Happy Canada Day

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This week, two columnists, one from the Vancouver Sun and the other from the Globe and Mail, both suggested that Pierre Burton's teenage fantasy about having sex in a canoe was a uniquely Canadian attribute. The columnist who became a naturalized citizen actually thought it was possible and suggested that she was truly Canadian because she had done the deed.

We all seem to have strange views about who is truly Canadian. While we can almost all agree that someone who was born, lived and died here might qualify, all the rest of the population is up for speculation and debate. Maybe this is one of the identifiable markers of Canadians.

Tomorrow, regardless of our views, we get to celebrate all that is uniquely Canadian, eh?

The Outcast

This is a great read - the story, the prose - it was mesmerizing. And it took place in the 1950's. I can't believe how significantly our values have changed since then. A book like this brings it all back.

I can't wait to see the movie version!

http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780307396662

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-outcast-by-sadie-jones-785275.html

The Cost of Living

Several weeks ago, I went on a quest to discover miners' wages in Northern Ontario in the 1940's and was not successful. This item from Maclean's in 1950 was the closest I came to finding information.

If the average weekly wage was $45.00 per week in 1950, the weekly wage in Northern Ontario was probably closer to $40.00 per week in the early 40's, given that inflation was high, particularly towards the end of the war when labour became scarce. That would have put my parent's mortgage payment of $30.00 per month at more than 20% of their income. If food was 40% of their income, it did not leave very much left for other essentials!

This puts perspective on our own complaints about the high costs of food today. Although it doesn't look like housing has improved much - at least in the Vancouver area!

Below is a list I found in my Mother's old cook book. It was compiled, I think, when my parents were contemplating the purchase of the house in which I grew up. It is readable once you have clicked on it to make it larger.

This is stewed strawberry/rhubarb in the making. It is so good on toast when it is still warm.

Raspberries in our community garden are starting to ripen. I had my first handful of berries today. It is very early - we don't usually have ripe raspberries until July but we have had a warm, dry June this year.

Beets from my garden are just starting to form globes - I am still eating the leaves but am steaming them now and adding a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I should be eating green beans in a week or so.

My current favorite place in warm weather.

Bridges & Bits of Vancouver History

This is my favourite bridge in the Vancouver area. The Alex Fraser Bridge was built for Expo 1986 and is now over 20 years old but it still feels new and modern. It has amazing large steel cables that make it feel both safe and majestic when driving over it.



This is the Burrard Bridge built in about 1932 and named after Sir Harry Burrard-Neale (whoever he was). It is built in Art Deco style and has guard towers at either end which are kind of quaint.

Actually, I do know a little about the fellow whose name was used on this bridge. There were two Sir Harry Burrards who were cousins and both were friends of Sir George Vancouver. The first Sir Harry Burrard was honoured by the naming of Burrard Inlet while the second Sir Harry Burrard-Neale was remembered by naming this bridge and the street after him. The Burrard bridge actually spans False Creek. (The two bridges over Burrard Inlet are Lions Gate Bridge and Ironworkers Memorial.)

There is another interesting object in this photo. The middle apartment tower in this photo is Martello Towers. (Does anyone know how to apply labels here to photos like you see on facebook to identify objects and people?) Anyway, this property, at the corner of Beach and Thurlow, was originally supposed to house the City Hall of Vancouver. It was to be built in the same Art Deco style as the bridge. The town fathers at that time however deemed the expense too great and elected to build a cheaper structure way out at 12th and Cambie on what was then park land.

Engineering Wonders

If two crews drill from either side of a mountain, how do they know if they will meet in the middle? How was McCulloch able to make a little hole straight through four rock walls in a straight line to create a railway shortcut through the mountains? How were the crews even able to scale down shear cliffs over a raging river gorge to start the construction? All of this was done at a time when there wasn't a lot of high tech gadgetry. If you click on this photo to make it larger, you may be able to see the light at the end of the third tunnel - the tunnels are that straight!



Great engineering feats have always fascinated me, particularly bridges. How exactly does one build a suspension bridge? As I watch traffic flowing over Lions Gate Bridge (yes, occasionally traffic does flow in Vancouver), it seems impossible that such a flimsy structure can carry all that weight.



Of course, not all of our bridges have been engineered all that well. The Second Narrows Bridge collapsed in 1958 just as workers were placing the last piece to join both sections of the bridge.
Eighteen workers lost their lives due to a simple error in the calculation of the weight the structure could bear. This bridge was rebuilt and eventually called the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge.

Next week, the Golden Ears Bridge will open connecting Maple Ridge to Langley. It will be an electronic toll bridge - the first toll bridge in British Columbia in several years. They are giving us a month of free use before tolls apply. I can't wait to try it out. But, I think I will wait a day or two, to let others test it out first.

McCulloch's Wonder

Writer Barry Stanford describes the Kettle Valley Railway, McCulloch's Wonder, as the most difficult and expensive railway on earth. Engineer extraordinaire, Andrew McCulloch, designed, built and operated this railway starting in about 1915. It serviced southern British Columbia, through to the Kooteneys until about 1973. After it was abandoned in 1989, it became a recreational area for hikers, skiers, bikers and others.

http://www.livinglandscapes.bc.ca/thomp-ok/kettle-railway/map.html

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to bike to the Othello-Quintette Tunnels in Hope and along a portion of the Kettle Valley rail bed near Princeton, BC. These sections are part of the TransCanada Trail. The Coquihalla Canyon gorge is truly awe-inspiring in itself with its rapids twisting through a narrow passage. Contemplating the combined the power of this river with the amazing engineering talent that was required to design and build the four tunnels and two bridges through this gorge for the railroad is just mind-bending. This is another example of one of the well-kept secrets of British Columbia.

In other countries, there would be resorts, hotels and tours to see something as spectacular as this!

Anecdotes

Definition from Wikipedia: An anecdote is a short tale narrating an interesting or amusing biographical incident.

Near the end of Six Degrees of Separation, Stockard Channing (Ouisa) says words to this effect: "Does a person's life just boil down to a few interesting anecdotes?", and then storms out of an important dinner party for her husband. This, of course, got me thinking about blogging because for me, blogs are a series of anecdotes.

Shortly after I started writing this blog, I set up a separate blog to record my family history. Since then I have created well over a hundred entries in it and have not even scratched the surface of what I want to say. Most of the blogs are anecdotes of what I can remember growing up and of the information, photos and clippings that I have saved over the years.

I have often felt that my children missed out on the benefits of a large extended family. While they were growing up, no one got together just for evenings of talking about the past and telling stories; there were few family get-togethers at all. We always seemed to be busy doing other things. For the most part they know very little of their background. Now they are busy with their lives and not particularly interested. There may come a time, however, when they want to know more and they will have this blog as a reference.
Am I doing the people who have gone before me a disservice by reducing their lives to a series of (I hope) interesting and amusing anecdotes?

Snow in June

It has been snowing cottontree fluff for the last few days. The massive cottonwoods are releasing the dandilion-like seeds into the air. In the evening when the wind dies down, the white fluffs hang in the air and settle softly to the ground like large snow flakes. Riding your bike through the trails is like being in a Walt Disney 3-D movie. You feel as if you are moving through the first snowfall of the season, except of course it is very warm. This is what our trails looks like just now.

This is a close up photo of the cottonwood seeds on the ground. Click on the photo to make it larger.

This plant is like the energizer bunny - it just keeps blooming and blooming. It is an azalea which I received on Mother's Day and it has been increasing in blooms ever since, in spite of some very warm weather. Most azaleas only bloom for a week or two. I just hope I can keep it alive so that it can bloom again next year.

My Garden Plot May 31/09

I ate the first four ripe strawberries yesterday. They are small but delicious, very much like wild strawberries. My tomatoes and peas are beginning to blossom. So far I am eating beet greens, spinach, onions and radish and totally enjoying them.

It is just about time to start my next seeding. This time I am going to try coffee grounds in the row where I plant my radish to try and deter the little worms.

We have had a beautifully warm summer-like month with just enough rain to keep everything green.