Tale of two cities

September 26th



Being a liberal but ever vigilant parent is contradictory I suppose. But necessary. Let them go but not too far from sight and never beyond reach of the wisdom of the papa.


So first I am off to Toronto to see Verity. Then Montreal to see Felicity. And while spooking around I might as well stop at a few graveyards and vigil the ancestors.

My flight arrives long after Verity's bedtime, so in the wee, dark hours I launch out north of Toronto to ancestral grounds, such splendid places as Coe Hill, Hastings Road and, of course, Ormsby.



With its present population a mere twenty souls, Ormsby was founded upon indomitable granite. Little wonder my grandparents headed west to places where dynamite was not the preferred soil-turning technology. In Coe Hill Cemetery I touch my great-Grandfather's headstone.


Back in Toronto Verity provides me the young urban sophisticate's turn. Dinner parties, then late night movies in VIP lounges with her friend from Sienna, Italy, Fabia, and early autumn rain showers at midnight.




Another day we are off to the Royal Ontario Museum where I dress the armed churl and Verity the chainmail warrior princess.



After four days of Toronto glamour I head off, by train, to Montreal. It is near full moon and while walking at the foot of Mont-Royal one sparkling evening I made a most disturbing discovery. There is no moon! It is merely an apparition projected upon the sky by some Montreal weirdo. The accompanying picture presents incontrovertible evidence.


Felicity and I dine in Vieux-Montreal on such delicacy as wild boar and then stroll the Latin Quarter. While she is in class I jog Mont-Royal and walk and do touristy things like go to the Cathedral. Montreal is a grand city.

Some days later I attend to the ancestors and drive just over the Ontario border to Vankleek Hill. It was there that my grandfather's grandfather lived. While I could only find graves of near kin, I felt that my ancestors might have had a hand in the founding of the Presbyterian church, in 1825, so I cop a picture of it.




Later I return to Calgary, then an autumn drive through the Rockies and down to Victoria and the sea. There I will clean up my affairs before heading to the Sea of Cortez.