Santa at Searchmount

The week before Christmas is always kind of crazy. Cookie exchanges, list checking and late nights all roll into one blur. We can relate to Santa’s nonstop worker elves. But in the short run it is all worth it. What else are we going to do when daylight shrinks and temperatures plummet?

This advent of winter has brought out the Lake Superior steam clouds big time. In the early, minus 20 mornings, pink and yellow mountains of heat float off the water. With just a slight puff of wind the steam mists swirl across the lake. When you see that happening, you know that it is a face freezing day and time to seek comfort in food, warmth and friendship.

Family and friends do take up the front row this time of year. Connecting is crucial. This season is for greeting. But there is a change in the air. Technology and lack of funds are altering how we communicate. The latest swoop has come with the planned elimination of door-to-door mail delivery. Not that anyone is too surprised. Much of the mail is advertising and handwritten letters are on the endangered list.

We have been using a post box for over two decades. At one time a visit to our post office was a social occasion. Folks met, had a coffee and chatted up the latest story. But a few years ago Canada Post gave Montreal River the outdoor, super mailbox, which is fine unless there is a blizzard or by some error you get someone else’s mail. Then you become the door-to-door deliverer.

Wondering what the other folks might do for mail, I Googled UK, France and Germany postal services. Another perspective on a situation always helps.

In France, mail delivery started when Louis XI initiated postal relays in 1477. No email hacking for him. By 1576 the ordinary citizen could access the system. Today 100,000 post men and women deliver mail door-to-door each morning.

In Germany, workers still deliver letters and parcels. The local post office often is in a stationery or grocery store. There a separate section allows you to buy stamps, mail a package, deposit or withdraw money and apply for a credit card. That’s right. The post office is also a bank. That’s true for the UK too, where the Post Office provides other services such as insurance and the ability to obtain forms such as a driver’s license, passport or car registration.

England offers another unique option. The Postbus (the mail delivery van) has a few seats for passengers. One can hail the Postbus and, if traffic allows, the driver will stop and pick you up. Fees depend on distance and one’s age. Mail has had a long history in the UK. Henry VIII set up the King's mail in 1516. By 1635, the Royal Mail provided postal services for the public.

So mail delivery has been a global phenomenon for centuries. And there’s been one type of letter that has been quite special since 1869. That’s when a certain writer wrote out that red-suited,  roly poly gentleman’s address. That year, in the publication Santa Claus and his Works, a George P. Webster described Santa’s home as being “near the North Pole, in the ice and snow”. Gulp. Did Webster realize what he did? He gave Santa the claim to the North Pole. For over a hundred years, millions of children have written to that address. But hold on. The Canadian government has put in a bid for that floating ice sheet. How does Canada Post plan to deliver Santa’s mail? And with that rich resource beneath the two and half miles of Arctic Ocean, the elves might leave the workshop for the oil fields.

Mmmm, maybe it’s time Santa got a new address. Ontario has a lot of beautiful snowscapes, including those right here in Algoma. I like Tom Mills’ idea to build a home for Santa at Searchmount, with the Snow Train as the perfect Polar Express. And Santa could make side trips to Lake Superior to see ice castles sparkling along the shore.

Well it is 2013, almost 2014. Why not? I’ll give the old guy the suggestion.  In fact I’ll write him a letter right now.

Merry Christmas everyone and don’t forget to take your naps. Santa does.

Yours truly.

Truth at the Bottom of the Well‏

Too bad Victor Hugo never made it to Canada. Even though it’s not Guernsey, he would have liked it here. He had that kind of soul.

Knowing that I was going to see the Musical Comedy Guild’s production of Les Mis, I headed off to the public library and borrowed Hugo’s Les Miserables for a couple of months. He wrote and published his massive text in early 1860 while in exile. At the time he was living on the island of Guernsey, which he loved, but not as much as his beloved France. For me, curling up with the book each evening was a reprieve from the daily brew of grinding news. One gets overwhelmed trying to figure out who is the real coach behind the bench of the Ottawa Senate, how hockey is going to evolve and where to find the best deal on a new tablet. And I wanted to learn why the words Javert, Valjean, Fantine and Cosette have become part of our vocabulary.

This diversion to Victor Hugo has pumped up my regard for nature, which is helpful as we deal with shorter days and a deeper cold. Winter arrived early and now has settled in for the season. Maybe that excellent bounty of berries this summer was an indication of a long hard winter. But that’s ok. Like the rabbits that have turned white and the foxes that grow thick fat tails, we too, can adapt.  The latest bout of sub zero temperatures has accelerated ice formation. The water in the top layers of the little lakes has succumbed and ice now covers our favourite little mirrors. This early ice is surprising but it does bring us a favourite winter pastime - skating. While the joy in a pond skate is delicious thing, the exhilaration of a Lake Superior skate is a bit more of a shaky promise. But, it could be different this year. Ice has crept into some of the more secluded bays. Plus the Batchawana, Goulais and Pancake Rivers are glossing over. Here at Montreal River Harbour, our present version of ice is slippery bedrock. A solid Lake Superior might appear much later in the winter, if at all.

A December skate on a frozen pond is one of our unique cultural treats. Combine this with the early darkness and you can skim across the ice under a sky parade. The moon slides across the black velvet of a star riddled backdrop. Then the shower of light from the Milky Way and the bold angle of the Big Dipper steal the show.

Hugo would have appreciated the magic of such simplicity. His writing describes all that. “When after a day spent in meditation he returned home by the evening light of the boulevards and saw through the branches of the trees the measureless space of the infinite, the nameless lights, the darkness and mystery, it seemed to him that all things not simply human were of little account.”

No wonder Hugo’s words make one want to sing. The drama of his heart wrenching story, combined with Boubil and Schonberg’s music, entrances an audience. And the Sault’s Musical Comedy Guild outdid themselves with their version of this story. I was at the Kiwanis theatre for opening night and thoroughly enjoyed the performance. The singing was superb. The choreography was delightful. The interactions on stage were infectious. The performance imitated one of Hugo’s quotes from Les Miserables. “If you are a stone, be magnetic; if a plant, be sensitive; but if you are a human, be love.”

And love they were. The joy and excitement in all the performers was contagious. One could feel the anticipation right from the opening scene when the prisoners ambled down the aisle with their invisible chains, chains that held us all captive throughout the performance. Javert’s flaming torch, alive with fire, reminded us that this theatre was real. The pure exuberance of the finale filled the hall with pure true spirit.

Hugo had much to say about human spirit. “He ( Marius) believed, and perhaps he was right, that he had penetrated to the heart of life and human philosophy, and he came to pay little attention to anything except the sky, which is the only thing that Truth can see from the bottom of her well.”

Yes, Hugo, you would have loved our open spaces and the truth to be found in our trees, water, rocks and sky. You might have been in exile but you stayed close to home with your thoughts and words. And maybe, just maybe, through them you came to Canada after all.