Delta Airlines Flight 67

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I was sitting on my shop step late this afternoon watching the hens run around the yard. The sun was shining for the first time in about a week or more, there was no wind, and everything was beautifully quiet.

I heard a strange noise that seemed to come from far away, sort of a thud. Machinery from farms or nearby bridge repairs pass by occasionally, but I didn’t hear a vehicle.

Then I heard a jet, a common enough thing where I live, but when I looked up, instead of seeing a plane flying east to Europe or west to the rest of North America, directly overhead was a plane flying south. I could see the wings glinting at an odd angle, and it looked to be lower than the usual 35,000 or whatever feet above.

Blue sky with a jet contrail in the middle and treetops at the bottom.
Ummm…

Suddenly a contrail was visible as the plane disappeared from view. When I clicked on a flight radar site, there was Delta Airlines Flight 67 from Rome to Atlanta but no longer heading to Atlanta.

Screen shot of a plane flight path.
Screenshot of Flight 67 still listed as heading to Atlanta but really heading to Halifax.

The flight track log shows the plane going over our house between 4:08:42 and 4:09:13, and I took the photo at 4:10. Their southwesterly track changed right off North Cape at 4:06 and by the time I saw it four minutes later, it had dropped from 11,582 meters (37,998 feet for you metric/imperial mixed up Gen Xers like me) to 8,854 meters (29,048 feet).

The flight’s destination changed to YHZ and I watched online as the plane went over the Minas Basin, tracked the Avon River headed for Halifax Stanfield International Airport and thankfully landed safely at 3:33. Whatever event caused the redirection seemed to be dealt with quickly, and the plane took off about three hours later and is en route to Atlanta as I write this. The passengers and crew had a long day, but now had a tale to tell of stopping in Nova Scotia. They won’t forget that flight.

Screen shot of a plane flight path on the left, with text on the right describing the flight from Halifax to Atlanta.

If I had been in our house or had my headphones on, I would have missed this little blip in transatlantic transportation, like the farmer in Brueghel‘s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus missed seeing a man who flew too close to the sun hit the water behind him as he was engrossed in plowing his field.

Would it have mattered had I not seen Flight 67? No, not in the great span of time. Is it worth sharing on the internet? Probably not. But I’m glad I shared it anyway. We all have tales to tell, sometimes the same one, just from different perspectives. Every person on that plane will be telling someone of their long day, the sun, the wings glinting as the aircraft turned, the water below.

What did you see today? Who will you tell?

The Last Telegraph Pole(s) on PEI

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Steven and I walked the Confederation Trail from Elmsdale corner half way to Alberton and back this morning, about six kilometres round trip. We had planned to walk to Alberton and back, but the cold wind was whipping and that was far enough.

We saw a couple of lupins blooming well out of season, some daisies, lots of apples and even some grapes. As always, the trail is beautifully maintained and clean. Benches and shelters with picnic tables along the way make this entire trail an ambler’s dream.

Interpretative storyboards have added interest to each walk we’ve taken, but this one really caught my attention: the last telegraph pole on PEI? Yes please!

A storyboard called Last Pole Standing with text in English and French, with a photo of the top of a telegraph pole complete with insulators, and photos of steam locomotives in the bottom corners.

LAST POLE STANDING
The P.E.I. Railway was welcomed by communities across the province that had previously been limited to travel only via poor (often impossible) roads and coastal boats. In May 1875 people who had known isolation all their lives were suddenly able to reach any of the Island centres with comparative ease. They received mail twice a day rather than twice a week. What a change! The railway also connected rural communities with the world. The Island had an underwater telegraph cable to the mainland since 1851, but the service was only available in large urban centres. Telegraph lines now followed the tracks from Tignish to Souris, linking all railway stations. It was used for emergencies along the line but also by government and business. The entire service was operated by Canadian National Telegraph from the 1920s but previous operators included the P.E.I. Railway and Anglo-American Telegraph. The last pole standing is located about halfway between Alberton and Elmsdale.

We were halfway between Alberton and Elmsdale! I looked near the sign for a pole to match the photo, but no luck. I’m now anxious to make the trek from Alberton to where we stopped to see if that last pole complete with insulators still stands.

I did notice a couple of poles without insulators on our return walk that looked like the pole on the sign. They were shorter than most poles, and three notches were clearly visible at the top of both. They seem to be holding fibre op cable, the modern telegraph, I suppose.

Grey utility pole holding a thick black wire, blue sky in the background.
Grey utility pole holding a thick black wire, blue sky in the background.

In trying to (unsuccessfully)* find out what the little wooden insulator holders are called, I came across some wonderful websites, including one for the UK-based The Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society and, well, anything I clicked on after searching for “parts of Canadian telegraph poles”.

*I did some further reading and believe those little wooden pieces that held the insulators may have been called side-block brackets, as per this archived article by John Gilhen**, “Telephone and Telegraph Insulators: The End of an Era”, published in 1976 by the Nova Scotia Museum.

**John Gilhen died in April of this year. He had a 50 year career at the Nova Scotia Museum in the natural history section. His obituary noted he was “an avid collector including antique glass and insulators, hockey pins and cards.” He sounded like a marvellous, interesting person.

The wind doesn’t blow this far right

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New music from Lisa O’Neill is cause for great celebration, and yesterday she released a moving new song that took her eight years to finish, The Wind Doesn’t Blow This Far Right (choose your preferred music service here). Well worth the wait, a song for our times.

I first heard of O’Neill a couple of years ago when I came upon her haunting song Old Note. A rare talent singing memorable, honest music.

Ched and Pep Pep

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Love this packaging design. I imagine they were satisfying to stack together.

I admire the retro colours and the identical red bowl with different coloured pasta in them, the macaroni carefully arranged so it hit the top edge of the bowl the same in each photo, and some of the pasta on its side and some with o-ends facing out.

I don’t have many memories of the general store my parents ran until I was four, but I remember being fascinated by how the slices of cake on the different varieties of Betty Crocker mixes looked exactly alike, the size and icing swirls identical only in different colours and flavours. If I was transported back into that store as it used to be right now, I could take you straight to that shelf, at four-year-old eye level, and hand you your choice (and being the daughter of two great salespeople, ask you if you needed birthday candles as well. Always be selling!).

Boxes of Matheson Food Company macaroni and cheese mixes side by side with different coloured boxes for the four different flavours.

I swear I know how to read, and I have bookmarks to prove it

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Peter’s wonderful post about Charlottetown’s venerable Bookmark (his photos of tiny details around the shop and their aerie office are delightful) made me dash pre-morning-coffee to rifle through my small bookmark collection to confirm his observation that there has never been a “the” before the bookstore’s name. Me too, Peter, me too.

I guess I had my final visit to the Queen Street location this past Wednesday, when I dashed in to pick up a book order while a friend waited in my illegally-parked car. I didn’t know to give a final nod to the place where I’ve spent many happy hours, so Peter’s post allowed me one last wistful glimpse. Looking forward to the new digs!

A series of yellow and blue bookmarks from a Charlottetown, PEI, store called Bookmark. The oldest one would likely be from the early 1980s and the most recent from a couple of years ago.
The bookmarks of Bookmark, from the early 1980s to almost today.

Something in the wind

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Late summer 1925 was filled with federal election rumours, and Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King eventually did call a general election for October 29 of that year. King had some housekeeping to do before the election, and one of his tasks was filling half of PEI’s seats in the Senate, which meant appointing two new senators to replace John Yeo and Patrick Murphy, who had both died during the previous year.

The August 31, 1925 Charlottetown Guardian editorial page was full of Senate news and opinion:

“Local Liberals and prospective senators are putting on an expectant and worried look these days. Evidently there is something in the wind.” Charlottetown Guardian August 31, 1925 p4.

Then, breaking front page news from the September 3, 1925 Guardian:

Senators Who May Or May Not Be

Rumors were rife in the city yesterday regarding appointments to the vacant senatorships, to the effect that the choice had fallen upon Mr. J. J. Hughes, M. P., and Mr. Creelman McArthur, Summerside. No confirmation of this rumor was available last night but no doubt official announcement will be forthcoming very shortly. The Liberal decks are being cleared for action and no doubt all possible appointments will be made before the Liberal conventions are held as some possibilities for a senatorship may be willing to accept nomination as second choice, if they should fail in bagging the bigger plum. Mr. Nelson Rattenbury who has been a senatorial possibility till the last minute has been eliminated from the list by a consolation prize of a seat on the C. N. R. Board of Directors. What consolation will be handed out to the remaining aspirants has not yet been divulged, but anything is possible now that appointments will be handed out promiscuously in view of the pending election. In the meantime until more definite information is to hand, Messrs J. J. Hughes and Creelman McArthur will enjoy the felicity of being senators pro tem but subject to revision.

I can confirm that the rumours about Hughes and M(a)cArthur were true, and Creel resigned his seat in the PEI Legislature on September 5. Now to fire up the time machine and go back to place a few bets!

The original (non-operational) outhouse for Senator MacArthur’s Cedar Lodge built in 1933 and restored by me in 2013. We lovingly refer to it as The Senate.

Pleasant View Cedars

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Today I joined a Nature PEI walk through Pleasant View Cedars Natural Area near Miminegash. I understood we would see some large, old eastern white cedars, but wasn’t prepared for how breathtakingly enormous the stand was! At one point in the middle, all I could see around me was cedar, something I’ve never experienced before. It is a rare landscape on our tiny Island.

I always find it difficult to photograph forests, but trust me, that’s a lot of cedar!

There is a cedar stand on the property we occupy, an area that was too wet to be farmed, and some of the trees there are very old. The walls of our log cabin are unpeeled cedar logs, a few of which probably came from that cedar stand. Some of my earliest memories are waking early from sleep and staring at the patterns on the bark. I could see faces in the knots, would pull at the stray threads of bark that were peeling off. I was partly raised in the comfort and solidity of cedar trees.

The drought we’ve been experiencing meant we were walking over dry land that should really have been quite boggy, which was good for us but possibly uncomfortable for the trees. There was very little undergrowth due to the tall canopy. It was a cloudy morning, so it was very dark and quiet as we walked through. I sort of felt like I was in a fairytale woods – Hansel and Gretel came to mind, as it was a little spooky, with odd-shaped trees all around.

There were many trees that looked like they had legs and could walk! This perfectly-healthy cedar would have started life growing on top of a dead fallen tree, which eventually rotted away leaving this space at the bottom.

Our guides, Mark Arsenault from the provincial government forestry division, and Rosemary Curley, former provincial biologist and Nature PEI president, were genial hosts and excellent teachers. I’ve been on many walks with Rosemary, mostly scouting for mushrooms, and am constantly impressed and inspired by her vast knowledge of our province’s natural areas and her life-long passion for sharing her love of the natural world with others. I highly recommend spending time with her whenever you get a chance.

Northern red belt fungus

Nature PEI hold many field events each year, and they all seem to be free, but a membership to support their important work is only $20 a year, which includes a quarterly newsletter. This morning’s hike was easily worth 10 times this year’s fee. I’ll never forget being surrounded by those trees.

Me next to the biggest cedar I’ve ever seen on PEI. This is a rare photo of me, so enjoy.

Vic Runtz Collection #1

Here are some 75-year-old Vic Runtz cartoons from the Charlottetown Guardian I’ve enjoyed over the past few months. Plus ça change…

Newfoundland, a Canadian province for only one year, announced the creation of a provincial museum while PEI could never seem to get beyond the talking stage (and still can’t to this day). July 14, 1950, page 4
July 8, 1950, page 4.
Scrappy little Summerside’s new federal government building (now the site of the Summerside Rotary Library) was under construction while Charlottetown still waiting. April 20, 1950.

Oh

The YouTube algorithm served me some Sandra-Oh-on-a-talk-show content today and I watched her tell Seth Myers that the first Shakespeare play she did was Love’s Labour’s Lost at theatre school. Oddly enough, I had come across the program from that show a couple of weeks ago as I performed in my current production of the off-Broadway sleeper hit Oh My God, My Mother Is Dead and Why Do We Have So Much Stuff??!!, which has entered its third month of an unlimited run in our basement. I’m starring as the daughter of a woman who bought and saved a lot of stuff, but now that the mother has died, that stuff has to be sorted through and dealt with. The twist is the daughter also has stuff, like boxes of theatre programs, so now she has to deal with her dead mother’s stuff AND her stuff, but mostly she ends up just sitting in the cool basement ignoring what has to be done and looking through boxes of stuff and going “hmmm, look at that.” It’s riveting.

I have no memory of seeing LLL, which I guess was performed the fall after I graduated from the National Theatre School of Canada in May 1991 as these folks were in first year when I was in my final year (I was trained in technical production: lighting, sound, stage management, technical direction, production management, carpentry, etc. I have acted, but am not trained, which was obvious if you ever saw me act.). I remember going back to see the third year students do a show in December, so this must have been on at the same time.

This class was an especially talented group of people and many have gone on to great theatre, TV and film careers. Although I don’t know any of these folks now, it’s still fun to see them pop up in movies or on red carpets or talk shows. Weird, but fun, like my show, which you can catch from now until the basement is empty, which, at this rate, will be never, so you have lots of time, don’t rush.