Although the wet weather made it difficult to get to the fire, it did prevent the fire from spreading.
“If the weather was dry, with that amount of underbrush and down that cottage road, it could have spread to many more cottages on the lake,” Riddell said.
“We’ve got to get talking to these cottagers to get them to understand that we need to work on these roads.”
Fatal_fire
Back toHome
Feature Article - August 7, 2008 Fatal fire on Kashwakamak LakeBy Jefff GreenIt was the kind of call that volunteer firefighters in lake country dread. At 1:45 a.m. last Saturday, August 2, firefighters were called to a location on the Smith Road near Ardoch. After driving 7-8 kilometres down the Smith Road, crews turned onto a small private cottage road which they had to try and squeeze their trucks and equipment though.
“Cottage roads are our worst nightmare,” said a tired North Frontenac Fire Chief Steve Riddell when contacted two days later, “and with all the rain we’ve had, this one was so soft that we could only get our tanker truck to about 100 metres from the fire.”
Crews from three stations (Clar-Mill, Ompah, and Snow Road) around 20 firefighters in all, responded to the fire, but there was little they could do to save the cottage, which was fully engulfed in fire when they reached it.
“It was disheartening because we found out right away that someone had been in the cottage and had not gotten out,” said Riddell.
Two young men were sleeping on the porch of the cottage and they had tried to rescue the man inside, but to no avail.
Other visitors and family members, all of whom were visiting for a family reunion on the long weekend, were sleeping in other cabins. Everyone had gone to bed early because there had been a blackout at around 9 pm.
At first light the body was discovered, and later in the day it was sent for analysis to determine the cause of death. The name of the deceased had not been released as of Tuesday afternoon.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Chief Riddell said investigators have “a pretty good idea. They are looking at a couple of things, based on eyewitness accounts. Electrical problems and carelessness are two possibilities.”
Although the wet weather made it difficult to get to the fire, it did prevent the fire from spreading.
“If the weather was dry, with that amount of underbrush and down that cottage road, it could have spread to many more cottages on the lake,” Riddell said.
“We’ve got to get talking to these cottagers to get them to understand that we need to work on these roads.”
Rescue_marble_lake
Back to HomeFeature Article - August 13, 2009Rescue
at Marble LakeBy
Jeff Green
Muriel Messina was in her cottage on Marble Lake, off Road 506, east of Cloyne, early on Monday evening August 3, when her 14-year-old granddaughter Nadine heard a voice from the water and went outside.
What Nadine saw were a 72-year-old man Jack and his son-in-law John, calling out for help. They were both in the water holding on to their capsized fishing boat. Jack and Joe are the brother-in-law and father-in-law of Joe Aguanno, who owns the cottage next door to the Messinas.
Fortunately for the two men, the Messinas’ niece and nephew Ross and Paula Russell were on the water nearby in a pontoon boat. They also heard the cries and headed over to help. According to Muriel Messina, they found that “the younger man, John, was tangled up in the boat's chain and anchor, and the older man, Jack, was in severe distress.”
Neither man was wearing a life jacket, although there were jackets in their boat.
Ross managed to get John untangled, and the two men let go of their own boat and reached for the pontoon boat.
The Russells did not attempt to pull the two men onto the boat; instead they dragged them to shallow water, a silt bed near the Messina cottage.
Once they were in shallow water, John was able to get to shore on his own steam. Ross, Paula and Muriel Messina's grandson Frank, climbed into the thigh-high water and helped pull the older man to shore, where they wrapped them in towels.
“The older man was not in very good shape. He was breathing but was not responding. His lips were blue; his face was paste. The younger man was fine but he was worried about his father-in-law. We had phoned 911 and the ambulance came and worked on getting his wet clothes off and giving him oxygen, which brought him back to the point where he looked better and was aware again,” said Muriel Messina.
The man was transferred to hospital where he remained overnight. He was released the next morning.
“They came over the next day to thank us, and they looked fine. It was a happy ending,” said Muriel. ■
Outdoors_lol_09-25
Back to HomeOutdoors in the Land O'lakes - June 25, 2009
Dock Spidersby Steve Blight
With its hundreds of lakes and thousands of kilometers of shoreline, the Land O’ Lakes area is prime cottage country. And what would an escape to a cozy cottage on the shore of a beautiful lake be without an encounter with a dock spider? At our cottage on Bobs Lake, I generally have a pretty relaxed attitude towards the critters that we share our lakeside retreat with. However, when I encounter a dock spider on my way across the dock to the water for a quick dip, I like to keep a respectful distance.
This is mainly because dock spiders can be very, very big. The dock spiders found in our part of the world are members of the species known to scientists as Dolomedes scriptus. They are by far Ontario’s largest spiders, sometimes growing as large as 10 centimeters across – about the size of a CD! This giant, dark brownish-gray spider belongs to a larger group of spiders known as fisher or nursery web spiders. Female spiders in this family carry their egg sacs containing as many as 500 eggs in their fangs for up to three weeks. Many species then construct a 'nursery' by weaving a few large leaves together with silk. They place the egg sac inside and guard it by resting on the leaves. Most females live long enough to make a second egg sac or occasionally even a third.
Dock spiders actively hunt at night along lakes and ponds, mostly for insects like water striders. Often resting with their front two or four legs on the water, they wait until insects, tadpoles or small fish move and vibrate the water in a certain way, then lunge forward and grab their prey with both legs and fangs simultaneously. Sometimes, this hunting technique takes the spiders below the surface of the water. They will also submerge themselves when frightened. Air trapped in body hair allows them to breathe underwater – up to 45 minutes according to some sources.
As a general rule, dock spiders are not considered aggressive. Like nearly all spiders, dock spiders have a pair of venom glands that lead to their fangs. In this family the venom is effective in paralyzing or killing prey, but it is generally considered harmless to humans. In extremely rare cases, however, individuals may have a medically significant reaction to a bite, so care should be taken, and most sources recommend against handling dock spiders.
I have no objections following the “do not handle” recommendation to the letter. However, I find these creatures fascinating, and I recall one time seeing a female laden with her round egg sac on our dock. Curious, I lowered my head to have a better look at her, and I put my hands down on the dock to support my weight as I peered at her. Perhaps it was her maternal instinct, or perhaps she didn’t fancy my manners, but as I shifted my hands to get a better look at her, she made a beeline for my left hand in what struck me as a full frontal attack. I quickly lifted my hand and she changed direction and went for my right hand, whereupon I decided that she was the better man (so to speak) and beat a hasty retreat.
I no longer plan to get up-close and personal with these substantial arachnids, but I still enjoy seeing them from a healthy distance, and I like knowing they are there, happily going about their business. They will always be welcome along my shoreline!
Please feel free to report any observations to Lorraine Julien at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Steve Blight at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Girls’ Cottage Weekend
Girls’ cottage weekends are great, and they get better as we get older. The stories and chatter is more reflective. Our kids are almost grown, parents are becoming fragile or passing, marriages too. Our level of independence has been fully stretched and we have the loosening skin to prove it. We drink less, go to bed earlier and read more.
So armed with all this empowering stuff, I was quite comfortable to stay alone at the cottage after my girlfriends had headed back to Toronto. To be honest, I made the decision after a beer and a nap. It was just too good to leave. I had stayed alone at the cottage before, but this time I didn’t have the dog for company. I decided that the time alone was worth any nervousness I might feel after the sun went down.
Located in the Land O’Lakes area north of Kingston, our lake isn’t even on the map. If you mention “Spring Lake” at the nearest grocery store in Verona, people are polite, but clearly they’ve never heard of it. There are a lot of lakes, ponds and streams. In fact, the two little lakes connected to Spring Lake to the east are referred to as the ‘Polly Toads’, a name that I’ll definitely not mention in Verona.
Spring Lake has fewer than 20 cottages and attracts small fishing boats, canoes and kayaks. The tranquillity is incredible. My family has explored every nook and cranny of the lake, from my fisherman husband to my predatory children who would catch turtles, snakes, frogs and minnows. We have canoed or kayaked from the cottage, through culverts, over and around beaver dams, through swamps, down a waterfall (albeit small), all to get to Verona for a chocolate bar, or lunch if we’ve had the foresight to bring enough money.
The call of the Loons and, later in the evening, the Whip-poor-will are the sounds I look forward to most at the cottage. On this particular Sunday evening I had the cottage windows closed because it was a little chilly. I was absorbed in my reading when I glanced up at the full-length window to see a man gesturing to me from just outside. I jumped up, raised my fist in the air and yelled: ”NO. GO AWAY.” The intruder started to retreat.
He was thin with long wiry greying hair under an old straw hat, his kaki pants wet and torn at the knee and he wore a camouflage patterned life jacket. When he was safely off the deck, I opened the sliding door to deliver a couple more “NO. GO AWAYs,” when I heard his apologetic voice: “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you saw us down at the dock. My son’s kayak sprung a leak and we’re trying to repair it.”
I realized there were two of them. And indeed, the young one had his kayak belly up on my dock. I grabbed a roll of duct tape and was ready to hurl it down to them, when the man said: “No, we don’t need it. We have a repair kit. All we need is some paper towel to dry it, so it will adhere.”
I felt a little more confident at this point. They did seem to know what they were doing. I actually ventured outside with the paper towel to hand to him. He thanked me and apologized again for giving me such a fright. “My heart is still pounding,” he said. Mine was too.
I asked him where he was from. He didn’t say exactly, but he did say they had kayaked all the way from Verona. I was still a little suspicious and asked him a couple of questions. “How did you get through the culvert?” He answered aptly, “We had to go over it.” This was correct. Last year a large grill was fastened to the culvert, presumably to keep the beavers out. When he described their paddle west of the ‘Polly Toads’ he made the mistake of referring to the adjoining lake as ‘13 Island’ instead of ‘14 Island Lake.’ That’s when I decided to cut the conversation short and head back in to the safety of the cottage. I wasn’t going to take any chances.
Once the kayak was repaired, the man brought the extra paper towel to the deck. He apologized again, and this time, so did I.
When I got back to Toronto, I sent an email to the girls with this addendum: “P.S. I ended up staying Sunday night at the cottage and had a man visit at 8:30 pm. I’ll have to tell you about it in person. Let me just say that both our hearts were pumping! And yes, John knows all about it.”
We women are not usually at a loss for things to say, but this experience will give us some fuel for the fire.
It’s a bird; it’s a plane; it’s a… squirrel?
by Steve Blight 
My first exposure to flying squirrels was through a long-ago popular cartoon character named Rocky – of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame. Although I was young, I recall wondering at the time whether flying squirrels were real. As it turns out, they are indeed real, and though not often seen by people, flying squirrels are surprisingly common in the Land O’ Lakes area. In fact there are two species of flying squirrels in our part of the world – the Northern Flying Squirrel, and its close cousin, the Southern Flying Squirrel.
My love affair with flying squirrels began in earnest shortly after we purchased our cottage on Bobs Lake. We put up a simple platform bird feeder and regularly stocked it with sunflower seeds. After a while we began to notice that the seeds were being reduced to scattered shells during the night. One night I decided to stay out in our screened porch to wait and see what (or who) was eating all the seeds. Shortly after dusk I heard a “whump” on the screen not far from where I was sitting and caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure scampering across the vertical screen heading towards the feeder. When I checked the feeder, sure enough, there was a flying squirrel contentedly helping itself to the sunflower seeds, oblivious to the flashlight beam being trained on it. Mystery solved. Moreover, one or more squirrels returned to the feeder just after dusk pretty much every night for the rest of the summer.
The next big question was to figure out if our nocturnal visitor was a Southerner or a Northerner. Although I think our visitor was likely a Southern Flying Squirrel, I am still not 100 percent sure. The two species look very similar, with both having grayish brown backs, creamy coloured undersides, big black eyes and characteristic flattened tails. Northern Flying Squirrels are the larger of the two, but it’s still small – only about the size of the familiar chipmunk. Without the other species handy to compare it to, I was never able to deduce much from the size of our visitors.
One way to help distinguish between the two is by habitat. Southern Flying Squirrels prefer deciduous forests dominated by oaks, hickories, beeches and maples. On the other hand, Northern Flying Squirrels are more often found in coniferous and mixed forests. If you live in southern Ontario you could be pretty sure that any flying squirrel you saw would be a Southern – whereas if you live a few hundred kilometers north of our area, it would very likely be a Northern. However, since we have both species in our area, it isn’t so straightforward. Since the large majority of the trees around our cottage are deciduous, I am inclined towards declaring “our” flying squirrel a Southerner.
Unlike bats and birds, flying squirrels aren’t capable of true flapping flight. Instead, they are expert gliders, relying on their glide membranes – cape-like furred skin extending down the length of the body from wrist to ankle. I once read a description of a flying squirrel’s flight as resembling a “flying paper towel” that can make rapid side-to-side movements and downward spirals. And their flights can be impressive – with the right conditions a flying squirrel can glide as far as 100 meters, or some 330 feet. That’s some jump!
Here are a few more facts on flying squirrels. Like other squirrels they eat seeds, nuts, berries, mushrooms, insects and the odd bit of meat or birds’ eggs if they can get it. Northern Flying Squirrels have been shown to be partial to lichens as well. Flying squirrels mate in spring and give birth to 2 -7 tiny young about six weeks later. Flying squirrels are active all winter, although some can enter into a short-lived deep sleep if the winter weather becomes particularly harsh. They prefer to make their nests in cavities in large trees, and thus are more often seen in large tracts of older forests with their characteristic big trees.
If you have bird feeders that are mysteriously being emptied during the night and you’re pretty sure that it’s not raccoons, perhaps you are being visited by a freeloading flying squirrel. It may even be Rocky.
Please feel free to report any observations to Lorraine Julien at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Steve Blight at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
My last summer at the lake
Summer fiction by Jack Benjamin (Part 1 of 4)
All of my years in the wilderness of despair and hope, those meaningless everyday events, all seem connected now that the clock has stopped ticking.
As I dropped to the ground grasping at my chest with the chain saw still running on that cold December morning, it was as if my whole life had led to that moment, and although it had no profound meaning my life did fit together like some sort of story. Not a happy story, mind you, but a story about promise and possibility, happiness and sadness and failure. Just like a life.
One of my regrets was losing the cottage. That was not easy for me. It was a legacy of my youth, it was something my family had built, and it was the place where I spent my summer as a kid. I learned to swim and fish at the cottage. I found out I liked walking along gravel roads. It was where I drank my first beer, where I had my best parties as a teenager. It took me from nature walks to sex and drugs and rock 'n roll in a few short years - well at least drugs and rock 'n roll.
But I never would have lost the cottage if it hadn't been handed to me in the first place.
My brother Phil was always a pain. He was only a year older than me but he acted like he had been everywhere I was going to already and couldn't be bothered. We'd go up together, with my friends Syd and Rennie. And Phil would be driving because my parents would only let him drive the big car even though he was the worst driver.
As we drank beer and smoked joints he was drinking wine and telling us we were stupid because we were laughing. He kept saying the neighbours were going to call the cops on us if we didn't keep quiet.
“They can hear every word you are saying when you guys are at the point” he said, “sound travels over the water you know.”
Phil was such a know it all. I hated him. I couldn't wait for him to go off and become a scientist or a doctor.
And he did. Go off that is. Instead of a doctor he became a lawyer, and he married a lawyer and they had a daughter and went to her family cottage in the Muskokas and then they built their own cottage up there.
By the time our parents became old and sick Anne Marie and I took care of them for the most part. Well actually Anne Marie did a lot of it, as she never tired of telling me.
They died within a year of each other, and after my mother’s funeral Phil said he could find someone to do the paperwork, which was fine. The house in Gan had already been sold and the money from it had gone into caregivers, medical costs and funeral expenses, leaving the cottage as the only real asset in the estate.
A month after the funeral we had lunch at Chez Piggy. Phil came up from Toronto alone, just for the meeting. I had wanted to meet at the cottage, on Bobs Lake, but he was taking the train in and was carrying on to Montreal after the lunch, so I drove in from Verona, where we were living at the time. It was 2001, in the early fall.
I had noticed at the funeral that Phil didn't look good. He had gained weight, not a lot of weight, but enough to make his face look a bit different. Julie, on the other hand, looked as hard and cold as ever. She was all tears and smiles, but I could always see through her, and I could barely talk to her at the funeral.
I couldn't forget the look on her face, which was mirrored by Phil, that first time she came to the cottage. “It's so quaint,” she said, as my parents gave her the tour, but I saw through her. I hated my parents for being so pleased at that moment.
My mother shot me a look. She knew that Phil was leaving us behind. She knew he was jumping classes, leaving his hard-working parents and his lazy, pot-smoking brother behind, and never coming back. She may have been ok with it, but I was full of resentment.
Phil never did really come back to our family, but there was an inkling that day at Chez Piggy, when I thought I could detect a bit of weariness in his face. Losing both of our parents in succession seemed to have broken his sheen.
First we ate, talked about our wives and kids, both of us talking and neither of us really listening. Phil got down to business.
“So, what should we do about the cottage?” he asked. “I got it appraised at 250 but I think we could get a bit more,” he said.
“I guess that's all it means to you,” I said, starting to get a rise. “To me, it's our family cottage. I think it should stay in the family. But I can't afford to buy you out. I’ve only got 5 years in at teaching, so I don’t have any savings.”
I felt my throat constricting. I was ready to have it out with him, finally, after all these years, at Chez Piggy, no less. Everything I had ever done meant nothing to him. My struggles, finally getting a teaching degree and a job, my kids – it all meant nothing to him. “It's our cottage. Dad built it. Do you remember what it was to us when we were kids? It hasn't changed for me.”
“I thought you might want to keep it,” he said quietly, with no arrogance in his tone or in his look.
I was a bit confused, but still ready to fight.
The waiter came over to the table.
“Get us a couple of beers, Stellas, ok,” he said to the waiter.
“I've got to drive back to Verona soon,” I said, “I took the afternoon off but I have to go shopping and pick up Liam at Harrowsmith at the end of school.”
“Just one beer,” he said.
So we sat on the patio at Chez Piggy on that warm September afternoon under the shade of grape vines, and Phil talked a bit.
He talked about his life, about his family, his kids, his lawyering, but for once he did not seem to be bragging, and for once I listened because this wasn't an act.
“We don't fight, Julie and Astrid and I, not like Mom and Dad did and not like you and I did ...” his voice trailed off. “I guess with Mom and Dad gone I'm seeing where all this is going,” he said.
“You remember the boat ride?” I asked.
“Yes I do,” he said, “I remember the boat ride.”
I looked at him, and he looked at me. I saw in him what he must have seen in me, a middle-aged man trying to finally become an adult.
“You can have the cottage,” he said, “keep the cottage. You watched over them for all these years. Keep the cottage”
He looked so sad, but I felt happy. I was happy to be near him, for once, and happy about the cottage, and happy to have a brother.
“What about Julie?” I asked.
I knew that Phil had been sent to Kingston with instructions from Julie to get some money for the cottage.
“Julie's ok with this,” he said.
He was lying and both of us knew it.
“Do you remember how we felt when Dad would arrive at the cottage on the third Friday in July?” Phil said. “The back of the station wagon would be full of tools. Mom would be so happy to have some help with us because we were such a pain. I remember him unloading the car right away, before sitting down on the dock for a beer. He would be up every morning before 7 working on the cottage or the shed or something before the heat off the day came. That was his two weeks off. I wondered what it was like to be so old, but he was so young then. He was happy then.”
Phil got the bill. “I'll charge it to a client,” he said.
I told Phil the cottage was still all of ours, but he insisted on signing it over.
A week later I phoned and invited Phil, Julie and Astrid to join Anne Marie and myself and the twins for a gathering at Bobs Lake at the end of the summer to spread our parents’ ashes on the lake. I was going to run into Gan to bring my uncle and aunt out to the lake as well.
The gathering never happened. The ashes are still in two boxes on a shelf at the cottage, and Phil never did get back there.
But it was Phil who kept the cottage in the family, and years later I ended up pissing it away, when I pissed away my marriage after 23 years.
(Next week – the boat ride)
My last summer at the lake (Part 3 of 4)
Summer fiction by Jack Benjamin Leaving the Lake (Part 3 of 4)
September 20, 2006 – the last day of the summer
The Blue Heron in the little bay by the cottage was startled by the sound of my tires on the gravel road, sparking an awkward ascent.
This happens pretty often. I always assume it's the same bird. As the heron takes off, there is always a moment when I think that this time the heron won't make it. Smaller birds shoot into the sky like fireworks from a cannon, but as a heron spreads its wings and slowly lifts its long body from the water it seems to dip for a second, as if this time gravity might finally win the battle and the bird will crash land into the bay. Maybe that's how herons finally die, like crashing airplanes that sink to the bottom.
But with one, two, three coordinated waves of those ancient wings the solitary heron pulls slowly up from the bay and slowly flies off.
The Heron will keep coming to the bay, but I won’t.
When the cottage comes into my view it looks lonely. The skies are heavy over the lake, which is calm, waiting for drops of rain that are on their way.
There was a time when I would relish the prospect of two days of peace and quiet at the lake. Especially at the end of the summer when the lake is returned to its natural inhabitants - after the boaters and swimmers and beer drinkers have finished having their seasonal fun and gone back to the city.
Ever since I began teaching at Prince Charles and moved to Verona, less than 20 minutes from the cottage, even in the winter, I've felt like a year rounder, a non-seasonal. I own two properties in the same municipality, an acre in the village and an acre on the lake.
But on this Saturday morning, I can barely face the solitary cottage. I have no one. The twins have gone to live in Montreal with Anne Marie. We all agreed to this. They did French Immersion at Harrowsmith, so it made perfect sense to move right into a French high school in Montreal. They aren't happy, yet, but they will be. Or they won't be.
I'm not happy at all.
The cottage will have to be sold. I can't see any other way. I thought about selling the house and keeping the cottage, but the numbers don't add up. The cottage is worth too much more than the house. Keeping it would leave me in debt, and instead of walking to work every day I would have to drive every day, and in the winter it might be a problem getting out.
I hate everything about the house. I hate the front walk, the kitchen, the furniture, everything.
The cottage is not fancy. We never did it up. But it was built on the right spot, with views of the lake from the kitchen and the main room.
This might be my last weekend here.
I'm inside the cottage, sitting at the kitchen table, and all I can see are the reminders of the past, bits of things that got saved. That little aluminium pot hanging on a nail was the one we used to heat the milk in for hot chocolate. Nestlé Quik. My father used to make hot chocolate for us. It was just about the only thing he made. He would pull out four mugs and the Quik first. Then he would measure out the milk using a measuring cup, and put the pot on the stove. Without ever leaving the stove he would measure out the Quik with a measuring spoon, two scoops in each mug. Then he would stand over the pot, never moving, waiting as the milk heated up, but making sure there was no skin. He would pull the pot from the stove at the exact moment, and pour it out without spilling a drop. Even before mixing the Quik and the hot milk in each mug, he would rush to the sink to clean the pot before the milk stuck to the bottom. The pot would be back on the nail in seconds, and then the hot chocolate would get stirred, with each mug getting its own spoon, and a marshmallow - always a marshmallow.
She said she was leaving because I couldn’t move forward with my life. She said I was stuck in a rut of school and chores; that I had no ambition to live anymore. And she said I was too filled with resentments about things that had happened long ago, about things my family and her family had said and done, things that didn’t matter any more. She said I was suffocating her.
What did I say? Not much. I asked her how she could be taking the kids away from me. I said that she was just angry because I wouldn’t move to Montreal with her. I said she had a man waiting for her in Montreal.
In a way everything that each of us said was true, except I don’t know for sure about the man in Montreal.
If I were a drinker I would be drinking tonight.
September 21.
It's sunny today, and warm, like a July day. I usually stack wood on the first day of fall, so we can come up at Christmas time. But instead I’m waiting for Dale to get here with his truck and a trailer so we can load up some of the excess stuff. The realtor says the cottage should be sold minimally furnished, so it looks a bit homey, but without any junk. He has people coming next week. He said he could sell it before winter if I put it on the market now.
I'm taking a spin in the old motor boat before Dale arrives. Just to see the lake, the old bays, one more time.
I pass by Grace's cottage, and she's sitting on the dock, holding a baby, so I pull up to the dock, and kill the engine, but I don't leave the boat.
“My granddaughter, another one, Grace,” she says, “what do you think of that.” She holds the baby up for me to see, “Tiffany was no better at waiting than I was. This is her second.”
I feign interest in the baby, but Grace can see right through me.
“You look awful,” she says. “I heard what happened.”
“It's ok really. I just have to sell the cottage, is all.”
She doesn't say anything, but she looks right through me. But, true to her name, she knows not to push it, so she changes the subject.
“We had some good times here when we were young, lots of adventures on the lake. We had some great times, the three of us.”
The memories light up her face, and I can see the young Gracie through the age lines and slightly puffy skin.
“That was so long ago,” she says, “I had more life and less fat in me back then.”
She shifts her body to stop the baby from fussing, and pulls her up to snuggle against her chest.
“Do you remember the time we capsized in the middle of Crow Lake?” I say.
“Oh yeah, I can't forget that. There was a moment there when I thought we were done for. I don’t know what would have happened it Scott Beechamp hadn’t of shown up. He died, you know, lung cancer. He used to close up the cottage for us, so I kept in touch with him.”
“I heard that he died,” I say. “I never thanked him for not telling my parents. I spent weeks waiting for him to show up and spill the beans. But he never did.”
“He never did talk much. I don’t think I ever heard him say more than three words in a row …The baby is falling asleep, finally,” she says.
We sit in silence for a minute.
“You know,” she says, “I never understood why you guys showed up that day. You snuck out on your parents, which you never did, and we all knew a storm was going to come.”
“You dared us. You said if we were really heroes we would be able to go out on the high seas whenever adventure called. Don't you remember saying that?”
“No, I don't” she said laughing, “I don't remember that at all. All I remember is thinking I wouldn't have anything to do that afternoon because my mom hadn’t been invited to the party. You guys were my world that summer ... But I don't remember daring you to come ... I don’t think I would have taken that kind of risk. If I dared you it would have made me sound desperate.”
“I was sure you dared us to come. It was a matter of honour. We were both in love with you, I think.”
“I couldn't decide which one of you to marry. Phil was so handsome and strong, and you were so cute.”
“I'm not so cute any more,” I say.
“And I'm not a skinny kid anymore,” she says.
We sit for another minute.
“I'd better go,” I say.
“Are you gonna be back at all?”
“I'm going to rent the Whiting place for two weeks in the summer. The twins will come up with me. And I’m going to come to Tim's for Bass opening next year, and probably other times, so I'll be around.”
“Are you sure you're ok? You know I've been there myself, twice. I know that empty feeling.”
“I'll be ok. Thanks for asking.”
“See you then, give me a call. Do you have my number in Ottawa?” she says as I start up the motor.
I nod, but we both know I won't call her in Ottawa.
For me, she lives only on Bobs Lake.
(Next Week - The Conclusion)
An utterly friendless speck
It took a special breed to withstand the rigours of the pioneer lumbering days in the Cloyne area and set up a household and raise a family. In 1857, Oris Cole, the son of a school board trustee from Buckingham, Quebec, came to Cloyne with his small, dark-haired immigrant bride of 19 or 20 years of age, hoping she would be up to the challenge.
Oris may or may not have known that his bride, Rhena Pollard, had already overcome some significant challenges in her life; that she had come into contact with the most famous writer of his age and that a character in one of his famous novels may have been based upon her.
Certainly no one in Cloyne seemed to know that Rhena Cole had been a prisoner in Sussex, England, when she was only 14 or so and had ended up as one of about 100 young women who participated in a social experiment/”home” for women in distress called Urania Cottage.
All local records indicate that she lived out her life as a pioneering mother. She raised seven children and joined the Salvation Army at some point in her life. She died in 1899 at the age of 63 and is buried in the Harlowe cemetery. Her great granddaughter, June Gillies of Winnipeg, Manitoba, has a family photograph that includes a severe, slim, dark-haired woman who was likely Rhena Cole.
For Jenny Hartley, a professor of Literature from England who has a particular interest in Charles Dickens and has written a book about Urania Cottage that is called “Charles Dickens and the House of Fallen Women”, that photograph is golden. It is the most prized artefact she has found in all of the research she has done about the 100 or so women who were taken in by Dickens and his benefactor, the wealthy Miss Burdett Coutts, between 1847 when Urania Cottage opened and 1857 when it closed.
Hartley has a fair bit of definitive information about Rhena Pollard from her days at Urania, from letters between Dickens and Coutts.
She was a particularly difficult girl, described alternately by Dickens as a “slow settler” a “troublemaker” and “audacious”. She rebelled against the strict rules of the house on several occasions, and at least one point she threatened to leave the house in a fit of temper. Dickens reportedly got out the worst, roughest dress that could be found in the cottage, and said he would send her out into the world in it as an “utterly friendless speck.”
She ended up staying, and in a letter from February 9, 1855, Dickens told Miss Burdett Couts that “Rhena Pollard was the subject of an especially good report.”
For Dickens, Urania Cottage had the dual purpose of being an experiment in socialising poor, uneducated women, and giving him an opportunity to experience the way these underclass girls talked and thought, which was particularly useful for someone who created so many famous ‘Dickensian’ characters. Indeed, most of the images of 19th century industrial revolution working-class England that are now burned into the collective consciousness came through the characters he created.
In the mid 1850s, Dickens was writing “Little Dorrit”, and in it there is a character named Tattycoram, a small, dark-haired, stubborn, fearless woman who bears a remarkable resemblance to Dickens’ accounts of Rhena Pollard, according to Jenny Hartley.
While most of the young women from Urania Cottage emigrated to Australia or stayed in England, Pollard was one of a very small number who came to Canada. She is also one of only two that Jenny Hartley has been able to trace.
In preparing a CBC Sunday Edition Documentary for airing on the 198th anniversary of Dickens’ birth earlier this year, Karin Wells took up the Rhena Pollard Cole story. Jenny Hartley had traced her to the Cloyne area, and she approached Marg Axford of the Cloyne and District Historical Society for further information. Together, Wells and Axford uncovered the gravestone of Oris and Rhena Cole in the Harlowe cemetery last year.
The historical society has approached North Frontenac Township for permission to put a marker in the cemetery about Rhena Pollard Cole and the township has agreed, so there will be a permanent record of her remarkable journey from Sussex, England, into the company of Charles Dickens and on to the wilds of the land of the Oxen and the Axe.
As a post-script, it appears that Dickens’ life took a less fortuitous turn than Rhena Pollard’s after they parted company. In 1857, at the age of 46, Dickens left his wife and 10 children, which led Miss Burdett Coutts to sever ties with him. Urania Cottage closed as well. Dickens became associated with an actress named Ellen Ternan, who was then 17. He published some of his greatest work in the next two or three years, “A Tale of Two Cities” and “Great Expectations”, but died of a stroke in 1870 at the age of 58.
As Jenny Hartley said in the CBC radio documentary, “Rhena Pollard outlived Dickens by 30 years, but Tattycoram outlived them both.”
(Prepared using material from the podcast of the CBC’s Sunday Edition, February 7, 2010, and the account “Fame Comes to Harlowe” from the Cloyne and District Historical Society Newsletter, The Pioneer Times, Vol. 8, No. 1, April 2010)
