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Published: October 17th 2009
St Donat
The long road from cousin Faigie and Ruths down to St Donat village
I need to put this section in context before you read it One half of the purpose of the trip to North America is to visit relatives - now mostly cousins as my one uncle died long ago and three out of four aunts have died in recent years.
I was born in Montréal but left at the age of 6, I think. Much of my memories are of the streets in Montreal where we lived, and the Mountain nearby.
But there are also quite vivid memories of the region around St Donat - north of Montreal, where I spent several summers as a child. Since leaving I have been back three times only. It’s about 30 years since I was last here with my wife Lynne, so the visit is full of anticipation, nostalgia and regrets
Carol and I have spent the last 3 years and the entire four weeks of our tour anticipating our arrival in Canada. Will my memories of the past come to life again, or turn out just to be faded figments. Will Carol find my family so different from her own experience that it all becomes too much? Two of my cousins and their various partners, ex-spouses. and various family attachments come here in the summer using the wooden cabins which previous generations of the family had used as a sort of commune. Now that time has moved on and possession of property is the norm, rather than renting, perhaps personal notions of what is shared in common and what is held for exclusive use have changed
We are about to find out We eventually arrived in St Donat after a journey through the surreal flatlands of SE Ontario.
St D is a small unassuming but charming resort on the lakes - in the Laurentides, Québec. This has been the ultimate destination on our return run from Savanna, Georgia
St Donat is near to the better known resorts of Ste Agathe Des Monts and Mont Tremblant. Fortunately for St Donat that has kept most of the worst excesses of commercialisation away and it remains much as it has been for several decades, with some modern additions in the village itself
We catch up on old times, whilst enjoying the informal hospitality at cousin Faigie’s (called Faigie 1) and Ruth’s wooden cabin,
An evening with Professor MS
Carol, Faigie 1, Ruth and Michael chat after dinner. Well actually Michael chats and we listen. Very entertaining he is too swimming and kayaking on the lac Ouareau with Faigie 2, and later doing a whistle stop tour of St Donat itself with cousin Michael (and later still his saintly wife Carol Rubenstein). Apart from 30 years passing it's almost like time has stood still.
Michael also introduces us to Casse-Croûte, French Canadian fast food in the form of hotdogs in buns which are named - in the typical Quebecois fashion of borrowing from English as ‘steamey’ (my spelling = soft and steam heated only) or toastey (toasted). We also endure a side dish called poutine (poo - teen) - a glutinous mass of fries with melted Kraft style cheese and artificial gravy. Heart attack special. Yuk!
I am confused, or perhaps bemused. Possibly my most intelligent cousin - in the academic sense, Professor of This, Professor of That enjoys the simple pleasures of junk food and pulp fiction.
What can I tell you?
All the while we do our best to steer around family politics always lurking mischievously near the surface. (*See note at the end of this entry).
We also spend time talking about all sorts with Moishe (partner of Faigie 2) and eating
The garden view
A view from Ruth's garden his home made Bagels as he holds forth from a sofa or bed on which he lies like a Roman sage.
Walking in the woods, which lie between the shoreline of lac Ouareau and the commune of huts, brings the scent of pinewood so redolent of time spent in summer camp as a young child, and the sound of wave washed shores runs over me. The sight of Ruth's glorious herbaceous borders coupled with flighty bluebird, woodpecker and hummingbird is a heady recipe for a slightly sad sense of time gone by all too quickly.
For these are sights, sounds, and smells likely to raise gentle nostalgic reminders of carefree, languid infantile summers long since gone and barely remembered.
Due to lack of wild berries the bears have descended into the area from more remote regions - so sadly, we cannot walk in the woods away from the lake.
Is it really 30 years since I was last here? How strange now I am in middle age to be able to talk to elder cousins almost as equals who, in my childhood, had seemed so far away in their own adult worlds.
For some strange
reason memories of my 3 departed aunts come back to life here, as well as in the city of Montréal, where I mostly spent time with them as a young child and on three later visits as an adolescent, then finally an adult. It was mostly in the city that I saw them and spent time with them, but I suppose the quietness of the place allows me time to bring them back into my memories. I know shouldn't live through regret, but I realise at this point that I am some 10 years too late. My aunts and one uncle plus one cousin have all gone. I left it too late to come back.
Later back in England (July 2010) the same thing happens when I get word that an old Polish collegue and friend Ewa Brzeska has just died of cancer, and again regret not having tried to contact her more often. Ewa would tell all the Polish kids at the school where we worked together that I was Polish too. I would protest about only being half Polish and even that bit was Jewish. She would say "if you are even a little bit Polish -
lac Ouareau
Amazonian maiden Carol steps from the water - or is she walking on it? Shes learnt to do that after years working at the Catholic school. you're Polish". She was chair of the Polish Cultural Centre in London and the Federation of Poles in GB, and started the Festival of Polish Folklore in GB (dancing and singing). She would get annoyed if I talked about Polish anti-semitic tendancies (she would say - "we are not all like that you know"). Rest in Peace Ewa.
So back to my cousins. I imagine the experience of meeting all my cousins and their various connections here is somewhat strange for Carol (White). Not only are we in Canada - an alien culture in itself, but also we have the larger than life legacy left by my Jewish grandparents from where the Switzman clan emanate. Opinionated, several of them well left of centre, each strong willed in their own way but essentially warm hearted and probably capable of giving you the shirt off their back if the occasion should arise. And full of philosophical insights.
Carol has to adjust I am sure to working out who was married to who and now lives next door to them with whoever. I have to draw her a diagram of the family tree pre and post divorce - over the few
weeks whilst we are travelling in the States she just about gets it.
*(I need to explain again that cousin Faigie 1 was originally married to Moishe who now lives with Faigie 2 who was originally married to cousin Michael - I’m sure they won’t mind me qualifying my account in this way)
But meeting them is like fictional characters coming to life - as I have already described them to her (Carol), and she doesn’t quite believe the description, because in reality they are larger than life.
There are more cousins to come in Montréal later!
Mazal Tov!
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