John Muir

     A while back I happened upon A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, by John Muir. I enjoyed the book and you will as well if chapter headings like, “Kentucky Forests and Caves”, “Crossing the Cumberland Mountains” and “Through the River Country of Georgia”, are appealing. I quoted from the book in a post back in April about what are now  “Polluted Rivers”. 
    I then went on to quote at length from his equally enjoyable book The Story of My Boyhood and Youth. The more I read by him and about him, the more I realized that there was no need for me to carry on about Muir since there are so many good resources available. But, before leaving him I would like to: 1) offer some suggestions about sources; 2) say something about those who followed in Muir’s footsteps and 3) introduce you to material that relates to the time Muir spent in Canada. 
     Given what is going on politically in the United States, it is useful to read about and remember Muir, who played a major role in developing the parks which are now under attack by an unsympathetic Secretary of the Interior and the POTUS.

Basic Muir Sources:
    Muir was a founder of the Sierra Club and you should begin at their website which presents The John Muir Exhibit. It is a model of what a website should be and has been continually updated since 1994. You can read all of his books there as well as most of what has been written about them and him. If you prefer to hold a book, get the Library of America’s - John Muir: Nature Writings.

Walking the Walk


     If you are not convinced by my meagre remarks about A Thousand-Mile Walk then I will introduce you to some people who were so inspired by the book that they undertook the trip as well. I am sure that some of you have felt like striking out for the territories when a scene such as the one above was briefly spotted along an otherwise industrially blighted I 75. Well, these people decided to re-trace Muir’s footsteps which were, at times, near that route.

     Muir begins his walk with a short train ride in Sept. 1867 from Indianapolis. Reaching Louisville, he 
“steered through the big city by compass without speaking a word to anyone. Beyond the city I found a road running southward, and after passing a scatterment of suburban cabins and cottages I reached the green woods and spread out my pocket map to rough-hew a plan for my journey. My plan was simply to push on in a general southward direction by the wildest, leafiest, and least trodden way I could find, promising the greatest extent of virgin forest.” (p.2)

     He does not go as the crow would and veers east to Savannah and takes a steamship from there to Fernandina and then walks west across Florida to Cedar Key (the one on the northwest coast, not any of the ones heading to Key West.) I don’t think it was quite a 1000 miles, but it was still a long trek through the post-Civil War south. (Readers get their money’s worth, however,  since the concluding chapters take him to Cuba, New York, and back across Panama to California.)
     
      Presented here are some energetic and adventurous people who have followed Muir’s walk, although it should be added, that most didn’t walk and most didn’t make the complete trip. If you are thinking about it I suggest beginning with “John Muir’s Walk Across the Appalachians,” by Dan Styer. Styer closely read Muir and then used historical maps and other sources to chart his route through the Appalachians. His work provides a good example of how one should proceed. The text and pictures from Oberlin are available here. As a bonus, if you type in this phrase on the Internet you can see a portion of the route on google maps: “John Muir’s Walk Across the Appalachians”.

The most recent one was just completed in 2017. With the exception of the first one, these are found on the Sierra Club site.

Retracing John Muir’s: Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf., Chad Gilpin.
“In 1867 the budding naturalist and future father of our national parks, John Muir, embarked on his thousand-mile walk to the Gulf from Jeffersonville, Indiana, to Cedar Key, Florida. Almost 150 years later I undertook the same journey, retracing the wilderness advocate’s footsteps through the South to catalog all that has changed in a century and a half of progress, to try and better understand the inception of his environmental ethics, and to learn to see the world as he did, harmonious, interconnected, rejuvenating and imbued with a pervasive spirituality. The chapters of this thesis retell selected legs of that journey.
Chad Gilpin - work for a Master of Fine Arts and the University of Kentucky.
[The entire work is available through the University of Kentucky.]

Chuck Roe -A Sesquicentennial Account of John Muir's 1,000 Mile Walk 
 “A review of the landscape 150 years after Muir's walk, with a focus on the progress of land conservation and identification of the many publicly-accessible, protected natural areas now located immediately along Muir's route. Roe's intent was to observe and describe the publicly accessible parks, nature preserves, forests and wildlife management areas, and other recreational areas along Muir's walking route through parts of five southern states, in homage and testimony to the success story of land conservation in the southeastern U.S.”
[ This is a very well-done and a useful resource. From the introduction:
“As 2017 is the sesquicentennial year for John Muir’s thousand-mile walk across the southeastern U.S. (1867-68), it is likely that many people will be attempting to trace his path. After largely retiring from a forty-year career as a land and environmental conservation professional in the same region of our country, I've been inspired to retrace the path of Muir’s long walk myself, but with a different focus—that being by telling the story of land conservation along the route of Muir's Southern Trek.”]

James B. Hunt, Restless Fires: Young John Muir's Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf in 1867-68 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2012). “Provides a detailed rendering of Muir's thousand-mile walk based on both manuscript and published accounts. Hunt particularly examines the development of Muir's environmental thought as a young adult. Includes 14 photographic reproductions of pages from Muir's journal containing Muir's often whimsical drawings; three period photographs; and 1 modern (2011) map of Muir's route. As part of his research for the book, Hunt traveled Muir's route from Louisville, Kentucky, to Cedar Key, Florida beginning on September 1, 2007, discovering major and minor libraries and research institutions all along the route which aided in providing maps, diaries, newspapers, local histories, and other historical material relevant to the social, political, and economic context of Reconstruction of the communities through which Muir passed in 1867. A book jacket summary of this book is available, and an annotation on our Annotated John Muir Bibliography.”[on the Sierra Club website]

Ron "Ramblin" Boone, John Muir's "Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf" "Revisited". 
“This self-published book relates the author's physical re-tracing of Muir's approximate waking route via a mini-camper. Each chapter includes brief excerpts from Muir identifying the various towns he passed through; Boone then elaborates on the history of each geographic area, both before and after Muir's 1867 journey. Includes a line-drawn map, and 14 sketches of various buildings seen along the route. While not really a scholarly work, the endnotes include references to many reference books which elucidate the history of the places Muir visited on his famous walk. (Washington, PA: "Ramblin" Ron Boone, 2006). ISBN No. 0910042969. 87 pp.; Illustrated, Preface, Endnotes, Index. 

Wil and Sarah Reding - Re-Walking Muir's 1,000 Mile Walk (2006) 
“Wil Reding, an interpretive naturalist, has long dreamed of re-walking Muir's 1,000 mile walk. He and his wife Sarah plan to begin re-tracing Muir's steps from Kentucky to Florida in May, 2006.”
[The Redings are a husband/wife team at “Rent a Rambling Naturalist”. They live close by in Kalamazoo and will for a fee share their walking experiences.]

Michael Muir's Horse Journey Re-Tracing Muir's 1,000 Mile Walk (2003) 
“Michael Muir, the great grandson of America's most famous naturalist, John Muir, was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at the age of 15. He is a passionate believer in what people with disabilities can achieve. He uses Horse Journey to show by example that disability does not mean inability. In 2003, his Horse Journey followed the route taken by John Muir in his first great wilderness adventure, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf.”

Robert Perkins, "Looking for John Muir" - film documentary (1996) 
“The filmmaker here passed up an excellent opportunity to explore what Muir's 1,000 Mile Walk to the Gulf may look like today, but instead provides little more than scenes of driving a sidecar motorcycle down truck-infested highways; visiting motels and hotels; and finding almost nothing of Muir left in the South. Because Perkins travels with a dog, he cannot even visit the one place Muir visited which is now a National Park - Mammoth Cave National Park. The only bright spot in this dismal documentary is the visit to Bonaventure Cemetery, which appears to be as beautiful today as when Muir slept there in October of 1867.”

Dr. D. Bruce Means retraced Muir's 1,000 walk on the same dates as Muir (leaving Louisville Kentucky on September 2), but in 1984 rather than in 1867, using Muir's journals as a guide. He wrote about it on pages 212-214 (chapter 22 - "Okefenokee Alligators") of his book Stalking the Plumed Serpent and Other Adventures in Herpetology (Pineapple Press, Sarasota, Florida, 2008). Means was heartsick to discover that virtually none of Muir's wilderness remained along the route: "The deep, green sea of bossy oaks and virgin hardwood forests described by Muir were gone from Kentucky and Tennessee. 1 couldn't walk up 'the leafy banks of the Hiawassee ... with its surface broken to a thousand sparkling gems' because that 'most impressive mountain river' had long been drowned behind dams. And more than 90 percent of the vast Coastal Plain longleaf pine forest was clearcut and replaced with agriculture and sterile tree farms."
[For an account of this account see: “Retracing Naturalist’s 1867 Trek Across a Very Changed Southeast,” Robert Press, The Christian Science Monitor, Nov.19, 1984.]

John Muir's Longest Walk: John Earl, a Photographer, Traces His Journey to Florida by John Earl, with Excerpts from Muir's A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf. (1975)
“Photographs of the route of the thousand-mile walk in March of 1973, starting at Cedar Key and retracing Muir's route backward so as to follow spring north. Earl sought out the few places that remain the way they were when Muir first saw them.”

(Another account is mentioned below. See Good’s, On The Trail of John Muir.)

John Muir in Canada

     I always associated Muir with the West and the Sierras. Prior to taking his 1000 mile walk he spent two years in what is now Ontario. From 1864 to 1866 he walked around southern Ontario and worked in Trout Hollow along the Bighead River near Meaford. He was employed at a mill making rakes and broom handles and clearly was very clever and inventive. Evidence of that is found at the Wisconsin Historical Society - have a look.

     Muir did not offer a specific account of his time in Canada and he probably lost most of his notes in the fire that destroyed the mill. What is known is found in letters he wrote while in Canada and, later, to friends in Canada and from the few local sources noted below. 

   As an aside, we often impute motives from the present as explanations for actions in the past and in that context the subject of ‘draft dodging” is raised by some who have studied Muir. He and his younger brother may have ‘skedaddled’ to Canada and there was a draft at the time. It is clear that both temperamentally and religiously John Muir would not have been ‘gung ho’ about the war that was raging. It was the case, however, that the numbers of both brothers were never called.

Sources Related to Canada



The Canadian Friends of John Muir
     It is odd that this reference found at the top of a list of resources refers to  a group that no longer exists and to a website which is defunct. The “Friends” are listed first, however, since they were clearly dedicated and produced some very useful information. In 2018 the link to the website created by the group formed in 1998 still works and is found here: http://www.johnmuir.org/canada/.

     It offers “A Bit of Background” and additional information about “The Friends of John Muir”. After accomplishing their mission of making people aware of Muir’s Canadian connection, the group disbanded (exactly when is not clear). Useful material about Trout Hollow, the Trout family and Meaford is provided along with these essays about John Muir.

      1)   “John Muir and His Canadian Friends,” Bruce Cox, Dec. 1998. Mr. Cox was a founding member of the CFJM, who taught history and was a high school principal. The accompanying bibliography is very useful and the essay informative.

     2)  “How John Muir Got to Meaford,” by Scott Cameron. No one knows for sure how exactly Muir got to Canada and where he entered. Mr. Cameron discusses the transportation options and routes available at the time.  He suggests Muir could have come from the “Soo” by boat to Collingwood. He is unlikely to have walked around the east coast of Georgian Bay. Muir could have come by train from Toronto to Collingwood and taken a boat from there to Owen Sound and walked to Meaford.

Meaford Museum
 
     The energy and interest created by “The Friends of John Muir” are maintained by the Museum which promotes a “John Muir Day”. For sale one will find: The John Muir Letters to His Meaford Friends, which consists of five letters from Muir to the Trout family.  In late September, 2017 the Museum was involved in a ceremony when new signage was created for the Trout Hollow Trail. 

    Some articles related to this ceremony are provided below since the contacts mentioned within them will be useful.

“Walk a Trail to the Past With John Muir,” Helen Solmes, The Meaford Independent, Sept. 26, 2017. A portion is provided below:
“More than 20 years have passed since the Canadian Friends of John Muir confirmed the location where the great conservationist and founder of the Sierra Club spent two years as a young man – in Trout Hollow, on the shore of the Bighead River, within the Municipality of Meaford….”
“This year, the Trout Hollow Trail that runs parallel to the Bighead River - from Bakeshop Bridge in Meaford south to the 7th Line and back toward Meaford on the opposite side of the river - has been designated an interpretive trail, with signs that identify points of interest along the way and offer historical information on John Muir’s time living and working in Trout Hollow.
     The trail will be officially opened during a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Saturday, September 30 at 10 a.m. at the Riverside Hall on the 7th Line. Local historian and Muir enthusiast, Robert Burcher, will then lead a hike into the site of the Muir cabin and Trout Sawmill.
     Burcher was a member of the former Canadian Friends of John Muir and the Bighead River Heritage Association and has led several guided tours to the site over the years. He is keen to share his knowledge of Muir based on his personal research retracing Muir’s travels to Canada that led him to Trout Hollow, the Bighead River, and the short two years living there before he began his long journeys on foot throughout the United States. Burcher, like many historians, views Muir’s time in Trout Hollow as the formative years that helped shape Muir’s conservationist views. In later life, Muir founded the Sierra Club that today is recognized as the leading conservation organization worldwide. He is also credited for his work with President Roosevelt in amalgamating the Yellowstone and Yosemite Parks, and for the formation of the American national park system.”

     The following account is provided by the Owen Sound Field Naturalists:

“Nature Club News,” John Dickson,October, 2017
(“A version of this column appeared in the OS Sun Times on Friday October 6, 2017 and in the Owen Sound Hub on Sunday October 8, 2017.”)
“On September 30,Robert Burcher led a tour to the Trout Hollow area of the Bighead River just outside Meaford. OSFN Club member Joe Buchanan reported “We enjoyed a delightful and informative talk and ribbon cutting ceremony held at the Riverside Community Hall followed by a walk-and-talk into Trout Hollow led by local historian (and archeological sleuth) Robert Burcher, all to celebrate the new info-signs locating and describing the mill workings and footsteps of John Muir during his time here. Robert’s enthusiasm is infectious. Although I had walked the area several times, to hear the details while standing in the actual locations was especially refreshing for me. I would also recommend a visit to the Meaford Museum any day as a further source of information re John Muir’s stay in the area.” The OSFN offers our gratitude to the Meaford Museum, and to Ron Knight whose generosity and welcoming hospitality has been key to the success of this historical recognition. Of special note was the opportunity to meet George Trout of Austin, Texas, a direct descendant of the Trout family.”

The Trout Hollow Trail
     See the “Ontario Bluewater Visitor Guide” which includes information about the Trout Hollow Trail & Bighead River Conservation Area.
    The Bighead River Heritage Association offers a map and pictures of the Trout Hollow Trail.
     Another good source is found at the Municipality of Meaford’s website under “Trails”.

The Upper Credit Field Naturalists Club For Nature
     In the newsletter produced by this Club one finds in the August, 2016 issue an unsigned article: “John Muir in our Headwaters Area!” It deals largely (as most Canadian-related accounts do), with Muir’s discovery of the orchid, Calypso borealis (the Hider of the North) in the Holland Marsh. If, like me, you do not usually associate orchids with Ontario, you can learn more (much more) here- Ontario Wildflowers.

Selected Books:
     Most standard biographies contain material about Muir’s travels to Canada. Here are three that specifically discuss the Canadian experience.

     Fox, W. Sherwood. The Bruce Beckons: The Story of Lake Huron’s Great Peninsula.
      Fox was a classicist and former President of the University of Western Ontario (now Western University). Chapter 12 of the book above bears the title “John Muir Was Here”. Here is how it begins:
     “That John Muir, the famous American apostle of conservation, early in his career drew from a prolonged sojourn on the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron a measure of the inspiration that made him what he was, is a bit of history known only to a few. Among the parts of this region in which he fared was the Bruce Peninsula. That fact is enough to entitle him to space in our pages, though he was more familiar with the territory east of Owen Sound. It is an honour to the whole region to have a valid though small claim to a great name, a name that will live as long as the Muir Glacier of Alaska flows and the Yosemite Valley retains unimpaired its imposing nobility and beauty. Of this claim our knowledge has been scant until a friend recently opened the pages of an unpublished manuscript. This, written by one in whose home Muir lived near the Georgian Bay shoreline, tells of a formative stage in Muir’s life about which he himself was strangely silent.” (p. 135.)
      He is using and cites on p.138: William H. Trout, History of the Trout Family. 1910 and  Peter Trout’s handwritten story “What I Know of John Muir”.( p.138)
Fox thinks Muir crossed “form the Michigan “Soo” to the Canadian “Soo” over the St. Mary’s River.” (p.137.) He then says that Muir “crossed the fifteen-mile strait from Manitoulin to the northern tip of the Bruce Peninsula”.... “ It is absurd to think that at time of the year [April] they [he was with his brother, Daniel]  tramped all the way around the east side of the Georgian Bay - a formidable journey of over three hundred miles - to enter the Peninsula from the south”.
     Fox is correct that Muir was “more familiar with the area east of Owen Sound” and he did wander about much of southern Ontario, but not much is known about where he might have been on the Bruce. (Fox’s account is discussed in: “Calypso Trails: Botanizing on the Bruce Peninsula,” Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands.
The Dalhousie Review, Vol. 90, No.1, Spring 2010.)

Gisel, Bonnie G., Nature’s Beloved Son: Rediscovering John Muir’s Botanical Legacy.
     In this beautiful book see Chapter 2: “Canada and Indianapolis”. Gisel thinks that Muir entered Ontario this way: “Leaving Portage, Wisconsin, Muir traveled by train from Chicago, Ann Arbor, and Detroit and then to Windsor, Ontario. In all probability at Windsor, he boarded the Great Western Railway and traveled east into southern Ontario. By April 1864, he was already wading in swamps, and on May 18 he started out on a “three weeks’ ramble through Simcoe and Grey Counties, walking an estimated distance of about three hundred miles.” (p.44) ( For Londoners, a copy is available in the Taylor Library at Western).

Good, Cherry, On the Trail of John Muir.
     Chapter 3 covers “Canada”. Good thinks that Muir crossed into Canada at Sault Ste. Marie. This is from the publisher:
“In this book, each stage of Muir's life and development is set within the context of the places that were special, magical to him - the Canadian forests, the glaciers of Alaska, Arizona's Grand Canyon, and most important of all, the High Sierra of California, where the John Muir Trail now runs for over two hundred miles from Yosemite Valley to the summit of Mount Whitney. By following the directions and maps included in On the Trail, readers are able to participate in Muir's adventures on both sides of the Atlantic, to feel a part of Muir's world as they too experience the beauty of the wilderness and the need to preserve it.” (For locals, there is a copy in the Brescia University Library).
  

Unobvious Demonyms

     In reading a review of a couple of books about Istanbul, I noted that the citizens of that city were referred to as “Istanbullus”. That got me thinking about demonyms and also reminded me that I should be glad I don’t have to meet a deadline when jotting down a few words. Although grammatical resources can be grabbed from the Internet easily and instantly,  the first one I looked at suggests that “Istanbulite” and “Istanbulites” can be used. One can imagine that the reviewer struggled to avoid any mention of residents from an earlier time (“Constantinopolites”?).
 
     I learned of the word “demonym” just a few years ago and it is of relatively recent coinage. It appears now in the OED and is defined as the  “proper name by which a native or resident of a specific place is known.” Since we reside in several places (countries/provinces,states/cities,towns) there are many demonyms, some of which are not obvious, and others which need to be determined cautiously - the more colloquial ones, in particular.

National Names
     What to call a person from Canada or Australia does not seem too difficult and neither of the slang expressions, “Canuck” or “Aussie”, is likely to get you punched. Distinctions need to be made when you refer to those from the United Kingdom and the problem of what to call citizens of the United States is so problematic that everyone gave up years ago. It is obvious that a whole bunch of people on this side of the globe are “American” and many of them are not found in the United States. If you are asked at the Canadian border about your citizenship and answer “American”, the agent is likely to reply “So am I, what country are you from?” A number of demonyms have been suggested for those who live stateside, but “American” was settled upon and these rejected: “United-Statesian”, “Fredonian”, “Usonian”, “Columbian” and “Columbard”, among others. In these post-colonial times, the last two are especially troublesome and the imperialist annexation of “American” by the Americans is more acceptable. 

Provincial Ones
     Even at provincial or state levels the demonymic distinctions are not always easily determined. Heading west from here (Ontario) one feels comfortable in greeting Manitobans, but less so when trying to figure out what to call those in the next province. Officially they are known as “Saskatchewanians”, but one can see or hear “Saskatchewanite”, or “Saskatchewaner” and others have been mentioned (“Saskie”, “Sasky”, “Saskabrigian”, etc.). Going farther west, travel among the Albertans and British Columbians is easy and those in the laid-back latter province probably won’t mind being called “Lotus-Landers” or even “Cascadians”. Heading east from London (Ontario) one immediately encounters another language which does not make determining demonyms any easier (“Quebecer”, “Quebecker”, “Québécois”) and when one reaches Newfoundland it is probably best not to use the common colloquial term. If you are going to the far north, “Nunavummiut" will come in handy.

     If you head to Michigan you will run into some “Michiganians”, but if you use the term “Michigander” you should also consider “Michigoose” for the females. “Wolverine” is widely acceptable. “Yoopers” should only be used for those in the northern part of the state (derived from the Upper Peninsula - U.P,-ers). If you continue on into Indiana, use “Hoosier”. If you are old enough to remember Fred Waring (you are probably dead), you will know what to call the Pennsylvanians and if you travel through New York you won’t have any problem until you get to Connecticut. (I suggest “Nutmeggers”.)

The Locals   
      From the name of the city it is not always easy to figure out what the residents within it should be called. Here are some unobvious demonyms for urban areas.

     Torontonians and Buffalonians should not call those in Akron, Akronians since they are Acronites. Burqueños reside in Albuquerque. Haligonians are from Halifax and Moose Javians are from Moose Jaw.

     Cantabrigians, Liverpudlians, Novocastrians, Mancunians and Sotonians reside respectively in Cambridge, Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester and Southampton. I am not sure if those in the Southampton along the Lake Huron shore refer to themselves as “Sotonians”, but I imagine the demonyms followed along with the toponyms.

     If this wasn’t complicated enough, one has to remember that some devious people will use demonyms in an opprobrious manner. Chicagorillas and Omahogs do not exist, nor do Baltimorons or Louisvillains. Only people from New Hampshire call those from Maine, "Maniacs".

Sources:
     The entry for “Demonym” in Wikipedia and the links provided in it  are all you need.  It is also the case that the demonym is usually supplied in each country and city entry in Wikipedia although they are sometimes missing in the tougher cases, e.g. Passaic. I discovered the book by Paul Dickson pictured above, but could not locate it locally. The terms to describe those in Saskatchewan are found in “Saskie, Saskie, Bo-Baskie,” by Ron Petrie, Regina Leader Post, Dec.1, 2011. The review containing the demonym 'Istanbullus': "A City Where East Meets West and the Past Is Always Present,” by Lawrence Osborne, The New York Times, Jan. 4, 2018.

     Although the word demonym does not appear, one will find a good discussion of them in Mencken’s The American Language; see the section on “Place Names” and the chapter on “Proper Names in America”. It is from that source that I learned of the Baltimorons; less kind words by him are often used for those who live farther south.

     If you need a more serious source see the U.S. GPO Style Manual which is available for free over the internet. See: “Demonyms: Names of Nationalities” on p.337. It is followed conveniently by a currency table which will help you determine how many Pula you should tip a Botswanan for carrying your bags.

Canadian American Relations

     Relationships between Canada and the United States are somewhat shaky as we begin 2018. While there have been rocky ones in the past, generally the citizens on both sides of the border are cordial to one another, especially in the northeast.

     I thought of this around Christmas when the CBC carried a story about the very large Christmas trees that have been sent annually from Nova Scotia to the Boston Common since 1917. That was the year of the Halifax Explosion and apparently the citizens of Boston were both helpful and generous when that disaster occurred, so a tree of thanks has been given every year.

     During the 1950s and ‘60s The Boston Globe carried a column dedicated to “Canadian American News” and you can learn more about it below.

Canadian Boston Relations

     For years The Boston Globe ran a column every Sunday under the headline “Canadian American News” and the first story beneath it in 1958 had as one of its subjects, "Christmas trees". The title is rather enigmatic - “Hard-Luck Notes Cut From Yule Trees” - and here is what it was about:

     “From Bathurst, N.B., comes a story that steps are being taken to stop the practice of attaching hard-luck notes to Christmas trees being shipped to the United States. The action was prompted by a statement last year by Lands and Forest Minister that unscrupulous adults in New Brunswick had tuned the idea into a full-fledged business.”

     The notes, usually relating the story of bleak Christmas prospects for a youngster, have reached American buyers and in some cases resulted in a flood of Christmas presents.

     Lands department officials, who admit there is no law against the practice, nevertheless are checking the trees for notes before they are shipped.”

That appeared in the first column on Dec. 7, 1959. 

     Each column consisted of a number of short items of local news, chiefly from the maritime provinces, but occasionally there were longer pieces about national politics. One learns from them  that the “magnificent Trans-Canada is expected to be done by Dec. 1960” and that Lord Beaverbrook has donated a skating rink to St. John. A school principal thinks that kids in Nova Scotia should go to school for thirteen years as they do in Ontario. Also in Nova Scotia, a school supervisor suggests that teachers have a witness present before wielding the strap. “It’s a matter of self-preservation to have a third person present. If a strapping is given and the parents want to make trouble over it, it’s just your word against the parents’ unless you have a witness.” There were also notices about parties and celebrations both in the maritimes and among the Canadians who had migrated to the Boston area.

   After just one year the headline, “Globe Canadian-American News Has Own Fan Club,” (Dec. 6, 1959) indicates that the column was popular. The piece includes a letter signed by hundreds of fans, some of whom indicated they have changed their subscriptions from other newspapers in the greater Boston area (this was back when there was more than one paper in a city and often more than one edition per day!)

     For most of the ten years ((1958-1968) the column was put together by the Globe’s Canadian-American editor, Leonard Lerner, who “had roots in Canada, and knew the country intimately.” One of the columns in 1958 covers the Springhill Mine Disaster and Lerner spent weeks there reporting on the rescue efforts. He wrote a book about the experience that was published in 1960 - Miracle at Springhill.  On Oct. 2, 1965 he suffered a heart attack and died at just 41. (His obituary is found in The Globe on Oct. 2, 1965.)

    When the column began on Dec. 7, 1958 it was announced that:  “The Globe begins today a new column for Canadian-American readers. It will run every Sunday and will include news of activity in Canada and among the local Canadian-American clubs.” There is no corresponding announcement when the column ceases. As far as I can tell, the last one was in the spring of 1968. Here are some sample headlines, but remember that many subjects and events were covered in each column.

“Disaster-Ridden Springhill, N.S.,Is Slowly Dying,”Boston Globe, Feb. 8, 1959

(“Nearly four months after this town of 7000 was belted by a mine disaster that took 75 lives, nothing much has been done to keep it from slowly dying.”)

“All Adult Indians Win Vote in Federal Elections,” July 17, 1960

(“Previously only about 20,000 Indians had been eligible to cast Federal ballots. These were veterans and their wives, Indians living off reserves and people in the Yukon and Northwest Territories.”)

“There's a Buffalo Hunt North of the Border,” July 24, 1960

“Exodus North From U.S. Seen Within Decade,” Nov. 4, 1962

“Whaling Industry Being Revived in Nova Scotia,” Nov. 11, 1962.

“Trouble Is Brewing Over Who Owns the Gulf of St. Lawrence,” Mar. 17, 1963

“U.S. Owns Too Much of Canada Says Professor," Nov. 17, 1963

“Outlook Bright as Pearson Starts His Second Year,” Apr. 26, 1964

“Franco-American Clubs Open Convention Friday,” Oct. 4, 1964

“65 May Be Boom Year for Across-the-Border Relations,” Dec. 27, 1964

“Work Started on Causeway Linking P.E.I. to Mainland,” Nov. 7, 1965

“Army of Skilled U.S. Workers Moved to Canada Last Year,” Mar. 6, 1966

“Canada's Prime Minister Not Top Paid Public Job,” Oct. 9, 1966

(It was the head of the CNR which was still owned by the federal government.)

“Election-Rigging Charges Shake Conservatives,” Sept. 4, 1967

“They're Not So Conservative Way Up North of the Border,” Jan. 7, 1968

“Swinging Trudeau to Face Solid, Stolid Stanfield,” April 28, 1968

     It is interesting to learn that late in 1958 colour television was going to be introduced into Canada, if it was successful in the U.S., and to find out that eight Nova Scotians wouldn’t be around to watch since they were killed while deer hunting (that, by the way, tied the all-time fatality record set in 1955). While many of the items are ephemeral (what band was playing at the Digby Legion), some are of interest to the social historian of Canadian-American relations. A few months ago I posted about The Times (of London) publishing compilations of articles and letters, and other papers have done so as well.  Perhaps The Globe could do the same and dedicate the book to Leonard Lerner, unless, of course, the relationship continues to deteriorate.

BATS

Bats

Ontario Bats

    Although I did recently mention bats (oddly enough in the post about food) I will do so again because I just read this:

     “When our family took up residence in a summer cottage in Muskoka we found a very large colony of bats lodged in a spacious recess between chimney and rafters. Prodded by a stick the creatures flew out in a cloud and circled around the adjacent lamplit room. Father and I both took up a position like a batter at the home plate, vigorously swinging broomsticks and landing nets. At the end of the bout the tally was forty-four bats.” (“In the Day of the Wild Pigeon,” Chapter 9 in Part 3 of The Bruce Beckons, by W. Sherwood Fox.)

    That episode reminded my of my own bat experiences, of which there have been many. Living in an old brick house, bats were often seen as much inside as out. On one occasion I fell from a stool while attempting to scoop one off the ceiling and the result was a broken wrist. At that point, like Mr. Fox and his father, I took a more aggressive approach and my squash racket was the weapon of choice. Mr. Fox, by the way, was a well-educated classicist and president of the university where I studied and worked. He was also an mild-mannered naturalist and although his bat attack occurred in less enlightened times (c1910), I am sure he was not inclined to kill one of nature’s more useful creatures. Nor was I. But, at some point I guess, we all have the capacity to act like mugged liberals.

Georgia Bats

    Those episodes reminded me of another which makes the “very large colony” of forty bats in Muskoka, Ontario seem very small compared to the one in Tifton, Georgia. It consisted of an estimated 20,000 which were found in the abandoned home pictured above. The smells issuing from the house in the summer were apparently appalling. The solution was not obvious:

    “But what to do? Bats are protected by federal and state law, so you can’t just out and out kill them. They can be moved, but that method has its challenges when you’re talking thousands. The trick, said a local wildlife specialist, Rusty Johnson, is to seal every little crack and install tubes called excluders. The bats fly out, but they can’t fly back in. The theory is that after a couple of frustrating days, the bats will figure things out and move on. But for a few months come May, when they reproduce, you can’t use the devices at all because they might separate the moms from the babies.”

The house was demolished.

Bat Bombs

    

Those bat stories reminded me of another which is even more sensational. You may remember the reports about the C.I.A. and the attempts to assassinate Castro by using such devices as exploding cigars. Well apparently the O.S.S. was just as creative. After Pearl Harbor a plan was developed to use thousands of bats to set fires in cities in Japan.

You can learn more about it from this article in The New Yorker and the letter that follows:

“Following up on a suggestion passed along by F.D.R. himself, it [the O.S.S.] pursued a plan that involved strapping incendiary devices to bats, which would be dropped from airplanes over Japanese cities, on the theory that the bats would nest in the wooden houses in which most Japanese lived and set them on fire. Waller says that when the specially equipped bats were released from a plane in a test run, the animals dropped to earth like stones, and the project was abandoned. (Much later, the United States did fire bomb Japanese cities, in the conventional way, with devastating results.)” “Wild Thing:Did the O.S.S. help win the war against Hitler?”, Louis Menand, The New Yorker, Mr. 14, 2011.

The letter:

“Batty: A Letter in Response to Louis Menand’s Article” (March 14, 2011) in the April 11 issue

“Louis Menand describes an amusing incident during the time of Major General William (Wild Bill) Donovan’s O.S.S., in which a trial involving bats strapped to incendiary devices, meant to be dropped over Japanese cities, failed when they instead “dropped to earth like stones” (Books, March 14th). An eyewitness, Jack Couffer, gave a fuller backstory in his book “Bat Bomb,” which asserts that “the accidental incineration of Carlsbad Auxiliary Army Airfield by incendiary bats was both a high and a low in the fortunes of Project X-Ray.” It ascribes responsibility for this tragicomic incident to the vanity of the Harvard chemistry professor Louis Fieser, who invented napalm. According to Couffer, Fieser’s insistence on an aggrandizing photo shoot initiated a chain of timing errors that led to the napalm-loaded bats bursting into flame as they flew into the air field’s control tower and barracks.”

Anthony G. Oettinger

Research Professor of Applied Mathematics and Information Resources Policy

Harvard University

Sources:

  For the Tifton bat house see: “No Belfry, Just a House With 20,000 or So Bats,” by Robbie Brown & Kim Severson, The New York Times, Mar. 30, 2011.

  The picture is from the Tifton Gazette, March 28, 2011.

  Bat Bomb: World War II’s Other Secret Weapon, by Jack Couffer is published by the University of Texas Press. You can read part of it here. A copy is available locally at the London Public Library.

Post Script:

    Animals and birds have been used by humans in warfare. A scarier scenario involves the potential of birds to wage war on their own. It sounds far-fetched, but it has just been reported that birds have apparently been deliberately setting fires in order to flush out prey.

“Australian Birds Have Weaponized Fire Because What We Really Need Now is Something Else to Make Us Afraid,” Richard Warnica, The National Post,  Jan. 9, 2017.

“Raptors, including the whistling kite, are intentionally spreading grass fires in northern Australia, the paper argues. The reason: to flush out prey and feast.

The concept of fire-foraging birds is well established. Raptors on at least four continents have been observed for decades on the edge of big flames, waiting out scurrying rodents and reptiles or picking through their barbecued remains.

What’s new, at least in the academic literature, is the idea that birds might be intentionally spreading fires themselves. If true, the finding suggests that birds, like humans, have learned to use fire as a tool and as a weapon.”

The paper referred to is:

“Intentional Fire-Spreading by “Fire Hawk’ Raptors in Northern Australia,” Mark Bonta, et al, Journal of Ethnobiology, Vol. 37, No.4, 2017

SPARROWS

Preambling

     At the beginning of last year you were presented with a novel-length post that should have been titled “Jerry’s Jeremiad”, in that I ranted on about things I thought ludicrous and found irritating. Since those things - WORDS that should not be used, NAMES  that should not be called, and STATUES that should never have been erected - are still very much in the news, you will be spared my braying on about them. Don’t forget, however, that I did raise the Lenin-like question “What Is To Be Done?”  in relation to the problems those things cause and offered some answers. I stand by them and you can find them here (just scroll through the first few thousand words to the conclusion). 

     We are several days into this new year so I will not offer any blogging resolutions, particularly since I have not been so resolute about the others I made. I will also not present excuses for my failure to provide a post-a-day since many of them were covered in my “Chief Cunctator” post and will undoubtedly apply as we move forward. I will, however, try to keep the  promise I made in the jeremiad which was to avoid as much as possible the ludicrousness of the present. I hope we all have a good year. We will begin softly with the subject of sparrows.

Sparrows

   

     Sparrows are not at all spectacular, but we are not fortunate enough, here in southern Ontario, to have a loyal flock of Painted Buntings around our feeder. So we will work with what we have. I have observed that they are sociable and, like some of our neighbours, seem to have adapted very well to life on the pogey. 

     I thought I would try to learn more about them, but learned, about myself, that I would never be much of a birder. I had a look for the word ‘sparrow’ in the index of Peterson’s Eastern Birds and under it found around thirty kinds ranging from Bachman’s and Baird’s through Harris’ and Henslow’s all the way to White-crowned and White-throated. The list under ‘sparrows’ is also long in the National Audubon Society’s Field Guide to Birds: Eastern Region and one finds Botteri’s and Cassin’s which don’t appear in Peterson’s. The list is even longer in Wikipedia and one encounters many other related words like ‘passerines’ and ‘petronias’. Apart from learning about all these varieties, think about identifying them. One can just about double the number since the males and females often look different and the male of one type might look like the female of another. Depending, of course, on the time of the year.

Invasive Species 

    Abandoning pure ornithology in favour of a more historical approach I soon discovered again that the subject of sparrows is not so simple. As you are aware, however, I am behind in my blogging so I will have to keep this short and simply direct you to sources you can use if you want to learn more and start your own blog.    

     The sparrows I am supporting do not come from stock that originated in North America. Sparrows were imported into some cities in the eastern United States during the period from the 1850s to the 1890s and they were exported (and otherwise spread) to other cities and areas on the continent.  
  
     The sparrows were brought over from England and Europe for aesthetic as well as utilitarian reasons. Settlers apparently missed the birds they grew up with and, apart from nostalgia, offered the rationale that sparrows could be useful in ridding the cities of various insects. As an aside, there was another aesthetic purpose. One gentleman, Eugene Schieffelin, was responsible for importing starlings and other birds which appeared in the works of Shakespeare, but were missing in America.

     When these new immigrants flourished and multiplied some citizens began to see this introduced species as an invasive one. A familiar story. It was suggested that the aggressive sparrow was taking over and replacing native songbirds and that they were eating more fruits and crops than insects. It was argued that “Without question the most deplorable event in the history of American ornithology was the introduction of the English sparrow.”

   Not all citizens agreed, nor did the ornithologists who formed warring camps. Some suggested that sparrows should be eliminated even though there was a growing concern that too many other birds were being destroyed.  One positive result of the war was that each side began collecting a lot of data to try to learn if the introduction of the sparrow had been harmful biologically or economically. 

    I was surprised to learn that the rather bland sparrow had attracted so much attention and was the cause of such controversy. The ones here seem to be doing well. On the other hand, ironically enough, I have learned that the ones in the other London are disappearing at a rapid rate.

Sources:

 
     As mentioned, the sparrow war produced a lot of information. For some older sources (which are available to you) see:
Barrow’s The English Sparrow in North America… [This U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin is over 400 pages long.] 
Thomas G. Gentry, The House Sparrow at Home and Abroad, With Some Concluding Remarks Upon Its Usefulness, and Copious References to the Literature of the Subject. 
Edwin Richard Kalmbach, Economic Status of the English Sparrow

     If you want to learn in detail how the sparrows and starlings moved across the continent see: “Spread of the Starling and English Sparrow”, Leonard Wing, The Auk, Vol. 60, No.1, 1943, p.74.
     For a good account: “Elliott Coues and the Sparrow War,” Michael J. Brodhead
The New England Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Sep., 1971), pp. 420-432
    For a longer study of the battles between ornithologists: “Sparrows for America: A Case of Mistaken, Identity,” Robin W. Doughty, Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 14, No.2, Fall, 1980.
   About the starlings see: ‘What if We Had All the Birds From Shakespeare in Central Park,” Juliet Lamb, JSTOR Daily, June 9, 2016.
   For a larger perspective see: American Perceptions of Immigrant and Invasive Species: Strangers on the Land, by Peter Coates - especially Chapter 2: “The Avian Conquest of a Continent”. It is from this source that the quotation about “the deplorable event” is taken.

    The decline in the number of sparrows in London, England is discussed in the book about the decline of moths in England - The Moth Snowstorm, Michael McCarthy,  pp.110-112.

Post Script:

     Once again I have saved some of the interesting bits which, once again, are totally unrelated to the subject at hand. You will note above that one of the authors mentioned  is Leonard Wing. Another frequently encountered in the sources cited is George Bird Grinnell. Not generally that close a reader, I did still notice that each man’s name had some relationship to their chosen career or area of interest. 

      Aware of the old tradition that people often had surnames related to their occupations (Masons and Carpenters), I wondered about those who ended up taking a job related to the name they were given. Would Mr. Wing or “Bird” Grinnell have been, say undertakers or circus performers, if not for their names? Is that why Margaret Court was a tennis player or why Francine Prose is a novelist? Did Jude Law flunk out of law school? What about Anthony Weiner? How does one answer such questions?

     Well, to save you the time that I wasted go directly to the subject of “Nominative Determinism” - the entry about it in Wikipedia is a good place to begin and that is where I found this brief definition: “Nominative determinism, literally "name-driven outcome", is the hypothesis that people tend to gravitate towards areas of work which reflect their names.” There appears to be some debate over whether someone with a name like Sue Yoo was destined to become a lawyer or if the choice was simply a matter of coincidence rather than causality. 
     
     You can dig even deeper by looking for more under the subject of Aptronyms. And if you want to avoid whatever it is your attempting to write about you could always delve into Inaptronyms or Nominative Contradeterminism, which apply when there is a contradiction between the name and the occupation: Dr. Kill or Cardinal Sin or Don Black, the white supremacist, are some examples. I could go on.