Rock dust billows up around the drill. Photo: John Mackley

It’s 7:35, eventide, and getting dark. The chickens will be heading to bed soon. But he is still out in the shadows, wrapping insulation around 150 feet of water pipe leading from our new well to the basement. 

This has been a rocky summer. We learned our well water was contaminated. The well was an ancient one, inconveniently located under the veranda steps. Also inconveniently, its location was illegal―too close to the septic tank. 

We found a spot for our new well about 12 feet east of the house. 

It took weeks to study the options and choose a well-drilling company whose proposed contract matched its estimate. We figured it could cost somewhere around $15,000―a well less than 100 feet deep, a trench and water pipe 12 feet long, a new pump, new electrical wiring. 

We got the drilling permit, and I have only accolades for the personnel at the Municipality of Newport―the inspector, the office staff, the mayor, everyone! One driller told us we’d probably have to wait three weeks and pay $200. We waited less than three hours and paid $25. (I love living in Newport.) 

Drilling day came, and the surprises began piling up. The truck could not handle the crazy terrain at our chosen spot. Another legal location (more than 100 feet from neighbouring fields) was chosen, 150 feet west of the house. About five feet deep, the drill hit solid rock. Water came in at 320 feet, enough for a family of five, they said. 

Our neighbour with his backhoe dug the five-foot trench in a few hours, extending across both wings of our driveway. Another surprise: in two stretches, he hit solid rock less than three feet below the surface. We learned we’d have to thoroughly insulate the pipe before filling in the trench. 

The new pump was installed, the water pipe laid, the electricity connected. Eureka! Water! 

After the requisite treatment, it’s as chlorinated as a swimming pool, and we’re still hauling drinking water from generous neighbours. It seems we have guardian angels all around us. 

The cost? Almost twice our guesstimate. And about 40 feet more of pipe to insulate before filling in the trench. Tomorrow is another day. What a summer! 

I have a friend who has taken into hand the little bag of silver US coins that was a legacy from my father. My friend wants to check its value. She is into buying and selling silver. 

Great, I say to myself, a diversion to soothe me while the US Congress passes Trump’s “big beautiful” monstrosity. Alongside the US-Canadian exchange rate, it is wreaking havoc on my retirement. 

When my father died in 1993, my brother, the executor of his will, sent me a small bag of US coins. Each of us eight children got one. I’m sure my brother counted fairly. 

Mine came in a little canvas bag labeled “The Jefferson Mint,” the name of a scheme that sent my father a handful of silver coins each month. 

In my bag were three half-dollars, 20 quarters, and 121 dimes. My brother said the coins were then worth about two cents more than their face value, with a quarter coming in at 27 cents. 

But that has changed, my friend says. 

The price of silver has been going up by peaks and valleys. On October 23, 2005, it was $9.61 per Troy ounce. On August 25, 2022, it was $25.64. On July 4 this year, it was up to $50.33. 

We go to a local money shop, where the agent offers 22 times the face value of the coins. He offers to buy a US half-dollar for $11 Canadian, no matter whether it sports JFK’s face or that of Benjamin Franklin. The little bag of coins would net me $410. 

That, he says, is the “spot” price, the on-the-spot value based on the current market price of silver, quick ‘n’ easy pricing for coins with silver content, or “junk silver.” The term covers US coins dated before 1965 (90% silver), and Canadian coins dated before 1968 (80% silver). 

My friend is seriously into these things. She says that, considering the current market price, he should have offered 25 times the face value, or $465. But more than that, some of the coins could have numismatic value and be worth a lot more. 

I owe a little money to my friend, but she wants to be paid in silver rather than with that worthless plastic stuff. So we make an agreement that she will take the coins back to her home in the big city and check their value with a coin dealer there. Then she will keep the silver she is owed, and cash in the rest for me. 

She wants to hang onto her silver for awhile, hoping it will get up to $100 an ounce, where it seems to be heading. 

By the way, “filthy lucre” is mentioned four times in the Bible, instructing that church deacons eschew dishonest financial profits. They must not abuse their office to make money. 

Now who in the world would do something like that? 

Crédit : Adobe Stock

A young buck peered into our side door, his two points resembling sturdy sausages. 

Shakti, shy kitty that she is, crouched low a few feet from his nose. 

Our minds went to nature films from Africa. 

“She’s getting ready to pounce on him and sink her teeth into his neck!” 

This is our Door to Wildlife. 

It’s where Pepe encountered his first wild animal. 

He had just moved with us from Montreal. A stranger had begged us to adopt him. 

A middling-big fellow with longish honey-brown fur and floppy ears, Pepe had apparently never gone outside during his first six months of life. When we took him for walks, he took care to “hold it in” until we got home and he could pee in the kitchen. Trees were scary. Stumps, even more so. When he met his first one, he yelped and jumped high in the air like Bugs Bunny’s first cousin. Every scrap of paper, every pebble, was an existential threat. 

Pepe was in constant motion. So, when friends visited, we put the gyrating, yapping dog out the side door. We counted on his agoraphobia to keep him close. 

A moment later, the yelping took on an unprecedented intensity. We looked out the door and almost leapt out of our skins. Nearby, on the lowest branch of the old oak tree, was an adolescent bear, three times bigger than Pepe. Bear clung to the branch as Dog bounced up and down, inches below, excited to meet a long-lost friend. 

How his mind worked still mystifies me: A tree stump or a scrap of paper scared him silly, but he saw a bear as a playmate? 

Sometimes I feel like Pepe, like I’m on a strange planet where danger can take any innocuous shape. A playmate, a thing of joy, or an object of ridicule, can in fact be life-threatening, and I won’t even realize it. 

I’m not alone, I think. So many threats surround us. So many voices tell us, so incessantly, what to fear. Often, they warn us against phantoms. How to discern real dangers from fake news? 

How to see clearly what to do about raging wars-upon-wars? Can we even dream of solving climate change? Can we save ourselves from pollution? How to fix the economy gone haywire? Can we rescue the health-care system? How to depose the oligarchies of the world? 

It’s unnerving, so we find relief by focusing on something like Bigfoot, contrails, or vaccines. 

Pepe got himself hit by a car. Did he have one moment of clarity as he died? I wonder. He had such a short, strange life. 

Shakti, on the other hand, wisely came back inside, and the young buck lived another day. 

Now there’s a word to raise hackles. At least among English speakers.
(I’m told the equivalent in Québécois, in terms of emotional impact, has more to do with religion than sex. But that’s another story.)

I’ve observed that F— is bandied about these days quite freely. I pass a roadside banner almost daily: “F— Carney,” recently updated from “F— Trudeau.”

What the f—?! Why am I subjected to this spurt of poison, posted on private property but plainly polluting the public view?

Our friends and neighbours in local government, more and more often, are targeted by abusers. A spate of “F” posters went up recently around Bury, singling out one particular municipal employee.
The abusive language toward municipal workers, both elected and hired, goes beyond signage. In the news this past year are women in municipal office who are leaving politics because of harassment, including the mayors of Gatineau and Sherbrooke.

Last year, Quebec’s Municipal Affairs Minister reported that since 2021 a growing number of elected officials have quit or left politics because of intimidation and harassment, about 10% by December 2024. Quebec has even set up a helpline for municipal politicians.

The abusive climate also affects municipal employees; several in the Haut-Saint-François have privately said they left their jobs because of intimidation from individuals in our communities.

The “F” word and other epithets tell us mostly about the mud slinger’s own state of mind: stressed, no doubt, as many of us are. We’re living in a time when SNAFU (Situation Normal: All Fucked Up) applies. But relieving our distress by throwing verbal stones only helps upgrade our SNAFU status to FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition).

Next door to Canada is a great big bully with a nasty tongue. We seem to have given ourselves licence to emulate or tolerate his behaviour. But we have reason to reject abuse, and to do so openly when we see it happening.

I’m reading a tiny handbook by a historian on surviving our times. It’s called On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, by Timothy Snyder. The 9th lesson surprised me: “Be kind to our language.” Snyder writes about how propagandists use catch phrases and epithets to limit language and thought. He cites Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, in which the regime burned books and limited language “by eliminating ever more words with each edition of the official dictionary.”

He summarizes the 9th lesson like this: “Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey the thing you think everyone is saying. Make an effort to separate yourself from the Internet. Read books.”

Hmm. Back to the Internet: Wikipedia offers a detailed history of the “F” word and cites research suggesting that eating processed foods puts less wear and tear on our teeth. In adults, this leads to an overbite which facilitates producing “f” sounds, “and humorously, cleared the way for words like ‘Fuck’.”
Well, okay. Let’s eat local, fresh food. But, really, a lot of different words begin with “f”―our overbites don’t really explain the tyranny of intimidation.
Freedom!

The former Eaton Academy

William Stone’s leg had to come off. That was the assessment of the good Doctor Edward Dagge Worthington in Eaton Corner on March 10, 1847. Poor William, a shoemaker, had broken his ankle in an unfortunately severe fashion. Doctor Worthington would have to amputate. But the doctor had a way to lessen the pain. It was called sulfuric ether. William would not feel a thing during the operation.

It was the first time in Canada that major surgery was performed with the use of general anesthesia. This procedure had been tried for the very first time just five months earlier by a Boston dentist, William T.G. Morton.

Established in the 1790s, Eaton Corner was among the first villages in the region settled by Europeans, following close behind Sawyerville and the very first settlement of Pleasant Hill.

In the following decades, Eaton Corner was larger than Sherbrooke, known then as Hyatt’s Mills. This all changed when the railway was built through Cookshire instead of Eaton.

These are just a few of the many fascinating historical tidbits one can learn on a visit to the Eaton Corner Museum.

Today’s Eaton Corner is a collection of some of the oldest houses in the region, dating from the early 1800s. The Museum is housed in the former Congregationalist Church and the historic Eaton Academy at the intersection of Laberee Road and Routes 253/210.

The Church is a beautiful white clapboard building on one side of the road, and the equally attractive Academy is on the other.

Museum President Marc Nault and Secretary Sharon Moore said the board of directors is always looking for new ideas for projects and activities to attract public participation and interest in the rich history of the Cookshire-Eaton and Newport areas. In the past, the Museum hosted an ‘‘Old-Fashioned Day’’ when volunteers dressed in period costumes and demonstrated 19th-century woodworking and construction techniques. Museum board members are particularly looking for people with historical skills to demonstrate.

Volunteers Denis Palmer and Royce Rand focus on keeping the buildings in pristine condition. When dealing with centuries-old buildings, this is a full-time occupation, particularly for volunteers with other demands on their time, said Palmer. Painting is high on the agenda this year.

A permanent exhibit in the museum is divided into sections to tell the region’s storied history, beginning with the Abenaki Indigenous presence as well as early European settlers, advances in transportation, commerce, industrialization, and onward.

Plans are in the works for a possible series of Sunday afternoon workshops this summer, including «Music on the Lawn» events with local musicians. Rothney also said the Museum is working with the Cookshire Fair to set up a display of antique farm equipment on the fairgrounds.

The Museum’s annual general meeting is planned for Saturday, May 24, at 1:30 p.m.; members and the public are invited. The current board of directors has seven members. ‘‘We are actively looking for more volunteers’’ said Nault. ‘‘Please come!’’

The 162-year-old Trinity United Church in Cookshire came to life on March 8 as about 100 people gathered inside on a cold and blustery Saturday evening to celebrate music, community, women’s rights, and a hopeful new future for one of the region’s architectural jewels. 

The classical concert was organized under the theme of Bouquet de Femmes on International Women’s Day. It also coincided with the transfer of ownership of Trinity Church from the United Church of Canada to Espace Culturel Cookshire-Eaton, a non-profit group under the leadership of local businessman, Gilles Denis, a frequent buyer of heritage properties in Cookshire. 

His daughter, flutist Myriam Genest-Denis, emceed the event and welcomed the audience, with subsequent speeches by Cookshire-Eaton mayor Mario Gendron and La Passerelle women’s centre representative Marilyn Ouellet. 

Beyond the music devoted to women composers, the church’s amazing acoustics, and the awe-inspiring wood craftsmanship, the event’s highlight was perhaps the homage to community leader Chantal Ouellet. 

“Community activism and municipal politics became the foundations of her social militantism,” said Cookshire-Eaton resident Jean-Paul Gendron about Ouellet during his intermission tribute. “The library, cultural activities, the Cercle des fermières, the arboretum, promotion of Scotstown’s natural attributes, the environment… here was a political drive that led her to municipal council, first as a councillor from 1978 to 1982, then as mayor from 1986 to 1994. 

“And as a member of the MRC’s council of mayors, which at the time covered 24 municipalities, the femme de Scotstown was not the type to be intimidated by a boardroom of mayors… all men. From 1978 to 2012, she held seven municipal mandates! That’s called a career that’s as inspiring as it is exemplary in municipal politics!” 

Gendron went on to list the region’s 10 women mayors of the past 15 years or so, and noted that the Haut-Saint-François currently has 35 women municipal councillors out of a total of 84 elected officials. “That gives us optimism during these troubled times,” he said. “They deserve our full confidence.” 

Special recognition also went to the former custodians of Trinity Church in Myriam Genest-Denis’s introductory address. It was the event’s only words in English, spoken directly to the row of audience members who have cared for the church for so much of their lives.  

The Bouquet de Femmes concert was billed on its social media page as a one-hour event, from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. With such a rich and important agenda, it in fact lasted until 10 p.m. That so many people came out for so long on a cold, wintry night just before losing an hour to the time change was a testament to the organizers, musicians, women being honoured, the church, and the program. 

Photo : Bruno Bergeron

As the mid-February snowstorms melted one month later, Cookshire breathed a collective sigh of relief when the Eaton River started to recede, as if Saint Patrick and the luck of the Irish were gracing the town.  

Firefighters were on standby from midnight to 8 a.m. Sunday morning, March 16, before that bit of weather relief came in on the nonetheless heavy winds. The river never broke its bank, although at one point it was close. 

Flooding occurred elsewhere in the region, with the Salmon River crossing the road in Weedon, for example, but without significant incident. 

It was the winter winds, more than snowfall and flooding, that marked the 2025 calendar in Cookshire-Eaton.  

“Everyone was in over their heads,” said the municipality’s former public works manager, now special projects manager, René Lavigne. “The worst was in the night from Monday to Tuesday [February 17-18]” due to the wind. “On some roads, there was four feet of snow right across.” 

Private subcontractors had to be brought in with snowblowers and loaders to help with the clearing effort. 

Monique Fortin - Rang 2, Weedon

Monique Fortin - Rang 2, Weedon

Nani Mercier - Rang des Colons, Dudswell

Bruno Bergeron - Rang 2, Weedon

Mélanie Leblanc, Bury

Mélanie Leblanc, Bury

Mélanie Leblanc, Bury

Mélanie Leblanc, Bury

Mélanie Leblanc, Bury

In one case, two cars were stuck and abandoned side by side, blocking the road from snow removal. Municipal employees had to find the owners and have them come and move their cars so the road could be cleared before the morning commute. 

Cookshire-Eaton covers the largest territory within the regional county municipality (MRC) of the Upper Saint Francis region (MRC du Haut-Saint-François). The municipality has over 260 kilometres of roads to clear and de-ice in bad weather.  

Lavigne said the toughest challenge is when the storms or freezing rains start around 4 a.m., leaving the municipality just a couple of hours to make roads passable for people starting their day or for emergency vehicles to get access where needed. 

During this winter’s back-to-back storms in mid-February all town snow-clearing employees and its 10 trucks were on duty non-stop, with another 12 or so reinforcements added. 

But by 7 a.m., Tuesday, February 18, the roads were passable, Lavigne said. “It was a good one, but I’ve seen worse,” he added. 

Neither the snowstorms nor the near flooding broke the municipality’s budget, town manager Martin Tremblay said in an interview last week, a day after Saint Patrick’s. “So far, we’re okay.” The forecast from then on looked good, but these days one never knows. The winds, particularly those aggressive ones from the south, seem to change on a whim. 

Tremblay said the municipality was particularly grateful to its employees after they tackled the two winter storms. Messages of thanks were expressed in the aftermath, in person, on social media, and will continue during Cookshire-Eaton’s two days of employee recognition annually.  

“We wanted the population to know that our men and women did a good job. Because that was exceptional work.”