Peter Behrens's Blog, page 448
October 20, 2014
October 19, 2014
Canadian houses, Montreal: Lower Westmount.
You'll find more about Lower Westmount--in particular the 'little' streets below St. Catherine--at Spacing Montreal. The streets I'm exploring here are all just above Sherbrooke Street. ('North' of Sherbrooke, in Montreal usage; though this doesn't have much to do with any compass bearing.) We are between Atwater and Claremont Avenues. Nineteenth- and early Twentieth-Century, often terraced houses, and nothing really fancy. Prosperous middle class. Who lived in these houses when they were built a hundred years ago? Senior clerks with 'positions' at the CPR, maybe Scottish-born? Bank managers of the larger downtown branches? French Canadian and Jewish owners of small-to-medium businesses? "Westmount" rings all kinds of psychic bells in the Canadian and Québecois mind but a lot of this clanging merely awakens stereotypes and tedious cliches about WASP plutocrats. Who are very rare on the ground in W'mount these days, and never much liked this part of the neighborhood anyway. Canadians hold onto their clichés--especially about themselves--longer than most people do. Stereotypes linger perhaps because Canadians often think their country dull, and this stops them from looking closely at or reexamining the way they actually live in their towns and cities.This section of Westmount reminds me of parts of South Dublin: Ballsbridge, Ranelagh. Montreal and Dublin were both large commercial cities of the (British) Empire during this period. Other quarters of Montreal look like other parts of Irish cities: the commercial buildings and 19th century warehouses along rue de la Commune in Old Montreal remind me a lot of the quays along the Liffey, in Dublin; also of certain parts of Cork city.
Chevrolet Power Wagon?
from Alex Emond in south Saskatchewan: "Here we have a truck's truck. I took a little detour through Gleichen and had to stop for this truck. Godzilla! The old hot rod Chevy truck was owned by a mechanic in Tompkins , Sask. That body was dropped onto a mid 90's chassis and he went nuts on the engine. He just stuck the Fargo hood ornament on until he finds the right one . "--AE
October 18, 2014
International Harvester S-120, Bridgeport California (1955)?
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From our man in the Sierras, Colin Washburn: "I've known this old International for years. It's near Bridgeport,Ca., at a place called Twin Lakes. Seems it hasn't moved for years. Maybe it's blown, or maybe the old -timer who owned it died and his family let's it sit, a solid memorial. ( that's my hunch anyway. ) I'll bet it's hauled tons of Sierra firewood and granite rock, and would love to haul more. It looks indestructible. The faded turquoise patina is a delight to the eye, needless to say. Anybody know what year it is ??"--CW
From our man in the Sierras, Colin Washburn: "I've known this old International for years. It's near Bridgeport,Ca., at a place called Twin Lakes. Seems it hasn't moved for years. Maybe it's blown, or maybe the old -timer who owned it died and his family let's it sit, a solid memorial. ( that's my hunch anyway. ) I'll bet it's hauled tons of Sierra firewood and granite rock, and would love to haul more. It looks indestructible. The faded turquoise patina is a delight to the eye, needless to say. Anybody know what year it is ??"--CW
October 17, 2014
The Maine Road to Montreal
From southern Maine to Montreal, up Route 26 to Bethel ME, staying on ME 26 & NH 26 to Colebrook NH, then up to the border on US 3, across a small corner of Vermont on 114; then over the border at Hereford QC and from there to Coaticook, to Ayers Cliff, to the Eastern Townships Autoroute at Magog and into Montreal. I left Lower Flying Point in Freeport ME at 530AM and was walking the streets of Westmount (Montreal) at noon. It's one of the most interesting road trips in North America, if you ask me...
The only dreary stretch is ME26 from the Maine Turnpike almost up to Bethel, ME: there's a lot of anywheresville sprawl along that stretch of road, at least as far as Norway ME, but then it begins to clear out, and the Oxford Hills, which are Maine's foothills to the White Mountains, take charge of the landscape. And going across NH this time of year the road curls through the White Mountains...
Northern New England: powerful terrain, very weak economy. Sad towns and social dislocation. The area has been leaching money and jobs--mostly connected to logging and pulp&paper--for a couple of generations.All along the US/Canada border region, from Washington State/BC to New Brunswick/ Washington County ME, the American northern tier is backwoods, a hinterland: dying towns, defunct paper mills, wilderness, a sense of remoteness, alienation, and fierce Tea Party support. These are the beautiful fringes, or maybe the Marches, of the American Empire...
Coos County, New Hampshire feels impossibly remote from the America of Silicon Valley, Portlandia, or Park Slope. Then across the border into southern Canada, which is often agricultural...
and feels settled and civilized, even urbane. Funny how ideas of 'northern' and 'southern' play out in a culture. It always seems so unlikely that a couple of hours north of, say, Colebrook NH, a "remote" town on the American mental map, there is a city like Montreal.I like the way the country opens up after the border. The Eastern Townships of Quebec are still big dairying country. The little towns--Coaticook, Hatley, Ayers Cliff, Sutton--seem impossibly neat after the bleak hamlets of northern New England...
Then from Magog to Montreal, the Eastern Townships Autoroute zooms flat-out along the fertile valley of the St Lawrence, which has been the best farm country in Quebec for a few hundred years: level as a flood plain, much flatter than anywhere I've been on, say, the Western prairies...
Western flatland often has a roll to it but, in the St Lawrence low country approaching Montreal, no such thing...
Flatness and intense farming and powerful whiffs of manure (no doubt less organic fertilizers too) even getting very close to the city...
...which rises up up all of a sudden, across the Champlain Bridge, on its island in the middle of the St Lawrence...
And then I find a parking spot in the buzz of lower Westmount, and find lunch (Brasserie Central)...
and walk around the old 'hood, taking pictures of streets & buildings that seemed so ordinary...
...when I was growing up, and now seem anything but.
Montreal to Cortes Island & Patrick Leigh Fermor
My cousin RM drove me to P-E-Trudeau Airport to catch a 7AM flight for Vancouver. Changed planes in Calgary, arrived YVR on schedule. Caught a Coastal Mountain Air (Beechcraft turboprop) flight to Campbell River BC. I was supposed to take a launch/water taxi from Campbell to Cortes Island but it was blowing 30 knots out in Georgia Strait with a strong tide and very big seas--the launch wasn't running...
Which meant catching the ferry to Quadra Island, then a taxi across Quadra, and another ferry from Heriot Bay on Quadra I. across Sutil Passage to Whaletown, on Cortes Island.Below, one of the Quadra Island fishing fleet. Salmon, of course. Usually "chum", which are canned, or exported to Japan. They use gill and seine nets...
It had been a long day and it wasn't over yet, so between ferries I had dinner and a pint at the inn at Heriot Bay on Quadra...
..then jumped on the ferry for Cortes Island...
Someone from Hollyhock, the retreat center where I'm leading a writing workshop, was supposed to meet me at the ferry landing on Cortes....or so I'd been told...
....but no one did. What that meant was standing with my bags at the landing... 
watching the last cars drive away. Then watching the ferry steam away...
and wondering how the ____ I was going to proceed. Cortes is a pretty big island, with a very small population, and wolves, bear, and even a cougar. There wasn't a house or car or person in sight. It was getting dark. My phone worked but all I got as voice mail when I tried phoning Hollyhock, which was miles away, at the opposite end of the island...
I'd been reading A Time of Gifts since I boarded the plane at Montreal. Patrick Leigh Fermor's account of a walk from London to Constantinople when he was eighteen is a wonderful book. I've not read anything quite like it before. Having been all day in the company of Paddy Fermor, intrepid wanderer, I understood that being stranded in the dark on the pier at Cortes was, in fact, no big deal. "What would Paddy do?" Well, probably he'd start walking. Even if he didn't know where the road led. In fact not knowing where the road led was always, for Paddy, a good reason to start walking. Almost all roads down to ferry landings on the BC coast and islands have long steep inclines, of course, which meant a steep slog uphill, carrying luggage. Finally I stowed the biggest bag behind a Douglas Fir, hoping I'd be able to find it again. And kept going, until at last a single solitary car appeared. Conscious of my vibe as a large male, certainly odd- and possibly threatening-looking, I stuck out my thumb in what I hoped was a meek and charming manner. The driver, a single woman, kept going, and I didn't blame her--it was dark and lonely and I'm sure with my tweed jacket and unshaven all-day-travelling demeanor I looked like a creature from another planet. However, 200 yards down the road, she slowed, stopped, started backing up. I told her my tale and she invited me into the car. We stopped to pick up her friend and together these two women drove me across the island to Hollyhock, where I found my way to my room and sleep. Summer, And After, in Maine: Basha Burwell & Maine Magazine
The spirit of McCloskey’s SAL lives on, even in autumn. BB caught the spirit in this MAINE magazine piece.
October 16, 2014
Wade's Boom Truck, Bridges Point Boatyard, Brooklin, Maine. (1967 Ford F-600)
Used for stepping masts, of course. Wade Dow built the famous Bridges Point 24's, which were designed by Joel White. The boats are now being built at the Bridges Point Boat Company over on Mount Desert Island. Mr Dow still maintains & stores a fleet of BP 24s at Brooklin. There are some great stories and essays about Joel White and his legacy as a boatbuilder and designer at OffCenter Harbor.com. I think subscription to OCH is $29/year which is a deal, for a rich source of information and advice about boats, Maine, sailing, and all things nautical.
October 15, 2014
1969 Dodge Power Wagon A200 at the Baits Motel
Caught the Dodge while driving downeast last Saturday. In Montreal at the moment, and flying to Cortes Island British Columbia tomorrow. 
