When I first became a Canadian back in the late sixties, I was charmed
at the poetry of fighting a battle on the Plains of Abraham (this is the
one between Wolfe and Montcalm for control of what is now Canada). It
has such a fated, Biblical sound. But Abraham was just the farmer who
owned the land. So we could have had the Plains of Ernie, or the Plains
of Louis.
My favourite story about Wolfe says that his wife sent him a copy of
Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard.. On the night before the battle,
he is reputed to have told someone near and dear that he would rather
have written that book than win the morrow's battle. So much poetry in
the world...
Ursula
in North Bay
David Ritchie wrote:
While on vacation, I managed but one scribble, a postcard:
I just want to know why the U.S.- Canadian border, which runs straight in the West, is so devious in the East. Here in Michigan I hit upon the idea of asking people how the early history of the region goes. Since no one proved very helpful on the subject in casual conversation, I went into bookstores in search of a standard text that might explain the issues. Preferably a nice, cheap, used copy.
I found none. Here's the piffle I picked up by skimming and dipping: the Ottowas were a people and Cadillac was a Frenchman, who commanded a fort. When the land became British--because of General Wolfe's defeat of Montcalm on the Heights of Quebec--new forts were called Oswego and Drummond. I don't know if that Drummond is somehow related to my man William Drummond Stewart, or whether Oregon's Lake Oswego is related to that fort. Drummond is not an unusual Scottish name.
Francis Parkman, in "Montcalm and Wolfe" says that somewhere in the series of fights that decided who would control north America, a commander sent his opponent's wife a gift of pineapples, with an expression of regret "for the disquiet to which she was exposed."
Cadillac got a memorial in Michigan, also a car marque; Wolfe has neither. Francois Bigot, who fought with the French, probably hasn't either either.
After the Revolution (or War of Independence), Americans did not have control Michigan, but that was handed to them to keep it from falling to the Spaniards. At one stage there was a skirmish between the early settlers of Wisconsin and Michigan and the result was what people call "the upper peninsular," which points sideways and belongs to Michigan. It has the Hiawatha National Forest on it as well as the Ottowa National Forest. I haven't visited the latter, but I'm guessing that land doesn't have any Ottowa in it. We did pass through a reservation and casino in the lower peninsular, but I don't know if they were Ottowa. Ottowa, the city, lies to the South and East.
I came home with "Old Forts of the Great Lakes," and installed it on top of Stephen Straker's copy of "Montcalm and Wolfe" in the "to be reads" pile.
Carry on.
David Ritchie Portland, Oregon
------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
