In a recent column, April 29th to be exact, I mentioned that the Glengarry Pioneer Museum’s 2020 (now Covid-postponed) Historical Driving Tour was to have featured “Waterways of Glengarry.” Which started me thinking about the streams that crisscross our fair township and the names attached thereto. I use the word streams in its geological sense. Geologists, I am told, use the term stream for any body of moving water, regardless of volume or speed. To qualify as a stream, it need only be confined in a channel and move under the influence of gravity, even if only imperceptibly. Hence a river is just a large stream and a rivulet a small one.
However, from the perspective of a layperson, I believe there is a generally accepted waterway hierarchy that goes from river to stream to creek to brook in a descending order of size. As Goran Šafarek writes in his World Rivers blog, “… you can step over a brook, jump over a creek, wade across a stream, and swim across a river.” Šafarek also points out there are regional terms for small streams, such as run (e.g., Bull Run) or kill from the Middle Dutch word kille. Perhaps because of the connotation of the latter, a number of kills have had ‘creek’ or ‘river’ added to them as an afterthought (e.g., Catskill Creek, Fishkill River).
As far as I can tell, present day Glengarry also has its own unique term for a small stream. We call it a river. For example, the tributary that flows (at least in the spring) past the last location of the Dunvegan Post Office is known as the Scotch River. It does widen out a bit as it heads north and ducks under the 417. However, it doesn’t hold a birthday candle to the Ottawa River, the St. Lawrence or even the Nation River, for that matter.
What I hope the museum’s aquatic Driving Tour will explore are the factors that led to the downgrading of our waterways from avenues of transport and commerce to meandering creeks that are home to countless Manitoba maples and widen out to shallow streams from time to time. I suspect that it has a lot to do with drainage. As vintage topographical maps show, a healthy percentage of Glengarry used to be covered with marshlands that held vast quantities of water and released it slowly into nearby waterways. Today, we cultivate right to the very edge of our ‘rivers’ and these tile-drained fields release snow melt and spring rains quickly and efficiently, over a relatively short span of time. But that’s just a guess. It would be wonderful to hear what experts have to say on the subject. If you are knowledgeable in this area, I welcome your input. I’m not sure I have the patience to wait until next year’s Tour.
Women left Glengarry, never to return
I can’t recall if I mentioned it in a prior column, but honourary Dunveganite Robin Flockton has written and published a book on the impact of the “war to end all wars” on our county. Entitled Glengarry and the First World War, it examines the deep societal changes in our quiet corner of Ontario that resulted from four years of global conflict on a scale never seen before.
As a starting point for his research, Robin used the War Memorial in Alexandria and its list of those who returned to Glengarry and those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Based on the 1914-1918 Honour Roll in Dunvegan’s Kenyon Presbyterian Church, nearly sixty of the Dunvegan area residents who volunteered to serve in France came home to their families. Unfortunately, Alex A. Boyd, Wallace M. MacKenzie, Norman MacKenzie, Russell Phillips and John R. Ross did not. What’s interesting is that, when I compared Dunvegan’s Honour Roll with Alexandria’s War Memorial, only one of the young men from Dunvegan who were killed in action was listed in Alexandria: Private John Ross with the 52nd Battalion who died June 3, 1916 at age 35. Which only goes to show that historical documents like these are works in progress and must be updated when new information is uncovered.
One of the other fascinating aspects of the Great War that Robin delves into is its impact on the young women who lived on the farms and in the villages of Glengarry. “As the demand for administrators increased, the need for clerical staff blossomed. The young women of Glengarry were happy to seize opportunity for emancipation and fill the requirement for administrative positions and manufacturing jobs in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal… Many of the young women of Glengarry had left the farms for jobs in the cities, and only returned infrequently to visit.” As the World War One song first popularized by Sophie Tucker summed it up: “How Ya Gonna Keep ’em Down on the Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree?)”
Glengarry and the First World War is available as a trade paperback in e-reader format from Amazon. Net proceeds from its sale will be donated to the Glengarry County Archives.
DIY publishing works
Like the wizard behind the curtain, it was Flip Flockton (also a honourary Dunveganite) who was instrumental in getting Glengarry and the First World War on to Amazon’s virtual bookshelves. I asked her what the most challenging aspect of the project was. In a word, she summed it up as “software.” Flip started with the e-book version, which had the option to view what she was doing in a tablet, e-reader and phone format while she was formatting the book. “It was trial and error and hours of trying to follow the on-line instructions, which were obviously written by people who are very computer savvy,” Flip told me. “However, I found if I went online with a specific question, lots of people out there had experienced the same problem and offered really good suggestions.” In retrospect, Flip wishes she had started with the paperback edition. However, it was much more challenging and she thinks she might have become totally discouraged.
I asked her if she had any words of advice for other authors who are thinking self-publishing with Amazon. “It’s a great concept,” she replied, “as the author is involved in no up-front costs.” She explained that Amazon takes a percentage of royalties (the amount depends on whether you offer free shipping or not). For a limited time, Amazon also allows authors to purchase up to 999 copies at cost. This lets them sell their book directly or offer them to local retailers. “If you are publishing a book with text only, Amazon’s Kindle Create would be a simple way of doing this,” Flip asserts. “Anything with illustrations, photos, text boxes, indexes, notes etc. though is much more challenging, as layout becomes a major issue. Well it did for me.” However, as she has shown, it can be done.
Before I let her go, I asked if she was thinking of publishing one of her own works, say a book for young children. “At the moment, I’m taking the summer off,” she stated emphatically. Although she did admit that, in weak moments, she has entertained the idea of doing something with her illustrations.
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