Hi from southern Ontario,
Chez moi/at the cottage: what's happening here? There really is only 1 answer, smoke, smoke, smoke from the many forest fires in northern Québec.
The weather has been mostly rain, yesterday was warmer and sunny. We went to Bonnechere Provincial Park about 40km away to hike, the park has a great sand beach, marvellous stands of white pine and several hiking trails. Even though the underlying soil is sand, much of the trail we choose was very wet and swarming with mosquitos, so I’m now covered in bites. And before you ask yes, we had bug lotion, I however was not in charge of bringing it, so DH brought the almost empty several years old bottle, not the new one bought for this trip, I have not asked why.
Today’s forecast is rain again, so cribbage, WT and Spanish coffee might be the order of the day.
We did go to visit our sculptor friend in the Gatineau Hills, we had not been to his home before. It is fascinating, he built it himself, homesteaded the land, cut down enough trees to build the house, its sort of a combination of a Hobbit House, an Ewok House and early settler. If you have been to the Smithsonian, you may have seen his sculpture of Charles Darwin. I asked him if I can add him as a living notable on WT and surprisingly he said yes, he would be unconnected.
WikiTree and other family history: the area where we are staying (Renfrew County, Ontario) is another that is important in Robbie’s family history, 4 sets of his maternal 3 x GGPs settled here in the early 1830s-1840, one from Scotland and the others from Ireland, they then intermarried with other settler families. While at a local museum this week I found information that suggests that 2 of the families probably knew each other before they came to Canada. One of the sets of 3 x GGPs was the Dickson family, another was the Wark family. A person who also came from Ireland was called James Dickson Wark. They all came from County Donegal.
When I get the Alton Cemetery project finished, maybe over the winter, there is another similar project that could be done in this area. They aren’t all buried in the same cemetery, but many of them are.
What else: reading, one of the books I brought with me to read while sitting outside by the lake, is now being read inside looking at the rain. ‘Unshackling America, How the war of 1812 truly ended the American revolution’ by Willard Sterne Randall, I’m only at page 53, date 1775, a long way to go to 1812, it is going to need plenty of time to digest all the historical facts, and many quotes.
I will try to upload some pics, it might not work, the internet is very iffy here.
