Memories

Lachine is a town, district, or ward of Montreal. I am not sure which. We pulled into its marina bow first onto the usual short slip and confused the entire staff. But once it was settled that I was comfortable in this awkward position . . . ah, well, no problem. After looking around, we realized Carrie Rose was on an island.

This has happened to us before and last year, we were rescued by Charlotte’s cousin who had a cottage serendipitously close to our dock on Wellesley Island in the St. Lawrence River. This time we were on our own. I suggested we get on our bikes to ride off the island and explore, and after some discussion, it was agreed.

With the boat’s stern hanging 8 feet off the back of the dock it required several well coordinated maneuvers to get the bikes on finger dock. Once there we asked our gracious neighbor, a self described septuagenarian, how to get off the island and where should we go once on shore. He looked concerned and was not immediately forthcoming. I asked again, using the time honored techniques of speaking louder and slowly enunciating my words.

Language was not the problem, the problem was that in the late 1600’s the “Indians” attacked and massacred the entire (“men, women, and children”) settlement at Lachine. In response, the French king sent an army to massacre the “Indians” but they failed to so and so, it was probably not safe for us to ride our bikes in Lachine.

Charlotte and I both went “hum” to this superb example of — I’m not sure what to call it — cultural or institutional memory, or maybe Jung’s Collective Consciousness is a good thought, but his concern was for all mankind and this memory was limited to this particular French Canadian.

We decided to take his warning under advisement and cautiously rode off the gated island. For as much as we saw of the outside world it appeared safe. There were people conversing in outside cafe’s, children played in the sculpture park directly across from Carrie Rose, young mothers with strollers strolled, and thousands of people streamed by in tight biking gear on thousand dollar bikes reenacting the Tour-de-France.

We never saw our neighbor again. He went to Maine for the 73rd time in his 73 years to spend a week in a foreign land amongst strangers . . . strange.

P.S. The above bit of history was later confirmed in a gruesome pictorama at Fort Chambly.