The Squamidian Report – July 28 / 07
Issue #270
Also in this issue:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Vacations are kind of cool. You don’t have to go to work. I’m still learning stuff like that because I spent a good part of my life being self-employed and under those conditions you don’t get vacation. You might get some time off but it is usually not when you wanted it. But anyway, we are starting into a vacation right now. In fact, Sue started a few days early. I drove her to YVR early Thursday morning for her flight to Kitchener. Literally. Westjet now flies into the Kitchener Waterloo airport.
Ryan and Emily and I will be flying into there this coming Tuesday. It will almost be like old times. Years ago when I had time and energy, I did a lot of flying from KW. Used to fly the Cessna 182’s, the ones that carried 4 people including pilot. I had gotten my license in 1974 and flew for about 10 or 12 years. By then flying had become just too expensive to justify as a hobby. But it had been a great challenge and adventure at the time.
We won’t have much time in Kitchener, just until Friday morning when we have to some how find our way to Person airport in Toronto for the flight on down to Nova Scotia. That makes what, 3 nights and 2 full days. We won’t have all that much time at Sus’s place either for that matter. We will get to Stonehame Lodge near Scotsburn on Friday evening and then we will have to head for Halifax on the Monday afternoon for an early flight back to Vancouver the next day. So lots of traveling, then home again. There is just never enough time to fit everything in.
In the mean time, I’m doing some ‘vacation’ today. The guy up the street with the same bike as mine and I are heading out for a day trip. We plan to ride pretty well all day. Part of the trip will take us over the Duffy, part through the Fraser Canyon, part into the BC interior. We’ll have lunch in either Kamloops or Merit. That should put a few clicks onto the bike. Bet I’ll have biker’s ‘num-butt’ buy the time we get home.
*
Now this is kind of silly although the cop didn’t think so. We had been doing some more work down town and I had walked the machine across the street to our pile of bedding sand to scoop up a bucket full, just like I’ve done hundreds of times before. This particular street is a virtual construction zone with all kinds of stuff all over the place. A police cruiser pulled up right behind the excavator and stopped. That is a very big no-no. You never stop in the blind spot of a construction machine. He wanted to complain to us that we should have a flag person watching for traffic. The only traffic was him!
After scooping up my sand I swung the machine to head back over to our open trench. My view opened up as I swung, and there was the cruiser, with my bucket heading right for its windshield. I was able to stop the swing in time but the look on the cop’s face said quit clearly that he needed to go home and change his shorts. After chewing us out for a few minutes he departed. Some of these guys just aren’t too swift.
*
Guess I’ll see some of you in Kitchener in a few days, guess I’ll see some of you down in Nova Scotia next weekend. Don’t know for sure if I’ll be able to send out a Squamidian next Saturday or not. If I can, cool. If I can’t, I’ll get one out as soon as we get back to the west coast.
doug
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Hello everyone!
Last weekend Carole and I spent a couple of
days in Kingston. We’ve been wanting to take one of those 1000 Island boat
tours for a couple of years now and last week we decided to make the trip. We
left home around 7am on Saturday and drove the distance to Kingston along the
401. My “Map quest” readout from the computer said the drive was 356kms and
just less than four hours in length. I guess they figure that people drive from
point A to point B without stopping or changing speed along the way. Well, they
were close; we made it to Kingston in four hours even with two fifteen-minute
stops for refreshments, a pee break and one stop for fuel. The weather was
sunny and about 24c degrees with a light breeze from the west. We did some
reading about the Kingston area on the computer before leaving on the trip.
Carole made reservations on line for the boat ride up the St Lawrence. On the
Kingston web site they listed many hotel/motels and B&BS and they all set
their prices per night around the $200.00 mark. I said we’d be better off to
find a place to stay once we got there. So, we did just that and as it turned
out, we managed to get a beautiful hotel room right beside the boat docks in
downtown Kingston. We did considerably better price wise than the on line
listings stated. To park for the night would have cost $20.00 plus the $200.00
room charge. The Confederation Place Hotel gave us a reduced rate from $199.000
to $169.00/night and included the parking at no charge. The clerk said the
parking was usually an additional $25.00 but threw that in free. We had a
lovely room with a king sized bed and an amazing view of the city of Kingston.
Their down town area is being refurbished but not demolished like many other
cities do to their heritage buildings. They have done a total restoration on
their city hall and it looks magnificent. We were within walking distance of
every attraction we wanted to see and of course as I said, a stones throw away
from the pier where we boarded the tour boat. We had a lovely 3 hour cruise up
the St Lawrence on the Island Queen. It’s a replica of a Mississippi River
paddle boat and has three very spacious decks from which to view the scenery as
you cruise the river. The main deck and the second are enclosed and the top
deck is open air. We chose to stay on the main deck where it was air
conditioned and had movable chairs next to huge windows that opened to the
river air. As it turned out, the Air Conditioning wasn’t needed. The
temperature in the boat was quite pleasant with the windows opened. We had a
great view of the islands and the beautiful cottages along the river. The tour
guide said that if you wish to purchase an island, the going rate is
approximately $50,000.00 per acre. Not bad really for such beautiful locations.
If I were looking for a spot to build a cottage, I’d certainly consider an
island in this area. We couldn’t get over how clear and clean the water looked
and how fresh the air seemed to be. I guess they must have their smog days too
but this past weekend was absolutely clear and smog free. The ride was totally
smooth and we had excellent entertainment on the boat. There were two musicians
that played and sang songs of all types. The one fellow played a keyboard and
also the clarinet. The second guy played the electric acoustic guitar and
switched to the electric bass occasionally. They were very entertaining and
both excellent musician / singers. They did a 45 minute show on the way out and
another half hour on the return trip. I had never seen anyone play the clarinet
with such expertise before, at least not from up that close. We had the two
front seats on the starboard side of the boat (that’s the right side for you
land lubbers) LOL! Carole mentioned that if the entertainment wasn’t along for
the ride the trip would have been about an hour too long, I agreed. They really
did make the trip more enjoyable. When we landed, it was still only 5:15 pm so
we had lots of daylight left to look around town. The buildings that line the
streets of Kingston are made of local limestone and show very little if any
wear from the years of weather. They are truly beautiful structures. They
reminded me of Kitchener’s original City Hall with the clock tower perched on
top. When I think about it, the destruction of that building was a big mistake
but there’s no going back now I guess. Anyway, we had a terrific supper in a
café with a view of the main street. They had a food festival going on in the
park that fronts the harbour and we could have made a meal out of sampling the
international fare they were presenting but decided to find a nice sit down
spot. After supper we took a nice leisurely stroll down Ontario St (their main
street) back to our hotel. The next day was another beauty of a day and we
started our morning off with breakfast at another one of the quaint eateries
just a couple of blocks away. When we emerged from the restaurant we found that
there was an antique market going on in the open air parking lot across the
street. As it turned out, they have this market every Sunday morning behind the
city hall and have had it going on since the late 1800’s. We walked the market
for about an hour and saw many beautiful antiques at very reasonable prices I
must say. If we had been in need of furniture or decorations for our house, we
could have loaded up quite cheaply. On the computer site for Kingston they had
said that if you can find a piece of furniture that was built by the prisoners
of Kingston Penitentiary you would have a real treasure. Apparently their
pieces are rare but still available if you look hard enough. They are also
quite valuable and many people don’t even realize that they are in possession
of KP furniture when they put old pieces up for sail in their lawn sales etc.
If you’re into antiques, this area is a great place to shop. When we finished
at the antique fair, we boarded a trolley that took us on an hour long tour of
the city. We went from the old part of the city over the bridge to the Royal
Military College and Old Fort Henry. The tour guide was a former bus driver
from Kingston and really knew his history. We found the tour very interesting
and would recommend it to anyone spending a day or more in Kingston. One of the
main sites we wanted to see in Kingston was of course the Kingston
Penitentiary. The trolley tour passed by and talked about the “Pen” a little
but didn’t stop to take a close look. We figured we’d have to drive back to
that site ourselves and take a look around later. Being Kingston was the home
of Canada’s first Prime Minister Sir John A McDonald the city is filled with
sites pertaining to his living there. Apparently he was a man that loved being
a politician even though the job paid next to nothing. He therefore ignored his
law practice which was is main source of income and consequently was not a very
well to do man. He had a wife and family and they lived a very modest life
style. Every time the bank would threaten to foreclose on his home for
non-payment of his mortgage, he’d sell the house he was in and move to a
smaller home. This went on year after year and by the time he had been in
Kingston for most of his life, they had occupied more than a dozen homes. The
bus tour guide commented that each one of the John A homes we passed on the
tour was getting smaller and smaller as he pointed them out. By the time Sir
John A was finished in politics he was renting a house of frugal size and
value. I guess politicians hadn’t perfected the art of milking the financial
system back then the way they do nowadays. LOL!
After the tour, we grabbed a bight to eat and
decided to make our way back to the Penitentiary Museum. The museum is housed
in an old three-story limestone house directly across the street from the
penitentiary. The house was the original home of the first warden of the
Kingston Pen. It’s a very interesting place to visit today. They have two cells
built on the main floor so you can see what it’s like in the real prison. The
first cell is a very small one that was in use from the 1800’s when the pen was
first built right up until 1998. The prison was refurbished and the cells were
increased to almost twice the size. Although they are still very small at about
5’x12’ they are quite an improvement over the originals. The original cells
were about 3’x 9’. The prisoners had to crawl from just inside the door onto
their beds for the night. There was no room to walk around the bed. Once they
were lying on the bed, their elbows would touch the walls on either side. I’ll
include a picture of the two cells for Doug to post so you can see the
improvement made. The museum had samples of weapons that were made by actual
prisoners. They also made such items as stills to make alcohol. There is quite
a lot of drug trafficking in prison even today and some of the ingenious ways
of moving drugs around the prison are displayed in the showcases of the museum.
They also have some of the equipment used to discipline the prisoners on
display. Of course these are outdated systems and are no longer used on the
prisoners since they have been deemed politically incorrect and “torturous” by
society today. Some would disagree I’m sure, but today’s system no doubt has
its own methods of keeping the prisoners in line. The most famous prisoner held
in KP today is Paul Bernardo. They say he’s in isolation 23 hours a day and is
only allowed out for one hour to enjoy some fresh air. He’s allowed no contact
with the other inmates and apparently cannot even see them during his time out
of the cell. I still think he’s a waste of the $100,000.00 per year it takes to
keep him in KP but c’est la vi!
I’ll also send a picture of the ominous front
gates of Kingston Pen for you to view. While I was taking some shots of the
prison from across the street, the front door slammed behind a visitor that
emerged from the prison. Man, when that door slammed, it gave me the eeriest
feeling to hear that sound. If you’ve ever thought about committing a crime,
you’d surely change your mind after realizing that that sound would precede the
few years you’d be spending on the other side of it if you got caught. Just
hearing the huge steel door clang shut is enough to send shivers down your
spine. They say the prison holds 450 inmates in general population and 50 in
“special circumstances” cells. When the prisoners are allowed out in the yard
they can’t see anything of the outside world but blue sky above the prison.
It’s located on a beautiful piece of land on the water front but the walls are
much too high for anyone but the guards in the towers to see the outside world.
Kingston has 18 prisons but only 9 of them are currently operational today. The
P4W (Prison For Women) is still standing directly behind the museum house but
was closed in 2001 after the government built 4 new prisons for women including
the one right here in Kitchener on Homer Watson Blvd. It was the home of Karla
Homolka for a while but since she’s no longer in prison I don’t know of any
other famous female prisoners here in Kitchener’s unit.
The Prison Museum is very interesting and
worth taking in if you every visit Kingston.
There was one more site we visited that was
worth a mention. The Martello towers of Kingston are a cool place to visit.
They are the 6 round structures that are located along the water front, two of
which are on the edge of the harbour in down town Kingston. They were built in
1812 by the British as cannon placements to help them ward off any attacks by
the Americans from across the river. Although they were never used for the
defense of Canada, they were ready if any Americans should want to try to
invade us. As it turned out, they needed to have the roof removed before the
British could fire their weapons from the top battle placements and it took 24
hours to remove the roof. So, our tour guide told us that the towers would only
have been of any use in battle if the Americans were kind enough to give the
British 24 hours notice of their intention to attack Kingston. LOL! I guess
this goes to show that even the politicians of yesteryear were prone to
spending money on useless projects too! LOL! We toured one of the towers that’s
in the waterfront park and they have girls in period clothing that tell you all
about the towers. There are three floors to each tower. The main floor contains
four small cannons that shoot out in four different directions. The walls of
the tower are 9’ thick and made of limestone. The cannon balls of the enemy
would just bounce off the outside walls of the towers due to the thickness and
round shape of these forts. The second floor (Top Floor) was one big open room
with an elevated (4’) pedestal in the middle. The back end of a huge cannon
rested on this pedestal and the front of the cannon mount rested on a rail
track that ran around the outer perimeter of the room about 14’ from the
center. This allowed the soldiers manning the fort to push the front of the
cannon around the rail so they could fire it out any one of the 4 larger
windows in the wall of the upper level. Once the roof was removed from the
tower, the soldiers could also fire their rifles at the enemy from any point on
the upper wall. A detachment of soldiers could actually live in the towers so
they would be ready if the American’s ever did attack. They had small bedrooms
on the lower basement level and cooking facilities on the main floor. There is
also a cistern in the basement from which they could draw their fresh water for
cooking and bathing. You really do have to visit one of these structures
yourself to believe it. They are amazing pieces of history and Kingston had 6
of the 12 Martello Towers built in Canada. The others are in the Maritimes and
I believe all are still in good condition. I’ll include one of the pictures of
the tower as well. I hope you enjoy a look at the pics from Kingston.
*
That’s all for this week. I hope you enjoyed
hearing about or weekend in Kingston.
Thanks for tuning in and I look forward to
talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report.
Bye for now… Greg
PS: Something To Think About>
We saw one cop cruiser while in Kingston. Do
you think that having all those prisons in their town acts as a deterrent to
crime? LOL!
****
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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