Ribbon Farms

 

Ribbon farms are long, narrow land divisions, usually lined up along a waterway. In the United States, ribbon farms are found in various places settled by the French, particularly along the Saint Lawrence River, the Great Lakes, the Detroit River and tributaries, and parts of Louisiana. Near Detroit, the ribbon farms were about 250 feet wide and up to three miles long.

French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac sailed up the Detroit River in 1701 and settled Fort Ponchartrain du Détroit, named after the comte de Pontchartrain, Minister of Marine under Louis XIV. The river itself became known as the Rivière du Détroit, as détroit is French for the strait. Cadillac was given authority to appropriate and grant land to settlers. Beginning in 1701, he awarded farms that extended two or three miles inland and were laid out with narrow river frontage. Detroit, which grew to 800 people in 1765, became the largest city between Montreal and New Orleans.

The ribbon farm layout gave multiple landowners access to the waterway. In addition, the long lots increased variation in soil and drainage within one lot, and facilitated plowing by minimizing the number of times oxen teams needed to be turned. Where farmers lived on their lots (rather than in a central village), the ribbon farm fostered communication and socialization, with houses clustered at the ends of the lots.

The ribbon farm system also strikes an economic balance, where houses are relatively close together and can be easily and economically accessed, yet the farmers need not spend excessive travel time to reach their fields some distance from a central village. Finally, in those places where ribbon farms were platted, the division of land into long rectangles was relatively easy to survey and establish boundaries.

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan – Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Vermont Maple Pecan Cookies

 

 

 

3 Cups old-fashioned oats

1 Cup shredded unsweetened coconut

2 2/3 Cups all purpose flour

1 Tsp. salt

1 Tsp. ground cinnamon

2 Cups packed light brown sugar

1 Cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

1/2 Cup Maple syrup

2 Tbs. light corn syrup

2 Tsp. baking soda

1/4 Cup boiling water

1 Tsp. maple flavoring

2 Cups chopped toasted pecans

Preheat oven to 300 degrees, line two baking sheets with parchment paper

Combine oats, coconut, flour, salt, cinnamon, and brown sugar in large bowl, whisk to blend.

Combine butter, maple syrup, and corn syrup in a medium saucepan. Heat over medium low heat until butter melts, stirring occasionally; remove from heat.

Combine baking soda and boiling water, stirring to dissolve. Add to maple syrup mixture stirring well. Add maple extract. Stir well.

Place 1/4 cup size balls of dough on baking, 3 inches apart, flatten balls slightly.

Bake 15 minutes, cool on rack, enjoy.

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan – Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

100 years of Ouimetoscope

 

On 1 ^st  January 1906, Montrealers flock to the entry of a new institution of "moving pictures", the Ouimetoscope. Located in the Poiré room, on the corner of Montcalm and Saint-Catherine streets, the new attraction brings home a hundred dollars to its owner, Léo-Ernest Ouimet, in the first week.

 

Born in Saint-Martin on Île Jésus (today Laval) in 1877, Ouimet leaves the family farm to move to Montreal. He learned the trade of electrician and became a theater lighting designer. Strongly interested in the new medium of cinema, he takes care of projections at Sohmer Park, produces short films and creates a company, the Ouimet Film Exchange. The projection device he conceives, the Ouimetoscope, even influences the work realized by Thomas Edison. As part of his documentary achievements, Ouimet will appeal to Lactance Giroux as a cameraman. The latter became, in 1920, the first photographer hired by the City of Montreal.

In 1907, Léo-Ernest Ouimet demolished the building he occupied and began construction of the "Grand Ouimetoscope" which opens these doors in August. The following year, several cinemas opened their doors and the competition became more fierce. The American film distribution monopoly created Canadian branches and thus eliminated Ouimet from this market. At the same time, the Montreal Church began its campaign against Sunday cinematographic performances. At the end of the summer of 1908, Mayor Louis Payette, yielding to the pressure of the League for the observance of Sunday, caused contraventions to the various cinemas. Due to lung problems in two of his children, the Ouimet family settled in California each winter from 1913.

During the First World War, Ouimet withdrew from the projection to redo the distribution again and especially the realization. Among other things, he was given a film about the opening of the Bibliothèque de Montréal by Marshal Joffre in May 1917.

Following the death of two of his children, Ouimet settled down in Los Angeles in 1921, Produced the feature film Why get married that will have little success. His financial situation degraded, he accepted a position for a distribution company in Toronto but returned to Hollywood in 1930. Ruined, he returned to Quebec in 1933 to become a year later manager of the Imperial cinema. Since his financial situation had not improved, he accepted a position as manager of a branch of the Commission des liqueurs. At the time of his retirement in 1956, he was a store clerk. He died on 2 March 1972 at the age of 94 years.

 

In 1978, Léon H. Bélanger's nephew, Léon H. Bélanger, published a book on the life of his uncle and the beginnings of the Quebec cinema, Les Ouimetoscopes. In May 1979, the author handed over his manuscript to the city's archives. This document and its printed version constituted the Fonds Léon H. Bélanger ( P55).

 

- courtesy Archives of Montreal

©2016 Linda Sullivan – Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Mordecai Richler

 

Mordecai Richler, CC, novelist, essayist, social critic (born 27 January 1931 in Montréal, QC; died 3 July 2001 in Montréal, QC).

A singular figure in Canadian literary and cultural history, Richler remained, in the words of critic Robert Fulford, “the loyal opposition to the governing principles of Canadian culture” throughout his long and productive career. His instincts were to ask hard, uncomfortable questions and to take clear, often unpopular moral positions.

Born into an Orthodox family in Montréal’s old Jewish neighborhood, a community he immortalized in his work, he was from the start a complex and uncompromising figure, at once rejecting many of the formal tenets of his faith while embracing its intellectual and ethical rigour. That tension, along with an innately absurdist vision of life, a raw, bracing comedic sensibility, and a fearlessness about speaking his mind, as both artist and citizen, ensured that nearly every word he published displayed a distinctive sensibility. No one else sounded like Mordecai Richler, and few other writers in Canada have ever demanded, and maintained, such a high profile as both an admired literary novelist and a frequently controversial critic. A Companion of the Order of Canada, two-time winner of the Governor General’s Award (1968 and 1971), and winner of the Giller Prize, Mordecai Richler is without question one of Canada’s greatest writers.

Only with his fourth novel, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, published in 1959, did he learn how to translate his ferocious, satiric, funny take on human behaviour onto the page. With this novel, and its anti-hero, the hard-nosed, unscrupulous, but also energized and empathetic young hustler, Duddy Kravitz, Richler gave Canadian literature one of its most challenging and unresolved protagonists, and one of its first important novels. It won him admirers in London, New York and Toronto, but not so many, it often seemed, among his “people” in Montréal — a pattern that would persist for decades.

By the time he published Solomon Gursky, Richler was a household name in Canada. Often that name was being taken in vain, especially in French-speaking Québec, where his status as a biting and mocking commentator on aspects of the nationalist movement, in particular the language and sign laws introduced in the late 1980s, earned him much enmity. In contrast, for English-speaking Canadians, most piquantly for Jewish Montrealers, many in their fourth decade nursing a grudge against their most famous offspring, he became a kind of reluctant hero, standing up for their community, their city, and for a united Canada, in his own candid, irascible way. Reams of journalism came out of his powerful, bare-knuckled engagement with Québec nationalism, most famously his 1991 New Yorker piece, and the quick, cutting book that grew out of it. Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! (1992) is far from his best non-fiction. It is, however, arguably one of the most influential works ever published in the country.

The Final Decade

In his final decade, the now-veteran novelist produced one very good travel book, 1994’s This Year in Jerusalem,and the charming novel that appears, at present, to be the people’s choice among his works. On its appearance in 1997, Barney’s Version became an instant bestseller and, shortly, winner of the Giller Prize, a still relatively new literary award that Richler had himself helped set up a few years earlier. The tale of the outsized, unapologetic, apostate Jew Barney Panofsky was presumed by many to be closely autobiographical. It isn’t, most significantly its portrait of a man who destroys his one great chance at enduring love, but much about the character’s appetite for life, and his philosophy for living, is close to its author’s way of being in the world. New, almost, to Barney’s Versionwas a degree of pathos, and an emotional tenderness, that won Richler new readers and admirers in what was his fifth and, it turned out, final decade of a significant career as a man of letters and that loyal member of the opposition. His death in 2001 was mourned nationally.

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan – Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Cipâte aux Bluets (Deep Dish Blueberry Pie)

 

2 unbaked pie shells
5 cups blueberries
1 ¼ cups sugar
2 tablespoons butter

1. Heat oven to 350º F. Pour half of blueberries into deep dish casserole. Sprinkle with half of sugar and cover with a pie crust; trim crust to fit into dish.

2. Cover crust with the other half of blueberries, sprinkle with remaining sugar and dot with butter. Cover with top crust and trim edge to fit border of casserole. Cut a 2 inch hole in center of pie; this will allow steam to escape.

3. Bake for about two hours or until crust is light brown. Cool until lukewarm, and serve with pouring cream if desired.

 

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan – Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Creton

 

Creton (kind of sounds like "KrrrAW-tohn" or "GAH-taw") is a food most people with Quebecois parents or grandparents may remember growing up in my area. It is a mildly spiced pork paté spread that used to be popular and via nostalgia is gaining in popularity again. It is used at breakfast on toast and with mustard in sandwiches for lunch. Some people will use it with breadcrumbs to stuff a turkey and I'm sure there are other uses.

 

Creton

1 pound ground pork
2 Tbs bacon fat
1 medium onion chopped
1 clove garlic chopped
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp cloves
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
beef stock or whole milk

Place an appropriately-sized sauce pan over medium heat.

When pan is hot, add 1 Tbs bacon fat and gently fry the ground pork until cooked through. While the pork cooks use a fork to keep crumbling it.

Add the onion, garlic, spices, salt and pepper and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions and garlic are soft and translucent.

Lower the heat to a low simmer and continue to cook for about an hour.

If mixture starts to dry out add beef stock or milk to keep it at a very-thick-sauce consistency.

Remove from heat and allow mixture to cool.

If needed add beef stock or whole milk so the mixture seems just spreadable.

Put the mixture in a food processor and process until fine and granular but not pasty.

Place the mixture into a glass or ceramic container and add a small layer of bacon fat over the top to seal and add extra flavor.
Refrigerate until needed. Serve on crackers as a snack, toast for a hearty breakfast or with mustard as a sandwich for lunch.

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan – Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Charles Smallwood, meteorologist and founder of the McGill Observatory

 

Born in Birmingham, England, in 1812, Charles Smallwood arrived in Canada in 1833 and was licensed to practice medicine in 1834. A few years later, around 1840, he established his residence at Saint-Martin in Isle-Jésus. In addition to practicing medicine, he had a strong interest for meteorology. In order to conduct experiments, Smallwood built a weather observatory on his property. It was a small wooden building equipped with several instruments, such as barometers, thermometers, a 7-inch telescope and rain and snow gauges. For example, he gathered data about the ozone, dew and evaporation, atmospheric electricity and bird migrations.

In 1856, Smallwood became the first professor of meteorology at the McGill University. In 1863, he moved his equipment from his observatory in Saint-Martin to a stone structure at the McGill University, thus founding the ''McGill Observatory''. The observatory stayed in the same building until 1962, and it is still in operation today in the Macdonald Physics Building.

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan – Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved