Many have seen the articles in the Canadian press regarding Vincent Gabriel Kirouac. He is our Canadian Knight errant traveling across the vast expanse of Canada in his knightly garb riding his gentle steed Coeur-de-Lion (Lionheart). The Canadian public’s response is to take him in at night and encourage him with kind remarks as they are encouraged by his simple mission.

What is the purpose you may ask yourself? Our Knights’ mission is to remind us of knightly values such as devotion, “courage, honour, justice, and a readiness to help the weak.” *

The Knight errant has a point as he looks back to a simpler time; and like Don Quixote, who fought the death of chivalry, our Canadian Knight challenges us to ask – is chivalry truly dead? This writer is encouraged that Vincent Gabriel Kirouac is successfully fighting the windmills of our time, the windmills of disconnection.

It’s nice to see some good news for a change and in its very simplicity it encourages us all to look up from our hand held devices and do something as simple as smile and greet one another.

Credits

Thumbnail – Screen Cap From CBC Video Above

* Collins Internet linked dictionary

Read more on chivalry: The Re-(e)volution of Chivalry

Bravo Sir Knight is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb. In fact he wasn’t even close. It was on July 24, 1874, at the height of the Victorian era, when University of Toronto medical student Henry Woodward patented the first practical light bulb. In partnership with his neighbor, a hotelkeeper named Mathew Evans, he worked at Morrison’s Brass Foundry on Adelaide St. West in Toronto, performing early experiments with an induction coil and battery. Observing that the spark produced by the contacts shed a steady light the pair spent long hours pursuing their research. This culminated in the development of a carbon filament light source housed in a glass globe filled with nitrogen gas. While an earlier version of the light bulb had been invented by Englishman Sir Joseph Swan, it proved short lived and impractical due to the inability to provide a good vacuum within the globe. This caused the carbon filament to burn out very quickly.

Woodward and Evans solved the problem nicely by pumping nitrogen gas into the glass tube, which housed the carbon filament. As Woodward’s original patent states:

“In the first place we use a gas engine, or other suitable motive power, for the purpose of rotating a magneto Electric machine, and at Such Velocity, as shall create electricity, sufficient to heat certain pieces of carbon to a state of incandescence… A piece of Carbon, as hereinbefore mentioned, pure in quality, and of suitable size, proportionate to the size of lamp or vessel to be used, is scraped and shaped until fitted for the purpose. One electrode is then connected with the Carbon at the top, and the other electrode is connected with the Carbon at the bottom, in the following manner. A small hole is drilled a short distance into each end of the Carbon to fit the electrodes, and when necessary they are further secured by surrounding them with a portion of plaster of Paris or other suitable substance. The electrodes not passing through the carbons, nor connecting with each other. It is then enclosed in a globe, or other vessel, either of glass or other suitable material. The air is extracted from the said globe, or vessel, after it has been hermetically sealed at the ends, and then filled with rarefied gas that will not unite chemically with the carbon when hot. Electricity is now supplied and in sufficient quantity, so as to heat the carbon within the vessel to a State of incandescence, the rarefied gas previously introduced now becomes luminous, and constitutes the light herein designated as Woodward and Evans’ Electric Light.”

Realizing the importance of their discovery the excited inventors tried to establish a company to develop and market the light bulb. To further their efforts Woodward even traveled to France and spent five hundred pounds on a special dynamo developed by the renowned French engineer, M. Gramme. For their trouble Woodward and Evans were publicly ridiculed, scorned as cranks and considered to be less than “bright” by the general public and their confreres. In spite of these setbacks Woodward went on to patent their invention in the United States in 1876.

By now you are wondering where Thomas Edison fits into the scheme of things. The American Inventor had been doing his own research on the light bulb, without much success, when he got wind of the work of the two Canadians. Despite less than “glowing” reports from the general public, Edison knew a good thing when he saw it. The same could not be said for the niggardly investors in Woodward and Evans’ new company. Strapped for cash the inventors sold half of their Canadian patent to Edison in 1876, and in 1879 the U.S. patent was also sold to Edison in its entirety. A disgusted Woodward decided to leave Canada and immigrate to England. It’s reported that Evans died in 1899 in Toronto.

Meanwhile, Edison declared his intention to invent “an inexpensive electric light” and received a fifty thousand-dollar grant to further his efforts. The result was a carbon filament bulb essentially identical to that of Woodward and Evans. Most of the practical work was actually done by Edison’s Serbian lab assistant, Nikola Tesla.

In England, Joseph Swan continued his own work and eventually produced a lamp very similar to Edison’s in the same year. These became known as Swan lamps, and by 1881 were being used to light the House of Commons. Edison and Swan eventually ended up in court to decide who had priority in the invention. They later settled out of court and in 1883 formed a joint company which dominated the electrical illumination industry in Britain for years.

Nowadays Canadians spend much of their lives depending on artificial sources of illumination. Few realize that they have fellow countrymen Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans to thank for this.

References

The First Electric Light Bulb by Bruce Ricketts

Pardon Me, My Maple Leaf is Showing by Gain Wong

Photo Credits

Home Page Feature Image -  Wikimedia Public Domain

“Electric Light.” … 1874  © Library and Archives Canada

The Bulb is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Oh Canada …you’re in my blood like holy wine ~ Joni Mitchell

Four years ago this past week I landed in Canada. Stepping onto the shore of my new home, “landed” took on a whole new circumference of meaning. Before that early spring day when I became a permanent resident, I had equated the word with catching a contentious fish or securing a plum job or safe touchdown at an airport. Here I was a landed immigrant, much like a grand explorer or someone lost at sea who finds their footing at last on terra firma. Perhaps I was even like that spry fish, caught in the net of destiny or whatever it is that brings us to where we are meant to be in our lives.

The first time I came to Canada I knew I had found home. The warmth of the people, the cleanliness of the streets, the respect and responsibility I encountered with everyone I met was beyond anything I had known before. Despite the cliché of apologies running rampant north of the 49th Parallel, I’ve found when “I’m sorry” is extended it is more times than not a genuine and authentic gesture of compassion and kindness.

There is so much here that brings me joy, so much that fits me like a warm cape draped in soft, suppleness, moving with me at every turn in my life. I love that we take off our shoes when coming into a home. I love the drivers who stop for those of us on foot before we even step into a crosswalk. I love when an aria of “thank yous” nestles into our bus driver’s ear as we riders disembark and head towards our next pieces of life. And I can still hardly believe it when I see gloves and hats and shirts and house keys left on fences or dangling from a branch on walking paths and sidewalks, all so their owners may reclaim their lost possessions and feel their hearts swell in the presence of the remarkable kindness of strangers.

The cold that I once resisted is now a familiar companion, comforting me in its brisk embrace and reminding me of all that protects me in life. Colours seem more visceral here; maybe it’s the constancy of rain that washes away the grit in the air and in my clouded perceptions. The riotous gardens flaunting themselves on every street in town are worthy of centerfold status. Even the sun and I seem to have a keener relationship than I remembered it to be, eliciting a near rapturous state in me at the sight of its countenance.

In the last four years I’ve encountered so many new ways of being. For the first time in my life I feel truly safe walking home alone at night. I’ve rediscovered the simple brilliance of potluck dinners. Near strangers have offered to help me move and my building manager takes oh such good care of my cats when I go on holiday without asking for a single penny in return (I do leave him cash as well as a card for which he always thanks me profusely.) I now say “bum” instead of “butt” and “Mum” instead of “Mom”. The letter “z” is pronounced “zed” and Loonies are money, not crazy people. Every night I listen to CBC Radio and melt into the luscious music of such geniuses as Oscar Peterson, Diana Krall, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, k.d.lang, Bruce Cockburn, Rufus Wainwright, Jane Siberry, Feist and so many more gifted beings who claim this country as their place of birth.

I still don’t get curling and I’m no hockey fan, but I’ve savored the taste and subtle nuances of the salmon that call our waters their home. I’ve lived in a rainforest and seen eagles dance on the air currents outside my bedroom window. I heard wolves howl on a tiny island and joined buskers drumming on an urban street. My community of friends has become my family and with each passing day I feel the roots of my place in the world sink more deeply into the soil of Canada.

Now if I can just get up the courage to try poutine.

K.D. Lang sings Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah

Click here to view the embedded video.

Photo Credits

Cortes Sunrise © Tess Wixted – All Rights Reserved

Beach Drive, Victoria, BC by mirandall  – Flickr Creative Commons, some rights reserved

K.D. Lang sings Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Uploaded to YouTube by oneandonlyck – Standard YouTube License

Excerpt from “A Case of You” by Joni Mitchell, copyright 1970.

Why I Love Canada is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

It’s time to plan the family holiday again and you’re trying to decide on a destination. The problem is that Dad wants to hit some world class salmon rivers, Mom prefers to lie on the beach, big brother wants to work on reducing his handicap and Sis insists on going hiking in the mountains. Well, if your holiday plans include Quebec’s Gaspe Peninsula you can relax because all of these activities are available within reasonable driving distance of one another. After a week spent doing an entire circuit of the peninsula we should know.

Leaving from my hometown near Halifax, we hit the road in the early morning for an approximately six-hour drive to Campbellton, New Brunswick. Crossing the bridge we arrived at the town of Pointe-a-la-Croix and Highway 132, which circumnavigates the Gaspe. Our first stop was a National Historic Site dedicated to the 1760 Battle of Restigouche. This museum, overlooking the mouth of the Restigouche River, houses the anchor and large hull fragments from the French flagship the Machault, which spearheaded an expedition designed to retake Quebec City, lost shortly before in the famed Battle of the Plains of Abraham. Thinly garrisoned by the British, the city would easily have fallen had the British fleet not bottled up their French counterpart in the mouth of the river. Quite likely if the French had reached Quebec they would have retaken the city and drastically changed our country’s history.

Eastward on Highway 132 we drove to the town our Nouvelle and a night’s lodging in our B&B, a converted manse, the Gite a l’abri du Clocher. This is just one of the many B&B’s which dot the Gaspe. They are almost invariably charming and comfortable with owners who go out of their way to make your visit enjoyable. The people of Gaspe in general are outstandingly friendly and hospitable, and though not all are fluent in English, a little high school French and a good sense of humor can easily get you what you want and where you want to go.

The next day we toured the Miguasha National Park (which is actually a Quebec provincial park.) A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the park harbors fossils dug from the nearby sea cliffs featuring 370 million year old specimens of early fish. What is distinctive is that these represent a transitional stage from gills to lungs and sea to land habitation. It is likely these fossil creatures are a direct evolutionary link to human beings (come to think of it, one of them did look a lot like my mother-in-law.)

Backtracking westward and inland we next hit the little town of Causapscal. Perched on the confluence of the Matapedia and Causapscal Rivers, this town was the site of the famed Matamajaw lodge founded a century ago by George Mount Stephen, one of the principals of the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Limited to the very wealthy until the 1970’s it is now an historic site. One of the last people to enjoy the lodge’s facilities was President Jimmy Carter.

Of course the river is now open to everyone and frequently produces salmon in excess of ten kilograms. A doctor practicing in this town could duck out over lunchtime or take call and go fishing a world class salmon river all summer long! Speaking of doctors, another interesting attraction in this town is the restored home and office of Dr. Frenette. Visitors can get an idea of how physicians practiced one hundred years ago. And I understand Dr. Frenette wasn’t averse to trying his luck fly fishing the pool just down from his residence.

Proceeding north to the Gulf of St. Lawrence we then headed east to Grand Metis, and stopped at the spectacular Reford Garden’s. I was hardly prepared for the acres of manicured flowers and foliage which greeted us. The garden was begun by Elsie Reford, the niece of George Mount Stephen. Once an avid salmon fisher she was instructed by her physician to avoid the cold and damp of the rivers. Instead she chose to work on these gardens, noted as being one of the few places in the world where the Himalayan Blue Poppy will thrive outside its native home. Elsie’s grandson, Alexander Reford, is the present director of the gardens and has ably carried on the family tradition.

From Reford Gardens we proceeded to Cap-Chat and dinner at the Restaurant Fleur de Lys. We were hardly prepared to sample world class cuisine in a small town the north shore of the Gaspe, but were pleasantly surprised with the fine French cuisine featuring local fresh fish and seafood, as well as locally raised red deer.

Heading south on Highway 299 we soon found ourselves in the mountains, with many peaks over one thousand meters in height, still patched with snow. The Gaspesie National Park (Quebec) encompasses the northernmost summits of the Adirondacks and features glorious hiking to Alpine meadows in the summer and to some of the only herds of wild caribou south of the St. Lawrence. In the winter cross country skiers and snowshoe enthusiasts can make use of the extensive trails and huts. A great place to stay is the Gite du Mont-Albert, right in the center of the park. Built in the fifties it features comfortable rooms and a uniquely rustic dining room with a huge moose head mounted over the stone fireplace.

We chose to do some hiking up the slopes of Mont Ernest-Laforce. Our guide introduced himself as Francois Boulanger. He led us to the top of the mountain for a panoramic view of the park including some of its highest peaks such as Mont Albert and Mont Jacques Cartier. Afterwards we hiked down to the glacial lake, Lac aux Americains. In the course of conversing with Francois we discovered that he was the Director of the Park! Despite ample administrative duties he still liked to get out once or twice a week on the trails with guests to keep a hands-on approach.

Dinner at the Gite du Mont-Albert that night was a real treat. I managed to talk the rest of my crew into joining me in trying with the cream of frog’s leg soup followed by roast rack of caribou. Those of legal age should wash this down with an absolutely delicious white wine produced in Quebec, called Orpailleur. Everyone admitted that despite initial misgivings they had really enjoyed the cuisine.

Next day we backtracked north and then east along an increasingly spectacular coast, tracking the St. Lawrence. In places it reminded me of the Big Sur coast between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Of course such rugged coast line requires lighthouses. The quaint lighthouses of yesteryear are now largely replaced by more efficient but singularly ugly automatic lights. Not so at the privately operated light at La Martre. Here the incredibly enthusiastic Yves Foucreault directs a now privately run light, which is so efficient it is still listed in the mariners’ charts. Yves showed us around his museum and then led us up to the top of the lighthouse. The brass gears were polished to a golden gleam and the several ton light was so lubricated and balanced that it could be moved with a single finger. Monsieur Foucreault should have been born a hundred years ago when lighthouses still required keepers, for he certainly made an outstanding one.

Leaving La Martre we headed further east up the coast and past another lighthouse which also served as the world’s first active radio station, at Pointe-a-la-Renommee. From here we traveled on to the town of Gaspe, and Forillon National Park (of Canada). This park features ample wildlife including moose and bear. We spotted a black bear ambling beside the highway shortly after entering the park. Along the rugged coast historic buildings have been preserved including the Hyman General Store and a traditional homestead, the Maison Blanchette. Entering the Hyman General Store, an animator acting as the establishment’s head clerk, tried to hire me to join the cod fishery. The pay? Twelve dollars a month with a slight deduction for room and board.

We overnighted in the town of Gaspe at the Maison William Wakeham. Wakeham, a medical doctor, was also an avid explorer and was commissioned by the Canadian government to travel to and stake claim to Canada’s far north. His home is a solid building of brick construction and dark wood interiors, with airy bedrooms and a somewhat austere ambiance.

The next morning we headed back to the park for a whale watching tour with Croisiere Baie-de-Gaspe. There are many different species of whales which spend the summer in these waters including the Blue whale, the world’s largest living creature. Over eighty percent of cruises are successful in finding whales. Unfortunately the weather had turned by the next morning and with three meter waves it was virtually impossible to spot the whales spouting. We did manage to see two Harbor Porpoises and had a great time slamming into the large waves in our powerful tour boat.

That afternoon we drove to the town of Perce. Perhaps the most famous icon of the Gaspe is this huge rock which is pierced through at one end by centuries of wind and water fueled erosion. At low tide visitors can walk right out to the rock. Tour boats will take you around Perce and then out to Bonaventure Island to hike. The far side of the island rewards visitors with a close up view of one of the world’s largest gannet colonies, with over one hundred thousand birds nesting here.

The town of Perce has done a good job of preserving its traditional architecture. The Maison du Pecheur is notable for two things: incredibly good seafood and graffiti on the ceiling put there in 1969 by a group which later founded the FLQ (Front de la Liberation du Quebec). At this time the members were basically a bunch of free-living hippies. The numerous gift shops in the community offer the usual assortment of mass produced souvenirs, but usually a shopper can find a section featuring the work of local artisans including jewelry made from local stones, and polished Mount Lyall agate. Local painters and wood carvers also produce pieces which could be displayed proudly in any home.

From Perce we drove westward, back along the coast of the Baie de Chaleur. Passing through Newport, tourists can visit the home of Mary Travers “La Bolduc”, a famous French Canadian singer with whom Anglophones may be familiar from a recent historical television vignette.

Further up the coast we arrived at Gite Manoir du Vieux Presbytere in Port Daniel. Another converted manse, this imposing Victorian style mansion overlooks a fine beach. The proprietors were so hospitable we felt like members of the family by the end of the evening, as our hosts spent the evening regaling us with stories of life in the Gaspe in bygone years.

The next morning we drove on to the town of Paspebiac. One of my favorite destinations of the entire trip was the Historic Site of the Banc-de-Peche-de-Paspebiac. Incorporating original and rebuilt structures, the site gave a firsthand view of how a cod fishing and processing plant would have run a century ago. Given that many of my family’s ancestors were Newfoundland fishermen we found this glimpse of how their lives may have been enthralling.

Our final stop was the Bioparc de la Gaspesie in Bonaventure. This site displays many of the indigenous animals and environments of the peninsula. Both adults and children would enjoy a close up look at bears, moose, caribou, seals and other examples of marine and terrestrial life.

Continuing westward we passed through the beachside resort of Carleton and then on back to Nouvelle. We had now completed a full circuit of the Gaspe. A short drive west and we were once again at Pointe-a-la-Croix opposite Campbellton, New Brunswick. We were ready to travel back to New Brunswick and thence home to Nova Scotia, well fed and with our senses of adventure at least temporarily sated.

If You Go

The following websites are great sources of information for those contemplating a trip to the Gaspe:

Tourism Quebec Maritime
Gaspe Tourism
Tourism Quebec

Photo Credits

Rocher Perce – Wikipedia Creative Commons

All Other Photos Are By George Burden – All Rights Reserved

This article first appeared in The Medical Post

Touring The Gaspe is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

The beauty of small-ship cruising is that you never quite know what is going to happen next. In dealing with 100-odd passengers, the Orion crew, by expectation and necessity, must operate as a well-oiled machine.

Captain Frank Allica and Chief Officer Matt Jensen-Young were responsible for navigating Orion to safe anchorage on the inaugural 11-night West Papua and Maluku Voyage of Discovery. The captain and chief officer had worked together in 1988 when Allica was the first Australian captain of the bicentennial sail training ship Young Endeavour. Twenty-three years later they were working together again, this time sans sail.

The Filipino crew maintain Orion and tend to passengers’ needs. They also unload the Zodiacs and crew the landing craft. But whether captain or crew, all sailors must deal with the uncertainty of the sea. So it was with the landing at “uninhabited” Mapia Atoll. And that’s the enjoyment of expedition cruising. It was a rag-tag bunch of semi-senior sailors that set foot ashore.

Mapia Atoll is a coral dot with a veneer of jungle just north of the Equator in the Raja Ampat (Four Kings) Archipelago, a 3.6 million-hectare haven of biodiversity including 1500 coral islands, cays and shoals on the tip of Indonesia’s West Papua Province, north-west of Australia.

What’s there? A handful of fishermen and their families, what passes for an Indonesian naval base manned by a few sailors, marines and their families, a rusty-roofed, former Dutch colonial homestead, some basic government housing, chickens, dogs, a little post office, a street light… but no street.

A World War II cairn honours the Japanese soldiers who died there during the Battle of Morotai in November, 1945. At our landing, the only thing that might have been considered worth fighting over was a rusty wheelbarrow full of dried fish that had been placed on the beach in the hope of a sale.

After exploring the island with naturalist Michael Moore, the tide went out and the Zodiacs couldn’t make it back to shore for the pick-up. There was only one alternative, the landing party would have to walk back to the ship.

Life-jacketed, we trudged through 20cm-deep water across the sandy top of the reef, our destination, the Zodiacs waiting at the reef’s edge to ferry us to Orion in the distance. Our retreating party was assisted by the crew, watched by laughing children and aided by a few helpful Indonesian marines (they don’t get a lot of visitors to Mapia Atoll). The interesting thing about our escape was that during the epic journey and later, on the ship, there was not a word of complaint. It was enjoyed. Because of its size, Orion passengers also become familiar with the daily operation of the ship.

Six days’ prior, departing Rabaul on the first leg of the cruise, the Orion skirted the north-eastern coast of Papua New Guinea to arrive at Wewak, the capital of East Sepik Province. As Orion made way in the harbour in the early morning light, on the bridge, Captain Allica and Chief Officer Jensen-Young were scanning the harbour with binoculars, looking for an expected pilot. None came, so the Orion moored at the wharf.

A leafy party of tribal dancers turned on a vibrant welcome before a day of touring which included a visit to Cape Wom, where the Japanese Army surrendered in 1945. On the flanks of Mission Hill, Japanese anti-aircraft guns lie rusting in the jungle, their long-silenced barrels pointing towards the coast.

Moored offshore was a flotilla of Chinese and Japanese fishing vessels, poised to take advantage of fishing rights negotiated with the PNG Government. The ships represent the vanguard of a commercial invasion in which New Guinean subsistence fishermen, and the nation as a whole, may ultimately be the losers.

Sailing north-west, the next day Orion dropped anchor at Jayapura, in Indonesia’s Papua Province, a very Indonesian city, the growth of which is driven by mining wealth. We finally met indigenous New Guineans at Assei Village after a picturesque boat ride across Sentani Lake.

The boats skimmed past coastal shanty towns built on stilts. As we approached, naked, waving children jumped in the water.

At Assei we were greeted by wide, white smiles, more excited children, more dancing and no-pressure bartering for beautifully rendered bark paintings. There were afternoons of snorkelling above brilliant coral gardens in the Raja Ampat Archipelago.

One small island had a tide-line of thongs, plastic bottles and other ocean-going junk, an indication of less-than-pristine human impact.

Orion cruised through the McClure Gulf and on to an unforgettable welcome at the village of Kokas in Fak Fak Province.

The villagers turned out with song and dance. As we walked, elderly women surged forward, stretching out their hands to touch the curly, blonde locks of Orion’s only child passenger, an 18-month-old boy carried by his mother. In Kokas, Muslims and Christians live side-by-side, the polished dome of the mosque and the spire of the Catholic Church overlooking the houses huddled around the small bay.

In the Kei Islands, on the edge of the Banda Sea, at the village of Dullah, we were honoured with elegant dancing by a troupe of young women, their expressive hand gestures and delicate steps reminiscent of Bali. Centuries ago, members of the Balinese Royal Family and some of its army are said to have arrived at Ohoi-Ewur on Nuhuroa Island and were taken in by the local villagers.

In signing off the log book on this expedition, it’s appropriate to paraphrase one of World War II’s greatest military chiefs, US General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander of the Southwest Pacific:

“We came out of Mapia Atoll. And we shall return.”

But one of the general’s lesser known quotes is probably more apt:

“Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.”

Photo Credits

All Photos © Vincent Ross – All Rights Reserved

Escape From Mapia Atoll is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

California may be home to a number of World Capitals of various agricultural products: Castroville proclaims itself the Artichoke Capital of the world, Indio the Date Capital, Yuba City the Prune Capital and Gilroy the Garlic Capital, but I don’t think California can claim to be the jackfruit capital of anywhere, as that honor belongs to the charming burg of El Llano, which is arguably the jackfruit Capital of the solar system, with jackfruit orchards lining both sides of the highway mile after mile and stretching as far as you can see.

Sra. Elizabeth Rosales Climaco, president and CEO of El Llano’s Frutasy Legumbres Climaco, states on her website that she will deliver a minimum order of 18 metric tons of jackfruit to you each month at a price ranging from $0.60 to $0.80 USD FOB per pound,, depending on the season and the spot price of diesel fuel. Now, one cannot dispute that this is really, really world-class and that Sra. Rosales is a Major Player in the global jackfruit market.

El Llano itself is a modest and well-swept six-tope town on the Carretera Ixtapa-Mazatlan. At each of its topes you’ll find a jackfruit stand flanking both sides of the highway, tempting you with all manner of jackfruit commodities, from the obscenely huge green fruit itself to salted jackfruit chips, jackfruit juice and jackfruit bread.

Each stand is staffed by two to four generations of a family, with the eight-to-ten year olds competently collecting the cash and delivering the goods while their elders gossip or just gaze at passing motorists and foot-and-burro traffic. No matter that the stands are supported by stout tree branches instead of concrete columns, no matter that credit cards are not accepted: these are not your typical neighborhood lemonade stands, but the front end of a gigantic multinational enterprise.

But what is this jackfruit, anyway? Jackfruit, Artocarpus heterophyllus, is nothing but a giant green mulberry, which is its distant cousin, of scant commercial value other than furnishing fodder for silkworms. So, a jackfruit is a sort of a giant green mulberry on steroids. Also a cousin of the breadfruit, jackfruit is the largest tree-borne fruit bar none, attaining dimensions exceeding those of champion watermelons (more than 100 lbs. is the record). In southeast Asia its wood is used for musical instruments (especially drums), furniture and house construction. Buddhist monks use its heartwood to dye their robes a dusty brown hue. But we in the West know it mainly for its gargantuan fruit.

Since the first writing of this article, I have heard from a journalist in Kerala State, India, where Jackfruit is also grown as a cash crop. The journalist, Shree Padre, wrote that the Guinness Book of World Records evidently does not consider Kerala State to be part of the world, as it cites a 100-lb jackfruit, grown in Hawaii, as the World Record. “Small potatoes!” said Shree, because his neck of the woods, 100 kilogram jackfruits are not uncommon. To prove it, he emailed me a photo of two guys hoisting an absolutely enormous jackfruit.

Anyway, back to El Llano: sooner or later your better judgment will fail you and you will purchase a whole jackfruit (known locally as jaca) at one of those tope stands, lug it home in the trunk and then ponder how to open it. Obviously, with a knife, but top-to-bottom, across its midriff, peel it? Slice it open any which way and you immediately have an impossible mess of yellow-orange pulp, dozens of slimy acorn-sized seeds and what seems like a gallon of sticky resin with the color and consistency of rubber cement.

The goo is so tenacious that it’s used to mend cracked engine blocks and hold dentures in place; it’s sort of like nature’s very own Gorilla Glue. It’s impossible to get off your hands the same day or off anything you’ve spilled it on, like your clothing, which must be discarded or recycled as rags. Prepare to dedicate a couple of hours to the chore… unless you have someone like Moña Delgado, our Colibri chef, who deftly quarters the thing, then covers her hands with olive oil and lays into the pieces like a human Cuisinart, generating a neat heap of sweet, sticky seeds in less seven minutes flat.

Enough about the sometimes malodorous fruit (known in its post-ripe state as “stinkfruit”). Let us dismiss it as a Good Thing To Stay Away From it in its natural condition. It is a Good Idea to leave its preparation to others, just as we generally do not slaughter our own beef, pork or poultry.

Jackfruit chips are fine, though usually needing extra salt. Jackfuit juice is cloying but more palatable than wormwood. What about jackfruit bread? Well, jackfruit bread, banana bread, zucchini bread, date-nut bread or any of those moist, spongy breads made from agricultural products that people always harvest too much of, you can keep. Anyway, they’re minor members of the cake family, so they don’t even deserve to be called breads in the first place.

Jackfruit ice cream is a different matter, though, and you can buy it in a regular little ice cream shop in El Llano, one that’s not on a tope with little kids thrusting whole jackfruits through your car window. It’s called Carlos’s Jack Fruit, Nieve de Jacka, has a little bamboo awning over a tiled sidewalk, and is owned and run by Mar, a youthful-looking 38 year old woman whose parents loved the Pacific Ocean so much that they named her after it. Note the punctiousness of the apostrophe-S on Carlos’s sign, a grammatical nicety rarely seen used correctly in English-speaking countries, not to mention in Mexico, where “Hamburgers’ With Fries” is the norm.

Mar likes to travel through Mexico during the ice cream off-season: her sparklingly clean shop is decorated with masks and statuary from other Mexican states as far south as Oaxaca and Chiapas. Mar’s freezer holds about a dozen flavors of home-made ice cream, most having the consistency more of sherbet than, say, of Haagen-Daz.

Besides the ubiquitous jackfruit, you can take home vanilla, oreos-and-vanilla, chocolate, mandarina, strawberry (with whole strawberries), limon, butter pecan, mango (the creamiest of all and highly recommended), coconut, coffee and piña colada. Mars tightly packs the products into half-liter or one-liter Styrofoam cups and labels each with a fat Magic Marker.

Mar’s stuff isn’t cheap: it’s $80 pesos a liter. Despite the price though, she has a pretty steady stream of customers, most of whom buy a Dixie-cup sized serving. She also sells home-made pastries, with samples on the counter.

Next time you go to El Llano, or San Blas, take along a cooler and come back with at least a couple of liters of Mar’s ice cream. And a whole jackfruit or two. If you haven’t rented a compact car, that is.

Photo Credits

Giant Jackfruit © Shree Padre – All Rights Reserved

All Other Photos By Riviera Nayarit News – All Rights Reserved

First Post (with additional images) At Riviera Nayarit News

Guest Author Bio

Casa Colibri
This post was provided to Life As A Human by our good friends at Casa Colibri who own a beautiful vacation villa on the Riviera Nayarit just 75 miles north of the Puerto Vallarta airport.

Check out their blog at: www.villanayarit.com

Jackfruit Ice Cream, Anyone? is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

The oases of Tozeur and Nefta were a revelation. There was so much undergrowth of other fruits beneath the huge date palms: there were bananas, almonds, plums and apricots and all this on the edge of the Salt pans and the desert.

We traversed the Chott El Djerid – an area of salt marshes with solidified sand piles – on the road which French Engineers had built during their brief Empire. We stopped at Douz for lunch and that was where we found out that Gaddafi had been captured. This part of Tunisia is so close to the border with Libya that it is full of refugees.

Just outside Douz there is a centre for camel rides or 4 x 4 treks into the desert. The Berbers who run most of these trips have cannily caught little desert foxes which they keep on a leash for you to hold and have photos taken with. They are the size of a large cat with huge, very pointy fox-like ears, a bushy tail and a definite foxy colour. They are also terrified because, being nocturnal, their large eyes cannot cope with the blinding sunlight.

I realised there was a gap in my knowledge about Tunisia which the guide wasn’t about to fill. Of course, the Desert Fox! This was Rommel’s nickname to the Allied troops fighting in the North African Desert during World War Two. So he must have been around Tozeur. This part of Tunisia is just next door to Libya and all those famous battlefields we have heard of in films – Tobruk and El Alamein for a start!

Rommel’s fame rests on his success as a military leader, his daring and his compassionate attitude to Prisoners of War. To the British Desert Rats,(see film with James Mason) Rommel epitomised a gentleman’s approach to war. Rommel’s Afrika Korps never committed any atrocities and all prisoners were humanely treated. His masterstroke came in June 1942 when his outnumbered Afrika Korps wrecked the British Eighth Army on the Gazala Line immediately to the east of Benghazi. He then pursued his beaten foe all the way back to El Alamein, the Eighth Army’s last defensive position in Egypt before the Nile. Along the way, he also took the fortress port of Tobruk. The Battle for Tobruk lasted 240 days and by the end of that September, Rommel was suffering from exhaustion and a bout of jaundice that finally forced him to return to Germany for treatment.

We leave the desert and drive north to Matmata, a Berber troglodyte town where LukeSkywalker’s hotel was. We never visited Tataouine (supposedly Luke’s planet but nothing was ever filmed there) – important Berber trading town that had been home to regiments of the Foreign Legion (think ‘Beau Geste’) nor even Medenine where Rommel fought his last battle against Montgomery. These southern Berber towns are, by far, much more interesting than the dusty impoverished towns of the North. Called ‘Ksars’(from the Latin ‘castrum’) these fortified villages nearly all housed huge grain stores built into the rocks and they are essentially Berber, not Tunisian Arab.

As we drove north, we by-passed Kasserine where Rommel had inflicted damage on the American forces (there is apparently a military cemetery there) and were forced to by-pass Sfax as there were demonstrations/celebrations when the population (mainly Libyan refugees)learnt of the death of Gaddaffi.  Somehow, the Berbers, the French Foreign Legion and Rommel all got by-passed and Luke Skywalker was the hero of the hour with Gadaffi coming a close second.

For further interest:

Rommel in Tunisia
A French Guide 
Medenine

Photo Credits:

All photos courtesy of Julia McLean

Luke Skywalker and the Desert Fox – Part Two is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Our recent trip to Tunisia was not an outstanding success for us. True there was a small but pleasant group of people and as a quick all round insight into Tunisian life, the trip was quite satisfactory but the guide, not being an archaeologist, was not knowledgeable about Tunisian history especially the Roman/Phoenician sites.

We left Tunis early in the morning and headed south to Testour a small settlement founded by Muslims fleeing Spain after the reconquest (La Reconquista) of the country by the Catholic Kings. It is famous for its blue doors which give a festive air to an otherwise impoverished and dust filled little town.

We next rollicked along in our tiny bus to the hilltop site of Dougga. Its size, its well-preserved monuments and its rich Numidian-Berber, Punic, ancient Roman and Byzantine heritage make it exceptional. Dougga was an important rallying point for various tribal kings who allied with Rome against the Carthaginians and it became a strategic centre too for the Romans who spared this town after sacking Carthage in 146 BC. It was annexed to Rome by Caesar in 46 and as a Roman town it grew prosperous but from the third century onwards, with the fall of Rome, Dougga started to decline. It was abandoned and deserted with the Vandal invasion, and since then there has only been a small village on the other side of the hills. This probably explains why it is so rich in monuments: it wasn’t near enough to other settlements for its stones and masonry to be re-used.

We stayed the night at the small town of El Kef known for its Kasbah which the French reconstructed and used as a military barracks during their colonial days. It is an important holy site for Sufi Muslims and has a shrine to a well known Sufi Saint – Sidi Bou Makhlouf. The guide forgot to mention that the Algerians used it as a command centre during the Algerian War of Independence in the 1950’s and it was also the provisional capital of Tunisia during World War Two.

Later, we drove on to Makthar to visit the ruins of this extremely ancient pre-Roman fortress which the Numidians used to control the comings and goings of the nomads (mainly Berbers, the original inhabitants of Tunisia). It became even more important after Caesar annexed it in 46BC but suffered the same fate as Dougga under the Vandals and was abandoned in the 11th Century. There were enough remaining ruins for us to get a picture of how idyllic these places were for retired Roman soldiers and well-off colonisers.

After lunch, our destination was Kairouan, the spiritual capital of Tunisia and foremost holy town of North Africa for Sunni Muslims after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. It was the first city to convert to Islam and was called the city of 300 mosques. 120,000 pilgrims come here each year.

We stayed the night in Sufetula (Sbeitla) and explored the Roman remains of this superb site the next day. This region was populated in 67-68 AD after various conquests of local tribes under the emperor Vespasian – he who invented the famous ‘pissoir’ still called in French ‘la Vespasienne’, a malodorous example of which existed in my local Lisieux Farmers’ Market for many years next to the Fish Market where it was relatively undetectable. Most remarkable of the few constructions still standing were the three temples dedicated to Juno, Jupiter and Minerva – a Roman equivalent of the three tenors perhaps, for they each have a temple here instead of sharing one huge one as in most Roman sites.

Obviously, the inhabitants were richer and more thankful for their good life which depended on the trade in olives and olive oil, attested to by the Roman grinding stones so similar to our apple grinding stones (pressoirs en granit). Life here was obviously prosperous, peaceful and harmonious, attested to by the existence of seven Christian churches, a baptismal font and a ‘pleasure dome’ in the form of a well-advertised brothel.

More interesting for British tourists was the plaque over one of the town gates dedicated to Antoninus Pius and his two adopted sons, Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius. It was Antoninus who built the Antonine Wall across the north of Britain above Hadrian’s Wall when the invading horde of Picts came down like a wolf from the fold. The Vandals did the same to Sbeitla but occupied the town until the Byzantines re-took it then it was sacked by the Arabs in 647 and fell into oblivion.

The afternoon was dedicated to Tozeur, one of the most famous oases in the world on the fringe of the desert surrounded by 7000 acres of date palms and other astounding greenery.

Decoratively built of narrow white bricks, hand crafted in local brickworks which sit in a lunar landscape, Tozeur mainly caters to desert trekking groups and this is where we met the desert fox, as we set forth on our camels like Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia.

 Photo Credits

All Photos By Julia McLean – All Rights Reserved

The Desert Fox – Part One is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Kids the world over should get down on their knees and give thanks to Dr. Frederick Tisdall, former director of the nutritional research laboratories for Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. Thanks to his introduction of vitamin D supplementation in flour and milk in the 1930’s, children no longer have to choke down daily drams of putrid tasting cod liver oil to get their allotment of the “sunshine vitamin.”

Tisdall along with two other pediatricians, Dr. Alan Brown and Dr. Theodore Drake are more famous, however, as the inventors of pablum, a scientifically designed and nutritious cereal created in the 1930’s to provide for the nutritional needs of infants. Prior to this many small children died of diseases such as rickets – directly related to nutrient deficiencies – and of others such as tuberculosis and diphtheria to which they were more susceptible due to poor nutrition.

An earlier attempt at producing a nutritional alternative food for children resulted in Sunwheat biscuits, nutrient loaded cookies concocted from a combination of alfalfa, wheat meal, oatmeal and corn meal, wheat germ, yeast, bone meal and honey for sweetening. These proved to be best sellers, not only improving the nutritional health of thousands of children but also adding much needed royalties to the coffers of the Hospital for Sick Children. Unfortunately the Sunwheat biscuit could not be ingested by small infants and another supplement was required to fill this gap.

Pablum, which derives its name from the Latin pabulum or food, first became available in Canada in 1931. Pablum was made from alfalfa, yeast, wheat germ, corn, oats, bone meal and yeast and contained massive amounts of vitamins A, B2, B2, D and E. In order to overcome the problem of perishability the product was sprayed onto heated, rotating drums and the dried residue was scraped off to make easily reconstitutable flakes which would form a mushy foodstuff that could easily be consumed by small babies. Evidently, the kids loved it – though the fact that adults found the product so insipid provided a nice synonym for the words tasteless and bland.

More royalties rolled in, allowing the founding of the Hospital for Sick Children Research Foundation. This meant that pablum supported not only the physical health of its diminutive consumers but the fiscal health of an institution specifically designed to care for the little ones.

As such it is another example of a much under-heralded success story in Canada’s continuing medical saga.

Photo Credit:

“Pablum: Get it while it’s luke warm”  CriticalMass 

“Pablum 1930″ SickKids

Pablum and the History of Children’s Health is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

The forerunners of today’s banking industry first emerged in China during the Song Dynasty (960-1279).

Conducting banking functions including the acceptance of deposits, the making of loans, issuing notes, money exchange, and long-distance remittance of money, these early banks were called the piaohao and were primarily owned by natives of Shanxi Province.

The first piaohao originated from the Xiyuecheng Dye Company of Pingyao. To transfer large amounts of money from one branch to another, the company introduced drafts, cashable in the company’s branches around China.

Although the method was originally designed for business transactions within the Xiyuecheng Company, it became so popular that in 1823 the owner gave up the dye business and reorganised the company as a remittance firm, Rischengchang Piaohao.

In the next thirty years, eleven piaohao were established in Shanxi Province, in the counties of Qixian, Taigu, and Pingyao. By the end of the nineteenth century, thirty-two piaohao with 475 branches were in business covering most of the nation, the forerunners of China’s modern banking system.

Today, the People’s Bank of China is the central bank of the People’s Republic of China, with the power to control monetary policy and regulate financial institutions in mainland China. The bank has more financial assets than any other single public finance institution in recorded history.

China’s foreign exchange reserves hit a record $US1.95 trillion at the end of 2008, the largest in the world.

Photo Credits

All Photos © Vincent Ross – All Rights Reserved

Pingyao – Where Banks Were Born is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN