POSTING #148

CATCHING UP

The last few weeks have been crazy here but there is a lull at the moment and it gives me a chance to tell a few stories.

Declaration of War

On June 18, 1812, US President James Madison signed a declaration of war against the United Kingdom and its dependencies (e.g. Upper Canada). Many historical documents are lengthy and boring but the declaration of war is neither. I think it is useful to read it and realize just how threatened Upper and Lower Canada were in June of 1812. (Click to enlarge.)

For several years, legions of Niagara-on-the-Lake volunteers have been preparing to commemorate that event. They’ve been attending lectures on the history of the war, and on matters such as the dress and menus of the time, and, above all, they’ve been planning and organizing.

And now, all that preparation is being put to the test.

And the community is more than passing the test!

There were many activities in the days around June 18th, but I will focus on only a few of them.

The Brock Ball 

History (or legend) has it that word of the declaration of war reached Niagara-on-the-Lake several days after Madison signed it. A breathless messenger burst into a dinner being hosted by General Brock at the Officers Mess at Fort George, and announced to the General and his guests (British and Canadian officers, along with American officers from Fort Niagara) that war had been declared.

General Brock thanked the messenger and then told his guests that he was not prepared to have a declaration of war interfere with a fine dinner. Fighting could start the next day. He led his British and Canadian guests in a singing of God Save the King, while the Americans toasted President Madison.

The guests resumed their eating and drinking.

At the end of the meal, General Brock escorted the Americans to their boats for the short trip across the Niagara River to Fort Niagara. He shook hands with them and is supposed to have said that although they were parting as friends, the next time they met it would be as enemies.

Our Museum, the Niagara Historical Society Museum, decided to organize a re-enactment of that dinner on June 16, 2012 (a few days before anniversary of the signing of the declaration of war, but who is counting). There were 200 tickets sold, mostly to people from the Niagara area but there were guests from around Ontario and a few from the US, for example there were guests from Tennessee and Pennsylvania. The Ontario Lieutenant Governor and various federal, provincial and local officials also attended.

Pat and I travelled to Fort George in a horse and carriage, which we shared with a couple from Toronto, Don and Kathy.

Here is how we looked as we prepared to enter the tent for the dinner.

This picture is courtesy of Ruth Bolton.

 If you will permit me, I would like to say a word or two about our costumes. 

Pat is wearing an outfit, which she made herself working from an1812 pattern. The russet-coloured linen dress is Empire Style trimmed with satin ribbons on the sleeves and under the bodice, and has many deep pleats in the back of the skirt. It is ankle length at the front and dips to floor-length at the back. Note the bell-shaped finish at the elbow. Because this was a formal occasion, Pat also wore an ‘over-dress’ with a taffeta bodice and chiffon skirt.

In 1812, women in Upper Canada attending a formal dance or dinner would wear a small tiara in their hair or a band to which they attached a feather arrangement. Pat chose the feather arrangement. Her jewellery was typical of the period: long, dangling earrings, an amber necklace and an amethyst broach. She carried a black-beaded feticule (a small purse) and an antique fan with a russet tassel.

My dress is formal Scottish from the period. I had originally planned to wear a kilt but found that the wool scratched me something awful. Instead, I opted for what the Scots call ‘trews’, trousers made from the family tartan, which some experts believe predate the kilt. A Toronto firm imported Hunter tartan material from Britain and tailored the trews, lining the legs so the wool didn’t make me feel itchy. My top half consists of a dress shirt, with studs, black tie, a waistcoat and a Prince Charlie jacket (the 17th century Prince Charlie!).

Here is my non-formal 1812 costume, if you are interested. (I should point out that we1812 volunteers are encouraged to select a persona. My persona is that of a retired surveyor, while Rick is playing a Methodist minister, Tom a sheriff and so on.) Here is my concept of what a retired surveyor would wear when he came to town in the summer.

Notice the 'drop-front' cotton trousers. There were no 'flies' in 1812, just lots of buttons. One doesn't leave bathroom calls to the last minute. Pat found the cane in a local antique shop. I have a green wool frock coat, with tails, for cooler weather.

Getting back to the Brock Ball, two hundred of us assembled in a huge tent inside Fort George. The weather was perfect and the sides of the 100 foot long tent were rolled up.
 

Volunteers from the Niagara Horticultural Society prepared elaborate flower arrangements for each of the tables. Some old friends from Grimsby were among the volunteers. Pat kept the spirits of the volunteers up with coffee, tea and treats. In the background one can see Fort George's palisades.

And we began to eat and drink--- and eat and drink, and eat and drink, etc. etc.

Chefs from the Queen's Landing Hotel prepared this menu from 1812 recipes. Every item on the menu was brought to the tables, platter after platter. Sorry about the wine stains---I think it was the Port at the end of the meal. (Click to enlarge.)

After each course, we stood up, walked around, listened to a quartet from Music Niagara and talked.

Part way through the meal, a breathless messenger broke in and shouted to ‘our’ General Brock that war had been declared. The good General told us to continue dining. We sang God Save the King and it is possible that some of the (few) Americans present toasted President Madison but I didn’t see them.

In 1812, dinners began with three or four tablecloths placed on top of each other. There were no dinner napkins, so the guests wiped their hands and mouths on the table cloth. After each course the servers removed the top, soiled, tablecloth.

In our case, we were provided with napkins for the first two courses. Then the napkins and the top table cloth were removed. For the last courses, we did what the 1812ers did---wiped our hands and mouths on the table cloth. It was an odd experience.

Dinner began at 6 PM and we finally struggled (waddled?) off home between 11 and 12.

A wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime, experience!


Fort George

On June 18th we went with some visiting relatives to Fort George for the official commemoration of the Declaration of War. Parks Canada and the Friends of Fort George put on a fine show with a fife and drum concert, Native American drumming, hoop dancing and singing, followed by musket and cannon firing. The evening ended with the world premiere of a spectacular sound and light production about the War of 1812. The sound and light show will be shown at the Fort on Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays from mid-July to October.

My cousins said they enjoyed the show mightily but the one from Saskatchewan couldn’t get used to the fact that as we walked around the Fort it wasn’t necessary to watch for gopher holes.


The Tall Ships Are Coming

Since moving to Virgil, we have learned that if we have to get to an appointment in St. Catharines or Grimsby during the Welland Canal season it is better to cross the canal via the Skyway Bridge. If we aren’t in a rush it is more fun to cross the canal at one of the locks, in hopes that a bridge will be up and we will have a chance to watch as one of the ocean-going vessels or an enormous ‘laker’ threads its way carefully into a lock.

The other evening we were coming home via the Carleton Lock and struck gold.  Coming toward the lock was a tall ship with young men and women standing on the deck and hanging from the riggings.

Tall ship just entering the Carleton Lock on its way from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario.

We couldn't catch the name of the ship,but the flag flying from the top of the centre mast said, “Never Surrender the Ship”. We assume the ship will be taking part in The Navy of 1812: Sailors on the Lakes event which is being held on July 14 and 15 near Fort George. There will be 5 tall ships (4 Brigantines and a schooner-1812 Squadron) and 22 longboats with 300 naval re-enactors.

Yet another 1812 event!

For a full list of upcoming events, please check out NOTL's Bicentennial website.

The Tragically Hip

The popular Kingston Ontario band, The Tragically Hip, held two concerts in Niagara-on-the-Lake--- on Friday, June 29th and Saturday, June 30th. Not being great rock fans, we decided to give the concerts a pass.

On Saturday night our curiosity got the better of us. How were the organizers (and the town!) going to cope with the 20,000-30,000 fans who were expected?

Along with hundreds of ‘eavesdroppers’ we found a spot near the VIP entrance and settled in to watch (through gaps in the fence) and listen.

It is not our taste in music but the fans obviously loved it.

Staid old Niagara-on-the-Lake will never be the same.




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Note:

I hope that the next Letter from Virgil will appear in a couple of weeks, but things are still hectic so I can’t promise that.

There is a new Posting (#9) in the companion Icewine Guru Blog, in which the Guru offers his comments on the US Supreme Court decision on the health care mandate. He is feeling a little smug since he predicted the Court would find the health care legislation constitutional. The Guru also makes some startling comments about the possible outcome of the US presidential election.

POSTING #144

Potluck Posting from Virgil

I saw a poster this week for a church dinner, and it reminded me of the potluck dinners that churches in Arthur used to hold. In honour of those dinners, here is a motley collection of stories. As with the dishes at the church dinners---casseroles, potato salads, green Jell-O salads with marshmallows, cakes, pies, butter tarts and so on--- you will probably find that some are tastier than others.

I hope you will find something you can enjoy!

A New Niagara Winery 

Last week we visited the Megalomaniac Winery, which is carved out of the rock at the crest of the Niagara Escarpment, above the town of Vineland.

Before we go on, we better deal with the name.

The highly successful but not not-at-all-bashful entrepreneur, John Howard, who made a bundle of money from the sale of Vineland Estates Winery, decided to create a new winery on the Escarpment. Here is how he explains the name:

“I originally wanted to christen these wines in my name, John Howard…and then my friends accused me of being yet another '[profanity withheld] megalomaniac'. Regrettably, the name stuck.

And so, I now produce wines called Megalomaniac. Meant to be shared with friends of equivalent or even greater egos. Pairs extremely well with delusional fantasies of wealth, power, and occasionally, omnipotence.

Enjoy.”

The entrance to the winery is through high, totally splendid oak doors.

On the left is a tiny office for placing orders, while straight ahead is the working part of the winery, with shiny stainless steel tanks, black hoses winding along the wet floor, and in the rear stacks of wooden barrels going back into the ‘cave’.

Along one wall is a tasting bar.

The man at the tasting bar had obviously picked up Howard’s penchant for extravagant overstatement. As he offered us a taste of a reserve Merlot, he intoned, “When you taste this, you will think you are an angel on the doorstep of paradise.”

The wine was actually pretty good, if not heavenly, but, at $40 a bottle, a little out of our price range.

We bought a couple of quite acceptable, and more reasonably priced, Rieslings.

As we paid for the wines, we admired a Megalomaniac Tee shirt, black with a message in large white letters, “Intimidate, don’t imitate”.

The bottle labels convey the aristocratic, wealthy image  the Megalomaniac  Winery wants to project with  the elegant gentleman, bowler hat and all.

We will go back often to sample the wines and John Howard’s ebullient---and definitely un-Canadian---hutzpah.

And the view over Lake Ontario from the winery is not too shabby either.

The Revitalized Fort George

I’ve been embarrassed in the past to recommend that friends and relatives visit ‘our’ fort, Fort George.  At first it was because it had a dilapidated air, and then it was because it was always under construction, as the Federal Government spent huge amounts of money to restore it.

No more!

The restoration process is complete and the result is outstanding. And---as planned---just in time for the Bicentennial of the War of 1812.

We took our family and a friend (13 of us---but who’s superstitious) to the Fort last weekend.

Our guide/interpreter, Sonya, seemed to draw energy and enthusiasm from the changes that have been made to the Fort. She bounded around the displays as she skillfully and objectively outlined the history of the Fort and of the War of 1812. We were convinced that her presentational skills must have come from a background with the Shaw, but, no, she had been a teacher. She is priceless!

The artifacts are authentic and not to be missed.

The tour was followed with a musket demonstration. Our two year old grandson, with his hands over his ears, grinned and jumped as the guns boomed.

We were then free to explore the Fort. The younger and more nimble members of the family, including the two year old, raced to the powder magazine, and then through a tunnel to a lookout tower. Later on, the two year old kept repeating ‘cave’ as he tried, with his eyes dancing and his hands flying, to describe the tunnel and the tower.

The Fort is now ‘two thumbs up---away up’.

It is not to be missed.

And the gift shop, just outside the Fort, is also worth a visit. It is run by a volunteer group, Friends of Fort George, and is full of high quality souvenirs (schlock not permitted), books on Canadian history, patterns for 1812 costumes, and on and on.

We will be back often.

Niagara-on-the-Lake Has a Potter’s Field

A recent article in the St. Catharines Standard shocked and angered citizens of Niagara-on-the-Lake (that includes those of us who live in Virgil---our village was incorporated into the municipality of NOTL in 1970).

We discovered that a field owned by the provincial Ministry of Transportation in the southern part of our municipality, just off the QEW, is being used as a disposal site for ‘road kill’---for animals killed on the QEW and nearby roads. Apparently, a company has a contract to collect the dead animals, take them to the field, and cover them with gravel.

Two aspects of the story troubled us. First, it seemed that some of the animals were not being properly covered. Coyotes had discovered the field and found it easy to dig through the thin layer of gravel, and feast on the dead deer, raccoons, cats and so on.

And then, a pet dog, Jeremiah (part lab), who had been missing for several months was discovered by a woman who recognized him from photos she had seen in the newspaper. Apparently, the ‘road kill’ contractors hadn’t made any effort to notify the family of the death of their pet even though the dog was wearing a tag.

We are told that the Ministry of Transportation is preparing a new protocol that will make it clear to the contractor that dead animals are to be properly covered, and that efforts must be made to notify owners of dead pets.

I am sure that it is the first time that the words ‘Niagara-on-the-Lake’ and ‘road kill’ have been used in the same story.

And we don’t like it.

It is not good for our brand!

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As a digression, after I used ‘Potter’s Field’ in the title, I decided to look up the origin of the expression. It seems to have Biblical roots.

In Matthew 27:7, the disciples discussed what to do with the thirty pieces of silver that Judas had left behind after he hung himself, out of remorse for having betrayed Jesus. The 2007 New Living Translation of the verse is:

“After some discussion they finally decided to buy the potter's field, and they made it into a cemetery for foreigners.”

The ‘potter’s field’ was a place where a potter would have collected the clay needed for pots, bowls, and so on. Because of the clay, the field would not have been suitable for agriculture, but would have been perfectly suitable for the burial of people.

In North American, and perhaps elsewhere, the term has, of course, been used for the places in which the indigent (and the executed) were buried.

‘The Tragically Hip’ Are Coming to Niagara-on-the-Lake!

The Kingston, Ontario band, ‘The Tragically Hip’ (or just ‘The Hip’ to aficionados) is performing on June 30 in a large park in The Old Town, near the Butler’s Barracks. Some 20,000-30,000 people are expected to listen to the band, which at last count has won 14 Juno awards.

A concert with so many people has required some compromises from our small and staid community. The organizers of the tour held a well-attended public meeting, which from all reports proceeded in a very civilized manner. As a result of the meeting and subsequent discussions in the Town Council some changes were agreed upon.

First, the Town’s noise bylaw has had to be amended so that for June 30th (and for June 30th only) it comes into effect at 11PM, instead of10 PM. One senior resident of the area said that while she really didn’t appreciate the ‘so-called music of rock groups’, she supposed she could put up with the noise for one additional hour.

Secondly, a number of streets will have to be blocked off, with most of the music lovers being bused in from parking lots outside the town. The Shaw Festival has shown commendable community spirit by cancelling one evening performance and by shifting another to an afternoon matinee.

Our War of 1812 Bicentennial Committee will have a booth at the concert, in order to give out information on the events we are planning. I can report that many of our younger volunteers have bravely offered to ‘man’ the booth, despite the ‘noise’.

A ‘Shout Out’ for a Mystery Novel

I picked up a mystery the other day at our library, ‘The Wild Beasts of Wuhan’. I saw that it was by a Canadian author, Ian Hamilton, and decided to borrow it.

The name seemed familiar, and then it came to me. He had been in Canadian Immigration when I was with the service and our paths had crossed on one or two occasions.

Now retired from the public service, Ian has been using his experience with Canadian Immigration in the Far East and elsewhere in the world to write mystery novels. He introduced his heroine, Torontonian Ava Lee, in ‘The Water Rat of Wanchai’. This novel was followed by another in the series, ‘The Disciple of Las Vegas’. ‘The Wild Beasts of Wuhan’ followed and I understand Ian has a new book about to appear.

I found ‘The Wild Beasts of Wuhan’ a really good read. Clever plot, well developed characters, and fascinating (but not excessive) descriptions of life in China today.

I am now going to read the earlier novels, starting with ‘The Water Rat of Wanchai’.

I enjoy mysteries but I have been getting a little bored lately with some popular authors who seem increasingly to be writing to a formula.

Ian Hamilton doesn’t.

If you like mysteries, you may want to give him a try.

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I hope you enjoyed this potluck posting, and that you found something as tasty as a piece of Mrs. Workman’s never-to-be-forgotten peach pie!

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See you on May 6, 2012 for Posting #145 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@gmail.com.

Note:
There is a new Posting (# 8) in The Icewine Guru blog. In it the Guru gives his prediction on the Supreme Court decision on the health care mandate. He and the Professor and their wives then discuss religion and politics. If you would like to read the Posting, please click on:
http://theicewineguru.blogspot.com/