We left the city’s noise behind
The monotonous roar that kills,
We left the strife, and the shut-in life,
Set out for the distant hills.
To a little isle on a lake we knew,
To a life both free and gay,
Where the air is clean and the spirits keen,
And there’s peace from day to day.

Where the frogs croak loud in the early morn,
And the winds sigh through the pines;
Where the bathers lie, when the sun is high
Stretched on the beach in lines;
Or else they tramp ‘long forest trails
And climb the hills around,
Then sit and munch, their sandwich lunch
By the streams, which there bound.

Where the sun calls up the sleepers all
To greet another day,
Where the laughing loon, with his doleful croon
Shoots round the lake in play;
And the sleepers rise, to take their dip,
To swim in waters cool,
Then dress in shorts, or clothes of sorts,
For freedom is the rule.

Where there’re crackling fires in the open hearth
When cool the air outside,
And the sun sinks low, with a golden glow,
In the glorious eventide;
Where the nights are long and the air is still,
With friendship and good cheer,
Where the northen light and the moon shine bright
And twinkling, tell if another day,
As fair and warm as this;
Time flies away, from day to day

On this isle of perfect bliss.
Here in the wild we dwell at peace,
Alone ‘mid nature’s joy;
So far from man, there’s nothing can
Our happiness destroy.

Written by Betty Goold-Adams at Amherst House,
1st December 1939

Mtl “Star” June 17/58 (Mtl – Montreal)

C. C. Riordon

Stephen Leacock was the first to go. Now “Carl” Riordon. And so it may be a long time before the corner where they held forth daily in the University Club sparkles again with quite the same wit, probing conversation and not quite such orthodox views as the uninitiated might expect to hear. Where Mr. Leacock’s roots were academic, Mr. Riordon’s were industrual. But between them were the firm bonds of a feeling for history, a love for all that is, and was, Canada, and a sense of humor.

Charles Christopher Riordon was one of a pioneering family in the development of Canada’s great pulp and paper industry. The first family mill in 1862 produced 25 tons of paper monthly. When he sold the Riordon Pulp and Paper Company to Canadian International Paper in 1925, it had large mills at Hawkesbury and Timiskaming. Family properties at one time or another also included both The Mail and The Globe in Toronto. Mr. Riordon was on of the organizers of the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association and its first president and, despite his age–he was 82 when he died during the weekend–was still a director of several financial and industrial enterprises.

We look forward to hearing from. In the meantime, we wish you happy searching and hope this site will offer you something of interest.

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During the French regime there were a few of Scottish descent here but they were exiled Scots who had become soldiers of the French monarchy. One recalls a French soldier like the Comte de Fraser or the eleventh governor of Montreal, Claude de Ramezay, whose Chateau still stands opposite Montreal City Hall, perhaps partly because it was kept in such good condition by another Scot, William Grant, who purchased it in 1763. When, however, the Scots really descended upon Montreal was soon after the conquest. Montreal capitulated on September 8th 1760. Some of you may remember the story: how the plan was for three British armies to march against the city for a simultaneous attack, even if in those days there was no telegraph or wireless to co-ordinate the troop movements. One force under Sir Jeffery Amherst came in from the west; another under a Lowland Scot, General James Murray, came from Quebec City; and the third moved north from Lake Champlain. Amherst arrived first and settled his troops for the night in a field which is now the Cote des Neiges Reservoir. He planned to move the next morning down the gully between the two hills to attack the little city on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. But that night the French plenipotentiaries came out to negotiate for the surrender at the farmhouse, which later became known as ”Capitulation Cottage”. It was in the reservoir field and not, as many have thought, the bigger freestone house known as ”Amherst House” further along Cote des Neiges The latter at the end of the Victorian Era was owned by Lieut. Colonel J.A.L. Strathy, who commanded our local regiment of Highlanders from 1893 to 1897; he knew the history of the district and gave his home the Amherst name.

When the capitulation was signed Amherst led his troops down the present Cote des Neiges into the city. With them were two battalions of The Royal Highland Regiment. This was the first occasion when the streets of Montreal reverberated to the Pipes and Drums of The Black Watch. Amherst became ”Lord Amherst of Montreal” for his bloodless victory. Actually, the other two armies arrived almost immediately. With Murray were the Frasers and the Montgomerie Highlanders who, the previous year, had led the scaling of the Clif at Wolfe’s Cove and had performed so gallantly at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. On September 11th, 1760, three small armies paraded on the Place d’Armes at Montreal, among them four battalions of kilted Highlanders. Murray, the Elibank Scot, became the first military governor of Canada and was later often in trouble with his Scottish compatriots who flocked to Montreal as merchant adventurers and led a local agitation for representative government. The Highland soldiers soon left Montreal but one wonders if their stories of the little French city on the St. Lawrence may not have influenced some of them and their relatives in Scotland to come to Canada. We know, for example, that one of Montreal’s earliest doctors was a Daniel Robertson, a retired Lieutenant of the 42nd Black Watch. A Scottish merchant who came with the troops and stayed was Alexander Henry, who became a great explorer in the Indian trade. (Note how these Scottish names linger on in Montreal: in today’s telephone book there are still columns and columns of Robertsons and Henrys). But immediately after the Conquest the earliest influx of traders to Montreal was from the American Colonies; only a few of them were Scots.

The real influx from Scotland came a very few years later. So many of those who then arrived in Montreal were inter-related and came from Highland clans long established within a few miles of Lord President Duncan Forbes’ estate at Culloden, that one wonders why they came. They were not poor emigrants from abroad. Many were well educated; some were not without independent means. But their families and clans had been out in the ’45 fighting for Bonnie Prince Charlie and his defeat at the Battle of Culloden must have been a sore blow. These Scots had no love for the Sassenach, recalled the Ancient Alliance of Scotland and France, learned of a friendly French population in Canada from their kin who had been there with Amherst’s and Murray’s Highlanders so they set off to renew their fortunes at Montreal. At least that is my personal theory. More came later in a further influx at the turn of the century, with stalwart sons whom they did not wish to have fighting for England during the French revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. At Montreal they became merchants, fur traders, millers, shipowners, bankers and, in due course, builders of great railways.

At the time of the British Conquest, Montreal was a tiny city. Even forty years later, by 1800, its population was only some 8,000. Yet through the industry and vision of these first Scots the city soon became a business centre out of all proportion to its population and the most important fur trading spot in the world. The story of these Scottish fur traders is most romantic; one could wish that even today more emphasis might be given in our schools to its part in Canadian history. During the French regime there had been some trade from Canada with the Indians In the North West, while the Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson’s Bay had also sought its furs in the north country. It was the early Scots at Montreal who in 1766 reopened the trade with the North West. The first who decided to penetrate west from Montreal , to the furthest limits of the French discoveries, was Thomas Curry, a Scot who set off with guides in four canoes as far as the Saskatchewan River, returning the next spring with his canoes filled with fine furs. James Finlay, another Scot, followed Curry as far as the last French settlement on the Saskatchewan . From there the Scottish fur traders of Montreal spread out over a vast and unknown territory in the North West. Their success led the Hudson’s Bay Company (incidentally, most of its servants in the territory to the north were also Scots) to push down and west from the Bay.

Soon at Montreal there were several vigorous firms of these Scottish traders – Gregory & Co.; Todd & McGill ; McTavish & Co.; and others. By 1780 ninety to a hundred of their canoes annually left Montreal, laden with goods to trade for furs with the Indians and the white trappers of the North West, each canoe-load worth £660 at Michillimackinac at the head of the Great Lakes. Quite outstanding men from Scotland led these firms. For example, Simon McTavish, son of a Fraser Highlander. He came to Montreal in 1774, was known as ”The Marquis” married a French-Canadian, Marguerite Chaboillez, in 1793 and died in 1804 leaving a fortune of $600,000. He had a substantial winter house near the waterfront on Jean Baptiste Street but, in summer, lived on his country estate, which stretched from the slopes of Mount Royal to the present Dorchester Boulevard. His nearest neighbour to the east was James McGill on his ”Burnside” estate, which also stretched from the Mountain down to Dorchester Boulevard and which he left to found the college which bears his name. James McGill came to Montreal from Glasgow, one of three brothers (John and Andrew McGill were the others) and all of them were at Montreal by 1774. Their firm was Todd & McGill which, in 1769, formed a connection with another trio of brothers, Benjamin, Joseph and Thomas Frobisher. Benjamin Frobisher came to Montreal before 1765. ”Beaver HaII” outside the city was his home, halfway up the slope which is now Beaver Hall Hill . The Frobishers linked up later with McTavlsh and the firm became McTavish, Frobisher & Co. McTavish brought out his nephews from Scotland to assist him, William and Duncan McGillivary, who later succeeded him in charge of the firm. It was these nephews who erected the McTavish Monument at the head of the uncle’s estate – on Pine Avenue just above McTavish Street named for Simon McTavish – near the castle on Mount Royal which McTavish was building when he died.

To avoid excessive competition in the fur trade of the North West these Montreal trading firms pooled their interests in 1782 to form the North West Company, among the partners being Todd, McGill, the Frobishers, Alexander Henry and, at their head, “The OId Lion of Montreal” Simon McTavish. When McTavish died his nephew, William McGillivary, succeeded to the leadership of the North West Co. Fort William on Lake Superior was named for him. His home was at the corner of the present Guy and Dorchester Streets and was called ”St. Antoine House” or ”Chateau St. Antoine”. From this probably the suburb further west took its name, Cote St. Antoine, which today is the City of Westmount. Among the earliest residents of Cote St. Antoine were my curling cousins. In the days of the horse-cars they journeyed to the end of the line, at that same Guy and Dorchester corner, where their horn and buggy met them to drive on to their homes in the country, which were on what are now Kensington Avenue and nearby St. Catherine Street West.

The American Revolution seriously interfered with the western fur trade and, indeed, for nearly a year, Montreal was occupied by the American rebels. It was governed then from the Chateau de Ramezay by an American Commission consisting of Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll of Carrollton. When the Americans withdrew, the fur trade f rom Montreal sprang to life again and soon reached an annual value of one million dollars. The furs were brought in to Montreal and Quebec, and over to England. Some, however, were brought here by an American competitor of the Montreal Scots. The German merchant John Jacob Astor of New York, who came frequently to Montreal, usually staying with Alexander Henry at his home on lower St. Urbain Street. Indeed, Astor had a Montreal warehouse of his own at Vaudreuil and St. Therese Streets. The partners of the North West Co. formed the famous Beaver Club in 1785 which met at Dillon’s Inn on the Place d’Armes.

Fur traders of the North West Co., on their trading journeys, kept pushing further and further west into unknown country. Two of the outstanding explorers for the Company were Sir Alexander Mackenzie and Simon Fraser, two more Highlanders from near Culloden. Mackenzie came from Inverness in 1779 to join John Gregory’s firm, which was then in competition with McTavish and the Frobishers. He was a clerk with the firm at Montreal for five years, then he went west as a servant of the North West Co. In 1789 he explored down the great river named for him, the longest river in North America; four years later he was the first man to reach the Pacific Ocean overland. In 1808 Simon Fraser extended the activities of the North West Co. west of the Rockies and explored in a bark canoe down another great river, named for him the Fraser. With Fraser was another Scot, John Stuart, who influenced his nephew, Donald Smith, to come to Canada, as a result of which young Smith later became Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal.

McTavish ”the Marquis” and William McGillivary – he, too, had his nickname ”the Lord of the North West” – ruled with a strong hand from Montreal and at the annual gatherings of the wintering partners of the North West Co. at Fort William. Some of the partners resented this and seceded in 1799 to form the XY Company. Competition between themselves cut into profits and in 1804, Sir Alexander Mackenzie and his cousin, Roderick Mackenzie, were the leading spirits which led to the amalgamation of the two companies. An even greater threat to the fur trade in the North West soon came during the second decade of the 19th century. This resulted from the settlement grant bestowed in England upon the Earl of Selkirk. He was given a crown grant of land by the Red River in the present Manitoba, land which he been the domain of the Montreal merchants for a quarter of a century. Much rivalry ensued; fights and even bloodshed resulted between the two factions in the west; and the old Hudson’s Bay Co., in which the noble Earl from Scotland was a large shareholder, began to compete strongly for the furs of the Indians. Profits dwindled to such an extent that the obvious answer was for the two great companies to join together. The union of the North West Co. with the Hudson’s Bay Co. took place in 1821, with George Simpson as the first resident Governor in Canada of the united companies.

Simpson was another fascinating Scot of strong character who settled at Montreal and left his imprint on the city and, indeed, Canada as a whole. He, too, came from the Highlands near Culloden; in fact, he was a descendant in the fifth generation from Duncan Forbes of Culloden. Born in 1789, the son of George Simpson and an unknown mother, he was brought up by his clergyman grandfather, the Reverend Thomas Simpson, whose second wife was Isabel MacKenzie, a granddaughter of Lord President Forbes. Incidentally this Scottish padre must have been quite a man – he had twenty children by his first wife and twelve by the Mackenzie!

After some business experience in London, young George Simpson came to Canada in 1820 as a local governor for the Hudson’s Bay Company. For forty years as the Company’s head in North America he ruled a vast domain which comprised fourteen of the present states of the American Union and all of the present Canada except for the Maritimes and a narrow strip along the St. Lawrence River. In his day, under his jurisdiction, there were one hundred and ten of the Company’s forts, stretching across the Continent, down to Southern California and across the Pacific to the Philippine Islands and Siberia. During his governorship Simpson travelled 100,000 miles by canoe, sitting in state wearing his beaver top hat, with his personal piper, Colin Fraser, in Highland costume beside him, ready to pipe the Governor ashore and to his inspection of a fort. In alternate years Simpson travelled from Montreal his inner and his outer circle, the former north to Hudson’s Bay and west to Fort Garry, the present-day Winnipeg; the latter even across the Pacific Ocean. He was the first man to journey overland right around the world. Sir George Simpson, as he became, was known as “The Little Emperor of the North” a fiery, short, imperious, red-haired Scot. At Montreal his home was at Lachine where there is now a convent and opposite the little fur post which still stands and from which the cavalcade of canoes annually left for the west via the Ottawa River, Lake Nipissing, French River to Sault Ste. Marie and the head of Lake Superior. Simpson’s country home was the whole of Dorval Island but he also owned property on the side of Mount Royal as a result of which we now have Simpson Street. He also built the terrace of greystone residences On the north side of Sherbrooke Street between McTavish and Peel Streets, which he named ”the Prince of Wales terrace”, in honour of the visit of that Heir to the Throne who became King Edward VII (Other Scots who lived there for many years were Principal Sir William Peterson of McGill, Sir William Macdonald the tobacco millionaire and Robert Lindsay).

Sir George Simpson’s closest friend was a son of the Chief of Clan McTavish, John George McTavish, one of the wintering partners of the North West Company who later became Chief Factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company at the Lake of the Two Mountains. They met on the ship when Simon came out In 1820. This McTavish was a doughty Scottish warrior. During the War of 1812 he crossed the continent by canoe flying the British Flag and captured John Jacob Astor’s fur post, Astoria, on the Pacific Coast. It is intriguing to note how patriotic these Highland Jacobites became during that war, even if they and their families had come to Canada to avoid service in the English Army during the Napoleonic Period. Take, for example, the case of John Ogilvie who had a country estate near Capitulation Cottage. When the news of Nelson’s death reached Montreal he and other local Scots were prominent on the committee which commissioned the Nelson Monument to be made in England and had it erected on Notre Dame Street close by the Chateau de Ramezay, the first public monument in the British Empire to the great f ighting admiral. At the same time Ogilvie named his estate “Trafalgar” and erected a tower on it just west of the present Cote des Neiges. Each year he f ired a cannon salute from the top of the tower on the anniversary of the sea battle. Because of this early Ogilvie estate we now have ”Trafalgar Avenue”. Today we refer to the hill and district west of Mount Royal as ”Westmount” but on old plans and maps that hill is shown as ”Mount Trafalgar”.

Another Highland Scot who was a contemporary of Simpson’s in the Hudson’s Bay Company, but in a much more junior capacity, was the Donald Smith I have already mentoned. Smith came to Canada in 1837, serving for many years at various of the Company’s posts in the north and west before he, too became Governor. His home in Montreal was on Dorchester Street West, near Atwater Avenue. For a lengthy period Donald Smith represented Montreal in Parliament; before he died he was a Peer of the Realm and Canada’s High Commissioner in London.

It was undoubtedly they early Scots in the fur trade who put Montreal on the business map of the world. But as they prospered here others from Scotland joined them and also prospered in other branches of business which they started. One Montreal industry which has always fascinated me was that of flour milling. It, too, goes back to the earlier days of Montreal under the British flag. For nearly two centuries it has been closely identified with the name of Ogilvie. In 1800 Archiband Ogilvie, with his wife, Agnes Watson, and their three sons, came to Canada. The Watsons came to Montreal even earlier, in fact, during 1779, and I suspect must have had something to do with the milling of flour in the Old Country. In any event, in the early part of the 19th century Agnes Ogilvie’s nephews, Robert and William Watson, were in turn Chief Flour Inspectors of the Port of Montreal. Robert Watson was assassinated by a wild Irishman in 1827; but his brother became one of the leading personalities of his time in Montreal. Archibald Ogilvie, after farming for a while, built a flour mill near Quebec in 1801, but it was his grandson, Alexander Walker Ogilvie, who was a real founder of the big milling industry of Canada. He, at 22 years of age, became the partner of his uncle, James Goudie (whose wife was an Ogilvie), in a flour mill at Montreal in the earlier years of the 19th century. I have been told this mill was the stone windmill at the Lachine end of the Lower Lachine Road remnants of which still stand near the old Lasalle House. In 1855 A. W. Ogilvie and his brother, John, formed A.W. Ogilvie & Co., a flour-milling partnership, adding another brother, the first William Watson Ogilvie, five years later. These firms built mills at Montreal and at Winnipeg, and garnered their wheat from the fast-growing prairies. When W. W. Ogilvie became the head of other flour-milling interests they were the greatest in the world under one man’s control. His home ”Rosemount” at the head of Simpson Street (it is now the Percy Walters Park) he bought from another outstanding Scot, Sir John Rose. Bart., the first second-in-command of our local Black Watch Regiment and Minister of Finance in the first Dominion government. After thirty years in Canada Rose returned to Britain and became an outstanding banker in the Anglo-American firm of Morton, Rose & Co.

My grandfather, Matthew Hutchison, succeeded the Watsons as Chief Flour Inspector of the Port of Montreal. The flour inspectorship was one of the top jobs at Montreal in those days, bringing to the inspector $15,000 a year in fees, a no mean salary 100 years ago in the days of no income taxes. As a result, it became a government patronage appointment. When Sir John A. Macdonald’s government fell as a result of the C.P.R. Scandal, Matthew Hutchison lost his lucrative appointment and he then joined his Ogilvie brothers-in-law in the new flour-milling partnership of Ogilvie & Hutchison, which built a mill at Goderich, Ontario. Matthew Hutchison moving there to run it. His home in Montreal had been at the top of Beaver Hall Hill (where the DuPont Building now stands), which was then in the country. It was there my father was born . The district attracted Matthew Hutchison, as it had his father, James Hutchison, before him. Matthew Hutchison was offered half of the present Dominion Square and the whole of the Windsor Hotel/Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Laurentian Hotel properties for $500; he was inclined to buy. But he consulted A. W. Ogilvie who said to him : ”Don’t be a damn fool – the city will never grow out that far! ” James Hutchison had come out to Montreal from Scotland in 1833 to farm near St. Laurent – that farm was sold for $3,000; it was eventually bought by the C.N.R. for a million dollars. James Hutchison later had a farm which ran over Mount Royal to the east of the McTavish/McGill properties which accounts for the name of Hutchison Street.

As the furs from the North West accumulated in the warehouses at Montreal and Quebec; as the wheat from the Prairies and Upper Canada came to the mills of the Ogilvies at Winnipeg, Goderich and Montreal to be turned into flour; as other products were grown or manufactured in the Canadas, ships were needed to carry them overseas and to bring back needed goods manufactured abroad. One of the earliest Scots at Montreal to meet this need was James Miller – his sister was the wife of the previously mentioned James Hutchison. Immediately after the Napoleonic Period the sailing ships of James Miller & Co. were plying regularly between Montreal and Glasgow, and more vessels were being built in Canada by the firm. Miller was an important figure of the business world at Montreal, Chairman of the Committe of Trade which later became the Board of Trade, and holding other public offices. His home was just outside the City’s walls, facing the Haymarket at the foot of Beaver Hall Hill; today his property is appropriately the head- quarters of Canada Steamships on Victoria Square. There through the week Matthew Hutchison, as a boy, lived with his uncle Miller while attending Dr. Black’s School. The Scottish ladies were not pampered in those days – at weekends young Matthew walked in and out to the family farm at St. Laurent.

One of Miller’s sea captains was Alexander Allan. On one of his trips to Montreal he spoke to Mr. Miller about his son, Hugh, just finishing school in Scotland, and the skipper was advised to bring the lad out on his next voyage. Hugh Allan came in 1826 and soon settled down as a clerk in the shipping firm which had become Miller, Edmonstone & Co. Allan, before long, became its chief clerk. When Miller died in 1833 his estate was bought out by Edmonstone and young Allan. In due course Edmonstone, Allan & Co. became a partnership of Hugh Allan and his brother, Andrew; still later it was the Allan Steamships which eventually was such a substantial part of Canadian Pacif ic Steamships.

Hugh Allan prospered mightily, became Sir Hugh and built himself a baronial castle ”Ravenscrag” on his property on the slopes of Mount Royal – that property had been part of the earlier Simon McTavish and James Hutchison lands. Sir Hugh, no doubt, was a ruthless old tycoon. He built a straight stonewall along the west side of his property, ignoring the fact that at the back was a semi-circular bit, part of a reserved section around the Simon McTavish Monument. The McTavish heirs, then living in the United States, learned of this encroachment, sued Sir Hugh and the latter was obliged to tear down part of his expensive wall which was replaced by a semi-circular wooden fence. It is curious what happens as the years go by. When Sir Hugh’s son, Sir Montagu, gave ”Ravenscrag” to The Royal Victoria Hospital as a memorial to his father, I was the lawyer who prepared the deed of donation. As it was about to be signed, I accompanied Sir Montagu Allan one Sunday Morning on his last tour of his family property. In one of the rooms was an oil painting of the sea captain grandfather, beside it another of their senior ”partner”, James Miller. In the grounds I pointed out the circular fence and told Sir Montaju its story which he had never known. Today ”Ravenscrag” has forgotten its past glories of luxurious social gatherings and is the very modern Allan Memorial Institute of Psychiatry.

Another early need in the prosperous growing business world of the early Scots at Montreal was a banking facility. Here again the Scots led the way. In 1817 the Bank of Montreal was established, with many Scottish names amongst the incorporators: McTavish, McGillivary, Stewart, Leslie, MacKenzie, Macdougall, Paterson, James Miller and others. One of its outstanding early presidents was Peter McGill who became Mayor of Montreal, Speaker of the Legislative Council. Chairman of the first railway in Canada and goodness knows what else. McGill Street downtown is named for him, in spite of the fact that ”McGill” was not his real name. He was actually Peter McCutcheon but changed his name when he became the heir of the Honourable John McGill of Toronto. One recalls so many of Scottish birth or descent who have directed Canada’s oldest bank: Lord Mount Stephen; his cousin, Lord Strathcona; R.B. Angus; Sir George A. Drummond; Sir Edward Clouston; Sir Charles Gordon; and many others.

Still later, but much nearer our own time, came the two great railways, the Grand Trunk and the Canadian Pacific. Again one sees many of these same Scots largely responsible for building these networks of rail lines across the Continent: George Simpson, J.G. McTavish and William Watson among the original incorporators of the G.T.R .; in the C.P.R. Donald Smith George Stephen, R .B. Angus, Duncan McIntyre and other local Scots.

When the Scots prospered in business it was natural that they should also be primarily responsible for setting up other local amenities of a social , religious, educational and public health character. It is not surprising, therefore, that their Royal Montreal Curling Club is the oldest on the Continent; that the Royal Montreal Golf Club also claims to be the oldest in North America; that the first Protestant Church in Montreal was the St. Gabriel’s Church of these early Scots; that the St. Andrew’s Society of Montreal goes back to 1834; that our great local university bears the name of its original benefactor, James McGill the fur trader; that the oldest Protestant English-speaking school for girls was founded as the Trafalgar Institute by a Donald Ross who had acquired part of the former Trafalgar-Ogilvie property and left it to start the school; that the oldest Highland Regiment of the British CommonweaIth outside Scotland is our local Black Watch; and that so many Scottish names appear among the incorporators and down the years as benefactors, directors and officers of our two great local public hospitals, the Montreal General and The Royal Victoria. Truly we can agree with His Excellency the Governor-General in rendering tribute to the Scots of Montreal for what they have contributed in the development of this City and of Canada.

Where the frogs croak loud in the early morn,
And the winds sigh through the pines;
Where the bathers lie, when the sun is high
Stretched on the beach in lines;
Or else they tramp ‘long forest trails
And climb the hills around,
Then sit and munch, their sandwich lunch
By the streams, which there bound.

Where the sun calls up the sleepers all
To greet another day,
Where the laughing loon, with his doleful croon
Shoots round the lake in play;
And the sleepers rise, to take their dip,
To swim in waters cool,
Then dress in shorts, or clothes of sorts,
For freedom is the rule.

Where there’re crackling fires in the open hearth
When cool the air outside,
And the sun sinks low, with a golden glow,
In the glorious eventide;
Where the nights are long and the air is still,
With friendship and good cheer,
Where the northen light and the moon shine bright
And twinkling, tell if another day,
As fair and warm as this;
Time flies away, from day to day

On this isle of perfect bliss.
Here in the wild we dwell at peace,
Alone ‘mid nature’s joy;
So far from man, there’s nothing can
Our happiness destroy.

Written by: Betty Goold-Adams at Amherst House, 1st December 1939

Woe to day’s departing flight!
Woe to colours in the night!
Red id violet, green is blue,
Turkey red a golden hue;
Villains of the deepest dye,
Schooled in many an alibi,
From their dark duplicity,
Libera me, Domine.

From Machiavellian wire,
That would privily conspire
With the felts to “gang a-gley,�
Libera me, Domine.

From Pestilene of breaks,
Shiners, dirt, and doctor streaks,
Rolls as soft as soft can be,
Libera me, Domine.

From a jaded Mullen test,
‘Neath the customer’s request,
Fold and tear of low degree,
Libera me, Domine.

From depression’s stormy blast,
Ennui, fame’s iconoplast,
Most of all insolvency,
Libera me, Domine.

-H.G. McNeill

WITH THE DEATH in Montreal on June 14, 1958 of Charles Christopher (Carl) Riordon there came to an end an epoch which is without parallel in the pulp and paper industry of Canada.

This began with the operation of a wrapping paper mill, established in 1863 by John Riordon on the Welland Canal near St. Catharines, Ontario. John Riordon, then thirty years of age, sent for his younger brother Charles, then aged fifteen, to come and help him; a year later Charles was put in charge of the mill. When Charles was eighteen years of age he went alone to England and bought machinery for a new mill, and on the Christmas Day following, the machine began to turn out newsprint made of rags and straw at the rate of 25 tons a month. The Riordons turned to the making of groundwood pulp for newsprint in 1873. In 1886 the Canadian Sulphite Company, of which Charles Riordon was president, obtained letters patent to the Ritter-Kellner liner process, and the manufacture of sulphite pulp was begun at Cornwall in 1888 This was followed by the purchase by the Riordons of digesters in 1888 and the beginning of manufacture of sulphite pulp at Merritton in December 1890. In 1895 Charles Riordon ordered two new digesters from Cleveland and towed them across Lake Erie and down the Canal to the Merritton mill. In 1898 Mr. Riordon built the Hawkesbury mill, fed by wood from the Rouge River, and with an output of 75 tons a day. In 1896 Charles Christopher (Carl ) Riordon, son of Charles. joined the firm and was made managing director in 1905. In 1909 the Riordon interests took over the Rouge River limits of the C. H. Perley Company of Ottawa and in 1912 two more digesters were installed at the Hawkesbury mill, increasing its capacity to 135 tons a day. In 1917 the Riordon company purchased the Ticonderoga Pulp and Paper Company of Ticonderoga, N.Y. and, in 1918-19, built a large bleached sulphite mill at Temiskaming, Quebec under the name of the Kipawa Fibre Company. In 1920 the Kipawa subsidiary was absorbed into Riordon Company Limited along with the properties of The Riordon Pulp and Paper Company Limited, and in this same year the Riordon interests bought out the huge properties of W. C. Edwards and Company Limited and Gilmour and Hughson Company Limited in the Gatineau Valley.

The Riordon enterprises which had thus begun as a modest wrapping paper mill in St. Catharines carried through advancing stages of chemical pulp manufacture and embraced a small empire of potential development. This, however, was not to be realized, at least under the name of Riordon. The fever of market expansion which raged in 1919-1920, gave way almost overnight to the chill of the “buyers’ strikeâ€? in early 1921, and the Riordon enterprise was caught with large inventories of high-cost supplies, heavy bond interest charges, ground rents and capital payments to be made on those great natural resources which could not be quickly converted into production, or, even if transformed, could not be sold in the depressed state of the lumber and pulp markets The mills were closed down and many unsuccessful attempts were made in Canada to salvage the enterprise. However, hindsight has made it clear that nearly a decade of time and tens of millions of dollars were required to set the enterprise fully in motion again. After painful operational beginnings and the sale of the assets to the Bondholders’ Protective Committees, and they in turn to Canadian International Paper Company and the gradual settlement of claims of secured creditors (but nothing for unsecured creditors or shareholders), the great Gatineau properties were swung into productivity in the late twenties with the erection of the large modern newsprint mill of Canadian International Paper Company at Gatineau, Quebec on the Ottawa River below the City of Ottawa and with the development by Gatineau Power Company of Gatineau River waterpowers at Chelsea and Paugan.

The motivation of the Riordons in overcoming the tremendous difficulties of the early development in the paper and pulp industry in Canada is perhaps explained by the reply ascribed to Sir Edmund Hillary when asked why he would set out to conquer Everest – “Because it is there.â€?

Charles Riordon – Pioneer
Charles Riordon 1848-1931 was a real pioneer, a man of quiet assurance, resourcefulness, enterprise, and courage. While in his twenties and thirties he mastered the technical processes involved in the fledgling sulphite pulp industry and became the outstanding figure in it. He improved upon the efforts of Sir John A. Macdonald in the newspaper field, in that he acquired the “Mail” and later took over Sir Johns “Empire” to make of the “Mail and Empire” one of the major journalistic enterprises of Canada; he was instrumental in building the Temiscouata Railway from Rivière du Loup, Quebec, to Edmundston, New Brunswick, and part of the Intercolonial Railway in New Brunswick; he was an early director, and later president, of the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge Company; and was active in the foundation of Ridley College in St. Catharines. This last-mentioned activity sprang from Mr. Riordon’s love of learning. Although his early years had been devoted to manufacturing rather than to higher education, he was an omnivorous reader and student, particularly of philosophy and the classics. The library he accumulated in his home in St. Catharines contained the “great books” of English literature, and what he properly called his “recreation” consisted largely in reading these at whatever hour of the day he returned from his heavy pioneer labours at nearby Merritton. He had the habit of keeping various books open in different parts of the house, and would get in much of his reading â€?on the fly”. One time, in giving to a young friend his fine old copy of Pope’s translation of Homer’s Iliad, he pressed the gift upon the reluctant recipient with the encouragement, “Yes, you take it; I have no need of it: I have already read it three or tour times.â€?

There are many stories told of his practical abilities as mill manager, such as repairing with splints and bolts a broken major drive wheel; of acting as steeplejack when the proper expert was afraid: of how, when the water level in the Ottawa River fell below the required level he kept the Hawkesbury mill in operation through the emergency construction of a paddle wheel to push the water “up hill�.

For such most “practical� matters, through the realms of industry and public affairs, Charles Riordon achieved success in virtually everything he touched. Through his ownership and general direction of the “Mail and Empire� the acknowledged organ of the Federal Conservative Party he was held in highest respect and esteem on Parliament Hill. But his quiet, unobtrusive, almost shy personality caused him to avoid the limelight. Indeed, to the considerable chagrin of Sir Robert Borden, who had put his name forward on two occasions, Charles Riordon firmly refused to accept a knighthood.

Carl Riordon – Philosopher and Man of Action
Carl Riordon. whose death is mourned in these days, was possessed of great drive, both physical and mental, and this expressed itself both in organizational work and in the outdoors.

After graduation from the University of Toronto in 1896, he went to Queen’s University for a course in engineering, and then spent a year as a surveyor in Central British Columbia. He returned to St. Catharines and worked in the paper mills, remaining in the industry to become president of The Riordon Pulp and Paper Company, Limited.

With the outstanding position of the Riordon family in the pulp and paper industry, it was only natural that, when there was a move to form an association of manufacturers, Carl Riordon should be selected as the first president of the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association.This occurred on March 18, 1913. Under his initiative in 1914 the statistics of production, which constitute a considerable portion of the Association’s activities today, were begun, and in 1915 a major meeting of the association was held in Ottawa which gave a real impetus to association development. In 1915 under his guidance and with the aid of Dr. John S. Bates and Roy Campbell the Technical Section of the Association was formed.

Carl Riordon was a director of the Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada, Niagara Lower Arch Bridge Company, and Mail Printing Company, Toronto; and was a member of the advisory board of the National Trust Company, Limited. He was a governor of Ridley College, a one-time president of the Khaki League, Montreal, and a captain in the 19th St. Catharines Regiment from 1896 to 1904. He belonged to the University Club, Montreal, the Toronto Club, and the Rideau Club, Ottawa. He is survived by his wife, the former Amy Louise Paterson; two sons, Harold, Dunham, and Peter, Thetford Mines, Quebec; two daughters, Edith (Mrs. Bennett) and Mary (Mrs. G. R. Forbes), both of Montreal; two sisters, Edith Amy (Mrs. S. B. Pemberton), Montreal, and Kathleen (Mrs. G. W. Crompton), London, England, and 12 grandchildren.

The independent spirit and resourcefulness that characterized Charles Riordon descended to Carl Riordon, but the duality of the man of action and enterprise and the man of studious and philosophic bent evidenced itself in slightly different form. In Carl, a larger physical frame and greater strength became the vehicle for the expression of a love of the outdoors, for the carrying out of major physical achievements. The life of the surveyor and prospector, pressing through the rugged interior of British Columbia exactly suited his urge to contend with the rough forces of nature, and to do so alone was no deterrent. So it was that when later the acquisition by the Riordon interests of the Perley properties and timber limits opened the door to obtaining a lease of the fishing rights on Lac Caché, north of Lac Tremblant (not too easy of access at the turn of the century), Carl Riordon quickly availed himself of the opportunity and, in addition, bought an island in the lake, since known as Riordon Island, and threw himself into that which was most pleasurable to him, namely, the actual manual work of revising shore lines, building wharves, floats and camps, and generally wrestling with the physical world. Coupled with this, and a source of perhaps even greater happiness, were the delights of the canoe. Carl paddled, portaged and camped all over the region in the Upper Rouge, Lievre and regions east and west, and followed with interest the ancient water routes and carrying places of the Algonquins, Hurons and Iroquois in their incessant warfare. If there were one photograph characteristic of Carl Riordon it would be in woods clothes in a canoe, indifferent to sun, rain and insect pests, as he conquered distance in the waterways of Quebec. He was similarly at home on snowshoes or skis.

The office saw a minimum of him from mid-June to mid-September; he would be at “Caché�, delighted to see his intimates if they would visit him, but in the course of the day they too could expect to see a minimum of him unless they were minded to join him in moving boulders, hewing logs or cutting trail. In the evening, however, came the period of speculative discussion as the shadows lengthened and the loon made his plaintive call across the waters of the lake.

The same love of Indian lore and of Canadian history attracted him to acquire the large house which stood to the west of the ancient ‘pass’ between Montreal and Westmount mountains (known from earlier Colonial days as le chemin de la Côte des Neiges) which was within the site of what was the camp or lookout of General Amherst. Mr. Riordon called his home ‘Amherst’ in recognition of this fact. ‘Capitulation Cottage’, where the surrender of Canada to the English was signed on September 8th, 1760 was within a stone’s throw of ‘Amherst’ and Mr. Riordon made energetic personal efforts to prevent the destruction of the historic building, but unfortunately it perished through carelessness or misunderstanding on the part of workmen constructing the Côte des Neiges Reservoir.

Carl Riordon’s strong sense of history, caused him, in common with the late Professor Leacock, to hold in great affection the University Club, located as it is on the site of Hochelaga as discovered by Cartier in 1535. (“Stevieâ€?, as Leacock was familiarly called, used to refer to it as the “birthplaceâ€? or the “centreâ€? of Canada). Carl was a life member the the Club, and for over twenty years was perhaps its most consistent habitué. His use of the Club was somewhat in the style attributed to the English club member me – courteous and warm enough towards his fellows, and a delight as a luncheon companion, but nevertheless somewhat shy and diffident, and mostly devoting himself to the reviews. Anyone engaging him in conversation, however, would find a companion not only well-informed on almost any topic, but, moreover, one ready to question and explore, bringing out new and engaging aspects of whatever was under discussion.

When in Montreal his love of physical exertion and of Nature caused him to walk, every morning that was compatible with the wearing of city clothes, from “Amherst,” along the road on Montreal Mountain paralleling Cedar Avenue, then down Peel or McTavish to his office in Beaver Hall Square. His brown satchel came along, sometimes for its normal utility, but usually “to give me a little more exercise.”

In 1921-22, when it became apparent that the great program of uniting the natural resources of the Rouge, the Upper Ottawa and the Gatineau (which has since actually come to pass in the enterprise of Canadian International Paper Company and Gatineau Power Company) was premature, he simply retired from the industrial scene. He continued to act in fiduciary affairs, as a director of the Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada and as a member of the Montreal Advisory Committee of the National Trust Company. He also continued on the boards of the Niagara Lower Arch Bridge and of Ridley College, both early enthusiasms of his father.

His simple withdrawal from the business scene was a matter of surprise to many who had known him as an industrialist, with his soundly-inherited courage, his intellectual powers and his drive. But they did not take into account the directness, the utterly straight line thinking which he applied to himself. Just as without any emotion he would conclude that a certain timber was too short for a certain purpose, or that a certain great rock was patently too great for him to lift, so he concluded that, under economic conditions existing in early 1921, he had reached the limit of his usefulness as an executive and that others should carry the load. So he simply stood aside.

We Questers
It is not given to many men to produce, let alone commit to paper, solid thinking upon abstract matters. In the realm of “meditations” there come to mind, of course, such names as Marcus Aurelius, La Rouchefoucauld, Lamartine, Henri-Frederic Amiel. With the last-mentioned there is a peculiar association, became not only was the Journal Intime of the Geneva professor one of the treasures of the Riordon library, but there runs a curious parallel in the characteristics of Carl Riordon, who, like Amiel was in a sense a very solitary man, never forcing himself upon the company of others, but ever a delightful companion when companionship was offered, and generously reciprocated. It could be said of Carl Riordon as one of Amiel’s contemporaries said of him: “In serious discussion he was master of the unexpected, and his energy, his entrain affected us all. How often did he not give us cause to admire the variety of his knowledge, the precision of his ideas, the charm of his quick intelligence! We found him always, besides, kindly and amiable, a nature one might trust and lean upon with perfect! security.”

Carl Riordon, like Amiel was one who thought deeply, and put his conclusions on record. It is doubtful whether he ever seriously intended that these should be widely published. However, when after he had reached the view that his function as an industrialist had come to an end, he crystallized his ideas and his own position among his fellows by the imaginary creation of a group in society which he called “We Questers”. With the intellectual honesty which was characteristic of him, he fulfilled, to the best of his ability, the role he had assigned himself, never entering into the area of advice or decisions, but remaining in that of ‘findings’ or experience which the “Questers” would make available to the executives.

Carl Riordon was, for all we know, following the conclusions reached by Henri-Frederic Amiel: “Let the living live -, and you, gather together your thoughts, leave behind you a legacy of feeling and ideas; you will be most useful so.”

The world may, or may not, agree with Carl Riordon’s “Credo”, but there can be no doubt that for their contributions to the pulp and paper industry John, Charles, and Carl Riordon will ever occupy a place of honour in the industrial history of Canada.

From Napolean to Merritton
From some friends in the industry who were particularly close to the late Mr. Riordon, we have been successful in securing a number of anecdotes which are remembered out of conversations with Mr. Riordon over several years. Mr. Riordon was a very retiring person, and the quaint and almost shy way in which such episodes were recounted, it will be realized by those who knew him, was far removed from any commitment to type. They are, as it were, the small private sketched which am artist would make for the eyes of his intimate friends.

A Link with the historic Past
It is not realized what a great link in terms of time Mr. Charles Riordon’s life constituted with what we regard as “history�. The following, condensed from casual conversation with Mr. Riordon, tends to show what a period his life covered: “My father, who was educated at the London Hospital and Trinity College, Dublin was posted in 1807 to the Navy, then engaged with the war with France in various parts of the world, and was sent to Jamaica in 1821 as chief medical officer. At that time the conditions surrounding surgery were not very far advanced, and deaths from fever were fairly common. Indeed my father was stricken with some sort of fever peculiar to the tropics and never really recovered. He used to suffer the most violent headaches even after twenty years. He was one who encouraged a practice then growing up of giving seamen the juices of fruits, such as lime, as an antidote to scurvy. It is interesting to see how without knowing the reasons which modern science has brought forward, in the discovery of the so-called vitamins, the British Navy was following a sound practice. After the Battle of Waterloo, when Napoleon was confined in the Bellerephon at Plymouth my father on the flag ship of the British Admiral used to see Napoleon walking the decks of his vessel, with British officers and with, occasionally, his French military confidants. The greatest care was of course taken against any untoward incident. When it was decided to send Napoleon to St. Helena, my father, as the senior surgeon, was tendered the post of surgeon in the British headquarters on the island of exile. As it happened, my father was then involved in a court martial…a dispute with some Admiral in the Navu who insisted upon the appearance of vertain junior officer who had been sent to the hospital by my father’s orders. The court martial was a rather bitter affair; my father won his point against the Admiral but it prevented him going to St. Helena with Napoleon. His assistant O’Meara was then chosen for the task, and his memoirs of Napolean are preserved in the book “My Years of Exile with Napoleon.� In 1849 the family came to Canada. My father later left the Navy about 1827 and married about 1833 and settled in the west of Ireland. When he brought his family to Canada in 1850, we settled in the village of Weston, not far from Toronto, where he built up a large pratice and was well known throughout that part of the country. After my father;s death in 1862, said Mr. Riordon, my brother John was at first engaged in the wrapping paper business in Brantford in 1857. Later, when John decided to open a mill at Merritton, Ontario, he worked upon it for a time and then sent for me, stating that he did not want to carry it on but wanted me to take charge. I was then only fifteen, but the men in the mill were very friendly and the first thing that I did was to get them together and acknowledge that although I was very young my brother had asked me to take charge and if we worked together I felt sure we would make a success. They all agreed to help me, and we did make very good progress. At that time newsprint was made from rags and we had to buy our stocks of rags from all over the country-side and we sent out little advertisements asking the people to save their rags so as to make paper. Later, the use of straw for paper came in.

Some of Mr. Riordon’s Recollections
Among the farmers in the County of Lincolm our mill had a very enhoyable reputation because the price which we were able to secure for our newsprint, particularly in the United Stated at the close of the Civil War made it possible for us to pay a very good price for straw. Some of my happiest recollections are in my relations with those farmers.

Explanation Wins Cooperation
After my trip to Austria and Germany, as a result of which I brought to Merritton the equipment and the knowledge which would establish the manufacture of sulphite, we had naturally a number of defects in getting the mill into successful operation, but some peculiar troubles developed later which were most mysterious. The mill was losing money and the loss was later attributable to lack of output. For some weeks I was not able to account for the fact that although we put in certain quantities of wood we got a quantity of pulp far below what might have been expected. Questioning of the men did not seem to give any good result, so I determined to investigate for myself. I went quietly to the mill when the men were having their midnight lunch and looked around as well as I could but could not find anything wrong. However, on my third visit of this kind I decided to go down into the pits. It was a little risky because I had to go without any light, but I went through the layer of pulp in the bottom of the pits and felt around until I got to the emergency plug and discovered that it had been removed and the pulp was simply being let out into the canal. I came back to the foreman and asked hum why he did this, and he said that he did not want to be troubled taking care of that—that he wanted a little more time for his supper and to take a rest. He was a decent sort of a fellow and when I told him how much it meant to the Company he felt very badly and we never had any further trouble on that account.

Worked Seventy-two Hours
Sometimes, however, we had to work very long hours. On one occasion when there was a break in the water wheel we worked steadily for three days. The men had some rest but I did not take any myself until on the night of the third day when I went over to the office and sat on the book-keeper’s stool and put my head on the tall desk. Before I realized it I was asleep and when I woke up in about twenty minutes I went over to the mill only to find that all the men had gone home. I then went around to their houses and tried to get them out but all of them reused except two men and they came and we worked through until the morning when the other men came on again and we finally completed the job. I was much annoyed with the men who would not come out, but then, poor fellows, one could not very well blame them, Some of them had taken some whiskey, I am afraid, and they id not get around to the mull until much later in the day.

Liquor in the Boiler Room
Once we had a man who was prone to take too much liquor and he nearly brought about a disaster. When he was partly drunk he got the idea that I had complained that the steam pressure was not high enough, so he put the weight away up on the safety valve and then went at his duty as he conceived it which consisted of alternately stoking the boiler and stoking himself with whiskey. I happened to come around and hearing the steam rush from imperfections in the tubing which had been discovered by the unusual pressure, and found the man asleep in his chair in the boiler room. I verily believe that the steam was going through tiny holes in the boiler but as there was no time to lose I got up on the top of the boiler and eased the safety valve gradually until the pressure was down. The needle on the indicator was over to the extreme limit of pressure and from examinations which were made afterwards it was clear that the boiler might have exploded any moment, so it was lucky that we caught on in time because it would otherwise probably have wrecked the entire mill and would have damaged property outside it. I discharged that man as we could not trust him.

Bright Idea Started Fire
There was another occasion on which the foolishness of one of the men nearly lost us the mill. Originally the place had been occupied as a woolen mill and the roof had become imperfect so that when we took it over we put a new roof over the old one and at the ridge it was about a foot and a half or so above the old ridge. Therefore when the men wanted to make a hole through the ridge from the inside of the mill to the open air they found that their augur was not long enough and they could not locate the hole from the outside which they had begun from the inside. One bright man therefore conceived the idea of heating a 6-foot poker red hot in the boiler house and pushing it up from the inside through the two ridges. The very dry wood in the ridge couple with the draft that was created when they put the poker through at once started a fire which we had very great difficulty in extinguishing because it spread very rapidly between the two roofs. In speaking of foolish people, I should not neglect to include myself, for I was at least so designated by my brother. At the time that we were building the mill at Merritton at Lock 17 I was not content with the aquare, uncompromising appearance of the walls, and at one corner I desired to build a little tower, MY brother and I had a number of arguments about it; I finally gained my point but the tower was promptly dubbed by my brother “Charlie’s Folly� However, whatever one might say of the little tower, I think it is true that the mill was well built, for through all the years that I had to do with it there was not a single crack in the foundations. The difficulties of operation were far greater in those days than today, particularly in the matter of replacement of broken parts. Once when the large cog wheel on the waterwheel line broke, I was told by the man who had cast it that it would take at least three weeks to make another. Such a condition was, of course, impossible for us if we were not to lose a good deal of money, so I determined to mend the thing as well as I could myself. I bored holes in the sides of the wheel, and in the part which had broken out and bound it together with steel straps. The work took two days working day and night and every one of the men said that it would fail, but it did not, and we were able to keep on operating until the new wheel was cast.

Kept the Mill Going
Early in the history of the Hawkesbury mill, about 1902 or 1903, we had another incident what required prompt action. This too turned out to be successful. The water in the Ottawa River from which we derived our supply had gone down to such a level that practically none was coming into the channel which we had dug from the river to the mill. So on one very hot day when it was apparent that within 24 hours we should be shut down unless the supply were augmented, I got some of the men together and we made a wooden sluice within the channel at the point where the water was still a couple of feet deep. We put a sharp incline of planks above and beyond that sort of dam. Then I constructed a little paddle wheel somewhat like the paddle wheels on the back of a Mississippi steamboat, and connected it with a little donkey engine which I brought to the spot. On this job too we worked for two days and two nights, but when the paddle wheel operated it forved the water up to a lvel which kept the mill supplied and we did not have to shut down. Such incidents as the foregoing might be culled by the dozen from Mr. Charles Riordon’s rich experiences. In the fields of journalism, politics, railway construction and the general industrial upbuilding of Canada he had as many experiences as would suffice for three or four ordinary men’s lives. Not the least of the things which he accomplished was to lay a foundation of knowledge of the classics, general history, philosophy, comparative religion and poetry which would do credit to many a university professor. These treasures he stored principally as the result of his infailing habit to sit down for an hour or so in the library no matter what the time at which he reached home from the mill. He never regarded this as a task but as relaxation and recreation. Similarly he had a habit of keeping two or three books “on the go: in his restless yet thoroughly concentrated mental activity. These books would lie open on tables in various parts of the house and as his active mind caused him to walk somewhere else within the house. He had a maxim that “the only reading which a man ever does is that for which he has no time�—might well be taken to heart by us of the present day.

Pulp and Paper Magazine February 11th, 1932

Tea

From the faucets of the fountain, from the bottles of the bar,
I have sampled many gargles, ’most as many as there are,
But the one that’s first and foremost, if you put it up to me,
Is a steaming cup of ashes, swamp-juice, soot and tea.

At the take-off of the portage, when a man is damp with toil,
Heat and deer flies are forgotten when the tea comes to a boil.
In the silent winter’s muskeg, when the snow has blocked the trail,
Hope and faith and courage await the bubbling of the pail.

Propped with rocks beside the rapids, jabbed into the forest mould,
Ten thousand blackened tea sticks mark the campsites of the bold.
Fancy drinks may please the townsman, do to flirt with now and then,
But the silent places witness, tea’s the drink that’s drunk by men.

Anonymous