History of the Cottage: Part Two

This is the second instalment of Pat Grafton's guest post, a very colourful, fascinating story told from memory, of the house that continues to bring our family together. 

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I think I shall now try to describe the interesting characters that inhabited the cottage each summer. 

First, H.A.  He had come over from England as a young man around 1880 and after working in several jobs, started a piano business.  After it got established, he sent for his blind brother to tune the pianos.  He married Florence Scott and they had three children, Armitage, Frank and Alberta.  He did extremely well in business and investments and bought a large house on Dorchester Street in Westmount, where he remained until his death in 1960.  His children were in awe of him and rarely did anything against his wishes.  For instance, Armitage wished to marry a Catholic girl and was told that if he did he would be disinherited – so ended that romance and Army remained a bachelor all of his life.  However, Frank did marry the Catholic girl of his choice and was not disinherited, but H.A. insisted that his three daughters be brought up Protestant.  This turned out to be a very happy marriage. 

Armitage, H.A.’s eldest son, went into the family business with his father and brother.  He volunteered a great deal of his time organizing entertainment for war veterans of World War II through the Canadian Legion, was loved by all, and was called “Uncle Army” by everyone.  He was also active in the Kiwanis Club of Montreal until his death at age 92.  (Another interesting fact that came out at the time I met the family was that my father and Army had known each other quite well as members of the Kiwanis Club.)

Alberta, H.A.’s only daughter was always “Papa’s pet” as his sons’ said, and this was quite true.  She was never allowed to do any housework or cooking and, as a result, never did learn these things in her entire life.  She did take a home-making course at Macdonald College, but to no avail.  On the other hand, she did receive her Teaching Certificate from Macdonald and taught Grade I for many years.  She told me that her teaching years were the happiest in her whole life.  In fact, we discovered that she had taught my sister, Doris.  She remembered Doris particularly because of the smocked dresses she wore to school that my mother had made for her and said that she would send Doris with a note to another teacher solely for purpose of letting her see the dresses she wore!  Alberta did not expect to marry, but Ross Grafton, whom she met at church, popped the question and she accepted.  Two years later Geoff (my husband) was born.  Fortunately, she was able to have help in the house, and at the time I met the family, Lizzie was her housekeeper.

Ross Grafton, Alberta’s husband, was a part of the scene from the time of his marriage to Alberta in 1927.  He commuted regularly on Wednesdays and weekends and after his retirement, spent the summer with us after H.A. died.

His chief interests were his car which was always kept in perfect running order, and his motor boat, the dispro (disappearing propeller).  He spent many a happy hour going all over the lake.  In the mid-sixties, he bought a new boat which he christened The Diana after his little granddaughter.  He was always looking for passengers but as his trips were often too long for us (sometimes two or three hours), when we saw him heading for his boat, we all got very busy.  When television came upon the scene he went to the U.S.A. and bought one of the first ones made.  I believe he ended up owning seven in all.  As you might gather, anything mechanical was of interest to him

He was a very affable and loving man and I was very close to him having lost my father at an early age.  He spent most of the summer months with us as Alberta did not like to live there and was very content  with the arrangement.  I was very happy to have him with me as both Scott & Diana were in cribs at that time and he was good company for me as, of course, Geoff was working and commuting.

Lizzie was a tyrant with a violent temper.  I could never understand why Alberta kept her, but she said that she was afraid to lose her as she was totally dependent upon her.  I guess it was a case of “better the enemy you know.”   She died in her forties of some mysterious disease and Alberta was able to find a very kind and efficient woman to replace her.

Elizabeth, H.A.’s housekeeper, was sent to Canada by her family.  She had been in service in a wealthy home in England but was sent home in disgrace for having insulted the housekeeper.  I do not know exactly when she came to H.A., but she was always a part of the household for as long as I can remember and stayed with him until she was too old to continue.  She did all the cooking in the country and was a delicious cook.  When the family went to town for their Friday weekly excursions, Elizabeth always came back with a new hat.  She was a short woman and very stout and had very little hair on her head and these new hats perched on her head were visions to behold!  However, she was very good-natured and was happy as long as she was complimented frequently on her cooking.

And so it was with this interesting group that my husband Geoff spent all his summers.

History of the Cottage: Part One

Alexandra’s maternal grandmother, Pat Grafton, is lively, outgoing and warm. She is also a walking encyclopedia of experiences and stories. We are honoured that she has accepted our invitation to guest post, and over the next few weeks Pat will string together an incredible hundred year history of the family cottage on Ile-Cadieux (near Vaudreuil-sur-le-lac). I first laid eyes on some of Pat’s written memoirs in 2009 during their early development. Their vivid narrative quality and the obvious fun she was having creating the document moved me to both encourage its completion and start digging into my own family history. This work was finished soon afterwards, with the advice and feedback of a professor friend and Pat’s granddaughter Victoria helping with the compilation, layout and digitization of images.

What follows over the course of these installations demonstrates the centrality of place in personal history. Place anchors and binds subjects over time; the stability and safety of place ensures the continuity of relationships and identities. No post to date has been as true to the complete theme of this blog. Enjoy!

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Pat, 2009

The Cottage at Ile Cadieux

Memoirs of Patricia Grafton

This is the story of a cottage and five generations of a family who have lived in it since 1916.   It is now 2009 and the fifth generation is still enjoying it.   

The Background

The land was purchased by W. R. Eakin in 1910 for $200 and in 1916 the property, complete with cottage, was sold by Eakin to Herbert A. Layton (my grandfather-in-law) for $1900.  H.A. (as he was always called behind his back) immediately extended the house on both sides, had a fieldstone fireplace built, screened in the large front verandah and smaller back porch and installed indoor plumbing.   That design remains today (see description attached).

The cottage as it was in 1916 when purchased from the Eakins.

 H. A. chose this location because of the incredible view of the lake and sunsets, and because of its then difficult access from Montreal – he did not like to have visitors!  In those days one would have a long trip on a narrow road along the lakeshore, then take two ferries, one from Ste. Anne de Bellevue to Ile Perrot, and one from Ile Perrot to Dorion.  From Dorion, one would drive on another narrow road about four miles and walk over a small bridge to the island.  In 1918 the bridge was enlarged to accommodate cars. This was a great help to the islanders and, as a result, many more cottages were built.                              

Two photos of the incredible sunsets that H.A. loved.

H.A.’s sons, Armitage and Frank, were in the army training at Petawawa at this time as this was during the First World War. One day they surprised the family by arriving on foot at the cottage.  It seems that they asked and received permission to hop off the train that was taking the soldiers to Montreal for a short leave.  The train slowed down for them and they got off a few miles from the island and hitch-hiked a ride from a farmer to the island.  This was their first view of the Island and they fell in love with it as everyone else had.

Moving to the country each year in those days was a major undertaking.  Before the family moved out, shutters had to be removed from all windows, mattresses aired and the pump started.  When the Layton/Grafton families moved, they brought carpets, curtains, china, etc.  There was quite a social life for the ladies, as husbands and fathers came out only on weekends.  Formal teas were held and much visiting back and forth took place.  This lifestyle continued through the 1920s and until Mrs. Layton died in the thirties.  Her daughter, Alberta, then took over the responsibilities of the summers in the country.

After H.A. retired in the early 1940s, all the family went to town for the weekly shopping on Friday of each week with the old gentleman at the wheel of his 1940 Oldsmobile  - quite a hair-raising experience for the passengers:  H.A. did not learn to drive until he was over 70 and insisted that the proper way to drive was very slowly and in the middle of the narrow roads.  This made for much honking and shouting from the line of cars following him, to which he paid absolutely no attention; it was very uncomfortable for the passengers.  He drove back and forth to and from the country in this fashion until he was 92 and quite deaf.  Fortunately, a small accident in the city prevented him from further driving.

Thursday of each week was actually the commencement of the Friday shopping day to Montreal.  The ritual started early in the morning with the heating of large tubs of water on the stove in preparation for H.A.’s weekly bath (needless to say there was no hot water available at that time).  When the bath was ready, H.A. would be called and would disappear into the bathroom for one hour but before he was called, great rushing around took place to make sure everyone in the household had performed their daily ablutions beforehand.  That evening the grocery list was made out in preparation for the Friday shopping, and menus for the following week were planned by Mrs. Grafton (my mother-in-law) aided and abetted by the two maids.  To my recollection, this always seemed to take about two hours and left Mrs. Grafton in a state of exhaustion.

Vantage

It has been a few months since this theme journal has been touched. That is not to say that we’ve given up. Writing perennially suffers from a love / hate flu--speaking for myself--and for Ali it is a dark question of confidence. Subjects are hard to come by when you’re in no occupational shape to devote north of fifteen minutes a day to old fashioned, playful reflection. We have yet to determine our expectations regarding readership and our relationship to writing in this format, which is still new to us. Do we write for our own personal fulfillment? Do we want to ignite discussion, to make public knowledge of our ideas? In this way, our spare time becomes an experiment to establish a texture, parameters (or lack thereof) to all that we are trying (?) to do. So as sporadic as it seems, this blog continues, in what I hope comes across as a type of unpredictable, asymmetrical chronology.

It would be futile to do anything but select a few protruding instances of relevance in backtracking over the hole left by procrastination. Moving forward, the time and opportunities missed will be set free in elliptical sprinkles, moments of vivid clarity. Clarity is what we strive for in mapping (in both geographical and autobiographical senses); mostly, it arrives in those “a-ha” moments, poring over maps as I did endlessly throughout my childhood, fascinated with scale representations of real places, oblivious to their referential fidelity or political symptoms.

Clarity may also arrive as a surprise, shaking us awake while suddenly presenting us with a new vantage. In September, I hiked up Jay Peak, a ski hill located just a few kilometers over the US border in Vermont. Often, it is the promise of a breathtaking view that attracts people to the top of a hill, whether they climb, drive, or take a ski lift. As I do whenever I am presented with such a chance (we also found ourselves at the top of Mount Mansfield a few weeks later) I searched for landmarks. Luckily, the top of Jay, were it not for a chalet and gondola station, affords nearly a 360-degree scene. What it also delivers, as with views from planes, is the ability to feel your unique location in the world, to transplant all your cartographic knowledge onto your far-reaching surroundings. In fact, I would say that referential knowledge is essential to this effect, or else the absolute vastness of the panorama becomes a spectacular, peaceful nothing. When you see things you recognize, you impose your mind’s map on the sight and find that everything makes sense. Its integrity is confirmed. Everything is in its rightful place. Lake Champlain, the Adirondack High Peaks region, Mount Mansfield, White Mountains of New Hampshire, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, all checked off the list; all exactly where they should be.

All of this is fine and good. It is what any natural navigator will tend toward. What was new in the case of that particular day was seeing Montreal from a flat distance. I have seen the city from the sky, shortly after takeoff and prior to landing, at the time captivated by what my mind’s map was matching to those familiar points. But our experience playing with Google Earth somewhat drains the excitement out of what a neighborhood looks like from 8,000 feet in the air. This was something altogether different. For the first time I was seeing my home from 120 km away (a two hour drive) and was taken by its enduring immensity. I must have been expecting a shorter span of the island at that distance. The picture provided here, snapped by hobby photographer James Fraser, one of my five companions on that hike, demonstrates this expansive sprawl (click on the image to see an enlarged version).

The viewer appears to be halfway between the forest and the clouds, as both act together as a cradle for a downtown flanked by Mount Royal toward the left of the picture, and a much separated Olympic Stadium on the right. This has altered my understanding of perspective, of how the viewing ratio we derive from looking at a map can totally deceive our actual perception of the real thing. This can be brought about by the difference in the size of the observer with respect to a sheet of paper versus when we are a million times smaller, thrown into that map, observing from within. Emotionally, it felt sublime.

I have used this otherwise insignificant moment to illustrate what I think many of us are constantly searching for but don’t know it – our next encounter with the sublime. In 1998, an American communication theorist, Robert Hariman, published an essay entitled “Terrible Beauty and Mundane Detail: Aesthetic Knowledge in the Practice of Everyday Life.” The essay deals with the interplay between the sublime and the mundane, opposing yet cooperating poles in artful symbolic action. The sublime is the emotional experience of both awe and wonder when we are confronted with “natural beauty, technological power, or artistic perfection”. It is a feeling of exhilaration that transcends the boundaries of our ordinary perception and consciousness and usually arrives as a result of an unexpected alignment of perspective and object. By contrast, the mundane is the usual quotidian routine and obligation that fills time between rare occurrences of the sublime.

In general, Hariman says that the sublime and the mundane are imitated in the practical arts through “oscillations” and transformations from one to the other, and although experiencing sublime moments can put one’s ethical (everyday) sensibilities at risk, it also has the power to change for the better. “Beauty can trap, but it also heals, and every structure is destabilized as it becomes subject to continuing oscillation between sublime and mundane embodiments”. While his theory is really about the effect of types of speech in achieving specific persuasive goals, it is easily applicable to many natural and unintentional occurrences in life as we live it. The sublime can adjust our rationality, causing us to, for instance, let down our guard, abandon strongly held assumptions or beliefs for the benefit of the greater community.

Okay, so I'm digressing into political territory here, so let's corral the herd, shall we. Urban geography, appreciated from the perspective of personal histories, is rife with spine-tingling revelations. The active search for diverse, unique texts that represent and reconfigure the concept of place, progresses in moments where discover a new way of seeing, or a connection between one thing and another we previously did not know existed.

[Not really giving in to academic form, but I thought I'd include the one reference:]

Hariman, Robert. 1998. Terrible Beauty and Mundane Detail: Aesthetic Knowledge in the Practice of Everyday Life. Argumentation & Advocacy 35(1): HTML Document. Internet. Available from http://search.ebscohost.com

Addington

Without getting into the delicate topic of the surfacing quality of Montreal’s automobile infrastructure or the budget management of previous municipal administrations, I will comment on one thing. There is much to say about how little gets done in the current and most recent decades as a result of political obstruction and wasted time, resources and energy on inquiries, investigations and incompetent practitioners that create public opinion stalemates. Movers and shakers are becoming rare, and those that do emerge from the woodwork are often percussively sent back by the hammer of cynicism borne of hyper-partisanship. There are no good guys and bad guys, only toucans squawking artless rhetoric at each other across a channel they refuse to cross.

We were born too late to experience a time of grand urban projects (debt notwithstanding), the kind that alter both the arrangement and areal image of a city, the kind that dramatically change our entrenched circulation patterns on a yearly basis and act as a constant reminder that our supposed self-evident practices should continuously be judged for relevance and renewal. The building of the Decarie Expressway is an interesting study. To be filled in on the circumstances surrounding that five kilometre stretch of Autoroute 15 that provides an approximate barrier between NDG and Westmount and, a little further north, between Hampstead and Cote-des-Neiges, follow this link.

For a more detailed story complemented by historical photos, visit Decarie’s entry on the Montreal Roads website.

My paternal grandparents immigrated to Canada from Italy in 1956 and settled in NDG. They lived in two houses before buying their permanent home in the 60s on Walkley Ave. The first house was on the West side of Addington between Upper Lachine Road and St. Jacques. I have yet to ask them if they were ever able to take a picture of the house, because a few years after moving out, it was one of those demolished to make way for the construction of Decarie.

Not only were those Addington homes pivotal parts of personal stories, they were part of a street that bowed down before the progression of Montreal’s once steady urban development. They were the tradeoff of that southbound rightward veer to spare a historic church before the highway leaps off the Turcot hill toward the sky, a sentiment aptly captured in the Wikipedia article. A church…or three blocks of duplexes. Despite those homes being little memorialized, the collective motivation to solve an obvious traffic problem, to alleviate mornings and afternoons of clogged neighbourhood one-way, one lane streets, to implant an artificial lifesaving artery, to ignore unreasonable dissent, defines true leadership and the use of power for the good of the city.

When I was informed of the location of my grandparents’ connection to this momentous chapter in the city’s history, I made a point of visiting the exact site to approximate where the house once sat. The picture below is not obvious, but looks south from the Upper Lachine viaduct, in line with where the row of once-existing houses began. The block is now an open-face sandwich, with the street itself an alienated service-road fragment and the enduring homes unprotected by the shady canape of a typical NDG avenue.

I’ve also included two maps taken from City of Montreal websites, the first depicts Montreal in 1939. I’ve annotated with a red rectangle where Addington street stood among other neighbourhood street in the west side combtooth. The white, open area to the south is where the Turcot Interchange was built in the 1960s. The second map is of the current day agglomeration Cote-des-Neiges and Notre-Dame-de-Grace. A similar annotation marks the temporal ellipsis. (To zoom in, click on the image and it will open on a separate page. It is sufficiently detailed.)

Finding traces of these geographical adjustments is fascinating, especially when the places that we know and remember are so tightly woven into the fabric of our personal and collective histories. So I nearly obsess over looking at pictures of how it is and how it used to look before time’s decay and projects that bring renewal.  To this end, and for those interested in urban geography and history, the Spacing blog is a vehicle of endless learning and engaging opinion about our ever-evolving neighbourhoods.

A Personal Note on Backyards

Summer is blazing by, but not without our well-fastened lasso. The final day of a memorable “we-love-our-life” kind of Canada Day weekend and what did I do? I drove around town snapping pictures of things with Ali’s little camera. It started with the drone of my weekly online-course installment this morning, and my worsening lack of focus brought about by contemplating what was cascading through my thoughts: the obvious theme of the weekend, and the key to its success is the backyard.

We don’t need beaches in Montreal, nor are we (at least I) content with the diminutive “balconville” moniker, which brings to mind the Quebecker’s obsession with reddening a winter’s dose of pasty white. I, for one, get headaches in the hot sun, but love the summer for its compromising promise of warm shade. So I resolved, following my chapter lectures and quiz, to somewhat retrace my weekend steps, to make good on promises to visit, and to breathe the garden air over drinks, conversation, and brisk photography (for which I have no knack – all the pictures in this post were mistakenly taken on the tungsten setting, undercompensating for the bluish sunlight).

Friday morning to afternoon, we were at the Ile-Cadieux cottage to celebrate my cousin-in-law’s birthday and annual wharf pitching. I absent mindedly forgot to take even cellphone pics of the event, but just as well, because the cottage on Ile-Cadieux has an incredibly rich history that has already been documented by the most reliable source alive to tell it: Alexandra’s grandmother, Pat. And what a compelling narrative. The reproduction of her text on this page is best left for a future honourable guest post. Its sheer magnitude commands it as it was a project we were thrilled to endorse from its start, and even happier still to see it completed in bound-book form.

Friday evening came along and I donned the annual red Canadian flag tie at the 2^nd annual Canada Day barbecue thrown by close friends. When daylight recedes into greens, blues, then navy, all we need are citronella candles, a ten-by-ten concrete porch, a table and chairs. Oh, and drinks. Need I say more? Memories are young in that part of town, but they are already beginning to stack up.

Healthy families are the ones that will find any excuse to get together for the hell of it, and between Alexandra’s and mine, get-togethers have become weekly affairs, in good or bad weather. Take, for example, a sendoff for my little brother’s symphony orchestra tour through Europe held in my parents’ backyard. There is almost nowhere I’d rather be than in this shady yet well-lit, accessible, calming, multi-level, multi-zone, lush, breezy, private, beautiful space. It has undergone several major transformations over the 24 years they (and I for much of it) have lived at that Pointe-Claire house. The latest one started with me still at home and participating in its conception, rearranging the flagstones on the raised terrace, helping my parents locate new construction sites around Montreal so we could pass by and collect naturally excavated boulders for the garden. The landscaping, now largely complete (while nothing is ever complete in my mother’s opinion) is spot-on, all thanks to 5 summers of careful craft, masterful vision, and not a penny spent on hired help (except when my father hired one of his own employees to paint the deck).

That space was little used for a few years before that. What was once a fort, swingset and basketball court-furnished childhood hangout had been scarred by both the extension built on house and our growing-up gravitation away from those types of leisure. We realized that we needed different accommodations, a space convivial for entertainment, relaxation, and socializing. The yard currently rivals a courtyard spa, with four zones to sit and have a conversation, two out of earshot, and two breakfast nooks. And what’s more is that it’s not even a big yard by any comparative means.

Our current home in Montreal West has a yard of similar proportions with an equally calming effect, albeit a much more straightforward philosophy. Space is space. A backyard is something hidden from the street. While a front yard provides your voisinage, the back delivers intimacy, privacy, and enclosure. The front introduces, invites and provides a facial identity. The back solidifies, edifies and immortalizes relationships. It is where we cook our meals and eat our breakfasts, peering out from the second floor balcony, or down on the grass-sprouting patio. It is the cat’s haven, for she rarely ventures beyond the fence. Everything she needs is here at home. Even her best friend, our neighbours’ dog, is a mere fence-hop away, and they spend their afternoons lying together under the porch, hiding from the sun. Such are the fastidious affairs of our pets.

My paternal grandparents live in NDG and have pioneered the family craft of making do with what you have, and making it look good – an attribute I have sadly not inherited. Their front garden is a landscape of stonewalls and statues, a metal gate, pave-uni, thick greenery, flowers and idiosyncratically shaped centerpiece rocks, all within a space of about 12 by 15 feet (the back of the completely attached duplex is only a small balcony over a back alleyway). To a stranger, it demonstrates a willingness to make others smile. It brings down barriers and offers a pre-salutation even prior to the interpersonal exchange. The organization of the space – two tiny circular paths around oddly shaped rocks to each side of a straight flagstone walkway to the front door – exudes comfort and a sense of order to visitors on a block where few, if any others, take pride in updating the aesthetic features of their homes (it would be distasteful of me to get into the specifics). There is no place to sit. Only to walk by, look, smell, admire.

My maternal grandparents, another Pointe-Claire stop on the day’s journey, have the same size plot as my parents. Their backyard, however, has a different functionality ratio in that at least half the space is dedicated to growing food. Despite the reduced walking and living space, what abounds is breathing room. I will be silent now. These tungsten-flavoured pictures will tell it for me.

We grew up in backyards. Our suburban existence is characterized by the land we are able to have and fashion as a McLuhan-esque extension of our person. To them, we have outsourced our evenings, our mealtimes, our lust for sun and shade in a history dotted with the occasional kegger. That history continues as we rely on this greenspace for sanity and resolve and for escape from within claustrophobic walls. 

Vitrine

Refreshments go down particularly well after a long day at the office, following a weekend of (for the most part) procrastination from math exam cramming, but most of all in the presence of creativity and purpose. When I arrive at the final vernissage "Situated Knowledges"of Ali’s summer course, not only do I behold a larger installation than previously imagined – and quite rationally laid out – but I’m thrilled to participate in what I understand as a multimediated meta-intervention (for some background on what an intervention is in this context, see a. the previous post, b. this website).

In (okay, almost) the same way that people walk through the Atwater market and cross the Charlevoix bridge over the Lachine canal with but a faint consciousness of the fact that history, important foundational “involves-us-all” history, happened in the area, the students’ staged interventions to resurrect that history (in green spaces around Montreal) were themselves recent history, having been missed by most in attendance today but animated through creative representation and an exhibit of primary works and footage.

Of course the Lachine canal example is the location chosen by Alexandra to perform her intervention and by default the one I’ve heard the most about. Her classmates’ projects have relocated and reimagined today’s public parks and green spaces like Victoria Square, Viger Square, the Maguire Meadow in sketches, photography, videography, and by juxtaposing symbols of the past by way of these ceremonial events, both locating, and themselves located in, time. A commemoration for commemorations. And how appropriately successful. Montreal embraces art and sets aside a place for every piece to survive on its own. For example, a group of small flower pots, each identified by labels reading the names of different First Nations peoples has survived a week sitting on the Victoria Square monument. How fitting that they have entered the landscape so naturally as memorial. Here, we live social and cultural memory through the present, through our perception of surroundings, through markers like (but not limited to) architecture, botany, and protection of heritage spaces. Memory both whispers and glares at us as we walk right by on the way to work.

Light pours into Concordia’s EV Building through the massive windows that basically are the MacKay wall, casting long shadows and providing an early dusk since we are on the East side.

The diminuendo, once outside, consists of sausages and sauerkraut, a sleepy bus ride and another walk up Westminster, only this time at twilight and dryer.

5 a 7, or 10: Hotel de la Montagne.

Yesterday evening after work, we made our way over to Hotel de la Montagne for a 5 a 7. The purpose? An end celebration for a summer course Ali took at Concordia on public parks and green spaces in Montreal, and a planning session for the class of eight’s upcoming vitrine installation and vernissage.

The first to enter from a heavy shower, managing to contain the inconspicuous umbrella shake, we got our first look at the place. Preliminary impression: Grand and detailed. No shortage of doors and pathway options leading to lounges, a bar area, a restaurant, boutique. What immediately draws the eye is a handless gold-coloured fairy sitting on a rotating chair over the fountain, below an enormous crystal (or substitute) chandelier. 

A few other key markers like the modern paintings of women (or the same one in different clothing) in baroque-inspired poses (baroque is the only word that comes to mind – what do I know) lining the walls around the bar and life-size statues of baby elephants and my kitsch radar kicks in. The baroque-era lady presiding directly over our table, it was discovered upon closer inspection, seemed to be communicating an ever-so-subtle derogatory visual idiom involving a bird and a hand-signal.

2 for 1 drinks, and we were off to a fast start. Keith’s for me; gin & tonic for the lady. Before long, she and a few others were dancing to some boomer-renaissance party standards provided by a smooth-voiced podium baritone. The group is lively and intellectual, and the odd sights (and people) surrounding us, not to mention the fast approaching vernissage, provide fodder for laughs and relaxed exchange. Ali rarely gets into it. Other than at our wedding, she has never danced of her own volition in my presence. But as I looked over the booth at the floor, there she was doing the Macarena, cutting the space’s average age in half. We vacated the booth at 10 p.m., following a welcome and unforeseen extension to a great evening, resolved to return for an encore one day.

What have I learned through conversations with Ali about her studies in the course? That an intervention in this case is the act of making something visible on a landscape, something that has disappeared, through representation of some kind, mostly performed as an event. A purposeful doing that exhumes a lost dimension, revives forgotten historical fact. See the class blog and prepare to be well educated with some brilliant interventions about some of Montreal’s well- and lesser-known green spaces. I look forward to their unveiling Tuesday evening (June 28).

We took the bus home, a relaxing, breezy departure from driving everywhere. I only take the bus a handful of times a year, Ali even fewer. We walked up Westminster in a refreshing falling mist that glows under streetlamps. No need to deploy the umbrella. 

Our First Post

The spaces we move through, inhabit, depend upon, avoid and imagine over a lifespan are both countless and often underrepresented when it comes to the memories they capture. What kind of meaning do these same locations hold for others? How many important moments and transformations has each place facilitated, witnessed? What kinds of uses have they provided for past visitors?

The details and indeed entire chapters of these microhistories tend to get lost through generations, changes of season, and the shifting of our focus toward the things structured to keep us occupied and indifferent. Time disintegrates behind our backs without so much as a snapped photograph or kept record through any other mode of inscription. Our inspiration for starting (and hopefully keeping) this shared blog is to bring new life to the places in our city that provide meaning to us. By us, we mean the two of us – a look at our native Montreal from the vantage of a young couple wishing to stay, and who recognize that the potential for fulfillment, growth, and happiness are not far outside (and inside) our door.

Our purpose is not solely to tread backwards and resuscitate some of the unsung personal memories associated with slices of our landscape – a tall order – and neither is it to avoid extracting some of their cultural richesse to benefit our own curiosity and that of others. We start today and move forward, with the gift of technology at our disposal, to record the often otherwise blurred and eventually muted meanings of the present. The multiple trails we create, the traces of ourselves we leave behind, form a map in the colour of our continuously reinvented cultural existence, an intuitiveness and adaptability without which frictionless passage in this city is not possible. But the act of walking these trails is what motivates us, and is very much part of the act of living, experiencing, feeling, creating, socializing, and having fun.