Correction to Eastport's location

Hi again,

I have been corrected by Gerry Sell, from Gerry Sell Writing Studio and Bait Shop; gerrysell@torchlake.com about Eastport's location. It is not in the UP, Upper Peninsula, rather the "mitten" part of Michigan. Apologies, Gerry.

And Betty Beeby's poster is actually called "The Traverse Corridor" and details many historical events around Torch Lake- a lake of torches. It even has a drawing of the local band from 1976 which celebrated the Bicentennial of American freedom, including their individual names. Pretty classy!

Gifts from Eastport

In the middle of January it's always fun to read new postings, so here's a current one. At Trent Valley Archives (TVA) earlier in the week, we received copies of Liz Evans' cool poster with the indigenous names of all the places around the Upper Peninsula and Eastport in particular. It has wonderful explanations of the terms. I know it took Liz quite a long time to do it, but it's lovely. I'll try to take a photo so you can see what I mean.

Along with Betty Beeby's poster on Eastport history, Liz's poster will find a place of honour on my wall. These will forever remind me of the wonderful hospitality show to me and Elwood in the middle of this past December.

I have also attached a photo of a Petosky stone that Liz gave me. We each received one. I took it to my Friends Meeting the other week, it was shown to the children who attended, and the comparison with the skin of a pineapple is remarkable. Since I taught high school mathematics from 1975-2000, I am always interested in patterns in nature. In fact that's where our understanding of math has come from - observing those patterns and replicating them. It seems our very beings are patterns, but we sometimes don't take the time to figures them out.

I hope to keep posting on this blog and encourage comments as and when you can.

Staying warm for the time being,

Ruth

Post-New Years

Now it's the first week in January and we are finally getting snow - hooray! What's winter without snow. The trick is to do things outdoors in it- skiing, snowshoeing, skating, walking whatever. And getting fresh air is always wonderful especially in the winter. I take my GS dog Sarah for a walk every day, so it gets me out. Attached is a photo of Sarah watching Lassie and getting all excited- ears up, a few woofs when Lassie barked at the viewer.
For walking I even have have Trax, if the going gets slippery. I've fallen too many times to take chances on ice.
My Holiday season was great, after Christmas I went back to the US, this time to close the house I had negotiated in Vergennes, Vermont. It's an 1880's house, with apt. upstairs and down - I'll rent the downstairs and have the upstairs for me and friends. This has been on my bucket list, to have a "Cabin in VT", but this will do. It's in town, near the Bixby Library which celebrates it's 100th birthday this year. I think it will be lots of fun to explore the area. After all, I was born up the road in North Ferrisburg, many moons ago.

Trip to Eastport 1

Hopefully you all had a lovely but peaceful Christmas Day. It's our Boxing Day here in Canada, so shoppers are out already at 6 am. Kinda crazy but there are deals to be had.
I wanted to describe Elwood's and my visit to Eastport in mid-Dec,so you'll be seeing a bunch of posts on this topic. Guess I need to write about this because it was so special.
We started off from Peterborough on a Sunday in mid-December,with the day bright but crisp, and drove the 10 hrs it takes to go to Eastport,MI. Eastport is in the Upper Peninsula, as they call it, between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan; It's not that far from Sault Ste.Marie, about 2 hours drive. But we chose to go via the south, crossing at Sarnia-Port Huron. Having never been in a duty-free shop, I exposed Elwood to that pleasure and we bought a few items to give to folks in MI. We knew they wanted to put us up, so we felt we had better bring some hostess gifts. As it turned out, we used them to good purpose.

Travelling along at a good clip in Elwood's new Chrysler 200, we had to stop for gas - in Flint. We got a bit of a communication foul-up and we were getting close to empty by the time we found a station. Well, the gas station antics were interesting to say the least. People yelling to figure out how to get the pump to work, others trying to give them instructions, people wondering in and out of the gas station building, someone driving away suddenly (it seemed without paying), etc. Needless to say, we got our gas,paid inside and left - glad to be on the road again.

The story will continue in the next post.

Elwood's article- Dec 24,2011

Merry Christmas Eve day,

Here are photos of Elwood's most recent article entitled "Pilgrimage to a foreign home" from the Examiner today. It connects many of the pieces of the puzzle which were running around in my mind after our trip to do this research. And thanks, Elwood, for the mention at the end.

It really did feel like a pilgrimage to a very special place. Thank you to all in Eastport who made us feel extremely welcome and cared for. We had a wonderful time and hope we can see you folks here in Peterborough sometime soon.

And Merry Christmas to all who read this.

Ruth K.

First photos

Here are a couple of photos of where the Loren Post letters and diaries were found in Eastport,MI. And also of Liz, Betty Beeby's neice with Elwood Jones of Peterborough. Elwood wrote the columns about the Peterboro Letters in the Peterborough Examiner. His newest chapter on the saga comes out today in the Examiner. I will try to post if possible, otherwise I'll photograph it and send it that way.

Our first entry

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to the Eastport Connection blog. The reason I have set this up is because Elwood Jones and I took a trip to Eastport, MI to explore the connection to Peterborough, ON in the letters and journals of Loren Post. I'll be telling you more about this story in the near future, but Loren's birth mother lived in Peterborough in the early 1900s.

I want to invite any of you who read this and have comments to make, to please do so. This is really an effort to share information and to gain more insight into Loren and his mother's, Minnie Griffin, relationship and what it means for us today.

Minnie only found out that her son was actually alive when he contacted her when he was in his twenties.

This is a fascinating story which directly links Peterborough, ON with Eastport, MI.

Ruth Kuchinad