Once upon a time, Sunday services in Dunvegan’s Kenyon Presbyterian Church were held in both Gaelic and English. Those days are long over. While still spoken by minority communities in Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Scotland, Brittany, Patagonia, Cape Breton Island and the Isle of Man, Gaelic is all but extinct in Glengarry. However, as guest speaker Chelsey MacPherson will explain on Sunday, August 11, its use in this county has an intriguing history. Ms. MacPherson, who worked at the Dunvegan museum last summer, kindly offered to replace the original guest lecturer, Sine McKenna, who had to step aside.
Chelsey is currently in the Celtic Studies program at St. Francis Xavier University where she is researching Glengarrians’ contributions to the Gaelic newspaper, Mac-Talla. Established by Jonathon G. MacKinnon in 1892, Mac-Tallaremained an all-Gaelic publication until 1904. The first thing I hope Chelsey will explain is what “Mac-Talla” means. My on-line Gaelic to English dictionary gave me “mac-size,” but MacDonald’s hamburgers were nowhere to be found in 1892. I’m told her presentation will also touch upon Alexander (the Bard) MacMillan, Dr. Donald MacDiarmid, Rev. Roderick MacLeod and others.
If you’re a history buff with a love of Gaelic, this lecture is right up your alley. It starts at 2:00 PM and admission is only $10 person ($5 for GPM members), including access to the entire site… either before after the presentation.
Dunvegan’s lost road?
This past weekend, while studying a 1909 topographical map of this area to see what the top end of Kenyon (and Skye Road in particular) looked like before Highway 417, I was struck by the absence of Stewart’s Glen Road. All the early farmstead buildings were recorded on the map, including those of Rory and Norman MacLeod who had originally acquired the 200-acre plot from the Crown around 1840. But no road. The map’s legend had a “Road, Wagon or Unused” symbol and even a “Footpath” symbol, but neither was employed to denote the route that we know today as Stewart’s Glen Road. So I checked the 1919 and 1927 editions of the map. Still no road. How residents moved from one farm to another or got to church without even leaving a trace of wagon trail or a footpath is a bit of a mystery.
However, when I opened the 1937 map, the road magically appeared, connecting County Road 30 with the road to St. Isidore and Maxville. Given that this road was documented on the 1879 Belden Atlas map of Kenyon, you’ve got ask yourself what these folks did to annoy the Department of Militia and Defense to the point map mappers “lost” their road for almost 30 years.
The 1937 map also contained another surprise… an electrical transmission line (identified in the legend as “Electric Power Lines on Steel Towers”) that cut diagonally across the township. While the transmission towers have no doubt been upgraded, I imagine the corridor the line used is still the same one that exists today.
By the way, these pre-417 maps did resolve my original question: how far west did Syke Road go? The answer is not far. Before today’s 417 Dunvegan overpass, Skye went straight west to the top of Bonnie Hill. Once over the crest, it continued a short distance past what I’ve always known as the back road to St. Isidore and then turned sharply south. Further westward travel was blocked by a wide marsh, which no longer exists. The disappearance of this marshy area, and a great many others detailed on the topographical maps of a century ago might well explain why waterways that boasted sufficient flow to be dubbed “rivers” are little more than dry drainage ditches today.
Two-tier driveways?
In Canada, we’re taught that two-tier anything is an anathema. I surprised bunk beds are even legal in this country. However, when it comes to putting the finishing touches on Dunvegan’s shiny new highway, two-tier road care seems to be acceptable. The fluff and recycle process combined with a virgin top layer has raised the road bed many inches… as evidenced by the fact the contractors have had to build up the gravel shoulders twice.
Where the “two-tier” concept comes into play is in the transition between the new road and private driveways. If you’re one of the privileged few with a paved driveway, asphalt is added to your laneway to ensure a smooth transition to the new roadway. I have no quarrel with this. Where I cry foul is how we in the cheaper “gravel drive” seats are dealt with. In our case, the transition between road and laneway resembles a V1 rocket launcher. This may be a bit of an exaggeration, but I think a bit more gravel for a more gradual interface would have been nice… and would have better matched the treatment of our paved-drive cousins.
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