From my perspective, it’s really slow in Dunvegan these days. How quiet is it? Pre-1970s quiet. Almost the type of rural solitude that existed before the 417 construction crews wended from pillar to post in a concerted effort to forge as much political capital as possible.
Some say this forced isolation could result in a Boomer II generation – or a lot of broken marriages; it’s too early to tell. Either way, I predict Glengarry will boast some of the cleanest homes, most organized closets and tidiest collections of family snapshots in all of Eastern Ontario.
The ‘Deil’ that is Dunvegan
I’d thought I’d invest a few of the column inches from my weekly allotment in a peek back in time. It is an account of Dunvegan through the eyes of a woman who made her home here and whose life appears to have straddled the 19th and 20th centuries. I base this conclusion on the fact that the first-hand account she wrote was the lead article in Volume 1 of the April 1942 Tweedsmuir Village Histories. The identity of the author is lost forever in the fog of time. No name was recorded; so anonymous she shall have to remain.
Her story would be that much more satisfying if we had the hand drawn map of Dunvegan that had been tipped into the original handwritten manuscript. But this too is lost to time. The ladies of the Dunvegan’s Women’s Institute did painstakingly produce a second copy of their Tweedsmuir Histories (no Kinko’s in those days) and deposited it with the Alexandria & District High School for safekeeping. However, it was chucked in the bin when some brilliant soul decided that books, especially local ones, had no place in a library. If only the Dunvegan W.I. had had a Glengarry County Archives to turn to back then. What follows are excerpts from her story.
“When coming into Dunvegan from south down Mrs. Urquhart’s hill, which at one time was Big Kate’s hill, she being a Mrs. MacLeod, you seem to be descending into a vale. The first object to catch the eye is the spire of the church pointing upwards to the sky indicating that our forefathers we’re God fearing people.
On the corner, is a three-story brick building built by Alex McRae and which is now occupied by Gray Brothers. Across the way, our village smithy stands, ever ready to do business. The vacant building where the late D.K. MacLeod did business stands on another corner. While across the way is the pioneer cemetery where tombstones pale and gray catch the gleam of yellow sunset and ruddy dawn.
Dunvegan is situated six miles from highway thirty-four and four miles from the highway to the west (Highland Road), which takes you by Ralph Connor’s former home. There is a small creek flowing through which crosses the road at the corner of the village. It flows northward and empties into the Scotch River near St. Isadore (sic). A cement bridge was built on the corner when Ewen MacLennan was Deputy Reeve.
The first roads were the horse trails through the woods… Corduroy roads then replaced the trails; improved dirt roads followed, then came the gravel roads. Today we have paved roads. The first vehicle to travel the roads was a lumber wagon. Later came the one horse cart and buckboard, close to which came the buggy. Today we have high-powered cars and motor trucks…
Towards the last quarter of the 19th century, there was much activity in Dunvegan. The chief industries were as follows: a gristmill owned by Malcolm McRae with a Mr. Crofts as miller. A tannery operated by Alexander McCrimmon… Another tannery operated by Malcolm McRae was on the corner where the cemetery is situated today. There was an ashery belonging to C.P. Welles, which was burned. Another ashery belonging to Angus Macintosh situated behind Mrs. D.C. McLeod’s house owned and built by Mr. McIntosh.
Of sawmills, we have had a few. John Grant and D.J. McQuaig opposite of Mrs. D.C. MacLeod’s house, this was burned. A portable mill was here for two years. Hugh MacTavish owned a sawmill on south east Main Street, which also burned. Dan MacKercher brought a mill here, which was sold, to D.A. Gray. This mill was removed from Dunvegan in 1941.”
Like all communities at that time, with structures built from combustible materials and heated and lit by open flames, fire was an ever-present danger. Dunvegan was no exception. But in her account, our Tweedsmuir chronicler records at least one conflagration that destroyed a large swath of the community. “A fire broke out in 1892 which swept out most of the industrial part of the Village. Fire started on the south east corner of Main Street, taking with it stables, grist mill, ashery and a number of houses to the east.”
There’s more, but I will save it for another column. However, before we put the Tweedsmuir Village Histories away, I’d like to leave you with a wee light-hearted story she threw into her account. “The Scotch people were a rather superstitious race and were great at telling ghost stories. One evening a certain gentleman went to visit his neighbour and he saw, or thought he saw, an object in the distance. He says to himself, ‘If it be a deil, I’ll give him just half the road. But if it be a bear, I’ll have to fight for my life’.” To save you looking it up, “deil” is Scottish slang for “devil.”
Different, different… but same
When Terry and Ursula returned from Vietnam many years ago, they brought with them a catchy street vendor phrase emblazoned on a T-shirt: “Same, same… but different.” Apparently, it referred to knock-offs of upscale consumer goods that looked virtually the same as the original, but cost way less.
As I was strolling through the virtual Glengarry News archives from the early 20th century, it was the reverse of this turn of phrase that came to mind: “Different, different… but same.”
In researching the impact of the Spanish Flu pandemic from 1918–1920 on life in Glengarry, I came across the ageless spoor of the confidence trickster preying upon the fears of a gullible public. The ad in the January 3rd, 1919 issue of the News read: “Spanish Flu Claims Many Victims in Canada and should be guarded against. Minard’s Liniment Is a Great Preventative, being one of the oldest remedies used, Minard’s Liniment has cured thousands of cases of Grippe, Bronchitis, Sore Throat, Asthma and similar diseases. It is an Enemy to Germs. Thousands of bottles being used every day.” You’ll note it’s not claiming to cure Spanish Flu. It merely talks about “curing” Grippe, Sore Throat and the like and it being an “enemy” to germs… not that it kills germs. (It could simply be that Minard’s and germs disagree on some intellectual level.) The ad leaves it up to the reader to connect the dots.
Fast-forward one hundred years and the same grifting spirit is alive and well. Just last week I read about faith healers promoting the drinking of cow urine and homeopathic “doctors” offering memory water dilutions to ward off the ravages of Covid-19.
Yes, I fully appreciate and applaud the power of the placebo effect. However, we’re not dealing with lumbago or the vapours here. Spanish influenza and Covid-19 are demonstratively deadly pathogens. Giving people false hope and the confidence to go out in public and unknowingly shed the virus isn’t simply hucksterism. It’s a criminal act that could potentially kill the mark and the people he or she comes in contact with.
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