Ash Splitting

Splitting black ash into strips for basket weaving, National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, September 30, 2025, Lamoureux Park, Cornwall, Ontario. The day is called informally Orange Shirt Day, after a shirt that was taken from a child when she was forced to go to a residential school that this day commemorates for the abuse and harm done to natives in Canada by this school system which tried to strip them of their culture and identity.

The ash separates into strips easily after pounding. It had a pleasant smell, and the man told me that the ash was related to the olive tree, which also has a nice smell. My mother's friend, Cecelia Thomas, who lived in Akwesasne and was a famous basket maker, told us that white people didn't know what to do with the black ash. The man said he harvested the ash from local forests and that the tree is under attack by the emerald ash borer, an invasive species.

Haudenosaunee often wear images of their clans, sometimes even on their cars. There is a Turtle clan singer next to a Bear clan.

Dreamcatchers. Originally Ojibwe they have become popular across North America - they catch bad dreams which dissolve in the sunlight next morning, but the good dreams know how to find their way out to the dreamer.

Orange doughnuts. Chocolate and vanilla. Given away but I gave a donation.

Dancing at sunset

Fox and Raccoon game, Haudenosaunee. I didn't hear the complete explanation but when the music stops, one dancer is the fox and the other is the raccoon and the first chases the second and tries to catch them. 

Where only the dead survive

 I went back recently to Lemieux, Ontario, a village that stood on the South Nation River south of Ottawa. I'd first gone there in 1990 when it was being demolished because it had been built over a layer of Leda clay, and there had already been several landslides along the river. At the time, the residents thought the town was safe because it had been there for a century. 

Leda clay is a clay that is formed in salt water. The St. Lawrence valley and area was covered by the Champlain Sea after the last Ice Age and there are Leda clay deposits in many places in the St. Lawrence, Saguenay, Ottawa and Richelieu valleys. There have been many landslides in this area - in 1971, 31 people were killed in one in Saint-Jean-Vianney, Quebec, which had been built on the same type of clay.

Leda clay is held stable by the salt in it, but as the ground water leaches out the salt, it becomes unstable and can liquify suddenly. That happened in Lemieux on June 20, 1993, and fortunately there was nothing there anymore. One man was hurt after his truck hurtled into the 30 foot deep crater that had suddenly formed where the road had been moments before. The clay liquified and flowed into the river, taking the fields and trees that were on top of it along with it. There was a grove of birch trees that remained standing straight up when they moved like a ship with masts into the place below where the road had been. In many places, it just looked like the ground had suddenly sunk down 30 feet.

A lady let me onto her land to take a picture of another landslide along the river which had happened years earlier that shows what Lemieux looked like after the landslide - she said she was also offered money to move off by the government but she said it wasn't enough and got a geologist to write a report saying that the area I was standing on was still stable:

Land by South Nation River sunk down about 25 feet.

Only the dead survive - St. Joseph Church was demolished in 1990 but the cemetery was far enough back from the river to stay, so that's all that's left of the town.

 

Barn Art, Brouseville, Ontario

 

North of Cardinal, Ontario, humourous paintings of cows hanging on a red barn.

Crane at sunset

Crane at sunset, next to La Maison Tavern at 900 Montreal Road, Cornwall, Ontario which has closed due to the construction unexpectedly.

 

War of 1812 Weekend, Glengarry Pioneer Museum, Dunvegan, Ontario

Girls selling small pouches who I thought were reenacting someone wounded being treated.

I accidently turned on the video and recorded the conversation.

 Sixth Heavy Dragoons reenactor

Musket balls found in the water near Morrisburg, Ontario from the Battle of Crysler's Farm, November 11, 1813. 

 

Green 1946 International Pickup Truck

Still in use!

 

Spencerville Fair, 2025

 

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Noah De Visser, 18, broke the fair's record with his 1211 pound pumpkin. The giant gourds are started off indoors while there's still snow on the ground and transplanted outside when the weather gets warmer. They are not particularly good to eat as they are watery.

De Visser's record-breaking pumpkin, 1121 pounds or 508 kilograms

Chainsaw artist Tom Stefan of Winchester, Ontario, and some of his creations

Blacksmith

Dog with tail dyed pink

Decorated pumpkins

Krystal tries bath

Krystal the cat in bath

Harvest Fall Festival, Dunvegan, Ontario

 

Spinning wheel, engines

Town Crier - Wes Libbey. I met him last when I was about 10 at the Bob Turner in Cornwall.

Obligatory 'little shavers' caption