I’ve been reading my friend James’ essays on his journey up Yonge Street. One of the most recent chapters mentioned the town of Penetanguishene. Hello, I thought, that rings a bell, and there I was, back on a grade-school trip to the area’s historical village, Sainte-Marie Amongst The Hurons.
My mother may have met her métier as the nice dressmaker lady at Upper Canada Village in Morrisburg, but some things we inherit and some things we don’t, and historical villages and re-enactments usually arouse in me a deep feeling of not very much. However, one thing I do remember about the visit to Sainte-Marie: the film clip at the beginning that outlined the founding of the settlement, and how it burned to the ground in 1649.
The final shot of the film clip was a long shot of the burning mission, and I’ll always remember (or at least I have until now) how the wall upon which the film was being projected was raised up into the ceiling, opening up the theatre to reveal the rebuilt mission at the exact same angle. We the visitors saw the film of the burning mission seamlessly morph into the real live intact one, and we walked forward into it. It was a moment of profoundly effective theatricality. We almost literally — and by almost literally I mean “not literally” — stepped back in time when we stepped out of the theatre, walking straight out of the 20th century and into the film.
I just had to read the word “Penetanguishene” two days ago and I was there, back within spitting distance of single-digit age, watching as the wall lifted and Sainte Marie on fire, before our eyes, became Sainte-Marie not on fire. Memory of childhood, recollected in tranquility.
I mention this because apparently Sainte-Marie the historical village caught fire last night. Heigh-ho.
For a moment there I thought you wrote “my friend’s lame essays…”, but I figured it out eventually. Nice to see you posting more or less regularly again — ike Pluto, history won’t give a damn about your blog but it does matter for those of us who tune in.