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Sutton, Dunham, Frelighsburg. Québec, Canada
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Placidity, a universe Musicians step onto the stage and the sound of the instruments and voice resound at decibel levels near the tolerance level. Notwithstanding their prancing, their head tossing and foot stomping, spectators seem completely relaxed and placid in the heart of the sound storm. In the middle of a holiday party or a family gathering a child sleeps peacefully; a mother placidly observes her tumultuous family. At the ski hill, excited skiers bear the cold, the snow and physical effort and ride the ski lift in complete placidity. Is it possible to feel a sense of calm amid such hubbub? Obviously not by everyone. It seems one must be subjected to a higher degree of excitement before reaching a lesser one in order to feel placidity. The person who has rushed to organize an activity, a party or a friendly gathering; the mother who worried while preparing a new recipe; the parent burdened by work and family responsibilities; the student submerged by studies; do they not find relieved to a point approaching placidity the moment they get a little respite? Dunham, Frelighsburg and Sutton are places of placidity in that they offer visitors a drop in tension, a change in rhythm that transform uncomfortable situations into pure delight...for the soul. What is a slight line-up at the ski area, the restaurant, or the grocery store on the weekend to someone who has fought heavy city traffic all week; what's a little noise in a ski chalet or a bistro to the person confronted with employee, customer or children's complaints during the week? Calmer and more serene people can also attain placidity by locating a more clement and peaceful space. The snow-laden nature accessible on snowshoes or cross-country skis maybe the loveliest example. And what may be said about the sanctuaries of contemplation such as churches, yoga or Qi Gong studios, art galleries and various stages...or even a quiet moment reading National Geographic or Le Tour in front of the fireplace. To each his own universe of placidity! Happy reading! Denis Boulanger Placidity through dance and movement Our bodies are vessels for the soul and I am privileged to have a profession that helps to keep those vessels in good shape. Since my graduation as a 'Dance and Movement Teacher' in Basel, Switzerland more than 40 years ago, I've never taught such a warm and dedicated class as here in Sutton. Over the years I've witnessed recovery from surge-ries, personal tragedies and just plain crises, including my own. It always amazes me how much healing is possible via physical well being. I have an enormous admiration for my students and their determination, many of whom inspire me a great deal. We share much more than sit-ups! Here are their comments: Joan Rose (78): Shirley Beaulac: (82) Françoise Lépine : Rhoda Horn : (joined 1993) Cécile Hide : Claudette Kunsay : (64) Sabine Sessler : (48 ) Exercise often precedes relaxation, enjoyment and the sense of accomplishment that leads to a feeling of placidity with calmness and tranquility in life. Why not try it yourself. For additional information or motivation: 450 538-3063. Pina Macku Parenting and placidity: the art of staying cool when things get chaotic There's an old joke about parenthood that tells the story of a father who is pushing a crying, absolutely inconsolable baby in a stroller through the park. The father is murmuring, “It's okay, Pierre. Ssh... It's okay. It's okay, Pierre...” A kindly woman stops and asks the man how old his son, Pierre, is. The father replies, “My son's name is Alex. I'm Pierre.” Before my husband and I had kids, nothing could have prepared us for the ways that our ideas about calmness and peacefulness were to be challenged. Composure Remaining centered, collected and sure of one's self while the baby in your arms wails for a feeding or for some other reason that, for the life of you, you can't figure out calls for composure. You rock and you walk, and go around the living room once again. Or you grab the stroller and head outside for a tour around the block. With older kids, a good way to remain focused and start your week off right could be a parent-child movement or yoga class, or an easy hike together in the PENS trail system. Doing an activity together and moving in sync can be as easy as putting on a disc of lively, energizing music and acting out the songs together. One recent release is an excellent source of inspiration: Wapiti! is a 2009 book-audio CD package from La Montagne Secrète. The disc has 24 (mostly animal-themed) tracks, which lend themselves to some fun play-acting. Tranquility Trying to find a tranquil moment in a day filled with different energy levels, conflicts, and distractions is as easy as taking the time to share a story. Open a book, start to read, and watch the kids drawn to the story that unfolds, as if to a super-magnet (It's true! I've seen it happen!). The mood in the room changes, if only for the time it takes to read the story. The book doesn't have to be the latest publication or have characters from TV shows in it, and it is absolutely okay if you've already read the same book 15,000 times. Reading together is a moment of shared, creative stillness, no matter how old your kids are. Serenity When our kids were young, we would usually play a CD of lullabies at the end of the day, to mark bedtime. Just like in the joke above, their calming effect was as much for the parents as for the babies. This past year, I've been lucky to discover several of the Putumayo “Dreamland” collections, which bring together soft, very melodious songs for bedtime or just for relax-ation. The African and Celtic collections in particular stand out - more than the overly familiar and bland ‘waiting-room' style of relaxation CDs, these collections appeal to me as they introduce me to styles and traditions from far away. Generations of parents have listened to these songs, have learned them and passed them along as they rock and calm their own children. Whatever the language, the listener can focus on the musicality of the lullabies, let go and be carried away. What are some of the ways that you preserve or cultivate placidity at home? How is it different, as your kids grow older? Write to me at ferrigan.kelli@gmail.com, and please share... Kelli-Ann Ferrigan Placidity after YogaDance I feel peaceful and calm after I've danced - YogaDance, to be more specific! Yes, there is such a thing called YogaDance - not Dance of Yoga or Yoga and Dance, simply YogaDance. It is an exploration of the ancient wisdom of Yoga and the liberating movements of free Dance. The definition of the word Yoga is: the union of body and mind. The idea is, as we practice Yoga postures or different stretches, we become more in tune with our body and as we become more aware of the different physical sensations such as pain and pleasure, we experience better harmony. Knowing the benefits of regular Yoga practice, Ken Scott, a Canadian dancer, created YogaDance after visiting the Kripalu Yoga Ashram in Massachusetts in 1978. It was originally a form of spiritual aerobics known as DansKenetics that the ashram residents embraced with delight. It has evolved since then and was renamed Kripalu YogaDance (KYD) by Megha Nancy Buttenheim, the current Director of the dance program, to reflect her commitment to this yoga-based practice. In the spring of 2009, I finally realised a long time dream of participating in the YogaDance Teacher Training program at Kripalu. Kripalu is a wonderful place attended by people who make it a life changing experience, which I recommend to anyone (and the food is to die for!). Here I learned how to lead YogaDance classes, select appropriate music and help people feel comfortable enough to let go and allow the practice do its magic. “During the class we use yoga, movement, breath, and the chakra system, and user friendly dance to create meditation-in-motion, sometimes wild and filled with abandon, sometimes quiet and still. KYD is a beautiful way to come in contact with grace and your indwelling spirit, providing spiritual, physiological, artistic tools that allow you to reach for the deeper source of energy within. KYD also uses the joy of movement to tone muscles, build flexibility, endurance and cardiovascular fitness. In KYD you come home to the self and return to the soul; fall in love with your body and experience community in a safe and sacred setting. Anyone can practice this with modifications and variations to meet individual needs.” Megha Nancy Buttenhein, Kripalu YogaDance Teacher Training Manual ‘09. Join others and myself as we explore this freeing and energizing practice - no dance training required, just an open heart and mind. Leave all preconceived ideas and judgement at the door. You will leave with a peaceful mind and loving heart having shed all your useless baggage. Ilia Kavoukis Five years ago… On November 1st, 2004, I physically moved into 18 Maple Street and mentally into a whole new life as owner of the Vert Le Mont B&B. When I decided to buy the house and embark on this new career, it was more from necessity than choice. To be honest, it was more a way of avoiding returning to the UK and my former life in advertising than a positive decision to run a B&B. In fact, when I bought the house I had never even stayed in a B&B! Miraculously, here I am, five years later, still running the B&B and, more importantly, absolutely loving it. It is difficult to convey the sheer delight of welcoming so many nice people to Sutton and the B&B and to have the opportunity of introducing them to our wonderful hiking, cycling, restaurants and boutiques. Over the years, many of them have become more like friends than clients. Over the past 5 years I have learned to bake, make jam, fry eggs and clean bathrooms like a pro. In conjunction with some of Sutton's outstanding artists a public space behind the house was made available to showcase local sculptors. I've also had the honour to work with a group to create a much needed, web site www.infoSutton.com to promote our tourism industry which site is now visited by over 4,000 visitors a month and was the subject of a CBC interview. I've had the good fortune to invest both money and time in my business over the years allowing renovations leading to even happier clients as well as a 4 ‘Sun' classification. I spend hours at my computer ensuring a strong web presence to promote the B&B and local packages with partners such as Mont Sutton, Arbre en Arbre, PENS and Chapelle Sainte-Agnès. As a result this year has been my best ever either despite or because of the economic downturn but definitely aided by the support of Sutton businesses and Sutton residents who are kind enough to entrust me with the care of their visiting friends and relatives. The last five years have not been all plain sailing: my father passed away 3 years ago followed, last year, by my mother putting paid to our cherished dream that one day we would all live together in Sutton. I am sure however that they could not be happier about my choice of where I live and what I do. After many years of travelling and living in different countries I feel that I have come to rest not as a result of inertia or running out of steam but because at last I feel settled. Lynda Graham A Lake of My Own There are times when the world becomes too complicated, too clamorous, too crowded. There are times when only silence is little enough noise. There are even times when you already feel alone, despite the presence of people, and you might as well go and actually be alone to defeat the incongruity. But where to go? I have a place, and I'll share it with you, if you promise not to tell. Lean in close. Ssssh. It's Mohawk Lake. On a map, it looks like a misshapen boomerang or the letter “L.” It's a hike to get to but it's worth it - my private sanctuary. I first hiked up to Mohawk Lake on a bone-cold winter day so bright and brilliantly cloudless that concerns of freezing to death were somehow irrelevant. The sky was crystalline blue, and a dump of very fine powder overnight had me using my biggest snowshoes. I was exhausted by the time I reached the steep-sloped trail on the NE bank, my legs trembling from the exertion, but all was soon forgotten in the exhilaration of it all. I snowshoed to the center of the lake across the frozen surface, the only tracks mine, and stood hatless and listening to the profound silence. It was pure magic, and I tried to commit the feeling to memory. I will surely be back, I thought. I was up there this summer too. It had been hot and humid, and I had slept poorly the night before. I had started The Kindly Ones, a huge and serious novel about Nazi Germany from the Sutton library, but had had little time to read. (If you know me, you know just how such stalled and thwarted reading negati-vely affects me.) So I put the dust jacket back onto my book, wrapped it in two layers of plastic bags, and secured it all with a rubber band. I put my wrapped book, a bottle of water, a piece of applesauce cake and an apple into my fanny-pack, and set off for the mountain. This time I hiked the whole circuit before I settled myself, pausing briefly to consider the bald knob called Abenakis. No, not today, I thought. So I continued around until I found the hidden trail down to the point at the crotch of the boo-merang. There I chose the more secluded of two spots and settled in. I read for an hour, and then napped for 30 minutes. When I awoke, I changed position and napped for another 30 minutes. Refreshed but chilly, I moved around to the sunny rock across the lake and read for yet another hour. Ahhhhh. Only near the end of my second hour of bibliophilic bliss did anyone else appear, a mature couple who sat together alternating between staring silently and listening with closed eyes. “Excusez-moi,” one of them said eventually, and held out a disposable camera. I got up from my rocky perch, snapped a photo with the lake as their backdrop, and returned the camera. “Avec plaisir,” I said, and resumed my reading. They disappeared as silently as they had come, each of us wishing the moment to be as small a distraction as possible. I went to Mohawk Lake recently, on a mid-October day that started very rainy, but which held the promise of a clearing afternoon. Almost the minute I set off, the sky softened and the air became changeable and freshening. It was wet to be sure, but it almost seemed the rain-jacket I had packed might not be needed. As I gained altitude, the brilliant leaves gave way to bare branches, but the vivid yellows and reds still lit my way on the wet trail. Cresting at 2300 feet, I ventured only as far as the big rock, which would be in sunlight if there were any, and so dryer sooner than anywhere else. I pulled the old mouse-pad out of my pack, the one I use to cushion my “sit bones” from rocks, and sat down. I zipped my fleece close around my throat, adjusted my hat, and settled in. Ahhhh, the silence. My reading was lighter this time: Ian Fleming's Goldfinger and The Proust Project, a series of musings by well-known authors on the feelings evoked by reading Proust. The local apple I ate crunched loudly in my head but there was no other sound. It seemed the rain had perfectly repelled other hikers. I was truly alone. Alone except for the geese, squadrons of them as though on a mission, string upon string flying overhead. No sooner did the honking of one straggling gaggle nearly die out than the audible hint of the next sounded and grew. Breezes rippled the water, a dragonfly buzzed a patch of nearby moss, blue finally won out in the sky, and feeble rays of tepid sunlight tried to warm me. But it was too late, nearly 4 pm. My hands were cold, and I checked how many pages until the end of the chapter, a sure sign something was saying, “Wrap it up.” (Note-to-self: put the glove liners and tuque into the fanny-pack when you get home.) First the geese and now the cold - both reminders of how I'll soon need my snowshoes to get back up here. So here I am, in the warmth of Le Cafetier, telling you about my private refuge. I almost hate to reveal it, though it seems churlish to keep it all to myself, especially when there are so many days I can't use it. But please don't spread it around. And please understand, if you happen to see me there someday and I don't say hello, its not that I haven't noticed you; I'm only trying to preserve the illusion that nobody else knows about Mohawk Lake, which frankly is the way it feels most of the time. Ssssssh. Jay Sames In the Eye of the Hurricane lies…Placidity? In the 40 years I spent working in hotels, bars and restaurants, I can proudly state that I've been to many places and met many people. To this day ‘tho, I solemnly swear, I've never heard anyone utter the word Placidity. Over the past 60 years, I've played chess, hockey, tennis, scrabble, strip poker, pool and what else? Oh yes…I hike, bike and ski and I've even had time to raise 3 boys but never has anyone said to me, “That was pure Placidity.” But, a man's gotta do what he's gotta do so, ladies and gentlemen, I am back again asking a few co-Suttoners what they had to say about the present theme of the Journal Le Tour. p.s. Kudus to the editor (p.p.s. I want to keep this job). Sonia Baillon is definitely one of those people who, if she did not exist, we would have to invent her. I have yet to meet her in a situation where she does not belong. She's got that knack! Presently she teaches Hatha Yoga. Her classroom is the Park Sutton hiking trails and this is her modus operandi. First she converses with her students as they walk up the mountain then at a certain point, they take a break and do their Placidity-thing. For Sonia, the nature of life “is” change. Ms. Baillon was born and raised on an ancestral domain in Dunham. To be more precise, she stems from the magical kingdom of Selby Lake. She gladly acknowledges that her upbringing has had a lot to do with her take on Placidity. She explains how we travel on a stormy sea yet, as human beings, we can only survive in a certain state of calmness. Monsieur Tim Griss is a bona fide survivor of Sutton municipal politics. In all modesty he states, “Somebody had to do it”. Still, he remains a proud and earnest citizen of our town. Actually, he's very pleased to have had the opportunity to serve his community but I'll bet you he won't go that route again. Just teasing Tim. Tim had been vice-president of sales for a multi-national company before he retired so, needless to say, he is well traveled. Since 1984 Sutton had become a home away from home for him and his wife until ten years ago when they became permanent residents. All this to say that we are dealing with a connoisseur. No matter how many ways he describes it, for Tim, Sutton is Placidity. Our region is more placid than Lake Placid, except maybe for local politics. ‘Denis Happy', - what can I say other than, “You can't go wrong with a name like that.” Denis, born in Walkersville, Ontario, is a stone sculptor and probably the only rocker who drives a 12-cylinder wheelchair. He's been an artist for 35 years and is considered the oldest and the most productive stone sculptor in Canada whose work can be found all over the world, mostly in private collections. Monsieur Happy defiantly refused to consult a dictionary to bring light to my survey preferring to depend on his instincts. Having played chess with him on more than one occasion, I have found a new meaning to the expression “killer instincts”. I immediately sensed that his instinct had honed in on the more derogatory aspects of the word Placidity. Was it the time of day? the alignment of the stars? the cute waitress that wasn't smiling like usual? Who knows? The subject was starting to get a bit too wishy-washy for Denis anyway. And now ladies and gents, heeeeeeeers Joan…y! Joan Matthews is back by special request…mine. I never know what she will come up with but as usual, she did her research and brought me material that she had just composed. It seemed redundant to expand on the present theme as, after all, we do live in Sutton but Placidity did elicit a train of thought. So with her permission, here is an excerpt from her writings. When I am alone it seems easier Aurelien Guillory and his Muse, Greta von Schmedlapp, Tour the Townships! Hello and Bonjour. We must introduce ourselves for this issue of Le Tour. Your erudite and philosophical Editor Denis Boulanger has invited us to write a story of our colour and design obsessions for this remarkable newsletter. We have been sending our letters to the Westmount Independent weekly for nearly 2 years and since Aurelien has been a part-time resident on Lowry Rd. for over 25 years, he and I would like to share some of our special places and sources for our Design Friends and Fiends here in the charming Eastern Townships. I am his Muse and Design Sleuth so you elegant and cultivated residents, both full-time, or part-timers shuttling between Montreal and their place of Tranquility and Placidity must remember that I search for resources for his Interior Design work. You may have noticed the announcement in the last 2 issues of Le Tour of the opening of his new Branch Office. I have been assisting him since the mid 70's when he started to teach Interior Design at the now-closed Saidye Bronfman Centre of the Arts. We have been asked to tell you, dear Readers, about some of the interesting people and shops here in the region served by your newspaper. We also must remember the theme of this issue: Placidity. I know without asking that Aurel's favourite place for the ‘Placid' feeling is his house here. There is so much happening in the large flat and design office in Montreal that he and I really do plan our time at the cottage. Originally, Placidity was perfectly achieved for him at the old log cabin reputed to be one of the few remaining Empire Loyalist way stations where, after restoring it, he and family and friends remained until he designed and built the multi-level and angled house in 89-90. I can't believe it has been so long ago. The most special place for meditation is the pentagonal gazebo near their pond, first built of pine and plywood before the house in 1986 and then re-built in sturdy cedar in 2003, (the porky-pics don't think cedar is tasty). Aurel has painted the five 9' triangular ceiling panels with symbols of red, yellow, green, blue, and violet. As he sways gently in the royal purple hammock from Merida, Mexico, he releases all the city stress and restores his vital energy…a perfectly placid place. More of us hectic city people are realizing the virtues of country life and, with the all-pervasive e-mail, the world is truly flat! Who cares where we are, if virtual reality allows Aurel and all of us to continue our projects whether listening to the murmur of the pond or the street noise in the city! I must tell you, my dears, a bit about what Aurel and I have cooked up with the colour theory in action at his poly-faceted cottage. As you might suspect there is no beige there! A device he often uses when he is creating a new colour system for a client is the ancient visual "trick" of perception. By using a 30% darker shade for the front hall than the adjacent rooms, the rooms you move into from the hall seem larger! This is optical experience of "compression to expansion". Aurel and I often say that since you do not read or do your cursed tax returns in the hall, allow a rich and dramatic feeling there. Preferably use a welcoming colour with a warm terra cotta, red or yellow tone, and then use several paler tints for the rooms that open from the hall. He will often use a neutral café-au-lait, or taupe, with spotlights to show off a small painting, and keep the walls and ceiling the same colour. White ceilings are a cop-out! The sharp contrast between the walls and the ceiling often shows how narrow the room is, but by highlighting the art, you don't feel the narrowness as much. If the hall is long, please remember the colour theory that warm colours advance, and cool colours recede, so please don't paint the end wall pale blue or green. Now, my dear design fiends, I will ask you about your moods for that private part of your home. Are you a sky, meadow, or cave person when it comes to the mood of your bedroom? Aurel's cottage hall walls are a warm pale peach-pumpkin colour, and the rooms are painted a soft pale hyacinth blue. They are very ‘sky' in feeling and the complementary blue is lovely with the warm peachy hall colour. I will tell you about what the meadow and cave people prefer for their bedrooms in the next issue. In the mean time, please visit his web site, and send any questions and comments to us. Yours truly, Greta von Schmedlapp, is still searching for the best classic Martini in the Le Tour region... have you any suggestions for our research? Do keep in touch, looking forward to our next visit. Greta von S. Keeping the Peace Heather Darch – Musée Missisquoi Museum In the lovely windswept high places of early 19th Century Dunham where newly ploughed fields, old-growth forests and the earliest beginnings of tender apple shoots were taking root, a sinister and corrupt enterprise thrived and threatened to destroy the placidity of the newly settled pastoral community. For some 20 years at the beginning of Dunham's settlement, the village was the centre of counter- feiting not only in Missisquoi County but also in North America as a whole. In 1819 the Reverend Fitch Reed, a circuit minister from New York stated: “I was told that every family in Cogniac Street was concerned in the production of spurious bank bills. These bills are purported to be on the banks in the United States; the Canadian authorities troubling themselves but little about the matter, so long as their own bills were not counterfeited.”
An early map of the township of Dunham shows branching out from the main street of the village - a tiny road that meandered up into the hills. Both on the map as well as in the secret counterfeiting circles this dirt road was called Cogniac Street. The road still exists but it is there under the name of chemin Hudon. The counterfeiting criminals developed their own language with slang terms for their profession and their stock and trade. We no longer call a counterfeiter a “coniacker” yet the term was once in such wide circulation that it was included in an 1859 compendium of slang. The word “coniacker” itself may be rooted from other old words such as “cog” which meant to cheat or swindle and “cony” which was a victim of a swindler. Counterfeit money was also called cony, French horses, snags or boodles. The counterfeiting business was under the direction of three competing gangs. Seneca Paige was a savvy businessman and led the Dunham counterfeiters throughout much of the 1820s and 30s. In partnership with him and yet controllers of a large enterprise of their own were the Gleason gang. Ebenezer Gleason Sr. was an illiterate farmer with a cunning mind for business who helped to build an international network of dealers for Seneca Paige. Even his own son Ebenezer Gleason Jr. worked as an agent for Cogniac Street in Philadelphia. A similar collective had also formed around the Turner Wing family. For over 20 years the companies fought for the greater share of the market of counterfeit notes. Although the Wing Company operated a good business it was Seneca Paige who assumed the leadership role and under his direction, Cogniac Street became the leading supplier of counterfeit throughout the United States. By the 1830s, an extensive network of wholesalers, distributors and dealers looked to Paige to supply them with money. As the townships' reputation for lawlessness spread, district officials made sporadic attempts to assert control. The local magistrate Leon Lalanne tried on several occasions to arrest various counterfeiters which resulted in him being “harassed six days and nights by thieves and coniackers”.
Ephraim Knight was a Bailiff for the District of Bedford. He too tried to stop the counterfeiters and bring peace back to the community with little success. One evening in 1818 a group of counterfeiters began carousing on the main street. As he later relayed the story, Knight stepped up to the crowd and commanded “peace in the name of the King”, but was “imme-diately robbed and clubbed unmercifully”. A similar incident happened only a few months later when a mob assembled on a bridge and fired off guns and proclaimed that the “street was theirs and they meant to keep it.” Mr. Knight again stepped out into the fray only to have the rioters hit him with clubs and knocked him into the water where they continued beating him until others came to his rescue. Although he was unsuccessful in his physical pre-sence Mr. Knight continued to fight the counterfeiters through his pen. In an 1835 letter to the cashier of the Bank in Frederick County Maryland, Ephraim Knight warned him of a “scoundrel and a pest to society” by the name of Elijah Hurd frequenting his neighbourhood. According to Ephraim Knight's letter it was difficult detecting the forgers “for they get their boodles and then hire someone to carry it so if they are followed and taken up, they have nothing with them”. Mr. Hurd was known to have his wife carry his boodles and a description of her was forwarded to the cashier as well. After the botched attempts to crack down on the counterfeiters, the authorities all but gave up and left the region alone. The only problem for the counterfeiters really became each other. The smouldering conflict between the rival companies erupted in violence in 1824. Turner Wing led his forces through the forests armed with swords and pistols. They attacked at dawn and carried off considerable booty including $4000 in notes; and they captured several people including Seneca Paige's father who was working the presses when they arrived. The victory proved fleeting as Paige and Gleason returned the favour resulting in the complete overthrow of the Wing enterprise and the return of the equipment and dear old dad. An uneasy peace settled on Cogniac Street after this episode and though Paige dominated the business, he tolerated the depleted competition from the Wing family. In the summer of 1833 a diverse coalition of forces gathered near Cogniac Street in preparation for what officials would hope was the final assault on the counterfeiters. Sheriffs, constables and magistrates from both sides of the border surrounded the properties of the Gleason and Wing families. The houses were ransacked and by days end, tens of thousands of dollars worth of counterfeit notes as well as presses, moulds and chemicals for producing coins were found. The raid crippled Cogniac Street and dealt it a severe blow from which it did not fully recover. The worst came when urban dealers and wholesalers in the U.S. began to commission work closer to home. By 1850, counterfeiting was an urban industry and by the 1880s the American government had complete control over the security of its money. Cogniac Street lost its hold on the market and slowly but surely tranquility returned to the hills and streets of Dunham. Today in the quiet cemeteries located along the old Cogniac Street, weathered gravestones indicate only the names of the notorious counterfeiters and reveal little else about the villains that lie beneath. Sources: Correspondence of Ephraim Knight, Missisquoi Historical Society Collections; A Nation of Counterfeiters, Stephen Mihm; The Business of Law in Missisquoi and the District of Bedford, Brian Young in Proceedings of the Missisquoi Historical Society vol. 20; Musée Missisquoi Museum Morning Madness – No Possibility of Placidity The alarm clock clicks on, flooding the darkened bedroom with smooth jazz. I crack open one eye and, sure enough, it's 6:00 am. I groan. The following hour will be worst one of my day. At precisely 6:05, I throw back the covers and the cold envelops me as I get up to start the morning routine. Within minutes, the coffee is hiccupping its way through the machine and I, wrapped in my bathrobe, my husband's huge boots on my feet and a jacket slung over my shoulders, shoo the dogs outside before the puppy can piddle on the carpet in her early-morning excitement. I pray that it will be one of those mornings where everything works according to plan. Both dogs run through the field and get to their business. One of them goes a little farther than he should. My instincts kick in - he's trying to make a break for it. “Rasta! Here boy!” I yell, tripping across the field, the huge boots flopping around my feet. The dog looks at me and makes a run for it. I can only hope that there are no neighbours up yet as I now run across the street in my strange morning garb yelling at my dog, “Rasta, Home! Bad boy!” I alternate this with a sweeter, “Rasta, treat! Does Rasta want a treat?” I realize that I've forgotten the puppy. I go back to the door and there she is waiting patiently for me. As I offer her words of praise, Rasta comes running home, eager for his share of the attention, not sorry at all for having run off. “Stupid dog,” I mumble under my breath as I head back inside. I call up the stairs. “Time to get up!” There is no sound from my three sleepy children. “It's 6:30,” I call again. Finally two tousled heads appear at the top of the stairs. “Good morning girls!” I call, feigning cheerfulness. No sign of my teenage son. The girls dig into the last two chocolate-chip muffins left over from our bakery run on Saturday. I just know there will be hell to pay when my son finds his sisters finishing off those precious muffins. It's 6:45. Still no sign of my son. I ask my youngest, Olivia, to go upstairs to wake him up. “Just tell him that Mommy says for him to get up,” I add. I know how quickly things can deteriorate when dealing with a teenager. Olivia sets off, and I can't help but notice that she grabs a recorder off the shelf on her way up the stairs. Before I can decide if I should let this situation unfold, I hear the piercing song of a flute played badly – trills and squeaks and fluttering high notes. This is followed by a loud bellow, footsteps crashing down the stairs, and then the unmistakable wailing of my youngest. My eyes meet my husband's across the table. We shake our heads and bite back our smiles. There's just no room for placidity in our morning routine and yet we've managed to find a touch of humour amid the madness. Now if I can just get through brushing my daughter's knotted hair, I can sip on my half-cold cup of coffee and steal a moment of placidity. By Catherine Canzani
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