Also in this issue:
Hi All,
Would you believe I’ve run into a small problem with those fancy high tech ice tires I’m running on the truck? By necessity, they are made from very soft rubber so the treads stay pliable in cold icy conditions. (So far this winter we have had neither cold nor ice). Due to the geology of this area, gravel as most of us think of it is in short supply. There is lots of granular overburden consisting of a mix of everything from giant boulders down to fine sand. But that is not the kind of gravel needed for road base and bedding. The needed kind is therefore man made, by feeding blasted rock through a crusher. The type of rock they use locally is basalt, which crushes down into nice black material. Only problem there is that it also tends to break into sharp pointed shards that look very much like small arrow heads.
Here is where the tire problem comes in. One of those sharp shards lodged in the treads of one of my tires, pointed end up and over a few days of driving worked its way into and through the tire. By the time I noticed it the tire was quite soft and you could hear the leaking. Luckily I was able to get to a repair place and have a patch and plug put in but now I know to keep an eye open for sharp stones caught in the tire treads. Tires with fewer lugs further apart and made from harder rubber would probably not pick up and hold these shards in the first place but my ice tires do. Oh well, just something to be aware of.
*
We took a drive up the Upper Squamish. The Squamish Valley is where the west coast eagle population winters each year but this winter has been so open that the birds have not congregated into the lower valley around Squamish and Brackendale. Instead, they are spread out along the whole valley system. Lots around, we can see them all over but just not in high numbers. The Squamish River Rd winds its way along as it follows the river, passing through densely forested flood plains. The trees are huge softwood maple covered in moss and ferns. Looks funny to see ferns growing high in the trees but they do. There are also the low elevation evergreens and shrubs, helping make the forest very dense and thick.
Perched in the trees along the river and sitting on logs on the wide gravel bars were lots of eagles. They sure are big. The jet-black bodies with the snow-white heads and tails of the mature birds make them easy to spot. The year old birds are still brown-gray, but just as big. We only went a few clicks past the bridge at mile 21, up to about where Branch 100 heads off up the steep valley side. One of these days I’m going to have to follow the Main as far as we can go in the truck. That should take us up into the Elaho, I’ll have to bring the camera.
*
And hey, I just finished watching season one and two of Corner Gas on DVD. That has got to be the best TV show going, comedy or otherwise. The cast is all-Canadian, the setting is Hick-town Saskatchewan and the writing is clever rather than the pathetic style that dominates American sitcoms. Hope you are watching it too, as they say on the Comedy Network, “Time Well Wasted”.
doug
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Editor’s Note:
I figured an article about sunny summer sailing would be a refreshing departure for this first week of the New Year. Here is a press release sent in by Nova Scotia Sus and Peter.
PRESS
RELEASE
Tuesday,
December 13, 2005
Sunshine Sailing (Peter Latulippe),
operating partner, and Maritime Classic Boats Ltd. (David and Nancy Moncton),
owner, are proud to announce that one of the last boats of over one hundred
boats built by Stright-MacKay is returning to the port of Pictou! The 37-foot mahogany-on-oak yawl, currently
called “Mojavon,” was built at the Stright-MacKay yard in 1979, by master
shipwright Trueman (“Trap”) Stright, the recently deceased son of Stright-MacKay
founder James Stright. The vessel was
then shipped to St. John N.B., where the interior was finished by the
owner/designer Fred Spinney. The completed vessel was launched in 1980/81 as
“Nordic III.” The boat is in excellent
condition, as recently surveyed by Eamonn Doorly, Curatorial Assistant for
Conservation at the Halifax Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, and will arrive in
Pictou from Halifax on the afternoon of Tuesday December 13. She will be re-launched in the spring.
The Monctons, of Boston Massachusetts, are
members of the Pictou Yacht Club. They
have a long relationship with the Pictou sailing community through their
sailboats and friendship with Trueman Stright.
David Moncton, currently Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, said, “My father-in-law (Dr. J. Gordon Scannell)
launched two classic wooden boats from Pictou over forty years ago and sailed
them regularly from his family home in Georgetown, PEI. Over the intervening decades, boats owned by
Dr. Scannell, and later by his daughter Nancy and I, have sailed from Pictou
Marina, where they were always under the watchful eye of the Marina’s builder
and our dear friend Trueman Stright. We
miss him enormously and hope returning one of Trap’s fine creations to her
hometown can help keep his remarkable spirit alive in Pictou.”
The owner and operator propose to integrate
the use of the vessel with the programs of the Northumberland Fisheries
Museum. The Museum has information and
tape recordings of Trueman Stright’s recollections of his boat building
activities in Pictou. Together with the
presence of an actively sailing vessel from this era, this combination offers
an important opportunity for history, education, and public outreach at the new
downtown location planned for the Museum.
Sunshine Sailing, in operation from the
Pictou Marina for three years with a smaller sailboat, will be offering sailing
tours aboard the Stright-MacKay yawl to the public from downtown Pictou in the
summer of 2006. Captain Peter Latulippe
said, “The larger boat will carry more passengers, and a downtown location and
a connection to the Fisheries Museum will help to expand the opportunity for
the public to enjoy a unique sailing experience. Trap would have loved it.”
Peter Latulippe - Sunshine Sailing: http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/peterlatulippe/sunshine/index.html
****
Hello
again everyone!
Here we
are already 2 days into 2006.
I
remember being nuts about cars way back when I was a kid. My brother and I used
to compete to see who remembered the names of the most cars we’d see while on a
drive with mum and dad. We used to wonder what the cars would look like way way
off in 1970. Thinking ahead to the vehicles of the 21st century was
not even in the picture. I spent a lot of time in the family car with my dad.
Whenever he had to go somewhere I’d ask if I could tag along. The earliest car
I can remember our family having is a 1954 Buick Special. It was a four door
22’ long monster. It was medium green on the bottom with a white roof. The
thing I remember most about it is the size of the wide open seats. There was no
such thing as seat belts back then and of course even with three kids like in
our family this car had loads of room. Although, you would never have known it
by the way we fought for elbow room in the back seat. This big boat was great
for a family of five and my dad loved his Buicks. I remember he always dealt at
Forbes Motors and bought his cars from Gerry Voisin a salesman there for over
40 years if I recall correctly. My dad was a big guy and loved to have real
cars. He had no use for compact cars, if there was such a thing in the 50’s!
The more chrome there was on a vehicle, the better it was as well. I remember
my dad going through chrome polish by the jug. It took him whole Sunday
afternoons to wash and clean the car, once again the result of the size of this
vehicle. From the ’54 Buick, dad went to a black ’56 Buick Century, another
ocean liner of a car. I think these things weighed in at around 5000 lbs and
had big V8’s to haul them around. Of course in those days the fuel economy
wasn’t that big a deal for car owners since they didn’t drive near as much as
we do today. I would say that my dad put on no more than 50 to 100 miles a week
and gas was less than the cost of a litre of fuel today. I’m not sure of the
exact cost per gallon back then but even when I was 15 and worked at the local
Supertest Station the gallon was in the 37 cent range. The new “Black Beauty”
was pretty much the same size wise as the previous car. The thing that caught
everyone’s eye was the way the chrome showed up so much better against the
black paint. Buicks had huge bullet shaped bumperetts on the front bumper and
of course every model had a series of 3 chrome holes on each front fender. This
was the Buick trade mark decoration and was one of the features that helped
identify these cars as Buicks. The ’56 was cool back then because it didn’t
have any window posts between the doors. It was a 4 door hardtop as the ’54 was
a 4 door sedan. Not many cars back then had air conditioning so needless to say
we had the windows down a lot. I never thought about it then but I shudder
today when I think of all the traveling we did in that car with the gaping
holes in the side and never wore a seatbelt. We used to bounce around in the
back like pinballs in an arcade machine. We took many a drive down to Hespeler
to visit my Grandma and Grandpa Payne on Monday nights in the Buicks. We had
the ’56 for a couple of years and I remember my dad saying he’d never trade it
in unless something happened to force him to do so. He was so thrilled and
proud of it every time someone asked about it and admired his “black beauty”.
One day, my mum got a phone call from the Kitchener Police Dept. The officer
was calling to inform her that my dad had been in an accident with the car. He
assured her that dad was unhurt but the Buick wasn’t so lucky. Dad was taking the
car to Romie Gross’s Esso station at the corner of Victoria and Ahrens Sts for
an oil change and it’s the one time I elected not to go with him. I guess it
was lucky for me since he was only a few blocks away from Romie’s when the
accident happened. He pulled away from the stop sign at Ahren’s and Wellington
Sts and I guess he didn’t see the other vehicle approaching from his right. He
got slammed in the right front fender of “Black Beauty” and it literally wiped
her front end off! Well, when dad got home via City Cab and all the excitement
died down they talked about what to do for a vehicle. The ’56 was not
repairable! Dad said he knew that if he’d been in one of those tin can
compacts, he wouldn’t be home, he’d be in Ratz and Bechtel’s so he wasn’t going
to buy anything less than the vehicle he’d just lost. The next day my uncle
drove mum and dad over to Forbes and in a couple of hours, they were home with
their new baby……… you got it, another Buick! This one was a 1959 Buick LeSabre
and was black with a white roof. Needless to say, dad had learned to be a lot
more cautious when driving his new “baby” and we had that one for a long time.
I guess
that about exhausts my old car thoughts for this week.
Thanks for tuning in and I look forward to talking to you all again next time
in The Ontarion Report.
Bye for now… GREG.
PS:
Something To Think About>
He may
well win the race that runs by himself.
Benjamin
Franklin
****
The Family and the Squamidian sites:
http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b/ and http://www.thedougsite.ca
Have a good one..
the
doug
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