Who Was That Game ?

  
   I am a long-time reader and fan of the publication Baseball Digest.  One of my favourite features is the Letters section.  People ask questions which the editors duly answer.  The typical letter seems to have a request that goes something along the lines of, "I remember seeing a game at Wrigley Field in the early 60s...Jim Brewer was the starter..can you give me any more information about the game?..."  The staff manages to find the game, prints the box score,  then delivers a brief summary to the nostalgic reader.
 Inspired,  I've spent a fair amount of time trying to track down the exact details of the first major league baseball game I ever saw in person.
 I was about 10 or 11 years old, and the game was at Jarry Park, the one-time home of the gone (but not forgotten, by me at least) Montreal Expos, sometime in the early 1970s. 
  I've asked my dad if he can remember any of the details of the game:  what year, who was playing, the final score, but even though he's a very physically and mentally sharp 79 year-old, he can't recall any of them.
 Here's the sum of what I remember:  the game was played in either late July or early August (my dad got two weeks' holiday when his company, the long-gone RCA picture tube manufacturing plant in Midland, Ontario was shut down), I got Scotty Bowman's autograph (or more like my dad shoved me with a program and a pen to where Scotty was sitting, a few rows down from us - I hardly had any idea who Scotty Bowman was, but my dad, being a life-long Canadiens fan, did), and Ron Woods hit a huge home run late in the game to put the Expos into the lead.
 Other than that, nothing.  Couldn't recall the score, or even the year.
A few notes about my dad:  he grew up in a farming village in Eastern Ontario, the oldest of 5 children.  Born in the Depression, he grew up during pretty rough times.  He left the farm for good to find a job in Toronto in 1950.  I can't imagine the culture shock.  His family was still a few years away from even getting electricity back on the farm. 
 I learned only recently that my dad had an Aunt who would have loaned him the money for a university education when he graduated high school, but for some reason he wasn't able to take her up on it.  That's unfortunate, because even though he had a very successful 47-year career as a manufacturing accountant, who knows what career he might have landed in with a university education?
 My dad was also a good athlete, even though opportunities for playing organized sports where he grew up were slim.  He played a fair amount of fastball, a game that is amazingly popular in rural communities across Canada, for reasons which elude me.  I mean, why not play baseball ?  There's more than enough room.  When he moved to Toronto, he was able to catch on with a high-level team playing in what we would now call the Greater Toronto Area.
  He was a catcher, and apparently caught some pretty good pitchers:  Pete Landers and Metro Zuryk, to name two.  Those names might not be familiar to many, but the former is one of only 3 fastball players in Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.
 I never got to see my dad play. He had given up the game by 1967, when he moved our family from Oshawa to Midland, where he had been hired at the brand-new RCA picture tube plant..  In the late 70s, he helped set up a co-ed three-pitch league at RCA.  He didn't play much, preferring to do the organizing and the cheerleading, but I remember one at-bat where he whalloped the first pitch off of the roof of the school they were playing at.  The ball jumped off of his bat, and after a long parabola of a flight it bounced off the top of the roof like a lacrosse ball, then it skipped across the parking lot and rolled across the street. All were silent during the ball's long flight.
  So I come by my love of baseball naturally.  And genetically.  My dad was involved  with the coaching or umpiring of most of the games my older brother and I played as kids.  There's nothing like having your dad umping home plate while you catch.  "Why did you call that pitch?" he would mutter under his mask after a long blast that split the outfielders and seemed to roll forever.  That was almost as bad as him fishing the puck out of the net after a goal was scored on me (he was a hockey referee as well), asking why I didn't stand up on that one.
  The Montreal Expos came along in 1969, and they captured the imagination of the nation.  I remember my mom buying me an Expos colouring book that year, and I immediately set about colouring every page.  I was very proud of my Rusty Staub efforts. 
 Despite an incredible first month, in which they won both their opening and home opener games, and Bill Stoneman hurled a no-hitter, the Expos lost 110 games that year, and were mostly dismal for the first four years of their existence.

 Their home, Jarry Park, was a jerry-rigged former minor league stadium that was meant to fill the void until Montreal's Olympic Stadium was built.  It had no covered stands, mostly aluminum seats, and a swimming pool beyond the right-field scoreboard that Wille Stargell often seemed to hit home runs into.
The atmosphere, despite the losing, was racuous, and Jarry Park was labelled, "Canada's largest outdoor insane asylum."
  So, even though I may not have been old enough to follow the team on a day-to-day basis, I was a huge fan.  Every Wednesday night, CBC would broadcast a home game, opening up a whole new world to me.
On one of those broadcasts, John Boccabella hit a walk-off home run to complete a huge comeback over the Pirates (when Boccabella came to bat, legendary PA announcer Claude Mouton would draw out his last name - BOCCCCC- A - BELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLA!).  That home run led to some confusion for me as I tried to look up the details of this game I saw in person. Or did I see that game in person, and watch Ron Woods launch a walk-off homer on tv ?
 As the mists of time obscure even the best of memories, I had the two games confused.  Which one did I see live, and which one did I watch on tv ?
 Enter Baseball Reference.
What a treasure trove for statistics freaks like myself.  My dad's youngest brother introduced me to Strat-O-Matic baseball, and I can still recite stats from the players' cards (to wit:  Jim Hickman's 32 Home Runs, Clarence -later Cito- Gaston's .318 average from the 1970 set).  Baseball Reference is a great waste of time.
  Anyway, I searched both Boccabella and Woods on BR.  A quick check of each player's HR log revealed that Boccabella had but the one walk-off homer, Woods had none.  And Boccabella's was hit in September of 1970.  We wouldn't have been at that game, because my dad had only that two weeks in July/August. Boccabella's had to be the TV Home Run.
 So, a more thorough check of Woods' HR log was next.
Woods was signed out of high school by the Pirates in 1961, and spent the next 8 years in the minors, before debuting with the Tigers. After a couple of seasons with the Yankees, the Expos acquired him for Ron Swoboda, of Amazin' Mets fame.
 Woods was a right-handed hitting outfielder, who likely earned a major league spot as a result of the 1969 expansion.  He was a part-time player, and more known for his glove than his bat.
 He hit only 26 career home runs, so tracking this game down wasn't a huge challenge.  I do recall that the home run came late in the game, with the Expos behind.  I don't actually recall seeing it, because I was 10 years old, and everyone stood up to watch it, blocking my view.
 There it was, after a brief search: 

 

1

1973-07-04

MON

NYM

Buzz Capra

behind 4-5

b 8

2

12-

3

9

PH

0.657

93%

Home Run; Bailey Scores/unER; Foli Scores

 Now, I had to check with my dad, because the date didn't fall within his usual holiday period, but it turns out that he had a few weeks of unused vacation from the previous year, and used them that summer of 1973.
  More notes:  about our summer vacations.....
We were not big travellers.  With my brother and I so immersed in hockey and baseball, there wasn't time for a lot of vacationing.
I didn't take my first warm weather vacation until I was well into my 30s.  With only a few weeks of vacation every summer, and with my parents not being all that adventurous, we seldom made it further than my grandparents' farm near Kingston, Ontario.  One year, my mom insisted that we venture at least farther than that, so for some unknown reason, we vacationed in Pembroke, Ontario, on the Ottawa River.  I think we did a brief tour of Ottawa, but spent the rest of the time at the motel in Pembroke.  There was a pool there, so my mom was content to lounge around it.  The only other detail I remember is hearing Charlie Pride's Greatest Hits played endlessly on the 8-track of our Ford Montego.
 Another year, we became even more daring, and headed out to Montreal.  Once again, a pool with a motel was a must (how did people find these in the pre-internet days ?  did we just drive around Montreal until we found one ?) for my mom.  She had no interest in watching a ball game.  Living in a house with 3 males must have been tough.  Just ask my wife, who lives in the same kind of environment.  Hence, her insistence on female dogs as pets.
 So, it was my dad and I off on a Wednesday night to watch the Expos and the Mets.
Thanks to retrosheet.org, I was able to find play-by-play details.
 As mentioned earlier, the Expos were pretenders for their first four years of existence.  1973 didn't promise to be much different.  The team did have 3 promising young players (Mike Jorgensen, Ken Singleton and Tim Foli) who they received in exchange for Le Grand Orange, Rusty Staub.  And there was Mike Marshall in the bullpen, who was still a few years away from bigger fame, but was already demonstrating tthe ability to throw multiple innings per outing out of the bullpen.  The rest of the team was a mix of cast-offs from other organizations.  Like Ron Woods.
 The Expos stumbled out of the gate with a 7-11 April.  May and June were slightly better, and they were only two games under .500 as the summer started.  That record might have been enough to have them out of contention in other years and divisions, but this was the 1973 National League East, meaning that they were right in the middle of a pennant race.
 The Expos' line-up was lead by Ron Hunt, who had to be one of the most battered men in the history of the game.  Standing almost on top of the plate, Hunt was hit a record 51 times in 1971.  I love a quote attributed to him:  "“Some people give their bodies to science; I gave mine to baseball."
 Their batting order, while middle of the pack in the league in terms of runs and average, was actually reasonably decent:  Ron Fairly (one of the slowest players I've ever seen), Jorgensen, Singleton and a rejuvenated Bob Bailey, an original Expo, who would go on to hit 30 HR that year.
 The pitching staff was a mix of youth and veterans.  The starting rotation was anchored by Steve Renko, who was in the midst of a career year.  In May, he would be joined by minor league call-up Steve Rogers, who recorded a 1.54 ERA for the season, and went on to become the Expos' all-time leader in numerous pitching categories.  Sadly, the late Dick Williams had some unkind words about Rogers' performance in big games in his book.  Rogers was my favourite Expo.  Even though I wasn't a pitcher, I loved imitating his herky-jerky delivery as I warmed up with my teammates on the sidelines before games.
  The bullpen was esentially a two-man show, featuring Tom Walker, who had come from nowhere to emerge as a set-up man to the rubber-armed Marshall, who with his 14 wins and 31 saves, had a hand in over half of the Expos' victories that year.  He pitched 176 innings in 92 games - unheard of stats for a closer today.
 I didn't realize it at the time, but the Met's starting centre fielder that night was 43 yr old hall-of-famer-to-be Willie Mays.
 A three-run homer in the first inning by George Theodore off of struggling Expos starter Balor Moore gave the visitors and early lead.
  Taking the mound that day for the Mets was another eventual hall-of-famer: 300 game winner Tom Seaver.
 Seaver cruised through the first seven innings, and the Mets added another in the third (on a Mays' homer - Number 657 for his career; he would hit only three more), and one more in the sixth, to take a comfortable 5-0 lead as the Expos prepared to bat in the bottom of the 8th.
 Hunt walked to lead off the Expos' 8th.  They may have ranked in the middle of the pack in most batting stats, but they were far and away the leader in On Base Percentage.  Not that many people paid attention to that stat in those days, but they were a team that could get on base, and could find a way to get runners home.
 Jorgensen followed with a single to right, and then Hunt moved up to third on a flyout to right by Fairly.
Mets' SS Teddy Martinez then made an error on a ball hit by Singleton (don't know if it was a routine DP ball or not), scoring Hunt and moving Jorgensen to 2nd.  A tiring Seaver then gave up a double to CF Boots Day, scoring Jorgensen with the second run of the inning. A single to centre by Bailey scored Singleton and Day, and ended Seaver's day, cutting the Mets' lead to one.
 Buzz Capra (can't forget that name) came in from the bullpen to relieve Seaver.  He gave up a single to Foli, then retired Boccabella.  With two men on, Capra was an out away from ending the inning.
 In came Ron Woods to hit for reliever Joe Gilbert, the Expos' fourth pitcher of the game. 
Woods hit a three-run home run into the left-field bleachers(that I didn't see) to put the Expos ahead, 7-5.
Marshall came in to pitch a 1-2-3 9th for his 11th save.
And that was it. 15 801 people saw the game.  I thought there was more than that, but I had never been in a crowd that big.  I do remember that Jarry Park was loud - in great contrast to the funereal atmosphere at Olympic Stadium in the Expos' final years.  That's another post for another time.
 Joe Gilbert got the win.  Two weeks later, he would be sent back down to Triple A, never to return to the Majors.
The Expos continued to stay in the hunt in the crowded NL East.  The Mets, Cards, Pirates and Expos would go down to the final weekend.  The Expos reeled off 6 wins in a row in mid-September to move within a game of the Mets, but then promptly lost their next 7.  With the mediocrity of the division, though, they weren't out of it until a loss to the Mets in Game 159.  The Mets took the division with a record of 83-79, the worst record of any pennant winner in major league history.  Just the same, they upset in the Reds in the NLCS, and took the defending World Series Champion A's to 7 games.
  Ron Woods would hit only one more major league home run, and was released by the Expos at the end of the following season.  He played two seasons in Japan before calling it quits.
 And that was the one and only Expos game I saw live and in person at Jarry Park. 
  Four seasons later, the Expos left the cozy confines of Jarry Park for the cavernous Olympic Stadium.
A new generation of home grown players, like Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Ellis Valentine, Warren Cromartie, and Larry Parrish, led the team to near-great heights.  To me, they still remain one of the best teams to never win it all.

 The Expos, of course, evacuated Olympic Stadium in 2004, but in the minds of most Montrealers, they had left several years before that.
  I wish I could remember more details about that game.  I wish that I could've understood the significance of watching two one-day hall of famers.  I wish that I could have seen that home run ball land. Oh, well.
I was just a young lad, enjoying a day at the ballpark with his dad.  And maybe that was the most important thing to remember.  This past summer, I took my dad and my two sons to a game.  Baseball hasn't gripped either of them in quite the same way it did me, but I hope the memory of the games we've been to over the years will stay with them, too.

 I almost forgot to include the box score:

Game Played on Wednesday, July 4, 1973 (N) at Parc Jarry

NY  N    3  0  1    0  0  1    0  0  0  -   5  7  1
MON N    0  0  0    0  0  0    0  7  x  -   7  9  0

BATTING

New York Mets                AB   R   H RBI      BB  SO      PO   A
Garrett 3b                    2   1   0   0       3   0       1   1
Millan 2b                     5   0   0   0       0   0       3   3
Mays cf                       4   1   2   1       0   0       4   0
  Hahn cf                     1   0   0   0       0   0       1   0
Staub rf                      4   1   0   0       1   0       2   0
Theodore lf                   3   1   2   3       1   1       2   0
Milner 1b                     4   0   0   0       0   1       5   0
Dyer c                        3   1   2   1       1   0       5   0
Martinez ss                   4   0   1   0       0   2       1   1
Seaver p                      3   0   0   0       1   2       0   1
  Capra p                     0   0   0   0       0   0       0   0
  Sadecki p                   0   0   0   0       0   0       0   0
Totals                       33   5   7   5       7   6      24   6

FIELDING - 
E: Martinez (5).
PB: Dyer (3).

BATTING - 
HR: Theodore (1,1st inning off Moore 2 on 2 out); Mays (3,3rd inning off Moore
0 on 0 out); Dyer (1,6th inning off Walker 0 on 0 out).
GDP: Milner (7,off Jarvis).
Team LOB: 8.

Montreal Expos               AB   R   H RBI      BB  SO      PO   A
Hunt 2b                       2   1   0   0       2   0       1   4
Jorgensen 1b                  5   1   3   0       0   0       8   1
Fairly lf                     4   0   0   0       1   0       2   0
  Marshall p                  0   0   0   0       0   0       0   0
Singleton rf                  3   1   0   1       1   1       5   0
Day cf,lf                     4   1   1   1       0   1       3   0
Bailey 3b                     4   1   1   2       0   1       1   0
Foli ss                       4   1   2   0       0   0       1   4
Boccabella c                  4   0   1   0       0   1       6   0
Moore p                       0   0   0   0       0   0       0   0
  Jarvis p                    1   0   0   0       0   1       0   0
  Mashore ph                  1   0   0   0       0   0       0   0
  Walker p                    0   0   0   0       0   0       0   0
  Breeden ph                  1   0   0   0       0   0       0   0
  Gilbert p                   0   0   0   0       0   0       0   1
  Woods ph,cf                 1   1   1   3       0   0       0   0
Totals                       34   7   9   7       4   5      27  10

FIELDING - 
DP: 1. Jorgensen-Foli-Jorgensen.

BATTING - 
2B: Day (6,off Seaver).
HR: Woods (3,8th inning off Capra 2 on 2 out).
HBP: Hunt (19,by Capra).
Team LOB: 8.
PITCHING
New York Mets                IP     H   R  ER  BB  SO  HR BFP
Seaver                        7.1   6   5   3   4   5   0  33
Capra L(0-4)                  0.1   2   2   2   0   0   1   4
Sadecki                       0.1   1   0   0   0   0   0   2
Totals                        8     9   7   3*  4   5   1  39
* - Team earned runs does not equal the composite totals for all pitchers due to instances in which provisions of Section 10.18 (i) of the Scoring rules were applied.
HBP: Capra (1,Hunt).
Montreal Expos               IP     H   R  ER  BB  SO  HR BFP
Moore                         2.2   3   4   4   5   2   2  16
Jarvis                        2.1   2   0   0   0   1   0   8
Walker                        2     1   1   1   1   3   1   8
Gilbert W(1-1)                1     1   0   0   1   0   0   5
Marshall SV(13)               1     0   0   0   0   0   0   3
Totals                        9     7   5   5   7   6   3  40
WP: Moore (5), Jarvis (1).
Umpires: HP - Satch Davidson, 1B - Augie Donatelli, 2B - Bob Engel, 3B - Harry Wendelstedt
Time of Game: 2:41   Attendance: 15801

Grave Discoveries

Cemeteries may not be every one's choice for a place to spend time in, but there's a small one in Eastern Ontario that I enjoy visiting every few years.

The cemetery lies to the east of the tiny hamlet of Mountain Grove, which is about 80 km north of Kingston, just south of Highway 7.  My family has lived in the region for 5 generations.

Mountain Grove was born when the government of Ontario pushed through the Frontenac Road, a project designed to open up the few remaining parcels of farmland left in the province, in the 1860s

Calling the Central Frontenac area farmland is generous, at best.  The land is rocky and rolling, as the Canadian Shield dips down to cross the St Lawrence and brush the northern United States.

By the mid 1800s, there was still plenty of more arable farmland available, but much of it was held by speculators.  This was one of the grievances that led to the Rebellion of 1837, but the situation had not improved all that much in the ensuing years.  For people like my great-great grandparents, Cephas and Hester Fox, about all they could afford was this new land the government had opened up.  It wasn't much, but it was theirs.

My Great-Great Grandparents;
One of the oldest plots in the graveyard; "Cephas M. Fox 1856 - 1942, His Beloved Wife Hester Grant 1861 - 1951"

There wasn't a great deal of money to be made in farming this marginal land.  Families like mine would work all summer to pay off the debt they had accumulated at the local General Store over the winter. 

Sometimes, they would look elsewhere for employment.  The arrival of the railway in the late 1800s provided income for some people in the community, while others found work as general labourers, carpenters and the like.  My grandfather, in fact, was born in New York State in the summer of 1908.  The family had moved there temporarily because my great grandfather had hired on at a lumber camp (there's a suggestion somewhere in the family tree that the Fox family had originated in that area, and there may have been relatives there - that's a post for another day).

Fading Fast - Mr Great-Grandparents' Grave
As a kid, I was fortunate to be able to spend a lot of time on my grandparents' farm.  Now, as farms go, it wasn't up to much.  The land was hilly and rocky, and much of the lower pastureland had turned into a marsh.  There was no cattle - just my grandma's huge garden and some chickens, if you go back to where my memories start.  My grandfather had turned to carpentry.  I can still point out some of the homes I remember him building.
With us on this trip was my oldest son, Taylor.  We were returning home after his track meet in Ottawa.  I had made the same trip with my youngest son, Liam, 18 months previously, but for a ski race.  The footing in the graveyard was decidedly less precarious on this most recent trip.  Taylor loved the peaceful setting of the cemetery - it's tucked away in a little valley at the end of a huge Canadian Shield outlier from which the village takes its name.  It looks out onto the rolling fields which the occupants of the cemetery called home.

Taylor liked the fact that he could tag an extra "Great" to the plots he was looking at.

My Grandparents.  I miss them a lot.

Taylor Exploring his Ancestry

I don't get to Mountain Grove very much now.  My grandparents are long gone, although there are still many relatives living in the region.  My dad was the first of his family to leave the farm (for Toronto, originally) and never return, at least on a permanent basis.  He has said that he would like his ashes spread on that graveyard when the time comes.
  My visits to my grandparent's farm was like a trip to pioneer times for me.  They didn't get electricity until the early 60s.  Party line in the 70s. No running water until the 80s.  One of my jobs when I stayed there was to go to the pump at the front of the house and fill the water buckets.  I can still hear the "plunk-de-dunk" sound it would make as I pumped the long wooden handle.  My grandmother got up at 5 every morning during the winter to stoke the wood stove, which provided heat for the farmhouse.  More often than not, the sweet smell of rolls would greet me upon awakening each morning.  And then there were the seemingly endless jars of preserves, including my all time favourite - wild strawberries.  I can't imagine how long it took her to pick them.

 Being able to explore my heritage in one small square of Eastern Ontario is a treasure to me.  I'm sure I'll be back to visit many more times.



My Grandmother's Parents - My Great Grandparents



An Unsung Hero...

Figurehead of HMS Nancy

   To put it mildly, things were looking pretty bleak for the home side in the summer of 1814 in the thrid summer of conflict in the War of 1812.

   The War of 1812 was a battle between American and British forces, fought mostly along the border of the U.S. and Canada.

   Now, all Wars are senseless, but this one was incredibly so.  The British, more concerned with a war they were fighting in Europe, fielded a force of mostly second-rate officers in the North American version.  The Americans, for their part, were less than enthusaistic about fighting a war on “foreign” soil.

  In many ways, the War of 1812 was an attempt at “pay-back” by the Americans after their long

and bloody War of Independence from Britain over a quarter of a century earlier. The U.S. sought redress for a number of grievances with Britain, including trade restrictions on the U.S. as a result of Britain's War with France, impressment of American sailors, and the Americans' belief that Britain was supporting Indian tribes in their resistance of American westward expansion.

  For the first half of the War, the combined force of British soldiers, Native allies and Canadian Volunteers had successfully repelled several American attacks.

  In the summer of 1813, however, the Americans began to get serious.

First , they captured and burned the village of York, the capital of Upper Canada.  You might now York better now as Toronto, a city of over 2 million people. In 1813, it was home to a population of about 5 000.

 Then, the U.S. got into building Warships on the Great  Lakes.  In a big way.

After winning several naval battles on Lake Erie, the Americans found themselves in control of the Upper Great Lakes (Michigan/Huron/Superior) by the spring of 1814. 

  The British now had only one remaining fort on the Great Lakes - Fort Mackinaw, where Lakes Huron and Michigan meet.  They had captured the fort from the Americans at the start of the War.  Seems the U.S. Forces there hadn’t received word that the War had even started.

   The British were also down to one ship on the Upper Great Lakes by this time.  The HMS Nancy had originally been built as a commerical schooner. It was built originally to serve in the fur trade, but was pressed into service for the British during the War's first summer.

  By 1814, it served as an important link in the chain between Fort Mackinaw and the rest of Canada.  Supplies were hauled by lakes, streams, rivers, and even by land from York to a storage building at the south end of Nottawasaga Bay, where they would be transported to Mackinaw by the Nancy.

Fort Mackinaw

  In the summer of 1814, the Americans decided it was time to re-take Fort Mackinaw, and begin to put a stranglehold on the British.  They sent five armed ships to do the job.  The Nancy, which was built as a cargo vessel, would be no match for the Americans.  The new British Naval Commander for Lake Huron knew this all too well.

  Miller Worsley was born in England in 1791.  He joined the Royal Navy at the age of 12.  This was not uncommon for those times. Worsley was summoned to serve in the War in mid-1812.

  By 1814, while still a young man, Worsley was a seasoned sailor, having fought in several famous Naval battles.

   Worsley knew that the Nancy was all that stood between the Americans and a possible victory in the War.  He also knew that he couldn’t outrun or outgun the powerul U.S. ships.

  When the U.S. Warships Tigress and Scorpion appeared at the north end of Nottawasaga Bay one August morning in 1814, Worsley knew he had to take action quickly.  He ordered the Nancy pulled by ropes up the Nottawasaga River  to the blockhouse at Schooner Town.

  The Americans knew that something was up, however.  Sailors who had gone ashore to look for firewood discovered the Nancy’s mast among the tall oak and pine trees that once ringed the Bay.  The sailors scrambled back to the Tigress and Scorpion to report the news, and it wasn’t long before cannon balls began to come screaming across the treetops in the Nancy’s direction.

With a small force of soldiers and native allies, Miller realized quickly that time was running out.  He ordered a trail of gunpowder to be laid between the Nancy and the blockhouse. 

The Americans’shipboard cannons proved to be very inaccurate because of the sand dunes on shore.  As a result, they sent men ashore with a mortar.  In short order, while Miller and his men retreated to the woods for safety, and American shell landed on the blockhouse, blowing up both it and the Nancy.

   The Americans felled a number of trees across the mouth of the river to make sure that no ships of any kind made it out.  They quickly pulled up anchor, and turned the two ships north, in the direction of Mackinaw. With the last remaining British ship now out of commission, and the supply chain to its remaining base severed, the Americans seemed poised to win the war.

  At this point, Worsley had to know how dismal things looked.  Stopping to gather both his men and his wits in the woods somewhere south of the Nottawasaga, Worsley could have easily decided it was time to pack it in, and head back to York.  With no ship,  few weapons, and no suitable means of transportation,  going after the Americans would have been futile - it would have been understandable if he decided to cut his losses by retreating back to headquarters at York.  Most men in his situation, after carefully considering the facts, would have done the same.

  But Lt. Col Miller Worsley wasn’t like most men.

Having practically grown up in the Royal Navy, Worsley was more than used to desperate situations - situations that looked hopeless.  He knew that the trees the Americans dumped across the mouth of the Nottawasaga were only an obstacle - one that could be surmounted with intelligence and bravery.  He knew that the fall of Fort Mackinaw, and the whole of Canada was now only a matter of time, unlesss he took action. He had to find a way to get to the Fort, ahead of the Americans, to warn them of the impending attack.

  Worsley emerged from the woods with two batteaux, one canoe, and a small party of men.

 They dragged their boats to the beach, and set off at once for the Fort, hoping to beat the Americans ships there. 

Batteaux

   The only problem was that the Americans had a head start on the nearly 500 km journey, and while the U.S. ships relied on sail power, Worsley and his men had only oars and paddles to navigate the open waters of the Bay with.  And then there was the tricky matter of somehow getting past the Americans without being seen.

  They caught up to and silently slipped by the two warships at night near St Joseph Island on August 30th, passing within metres of them in the narrow channel.

  Worsley appraised the commander of the Fort of the situation, and on September 3rd, he left the Fort with 92 men, in the hopes of defeating the attack before it even got started.  They found the Tigress at anchor by herself, with only a few sailors on watch.  The British easily captured her, and  the American sailors below deck.  The prisoners were sent off to the Fort, but were forced to leave their uniform jackets behind.

  Two days later, the Scorpion returned to the Tigress.

As the Scorpion pulled alongside, nothing seemed unusual.  The deck of the Tigress was full of uniformed sailors going about their daily routines.  Under those uniforms, of course, were the royal blue coats of the British Navy.  Worsley ordered a barrage of cannon and musket fire as the Scorpion came about.

   With the element of surprise, Worsley captured the Scorpion in less than 5 minutes.

  With his bold and daring moves, Worsley had saved Fort Mackinaw from likely being taken over by the Americans.  It’s not a stretch to say that in the process he saved the Upper Great Lakes.  He may have even saved Canada, too. 

     By the fall of 1814, both the Americans and the British were anxious to end the War.  The Americans were tired of losing battles to the spirited Canadian forces, and Britain was eager to devote its full military and naval resources to defeat the French and their Commander Napoleon.

  By the terms of the peace treaty the two signed, Mackinaw was returned to the U.S. Both sides agreed to drastically reduce the number of warships they operated on the Great Lakes.

  The British decomissioned the captured Tigress and Scorpion.  Both ships were scuttled in the harbour  just off the British Naval base at Penetanguishene. 

  While Worsley and his men were paddling off to defeat the Americans in the north end of Georgian Bay, the Nancy was slowly settling on the bottom of the Nottawasaga River just a few hundred metres from the demolished blockhouse.

  A century’s worth of silt and sand was deposited on the hull of the Nancy by the river, creating a small island in the middle of the River.  The island, of course, now houses the Museum of the Upper Great Lakes, telling the story of Lt Col Miller Worsley and how he and his small band of men helped to change history.

   Perhaps worn out by the events of the summer of 1814, Worsley took ill in October of that year, and went on half-pay.

  He returned to his home in England the following spring.  Worsley died at the age of  43 in 1835.

 Miller Worsley’s time in Canada was brief, but his courageous actions left a lasting imprint.

Sir Issac Brock may be the best-known hero for the home side in the the War of 1812, but Worsley’s contribution, coming as it was during crunch time, was no less significant.

  

 

The Museum of the Upper Great Lakes - Nancy Island

Hull of the Nancy



The Georgian Trail

 Southern Georgian Bay's Georgian Trail provides excellent lessons in history, geography, and what can happen when a few community-minded people get a really good idea.

The trail follows the abandoned railway bed of the Collingwood-Meaford line of the long-defunct Northern Railway.

 The Northern came to Collingwood in 1855. Collingwood's proximity to Toronto, and it's deep, natural harbour allowed it to become an important Great Lakes port, allowing for access to the bustling docks of Chicago and Thunder Bay.

An anecdote from the late 1800s suggested that one could get from one side of Collingwood harbour to the other by simply walking across the decks of the various types of vessels anchored there.

The North Grey line from Collingwood to Meaford was constructed in 1872. Following the Georgian Bay shoreline, construction was relatively easy from both an economic and engineering point of view.

The line was eventually supposed to reach Owen Sound, but the more challenging terrain, competition from other railways (a rival line had reached Owen Sound first, in 1873), and internal financial difficulties kept the line from being built.

This, of course, was a time of great competition and expansion in the railway industry.

With declining revenues thanks to the rise of automobiles and highways in the post WW II era, passenger service from Hamilton to Meaford via Collingwood was ended in 1960, and the line was abandoned in 1985.

A group of civic-minded inviduals lobbied for the conversion of the rail line into a trail that could hook up to Collingwood's burgeoning trail system (which now stretches from Meaford to Stayner).

5 municipalities managed to work together to complete the conversion of the Trail by the fall of 1991.

The Georgian Cycle & Ski Trail Association has been the driving force between the construction and maintenance of the Trail. They are also responsible for fundraising and management. The GTA, as it is commonly referred to, boasts a membership of almost 500 families and individuals who support the Trail's operation through their annual membership dues, donations, and help with fundraisers.



We have done the Collingwood-Thornbury section many times. When the boys were younger, we would park at the Trail's eastern terminus in Collingwood, then bike the 20 km to Thornbury. We would stuff bathing suits, towels, subs, drinks and sunscreen into our knapsacks. A refreshing jump into the Bay from the long Thornbury pier was the reward.

I recently parked where the Trail crosses Osler Bluff Rd, and took the dogs for an early evening walk. A pensive doe stood motionless on the Trail not 200m in front of us just a few minutes in.
The dogs, thankfully, were oblivious to the deer's presence. I managed to get them to stay still with me for a few minutes, while the doe wandered to the Trail's edge to browse. Shortly after, two more deer crossed the trail with her. One of the dogs was sensing something was up, so we began to move. The deer instantly scrambled off silently into the bush. As we passed where they had left the Trail, I could see that same sentinel doe standing about 50m deep into the trees, freezing until we passed.

The Trail offers opportunities for fitness-minded individuals and nature lovers alike.

This is Not Your Parents' Cross Country Skiing

If the thought of cross-country skiing does not bring to mind images of people gliding across flat, vast expanses of snow in their wool sweaters, hats with the fuzzy pom-poms and their gaiters, then don't bother reading any further, because I'm obviously preaching to the choir......

Simply put, the sport of nordic skiing (as it prefers to be called), is nowhere near as genteel as the masses might think. I'm sure that my colleagues who see me rush off from work to get a quick workout on the trails in before dark think of Canadian Tire skis with the three-hole plaftorm under the toes, but the sport now is radically different.

Nordic skiing, of course, has been around for centuries.

It originated in Scandinavia during prehistoric times, when hunters discovered strapping a pair of boards onto your feet gave you a huge advantage over long-legged prey in deep snow. Even as recently as the 19th century, it was the chief method of winter transportation in countries such as Norway (the mecca of nordic - all enthusiasts must make a pilgrimmage there one day), Sweden and Finland. Immigrants from those nations brought the sport to North America.

The "skate" style had long been in use in those countries, but the classic style held sway in competitive circles. American Bill Koch caught the attention of the media, however, when he won the 1982 world championships using the technique, becoming the first non-European to top the podium (only one other non-Eurpean - Canada's Sara Renner with a bronze, has even stood on the podium at the worlds since then).

From there, skating grew in popularity. A primitive form of it was first used at the 1984 Winter Olympics, but it really only gained acceptance from the FIS in the past 10 years. At the winter games, there are still as many classic races as there are skate.

As in most other sports, technology has played a huge role in the advancement of nordic skiing. Most people only know the "classic" technique when it comes to the sport. Gliding in pre-set tracks, classicers use a shuffling/kicking motion to propel themselves along the flats, then move into a "running" technique (for the elite skiers) or the traditional "herring-bone" method when it comes to hills.

Skate skiing has benefitted the most from improvements in ski construction, bindings and bood manufacturing.

In comparing the difficulty between the two techniques, well, there is no comparison. If you can balance, you can classic. Certainly, there is skill progression and fitness involved, but for the recreational classicer, there is little to compare it to skating. Skate skiing uses a different motion (i.e. skating, but with 183 cm blades), does not use a track, and relies on the poles more for propulsion (and at that, there are different methods of using the poles on flats vs hills - no herring-bone for skaters - you skate up the hill)

In short, skating is much, much harder. Harder to learn, harder to master, and demands a much greater level of strength and cardio-vascular fitness. To compound that, most true nordic ski centers are not built on flat terrain. Hills are part of the game. At my home resort, you climb over 200m in elevation in the first 2 km (the good thing about that is that most of the last 2k of your ski are downhill, which is a challenge unto itself). I often have to remind myself that I'm having fun as I climb.

Skate skiing uses every major muscle group (to be fair, so does classic, but at a much lower level of intensity), and is one of the sports that burns the most calories per hour. Nordic skiers are among the best-conditioned athletes on the planet. Legendary Norwegian skier Bjorn Daehle set a world record in a fitness test with a 96 VO2 max.

I was a dedicated alpine skier until a few years ago. I even patrolled at Blue Mountain, a Southern Ontario ski resort popular with the Greater Toronto Area crowd. I slowly became disenchanted with the sport, however. As the sport became increasingly popular, the lineups at the chair lifts grew (if this was Stowe or even Mt Tremblant, I could put up with it - I'm not waiting 15 minutes to ski down Blue, though). Injuries became increasingly common - the local hospital could probably have set up an hourly shuttle service to ferry the injured back into town for treatment).

My frustration grew one Friday night around 9 pm. I was slowing down as I approached the funnel that leads to the Grand Prix chair lift, when out of nowhere a skier came up from behind me and bowled me over.

As I was lying on the ground, he cursed at me for being in his way (being the uphill skier, he had the right to watch for my safety - I'm thinking he didn't read the skiers code or responsiblity plastered on signs all over the litigation-concsious resort). I managed to get to my feet, and went over to patrol headquarters to get looked at. The head patroller recommended I get my shoulder x-rayed. I drove myself (one-handed) to the hospital, only to get a stern lecture from the emergency room doctor about out of control skiing.

The final straw occurred one night as my wife and I were dining at one of the resort's restaurants. My patrolling position was voluntary - in exchange for taking regular three-hour shifts, we received "points," redeemable at the resort. I had enough for dinner for two.

During dinner, we struck up a conversation with the couple dining next to us. Turns out they got a dinner voucher for sitting through a timeshare presentation. Freeze your ass of for three months and get a free meal, I thought to myself, or sit through an hour long timeshare presentation. I turned in my uniform at the end of the season.

We had long thought about returning to cross country - sorry, Nordic. Both my wife and I grew up on Canadian Tire skis. When our oldest son entered high school in the fall of 2006, his reputation as a distance athlete was growing. With that in mind, the nordic coach tried to recruit him - and failed.

Undaunted, the coach also happened to be his 2nd term phys ed teacher, and listed as a "next step" on his report card of "joining the nordic ski team to improve his fitness." He joined the following year. In need of an assistant because of some successful recruiting, the coach turned to my wife, who was a teacher at the school. She has a long history of coaching experience in cross country running and track - but none in nordic.

Her learning curve was steep, made even moreso by the fact that the coach retired from teaching a year later, leaving her in charge of the team. Given her background, however, she picked things up quickly, and now runs one of the largest and most successful high school nordic programs in Ontario.

At that point, we bought me an entry pair of Fisher waxless classics, and before long I was schushing my way along the trails. While I improved a great deal in a relatively short time, I couldn't help but feel a little inferior to the legions of skaters who were flying by me. The next season, I picked up another entry pair of Fishers, this time skate, and was on my way. Because I was self-taught, however, my technique was horrible, and much to my chagrin decent classicers were now passing me. I was soon back to the level of frustration I had experienced with alpine. I couldn't go more than about 800m without having to stop to catch my breath.

I sought out professional help in the form of Youtube. The tips I garnered there, along with the advice my wife passed along from her coaching clinics, helped me to get my arms and legs into some form of co-ordinated state. I may not be the fastest skier at the resort, but I do pass a few people along the way now.

Many people try skate skiing, but give up in frustration after a few attempts. That I didn't give up on the technique is probably due to a genetic disposition toward stubborness. Because my wife had a larger team than usual this year, she needed an extra adult along for crowd control, and the odd tip to beginners. This caused me to focus more on my technique, which in turn led to improved cardio (less effort extended), which in turn improved my technique even further, etc...

My advice to those who would like to try the sport is not to take a lesson. Take several. The progression of skills doesn't come overnight. Perhaps those who have considerable experience on other forms of skates or skis think that this sport should come easily. It doesn't. You have to learn how to glide on your skis, then you learn how to involve the poles. Then hills change things a bit. This all takes time. I should know.

The Final Tally

The storm ended over a week ago, but it seems like we here in Southern Ontario's Southern Georgian Bay region finished digging out just in time for Christmas.

The snow squalls started on Dec 3rd, and lasted almost non-stop until Dec 15th. A final snowfall total is next to impossible to discern because of the heavy winds and localized nature of snow squalls.

We likely received something on the order of close to 200 cm of snow. A season's worth of snow (actually, more than last season's total snowfall) in 12 days.



School busses were cancelled for 6 days total - schools in the area were even closed twice, which is unheard of. My wife's high school nordic ski team, which is a power in the province of Ontario, couldn't get out on skis to enjoy the record snowfall because of bus cancellations.



The dramatic rescue of stranded motorists on Hwy 402 near Sarnia received much more media attention than the hammering that the communities of Collingwood and Wasaga Beach took.



Now, that may be because we here in the Southern Georgian Bay region are used to such storms. We also don't have a major thoroughfare like Hwy 402 in our region. To get here, you need to take two-lane highways which wisely close during such adverse weather, because since they cross long stretches of farm land, they're impossible to keep clear. And maybe we're more used to driving in such conditions - we have the vehicles and the tires to help stay out of trouble. I would love to know how many of the stranded drivers had snow tires. It concerns me that while this type of weather was unusual for that area, given its proximity to Lake Huron, it's not unheard of, yet local officials had little in the way of an emergency plan ready for one of the busiest stretches of road in the country.

Also, we might just be a little bit wiser when it comes to heading out in such weather: if the weather's bad, we stay off the roads. If it's ok when we start, but then conditions deteriorate, we turn around. And we take our time. If we do get stuck, we have the patience of mind to call CAA, grab the blanket from the back seat, and sit back and wait for a tow. I was horrified to hear about the driver who got stuck in a drift on the 402, then unwisely decided to strike out in search of help. His body was found in a drift less than 100m from his car two days later.

This is not to diminish the difficult situation these travellers (many of whom were commuters) found themselves in. In this day and age, I find it hard to believe that most of them had to spend the night in their vehicles in sub-freezing temperatures before an armada of snowmobiles came out to rescue them. Some had run out of gas, or were about to, after a night of running the car to get warm, shutting it off, then repeating. I can't help but think, however, that the majority of these people were ill-prepared for the wall of snow that met them. Or maybe they felt that there was no other option - they had to get to work.



When Toronto got nailed with about a quarter of the amount we received 10 years ago, then Mayor Mel Lastman desperately called in the Canadian Forces to help. Here, we relied on an army of private snow plow and backhoe operators to help clear the many clogged side streets, with no fanfare.

Here, it snows, you dig yourself out, then get back to life.


The bonus: perfect conditions for the area's alpine and nordic ski facilities. Highlands Nordic hosted the first Ontario Cup race of the season, and there was almost too much snow. Grooming efforts had to focus on the race course, so some of the more remote trails had received little or not attention until late last week.
We should be skiing on both types of skis until Easter at least. If we have an early spring, Blue Mountain offers a special where you can ski their slopes in the morning, then golf their hillside course in the afternoon. Count me in !

A story: I gave a ride home to a colleague one day because her wiper blade motor had died. I barely made it into work taking my usual back road route (Local Airport Rd), so we opted for Nottawa Sideroad, for reasons which made sense at the time. Taking an east-west road in the middle of 70 km/hr north winds made sense at the time, but in hindsight was a foolish choice.

We had to pass through a short (maybe 1 km) section of open, flat farmland. With a little Toyota Tercel, that's a recipe for disaster. Most people in this area drive larger vehicles, and to be sure our second car fits that description, but with two sets of post-secondary tuition coming up starting next year, a replacement vehicle isn't in the cards at the moment. I know I'm kidding myself, but I like to say that my Tercel has 25 kg of fertilizer in the back and 25 yrs of winter driving behind he wheel, but neither of those was any help to us on this occasion.

We drove along with the road rapidly shrinking in front of us due to drifting. I made it through the first drift, then we hit a whiteout and the car just stopped. We had hit a drift that was up past our knees, but I couldn't see it at first because of the blowing snow.

We were stuck. No going ahead, no going back. Meeg called her partner Andrew, who is in the plowing/towing business in the winter, but couldn't reach him. So, after another survey of the situation, I was about to call CAA and wait. Suddenly, a flatbed truck pulled up on the other side of the drift to the west of it. Inside was a former student, who asked, "Need me to pull you out, Mr Fox ?". Kyle had his chains at the ready, and sure enough yanked us out of the drift. Turns out that Kyle lives on that road, and we likely were not the first nor the last victims he had pulled out that day.
Freed from the snow, we turned around and drove into Collingwood, and then on to Nottawa - the way we should have gone in the first place !



Postscript: I'm strongly considering replacing my Tercel with a Jeep Patriot. Having two teenaged drivers in the house is a factor.

Some More Photos...

These were taken during the storm's second wave, from Dec 13 - 16th.

The Southern Georgian Bay region continued to experience gale force winds from the north, which produced more snow squalls and hazardous driving conditions.