Montréal in Nouvelle France

I recently finished Robert Rumilly’s Histoire de Montréal, Tome I (of VI). Rumilly himself was a reactionary Catholic born in France who expatriated to Canada in the early 20^th century and, in his own words, “did not come to New France, but to another France that resembled France before 1899.” If you can imagine a Frenchman who didn’t think the Belle Époque was quite so belle, that would be Robert Rumilly.

Should We Fire the Police?

           If you lived in England in Middle Ages, you probably lived in one of two places: a shire or a bailey.  A shire is a small village or town, simple enough.

The Cicottes Invent Real Estate Investment

When the first Cicottes in New France were settling the frontier, the French Empire was trying unsuccessfully to build a feudal society there modeled after the one in the Old World.  The attempt failed for a number of reasons, but at least two have to do with land ownership: First, the colonization of America had an inflationary impact on the value of land, the primary asset of the wealthy and powerful in Europe.

The Tragedy of the Commons (Côte-des-Argoulets Part IV)

By 1680,[i][ii] fifteen years after seven colonists of Ville-Marie contracted with the crown and with each other to settle on the St. Peter River, Jean Chicot had died and bequeathed his land along the Côte-des-Argoulets to his widow Marguerite and their only son, Jean-Baptiste. Marguerite remarried a man much closer her age, Nicholas Boyer, with whom she would have several more children.  Others of the original inhabitants of Verdun had also died, leaving their descendants fertile land and a more peaceful island; Ville Marie had gone from a few dozen citizens to a few hundred, and was growing.  Some of the Argoulets were still around though, and one of them was Étienne Campeau.  He had taken the charge to develop his land very seriously, perhaps too seriously, eventually landing himself in a legal dispute with the other settler of Ville-Marie.

It's O.K. Cicottes, You're Still #7 in My Book (Côte-des-Argoulets Part III)

I've been lying about the Cicotte family for a while now,

The Pharisees Would have Loved the Bill of Rights...

...Or Why I don't Support the Ordain Women Movement.

I. Why Did the Pharisees Care More About Boiling an Egg on Sunday than Starving the Poor?

It Takes a Village to Lose a Child

Outside a typical suburban high school in Ohio sits a concrete bench with my name carved in it, alongside the names of my brother Matthias and sister Regan.  The school engraved our names in memorial of the countless hours we spent sitting on that cold seat, waiting for our parents to remember to pick us up from school.  You haven't experienced calculus until you've tried to integrate trigonometric functions by the dim glow of parking lot security lights.

As it turns out, forgetting one's children is a family tradition.

A Talk at Camp Hinckley

The following is a talk I gave at my Stake's Young Women's camp the week of July 4th.  A few important points of context: First, the location of the talk was the amphitheater which they refer to as the Sacred Grove.  Second, each day's lessons share a theme, and that day's theme was love.  Third, some parts may seem disjointed because the questions were not rhetorical; each question involved receiving answers and comments from the audience. So, without further ado:

Eat, Pray, Marry

Once again, many thanks to Yvon Sicotte.

As movies have taught us, marriage serves the exclusive purpose of validating romantic love.  If you're not out-of-control, head-over-heels stupid in love then you have no obligation to marry, stay married, or remain faithful, regardless of circumstances.  In contrast, our ancestors married and respected marriage for a bunch of dull reasons like Religion, Morality, and Survival. BOR-ING! So to those of you of modern sensibilities, the story of how the Cicotte family established itself may cause you anything from distaste to horror, but I think there's a human, even tender story to be told here, so bear with me.

Côte des Argoulets Part II

    I owe this post to Yvon Sicotte, a distant relative who has had a twenty-five year head-start studying the same documents I have been piecing together for about five years.  His work's comprehensiveness puts mine to shame and renders it useless.  I may only meagerly contribute by providing translations since his work is only in French.  Still, I encourage anyone reading this to visit his site here, if only to boost the number of visits and encourage him to continue.  I also owe this post to my father, who found the website.

A long time ago I promised a transcription of Jean Chicot's land grant.  I got about a third of the way before the less-than-legible handwriting and archaic language forced the project onto the back burner.  Later attempts only got me about half-way.  Then my father provided me M. Sicotte's website which contained a complete transcription, as well as some useful contextual commentary.  Here is my English translation, along with my own commentary:

Clementine Cicotte's Blog Debut

Not a lot of commentary on these...just at home to grab some food for Arminda and me, load some pictures, and then back to the hospital.

Genetic Engineers Announce New "Brown" Cicotte

     Engineers have announced the creation of a new brown version of the Cicotte, saying it will be available in summer of 2012, most likely right after the release of the previously announced M&M model.  Asked about the project, Cicotte representative Logan Cicotte explained, "We saw the work being done by researchers at G.W. and M&M and thought, 'What else can we bring to the table?'  Of course, I immediately thought of the old line 'You can have any color Cicotte you want, so long as it's white,' and thought, 'Let's shake things up a bit.'"
     Truth be told, plans for a new brown Cicotte have been in the works some time.  Mr. Cicotte admitted that they had been working on a brown chassis model borrowed from the Gomez line (much like the Honda Passport) for some three and a half years.  Still, engineers are hopeful that the first original brown Cicotte will create plenty of excitement.  Mr. Cicotte went on, "We're definitely putting the unexpected into 'What to Expect when You're Expecting.'"
    And the changes don't stop at color.  "We're still hashing out the details, but our goal is an on-board communications system in English, Spanish and French," Cicotte continued, "Of course, we want it to be a Cicotte, so we expect to stick to the classic huge head and stubby limbs.  We want people to know that we're trying to add to, not replace, the original Cicotte line." The new Cicotte is expected to come out around August 6th.

Punkeydoodle

Did your parents call you Punkeydoodle? Probably not, because it's weird. But mine did, and while I can't say, "I've always wondered where that came from," I was nonetheless very surprised to come across the name in reading.  As I was researching my family history I read the following passage in a book about rural   Ontario called Country Roads: The Story of South Easthope:

     One of the oddest (and funniest) names in the province is Punkeydoodle's Corner at the point where three townships (South Easthope, Wilmot and East Zorra) and three counties (Perth, Waterloo, and Oxford) meet.  The origin of the name seems to be tied to a Mr. Zurbrucken who, probably coming late from his pumpkin patch whistling Yankee Doodle, seems to have become victim of his irate wife's mixing of the two as Punkeydoodle.  Many versions of this story have developed over the years. (Hagarty, 6)

Father's Day

My lesson in church today nearly crashed and burned.  Speaking to a group of all men about the eternal nature of families I said, "I'd like to take the last ten minutes and let any of you speak who would like to share what you've learned from your fathers."  How could I have known that the results would be disastrous?  I had a couple of positive answers, but then the room went silent before two men spoke about how their mothers were better fathers to them their actual fathers, and one man said, "My father was an example to me because I learned to do the exact opposite of everything he did."  I realized two things:

Cuenca Day 3 (31 May 2011)

Today we visited a national park up in the Andes.  We actually went a ways back up the same highway that we took to get to Cuenca from the coast.  At one point we pulled off the road into a park entrance where our bus driver/tour guide took us on a hike above the tree line (appx. 13,000 ft) through lagoons, marshes, down into a small forest and back across the marshland.  I won't go into a detailed description because I can't show you the pictures but I can say that it was magnificent.  Our guide showed us a plant that the locals chew (like coca but much milder) to treat altitude sickness.  Not surprisingly it tasted like sucking on ibuprofen would.  It did get rid of my headache, though.

We came back, changed out of our muddy clothes then went to a Panama hat museum/store.  Ecuadorians insist that Panama hats were actually invented in Ecuador.  While I don't doubt that that is possible, the museum was kind of lame and since I could never see myself wearing such a hat with any kind of seriousness the whole experience was a little boring, though not long enough to really get on my nerves.  We walked around the city for a while and I tried to keep some distance between myself and my obviously-tourist-because-I'm-wearing-flip-flops-in-the-rain-and-a-Panama-hat-I-just-bought colleagues.

A few minutes later we got on a tour bus that took us around the city.  The tour was not very informative, but it was free and it took us to the top of a hill where we could see all of Cuenca so I'd say it was worth it.  There is a gelatto parlour across from our hotel and today is the second time that I have purchased a cone for $1 which I think is a pretty good deal.  My roommate had never tried gelatto so I made him do it last night.  He went three times today.  I suppose it's good that we're leaving tomorrow for Quito.

Cuenca Day 2 (30 May 2011)

Yesterday was Memorial Day. I hope you all had fun.  As for me, I was already on vacation so I almost forgot.  As for the day's activities we visited Incan ruins at about 10,000 feet elevation.  I felt a little bit better than some of my fellow cadets as we hiked around because my roommate and I had gone for a run that morning in Cuenca, partially acclamating us to the thinner air.  Still it wasn't easy and as I finished my struggle to the top of a hill any pride that I had in my physical abilities was dashed to pieces by a fourish foot Ecuadorian farmer carrying what looked to be about 150 lbs of llama feed on his back.

We got back to Cuenca, grabbed our swimsuits and headed over to another hotel whose pool was formed from a natural hot spring.  That and the Turkish bath cleared out my sinuses pretty well, though perhaps too well because they dried out overnight and I've got a bit of a sore throat this morning.  We got back from the hot springs, ate dinner and my roommate and I went out to see more of the old city.

I almost forgot!  The absolutely greatest Catholic cathedral I have ever seen was just a few minutes off the path back from the ruins.  Built on a steep hillside (what might be called a mountain in the eastern United States) the entire back wall of the chapel was  the raw stone of the hill itself.  From the outside it looked like a castle with several different steep winding staircases leading up to the chapel.  One of the things that had been brought up at the Incan ruins was that the Spanish often destroyed Incan temples or appropriated stone for other building projects as part of their iconoclastic colonization techniques.  I could see how this cathedral could have had an impressive psychological effect on any indigenous person trying to decide which god to place their bet on. All in all, a pretty good day.

Guayaquil Day 3; Cuenca Day 1 (28-29 May 2011)

I did not go salsa dancing.  It turned out, however, to be greatly to my advantage.  As my colleagues informed me the cab driver had no idea how to get to the club that had been scouted out and ended up taking all the cadets to another club which could only be given the compliment of  ''memorable'' and none other. Anyway the next day we spent the morning and afternoon in a city park that was part zoo, part botanical garden, and part recreated historical city.  It was pretty cool but with the end in sight it's hard to convince myself to edit pictures and upload them.  That will probably have to wait until I get back.  We came back to the hotel and I had the chance to read my book and to talk to Ada.  I miss her a lot.

Today we got up a little later, some people went to church but I missed that phone call because I had gone to the hotel gym.  At about 1100 we left for Cuenca.  The drive was incredible.  We drove through the fog for about forty-five minutes before coming out of the cloud cover.  From then on the mountain view above the clouds was fabulous all the way until we came down into Cuenca.  I immediately fell in love with the city.  Architecture from every high point in society is visible, from some pre-Columbian ruins to Gothic and Baroque cathedrals to colonial plazas to early twentieth century homes. OK so I know I said that I wasn't going to bother with photos but this place can only be appreciated by seeing it.  Unfortunately this computer is really slow so you will have to wait for another day.  Sorry. Tonight I will finish The Brothers Karamazov and try to figure out how to get something else to read that I would be dedicated to finishing.

Manta 11-12; Guayaquil 1-2 (May 24-27 2011)

Ok so I really haven't written that much in the last few days.  Since the last time I wrote I spent the first half of our last day in Jaramijó processing patients into the site.  The second half I spent in general medicine.  Like last time, about 2/3 kids, the rest adults.  The next day was the closing ceremony for the operation, even though some of the doctors were finishing up at the site with some left over patients.  We attended the ceremony rather than work with the doctors.  The local translators had us covered.

The rest of the afternoon we spent learning to play Ecuavolei on the beach.  Ecauvolei is like volleyball, but you play with a soccer ball instead.  The net is considered in, but the post is still out.  The only other difference is that one is allowed more time for contact with the ball.  That is, you're allowed to sort of catch the ball and throw it as long as you do it quickly.  It is, however, useless to ask an Ecaudorian exactly how much time one may hold onto the ball, since the answer is always, "eeeeeeh...just a little."  Later that evening we played soccer on the beach with some locals.

The next morning we left for Guayaquil.  It was a three hour ride and I got to read a lot.  I finished the Qur'an a couple of days ago wo now I was reading The Brothers Karamazov.  That book was on hiatus during last semester but now I will most likely finish it before I leave.  Once we got to Guayaquil we went to a small park in downtown filled with iguanas.  After that we visited a Catholic cathedral and managed to get an insider tour that took us up all the way to the highest bell tower.  The last to stories we climbed on ladders.  Not being a huge fan of heights, I loved the view and the pictures I got (sadly, they are on my friends camera at the moment), including  a video of me ringing the bell, but I was also glad to get back on the ground.  We went to the Guayaquil Historical Museum and later that night we saw Pirates of the Caribbean IV.  I was a little disappointed.

Today we climbed up a hill where the colonials had set up artillery in defense against the Spanish.  It's a touristy place now, but it wasn't bad because it was the morning so it was mostly just locals getting ready for the day.  After that we walked down the boardwalk that was right there and walked a couple of miles along the shore in downtown.  We walked back, got in our van, then headed up to the LDS temple.  This evening we are supposed to take a class on salsa dancing.  We'll see how that goes.

Manta Day 9-10 (22-23 May 2011)

I been a little tired to write very much.  Yesterday I was in dermatology.  We didn't see very many patients because it was a specialty that most people didn't really need.  I got to see a couple of interesting, simple surgeries to remove skin growths, though.  After the day at Jaramijo we came back to the hotel, ate dinner and went to church on the ship.  It was interesting to see which of the officers we had worked with turned out to be members.  There were also the volunteers from LDS charities plus ourselves.  I passed the sacrament.  We went back to the hotel and I fell asleep reading.

Today I was in general medicine again, with a lot of pediatric patients.  Not much interesting happened.  I now have a much better idea what a doctor does day in and day out, and an even better conviction that I would not like to do that for the rest of my life.  I once considered being a doctor, but I am glad that I found something I was made for.  Tonight we are going to go to the daily officers' debriefing as part of our professional development.  I'm dying to go.  Seriously. I mean it.

Manta Day 7-8 (20-21 May 2011)

So yesterday we were took a day of liberty because the site at Roca Fuerte shut down so there were more than enough translators at Montecristi.  We took a drive southward and for $25 each we got a boat ride to Isla de la Plata.  We left between 9:00 and 10:00 AM so most of the small boat fishermen were coming back to unload their catch. 

We saw some shark fishermen unloading and preparing their catch for sale right there on the beach.

After we left the shore we had about a 45 minute boat ride out to the island.  As we approached I was worried that it would not be as cool as I expected.  The environment was quite arid and as we got closer I thought it the perhaps they should have named it Lots of Creepy Birds Island.

But things got better fast.  As we came ashore the water was crystal clear and I could see some fish, inlcuding some sea turtles.

This bird (blue-footed boobie, above and below) reminded me of Matthias, but there were a lot of them.

We also visited the creepy birds that included two species of vulture.

I swear I'm not fat.  That shirt is billowing in the wind.
We came back to the boat and found a good spot for snorkeling.  I'll spare you the photo of my half-naked body snorkeling amongst them, but we really did get to go right in the middle of these angel fish.

When we came back to shore I saw a bird driving a boat. Weird, huh.

Anyway, that was my day yesterday.

Today I was back at Montecristi for the last day there before they shut that site down.  I was in family medicine again, so a lot of kids and a few adults.  I've gotten very comfortable asking women some very personal questions.  I just hope that doesn't spill over into the rest of my life.  Goodness knows I already have trouble saying whatever pops into my head...

Tommorow we will be in Jaramijo, and the plan is for us to attend church on the Comfort.  I'm pretty excited about getting to go to church for the first time in about a month.  Last week some of us spoke with a few of the ladies from LDS Charities and they told us when sacrament meeting would be held on the ship.  Though I am married, I am the only married cadet of the 9 male LDS cadets and when we mentioned that we might try to make it, the word got around quickly.  We could not attend because of our schedule but the LDS Charities ladies told us the next day that sacrament attendance on the ship was a record high since they put out to sea, the additional members being a large number of very dissappointed female sailors.