Archive for March, 2009

When I was a small child in Galt, now Cambridge, I remember standing on Central School Hill at the top of the steps with my father watching row boats half way down the steps. People were filling them with bread and tins of food and rowing them down along Main Street. Some people who lived in the apartments above the downtown stores were lowering ropes so that they could get food.

My father was worried because he couldn’t get to his job at the Canadian General Tower which was on the other side of the river. The Grand River was rightly named. It was majestic and broad and seemed impossibly wild. I’ve grown up and seen some real rivers and oceans since then but I still remember the power of the water which could sweep away animals and people, ruin homes and businesses, and disrupt human lives.

The river flooded many times after that but eventually a series of dams and levees were built which was to prevent major problems. Low lying places still got damp in the spring in Galt but nothing major happened in the city for many years. The river’s flooding history came about because in less than 100 years the tree coverage went from 95% to 18% in 1950. That disappearance of the tree coverage occurred all over Southwestern Ontario. Only 35% of its wetlands remained and most floodplain pools had been filled in.

Until the late 1700s, the Grand River was beautiful and productive with native species of fish including sturgeon, muskellunge and brook trout. Shortly after the turn of the 19th century, the Pennsylvania Dutch purchased 60,000 acres in the Waterloo area and established the first sizeable inland settlement in Upper Canada. Population accelerated along the Grand following the War of 1812. In 1829, the Welland Canal opened with a feeder canal from the Grand River at Dunnville. By 1846, 10 dams had been constructed across the Grand River, and 100 smaller mill dams had been constructed within the watershed.

In 1929, the Grand caused serious flooding, but in the 1930s, recurring droughts left the river so dry that people could walk across the river between Galt and Paris in street shoes in July and August. In 1936, Maclean’s magazine said the Grand River fishery had become a memory with trout and bass replaced by carp and suckers.

A series of dams was built in the 30′s and 40′s upriver of Cambridge which were to prevent serious flooding. It did work until May 17, 1974, the Grand River burst its banks once again, causing the most serious and costly flooding of the century. The corner of Main Street and Water Street has four imposing buildings which were all national banks for many years. In 1974 there were pictures of people hanging onto the street lamps on the second floors with water running inches below them.  Business inventories were destroyed, buildings filled with mud and debris. The one good thing about that flood is that people pulled together and volunteered for days on end to clean up and help everyone affected.

When we hear about the people in Manitoba and North Dakota who are facing floods today, we should remember our history and encourage responsible ways to stop the flooding from occurring again. As much as people can affect our environment for the worse, we can also affect it for the better. Nothing is black and white and today’s engineers have centuries of experience in transforming terrain to be people friendly. Although change is often frightening, it can be good for all.

Looking at my Blackberry and realizing that none of the non-Zoomers (under 45′s) have ever used – let alone seen except in movies – a rotary dial and wouldn’t know a phone crank from an old crank.

Long ago in the mists of time a fellow born in Brantford Ontario Canada (yes Virginia, there really has been a Brantford that long) spent a lot of time tinkering with a way to speak to people who weren’t in the room with him. His wife worried about Alex Bell. I bet his in-laws told him to go get a real job. But he persisted and eventually he told his friend who wasn’t there that he needed him to come into the room right away. And guess what? He did!

Now the locals were too shrewd to buy into that, so he went off to the States and convinced the Yanks that they too could talk to people who weren’t there. They gave him lots of money and he strung wires around the country. What did these people get in return? They got a wooden box with some wires and things inside which you mustn’t touch. Outside the box was a hand crank, a voice trumpet and something to hold to your ear which was attached by wires to the box so you wouldn’t lose it.

The crank had two purposes. It charged a battery in the box and rang a bell located in another building which was guarded over by The Operator (usually a woman) who sat around all day waiting for you to ring her bell.

When you did she’d ask how the weather was at your place and who you wanted to talk to. If you said Farmer Jock on 4th line, she’d tell you that you had to wait. She’d then ring Jock’s bell and if he wanted to talk to you, she would close your circuit. She’d plug a wire into his circuit and the other end into your circuit. Voila, you heard voices!

The system had some bugs to work out like the fact that your circuit was attached to 15 or 20 other houses. That meant that if your neighbour was talking to someone who wasn’t there, you couldn’t. That led to a lot of yelling about “I have more important people who aren’t here to talk to than you do!”

The other downfall was that when you called your doctor and complained that you were “terribly sick” and the doctor (usually a man) told you to lay off drinking so much Lydia Pinkum’s Medicinal Compound, all the neighbours listened in and word got out about your bad habits.

Time marched on and the mists got a little clearer. Our friend Alex got rich and named his company Bell in the States and eventually Canada followed suit with Bell Canada. For a while everything just got more and more amazing. The big wooden box on the wall got smaller and smaller and they put the ear horn and the voice trumpet on one piece that was attached with one wire and they made that wire twirly so that it wouldn’t break. It only took a few months for the average person to remember which end went to the ear and which one you talked into. Only problem was that in North America they took Henry Ford’s maxim to heart and you could have a black telephone or a black telephone because no one really needed any other colour. Black hid the dirt and the fingerprints, you see, less cleaning.

The other big change was that they figured out a way that they could get rid of that pesky Operator who knew everything before you did by re-inventing the wheel. You might not believe that but they did. They had this wheel on the outside of the little boxes with 10 circles around the edge. You actually stuck your finger into one of the holes and pulled it around clockwise – that’s to the right for those who’ve never owned a clock with moving hands. You could dial a humongous lot of numbers because now every house had to have one of those phones (they shortened the name). Then, nothing changed for decades.

Our governments, may they rest in piece, decided that our friend Alex’ company just got too darned big for its britches. I think they were making almost as much money as the governments and they made him split up the company. They said they had to let other people make phones and come in and plug in to Alex’ wires. All of a sudden we got phones in any colour you wanted and they started to come in different shapes and could have different lengths of cord. Why, you could walk around and vacuum the whole house with the phone stuck between your shoulder and your head! I wonder if chiropractors got in on that design?

Fast forward and we’ve shortened the name again to Cell and got rid of the wires and made it smaller and smaller until it fit in your pocket and now you can’t pretend that you didn’t hear it ring and “The Captain” can find you anywhere to tell you that you have won a free cruise and you only need to pay a reservation fee and find a way to get to Florida to take advantage.Isn’t progress amazing?