INDEX , NO WAITING

Dear readers, here I have been worrying about creating an index when it has been there all along.

There is a "search" BOX with a little magnifying glass in the top left corner of the Post page.

If you type in a keyword like Cameron Falls and click on the magnifying glass it will bring up ALL museum Posts that mention Cameron Falls.

THE De La RONDE TITLE

This is a French Translation that L.M. "Buzz" Lein acquired ... author unknown.

"Histoires du Notariat au Canada - Depuis La Fondation del la Colonie jus qu'a nos jours - par J. Edmond Ray - docteur des lettres de l' Universite Laval de Quebec. Membre di la Societe Royal du Canada. Membre di la Chambre des Notairis de la province de Quebec - Directeur di la Revvue du Notariat - Levis.  Imprime a la Revue du Notariat 1900."

starting page 309 :

" Let us pause an instant on the above name de la Rondes. Michael Gaspard Thibaudiere de la Ronde, admitted L - the - Notariat the 28th November, 1825, belonging to the family Denis de la Ronde which was prominent in the Millitary of the Colonial Armies. That family belonged to good nobility according to the certificate given them in 1688 by the Intendant - Duchesneau."

Continued:

"The family de la Ronde had its days of splendour, but like many others of that epoch, it also had its days of sadness and misery."

"In 1733, the king had granted L - one of the - ancestors, namely, Louis Denis de la Ronde the beautiful Seigneurie of Lacolle on the banks of the river Chambly. Some 10 years later it passed into the family of Daniel Lienard de Beaujou without one really knowing the reason for it."

"The family de la Ronde also possessed formerly in Quebec, considerable properties and according to reliable reports, among others the property where at present the protestant cemetery of St. Mathieu on St. Jean Street in the suburb of the same name is situated. It appears that on account of the fault of an unfaithful attorney that last property passed into the hands of the Crown and that the sale price was part of the disaster."

"In 1829, the notary Thibaudiere de la Ronde put it in his head L - rebuild his coat of arms and L - try L- recuperate the possessions which ill fortune of time had removed from his relatives. Once, this idea well established, he worked unremittingly, he digged (dug) into the Registry Offices and the archives, everywhere he made researches. God only knows how many doors he had L - knock on in order L - retrace the genealogies and L - dig up the ancient titles. Few would continue at such an arduous task because success does not crown the efforts."

"De la Ronde used his time, his health and the little means which he could have had for that chase after the heritage and which for him became a pleasant and inoffensive mania. During the Legislative assembly of Quebec which took place at 1974 - 75, we saw Gaspard de Coligny Denis de la Ronde,  Notary present a petition in which he demanded a decree confirming the rights and titles for himself and his brothers in regard to the Fief and Seigneuries de Lacalle."

"This Gaspard di Coligny de la Ronde, if it is the same man, because with the years he took another mania, that of changing his name and titles. Born at the beginning of the century, towards 1806, in the parish of Ste. Anne do Belevue, near Montreal, from the marriage of Louis Denys and Marie-Louise King and baptized under the name of Thibaudiere de la Ronde, he took in succession the "brass" became Denys de la Ronde, then  Gaspard de Coligny. When we encountered him the first time in 1888 at the bottom of one of the dusty cubicles of the Registry office in Quebec he recited his last and first names as follows. Pierre Alexandre Denys Thibaudiere Denis de la Ronde and he added modestly, former Duke of St. Simon."

"Thibaudiere de la Ronde was then 82 years and 4 months old. He was a very well preserved old man and really had a grand air. The way he held his snuff box, inhaled the pinch of snuff and then removed a speck from his coat collar was in such a manner worthy of the Ante Chamber of Versailles."

"When he heard that we were in the profession of Archaeology, he started the conversation as with an old lost comrade suddenly found again. It was then that he told us, the history of his family, the robberies of which they had been victims, his researches perseveringly carried on for sixty years, how he had consulted 100 lawyers, he quoted us many names as Duval, the McCartty's, the Bouchettes, the Moquin, the Stuart and how he spent more than 1000 louis expense."

"This man had an amazing memory for names and dates and he gave it to us without hesitation, judgement of courts, acts of notaries all he reviewed."

"What surprised us more over was the facillity with which this old man unravelled to us the genealogies of the principal families of the country. Evidently he specialized in this and he showed us his own genealogy - a manuscript of some 30 pages and which he always carefully carried with him like a palladium (meaning a security or safeguard)."

"Alas, after all that work, all that research, he needed just one more paper, only one miserable paper to complete his dossier and the fortune would be his. He then accused the burocrats, the Grants, the Lymburners and the Lewwlls to have stolen that document."

"Thus it is that Thibaudiere de la Ronde led a life of dreams and illusions, aspiring towards the day when he finally would put his hand to that paper which always eluded him. He died in 1888 in Ste. Cecile de Valleyfield."

"One can understand how de la Ronde with his ideas, neglected a little the serious clients to play the profession of notary. During some time he belonged to that catagory of travelling notaries because for a certain number of years he stayed in the parish of Ste. Marthe in county of Vaudreuil, where he cultivated miserably a piece of land poorer than his landlord. He also worked at St. Andre - Avillon near Argenteuil."

"The records of Denis de la Ronde ar deposited at Ste. Scholastique, district of Therrebonne."

end of the document that is in the Nipigon Museum Archives de la Ronde File.

De la Ronde searches

For those of you who are searching for information on the De la Ronde family:

The Nipigon Historical Museum has  a rather fat file compiled after years of searching by "Buzz" Lein. 

One part is a file of information from the Thunder Bay Museum - so they may have the information you are looking for.

Our museum will try to answer any specific questions you may have through the privacy of email at
nipigonmuseum@gmail.com

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THE TRAIN DOGS

A poem by E. Pauline Johnson

THE TRAIN DOGS

Photograph: B. Brill

Out of the night and the north;
Savage of breed and of bone,
Shaggy and swift comes the yelping band,
Freighters of fur from the voiceless land
That sleeps in the Arctic zone.

ECE80-28

Laden with skins from the north,
Beaver and bear and raccoon,
Marten and mink from the Polar belts,
Otter and ermine and sable pelts -
The spoils of the hunter's moon.

Out of the night and the north,
Sinewy, fearless and fleet,
Urging the pack through the pathless snow,
The Indian driver calling low,
Follow with moccasined feet.

ECE79-16 WT-5

Ships of the night and the north,
Freighters on prairies and plain,
Carrying cargoes from field and flood
They scent the trail through their wild red blood,
The wolfish blood in their veins.

LAKE SULPHITE MILL

Lake Sulphite Mill, Red Rock, Ontario,

 "wood holding pond" construction

 - 1936-37.

Nipigon Historical Museum Photo Archives

nmp 6427
Foreman Malcolm Speidel beside ice cake,
 holding pod construction 1936-37
Red Rock, Ontario

nmp6428
Holding pond construction, Lake Sulphite Mill, Red Rock
1936-37

nmp6431
Holding pond construction at foot of Jack-ladder,
Lake Sulphite Mill, Red Rock, 1936-37
Bob Brown on tractor.

BLUEBERRIES by" Martin Hunter"

The Blueberry Patch 2012
Photo by B. Brill

Article written over 100 years ago but the generation "gap" was already showing.

"Martin Hunter" writes:

I have always advocated the saving of imported provisions, when giving advice to hunters and trapppers. The transportation of "White man's food" into the interior is always costly and a laborious work, and the more one subsists on what the country in which we hunt produces, the greater the saving from civilization.

I have pointed out in previous articles , the wholesomeness of several kinds of animal flesh, which the ordinary trapper throws away, the mode of preserving meat and fish by smoke drying, and other valuable hints.

One effect of civilization on the younger generation of Indians is to cause them to deride what their forefathers did to sustain life. The tendency is for them to look down upon, as beneath them, the patience shown by the old Indians in conserving country produce for the coming winter.

White men, however, as a rule are open to conviction and willing to learn where a saving can be made, and it is to such I pen this article.

Photo by B. Brill
"Every year in the back country,
 crops of luscious berries expand,
 ripen,
 fall to the ground
 and are lost."

Bears, marten, fisher and birds feed on them, but the crop is generally too abundant for those to make any perceptible diminishments. With the Old Indians of away back, the conserving of blueberries for winter use, was one of their obligations and attended to yearly.

The gathering of the berries was understood to be the work of the women and children, but occasionally the men pitched in for a day or so to advance matters.

As the berry season is also bear season, the men generally roamed about the brule hunting for "Black pit", while the family gathered the fruit on the edge of the clearance.

Bears, once the berry season is on, eat and eat almost continuously through the day, for this is the time when they put on fat to protect them from the excessive cold of the coming winter.

Blueberries are about the only fruit I know of that can be eaten in large quantities without any injurious results. One can consume appalling quantities without suffering any derangement of the stomach. This cannot be said of strawberries or raspberries.

The Indians had two ways of curing the berry, one way by drying and the other by evaporation. Both required a considerable amount of labour and patience, but they did it.

Berries for drying purposes were gathered before the first frost, as at that stage they are not so full of fluid. The Indians kept for the purpose of drying, mats of woven rushes or flags.

These mats were four feet long by three feet broad, the woof used being of strands of the inner bark of the cedar, a fibre which is very strong when twisted. A staging about three feet high being erected with strong poles all around, the mats were fully extended and tied over this, lapping a few inches over their edges so the fruit id not fall through.

The fresh picked berries were then spread on top to an equal depth of four fingers and a well-spread fire of moderate intensity started.

Whit what watching the proper degree of heat and the almost continual stirring of the berries, the fruit dryer had to keep pretty close to her job. Too much heat, of course, would cause the berries to burst, and too little would arrest the drying process. The work, therefore, to make a success required the utmost attention.

As the season for this work began about the twentieth of August, an occasional bright, sunshiny day could be expected even after this date. When such a blessing did occur another staging out in the open was erected and upon this the berries were exposed, but the stirring and moving about process continued all the time.

An Indian is partial to a smokey flavor to his dried fish and flesh and many like a tang of smoke on their berries. Those that do are not so careful about pure heat drying, but let the fire and smoke do their work together. When thoroughly dry like our currants of commerce, they are stored away in bark baskets in a dry place and used during the winter in various ways.

A white trapper would find them a nice addition to his barley soup or to help stuff a roast duck or partridge. A handful may be thrown into a flour soup with rabbits as the meat is very palatable to a hungry man and well relished.

As the berries cost him nothing but his labour it is worth while some of my brother trappers trying this. A few put in a frying pan, adding sugar to taste, makes a nice jam desert, or to eat with venison, duck, partridge and other game. No water is required, the sugar being sufficient.

The evaporation method or blueberry cake is made in the following way:

The berries are not picked until fully ripe and a frost has passed over the field. The beautiful bloom is then gone, the berry, perfectly black, is at the point of bursting.

The good wife's large copper kettle is then brought forth, hung on a strong pole, each end resting on a stout forked picket strongly planted in the ground and the kettle filled three parts full of fresh berries. Fire is again the "motif." With a strong hardwood palette in  the shape of a small paddle, the old woman keeps the fruit constantly stirred, while a bright fire underneath keeps the kettle boiling. At the first going off these is a tendency for the pot to boil over, this is kept back by drawing the pot aside for a few moments and stirring vigorously.

For the first hour or two a cloud of vapour arises from the berries; this is the watery part evaporating. Later the contents get thicker and thicker, casting forth only occasional bubbles of steam. The cooking process is carried on until the mass is so thick that the paddle remains erect in the middle. This test assures the woman that the contents are properly done.

The berries being now cooked to requirements, are scooped out into oval or other shaped bark pans and left to solidify. After becoming stiff enough to hold their shape they are placed upon scaffolding and smoke dried. When cool once more they are stored away in bark roggans for future use.

A slice or two of this cake placed in pancake batter makes a nice breakfast eaten with sugar or syrup.