Bob Carswell shares a back story regarding Saraguay, Quebec as a Nature Park

Three Facebook Groups related to Malcolm Campbell High School feature messages about the MCHS ’60s Reunion and Celebration of the Sixties taking place in Toronto on Oct. 17, 2015, a date that is coming up very quickly.

To find out about how to register for the reunion, please click here.

You can find out about the three above-mentioned Facebook Groups by clicking here.

We hope that you will join one or all of these groups. It’s a great way to get updates and join in our ongoing conversations.

MCHS ’60s Reunion Facebook Group

We are regularly adding new members to the MCHS ’60s Reunion Facebook Group.

Bob Carswell, who attended MCHS in the 1960s, has recently shared a message at the latter FB Group. The purpose of the current post is to bring your attention to his message, which concerns Saraguay. For previous posts related to Saraguay, please click here.

Searching for topics related to MCHS ’60s Reunion

You can use the internal search engine at the site you are now visiting to find posts about any topic that may interest you – including, for example, Cartierville School. You can also find topics using Google by choosing a key word and adding the words “Preserved Stories.” As well, there’s a vertical column at the left-hand side of this website where you can find topics related to MCHS 2015.

To enlarge any of the photos at this page, click on the image

Bob Carswell at Birds & Beans Cafe in Mimico, close to Lake Ontario, where he met with Peter Mearns and Jaan pill in February 2015. In the photo, Bob is listening to the MCHS school song on Jaan's iPhone. Jaan Pill photo

Bob Carswell at Birds and Beans Cafe in Mimico in southern Etobicoke close to Lake Ontario, where he met with Peter Mearns and Jaan Pill in February 2015. In the photo, Bob is listening to the MCHS school song on Jaan’s iPhone. Jaan Pill photo

Bob Carswell’s Facebook comment regarding Saraguay

In his comment at a photo from Cartierville School that Howard Hight has posted at the above-mentioned Facebook Group, Bob Carswell writes:

“Howard Hight, I just looked at this photo again and I do think that the 3rd person from the right is certainly my sister Lesley Carswell. Also, now that I have blown the photo up with PAINT, I am almost certain that the third person on the left is another Saraguay neighbour, Diane Lumby. She was Lesley’s good friend and for years afterwards they communicated as she married and moved to Red Lake, Ontario. Her father died, her mother sold the house and moved to the community of 2,000 to be with them. It is now close to a 5,000 population. That is 332 miles northwest of Thunder Bay. I will send it to Lesley and see if I get her to give me more names. Yes that is the late Mrs. Jackson, also of Saraguay. She and her daughter (Mrs. Sylvia Oljemark) were responsible for decades trying to get the City of Montreal to declare Saraguay as a Nature Park due to its unique Flora. It has happened at different times with different city councils however the tough times happened for all but now things have improved so it is looking good for the coming years…FINALLY !”

[End of text]

Photo posted at MCHS '60s Reunion Facebook Group by Howard Hight. Howard Hight of Boston and and Diana Redden of Vancouver are among the key players in the organizing of the MCHS 2015 Reunion. They look after the Reunion Database and also send out regular Newsletters to each person who is on the database. The Newsletters are the key source of News and Updates related to the '60s Reunion.

Photo posted at MCHS ’60s Reunion Facebook Group by Howard Hight. Click on the image to enlarge it. Howard Hight of Boston and and Diana Redden of Vancouver are among the key players on the MCHS 2015 Reunion organizing team. They look after the Reunion Database and also email regular Newsletters to each person who is on the database. The Newsletters are the key source of News and Updates related to the ’60s Reunion.

 

For your interest, an April 29, 2014 (that is, last year) Montreal Gazette article is entitled: “Work in Bois-de-Saraguay nature park delayed again.”

As well, for details about how to get on to the MCHS ’60s Reunion Database, please click here.

School Song

The MCHS School Song that Bob Carswell is listening to on an iPhone in the photo above can be accessed here.

Update regarding MCHS 2015 website

The site, which is at MCHS2015.com, currently under construction, is getting closer to its official launch.

Stay Inn is located on Evans Ave. in Etobicoke not far from old Mill Toronto. The hotel offers very reasonable rates for MCHS '60s alumni attending the Oct. 17, 2015 Reunion. We'll post details soon regarding the hotel. Jaan Pill photo

Stay Inn is located on Evans Ave. in Etobicoke not far from Old Mill Toronto. The hotel offers very reasonable rates for MCHS ’60s alumni attending the Oct. 17, 2015 Reunion. We’ll post details soon regarding the hotel. Jaan Pill photo

 

Among other things, before the launch we will add details regarding Stay Inn as an accommodation option, along with Cambridge Suites Toronto. We will also edit the Home Page for the site and will add content at the page that is currently named “More to come!” The pages for the site are in place and should be easy for you to find.

We have taken time off from working on the website in order to attend to other matters, related to the completion of tax returns, that are separate from the volunteer work that we are doing on behalf of the reunion.

It’s a delight to be back at work on the reunion. It’s also been a delight to have some time to just have a break, to have a change of pace.

Blog format

As part of the work on the MCHS 2015 website, we have decided to maintain a single blog format serving both the Preserved Stories and the MCHS 2015 portions of the website that you are now visiting. There are costs associated with the re-configuration of the website, which are not part of the MCHS 2015 budget but instead serve as part of my financial contribution to the ’60s Reunion. I strongly support this reunion and I’m pleased to help out in whichever way I can.

The alternative design, whereby we would have a separate Preserved Stories Blog and a separate MCHS 2015 Blog, is feasible from a design point of view, but would entail extra costs related to the required WordPress coding. It doesn’t make sense for me to assume those costs. It’s our hope that you will understand our reasoning, with regard to choices of this nature.

Pitfield House aka Saraguay House

I have followed up on Bob Carswell’s suggestion, in a Comment (see below), that it would be a good idea to post a photo of the Pitfield House that is available at the link that he mentions. I wasn’t able to download the photo from the site as a jpeg file but was able to print out the image and scan it, and in that way to arrive at a jpeg version, which is posted below. There’s some loss of resolution but you will get a general idea, from looking at the image, of the appearance of the house.

 

Pitfield House aka Saraguay House. The image is from the link mentioned in the Comment (see below) from Bob Carswell. Click on the image to enlarge it.

Pitfield House aka Saraguay House. The image is from the link mentioned in the Comment (see below) from Bob Carswell. Click on the image to enlarge it.

P. Michael Pitfield; Details regarding Saraguay houses

You can access P. Michael Pitfield’s profile here. Details regarding Saraguay houses can be accessed at this Word file:

Notes-on-Saraguay-houses-including-SO-information

Among other things, the above-noted document notes (p. 5) that: “Pitfield Road was private roadway of Pitfield family leading to Bois Franc polo fields; on 1973 map Pitfield Road ends at Gouin; on the 1975 map Autoroute 13 is in place; construction of Autoroute 13 began July 1973 and ended October 1975.”

Update

An Aug. 4, 2015 mesquartiers.wordpress.com article is entitled: “TOP 15 DES PLUS BEAUX PARCS RIVERAINS À MONTRÉAL!”

 

3 replies
  1. Bob Carswell
    Bob Carswell says:

    Here is an interesting site about another property with the name Saraguay. It is the story written by Tex Pitfield who grew up in Alberta and settled in the USA. He was talking about his grandmother Grace Pitfield who live on the property. Reading further you will see my unedited comments which add to the story. Tex Pitfield was president of a firm called Saraguay Petroleum of Marietta, Georgia. Gee, I wonder where the name came from?….my brother once had a business called Saraguay Software…anyone else?
    http://wikimapia.org/7446368/Pitfield-House-aka-Saraguay-House

    Double-click on the picture of the house to get a close up of it. Today it is a relaxation place for some of the summer walkers who ramble through the local woods as part of a Pierrefonds extension of the Bois de Saraguay, that is, when it is open. For those who are interested I can tell you a lot about the area and people who lived along the north Shore of Montreal between Cartierville and the train overpass that used to take you to St. Eustache. If you fell asleep on the way to Roxboro on the old commuter line through Mount Royal Tunnel you could find yourself there. I am sure a few made that trip involuntarily over the years. This story about his grandmother was written by Tex Pitfield nine years ago. I remember looking up his website not long after he wrote this story and being awed by his success. This time I looked it up again but could not find it. When I checked with the Internet I found that he had died, at only 50 years old [actually, about 55; see next Comment from Bob Carswell] on September 7th, 2009 but his words lived on for us to read. RIP

    I also met his uncle Michael Pitfield as a young man living at home. He was 20 and I was 13. Not unlike my Dad’s cousin David Brown he also went to Ottawa and became a civil servant. As a successful individual he had an excellent career working under the Liberal government and he was appointed to the Senate by Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau. However, he chose to sit as an Independant. His interesting family story can be found at Wikipedia using the following site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Pitfield

    Bob

    Jaan,,,,,you could try to pick up the house photo for the storyline.

    Reply
  2. Bob Carswell
    Bob Carswell says:

    I jsut found the whole story about Saraguay Petroleum written up in the Bulk Transporter Webpage back in 2006. I am guessing there was a little family money in the business to get it started. This family was not starving. Here is the address if you want to know how successful he became by the time he died. Unlike the newspaper that often gets facts wrong, he was actually 55 years of age at the time of his death….or maybe the other site was wrong. Who knows? [An obituary notice can be accessed here.]

    http://bulktransporter.com/archive/smooth-rollout

    In his early years he tried his hand at stockbrokerage, first in Montreal and later in Toronto where most of us shortsighted Quebecers moved to from Montreal. Enjoy the read! You will be so intelligent about tanker trucks and petroleum by the time you are through. 🙂

    Reply
  3. Jaan Pill
    Jaan Pill says:

    This is a very impressive article, Bob. I like the reference to the Saraguay Forest.

    I also enjoy these quotes:

    “Pitfield’s finance and Internet backgrounds are key factors in the way the company is operated. ”

    “We’re very willing to hire immigrant drivers. After all, I’m one of them, too.”

    “Some classroom time is devoted to safety videos and one-on-one coaching on ‘what if” scenarios.”

    ” ‘We’ve been able to cut our truck costs in half through leasing. Among other things, we rely on the leasing company branches for all tractor service work.’ ”

    “Automated transmissions are increasingly important, because many of the otherwise qualified applicants for driving positions have never operated any vehicle with a manual transmission.”

    This is an excellent article. I enjoy the reference to the use of automatic transmissions. At an earlier stage of my life, I took a course at George Brown College in Toronto and learned to drive a transport trailer truck. The trucks had, as I recall, about 12 gears and it was quite a job, during the driving test, to go up and down the gears driving along the 401 east of Toronto, where there are plenty of hills – something that you really notice when driving a truck.

    I got through the driving test – the instructor was a little surprised, as there was nothing about me that said “Truck Driver” – and got my A license. I’ve since then switched to a D license as the A requires regular medical exams which take up a lot of time. Before I became a truck driver, as it turned out, I began working as a supply teacher for a school board in Toronto and thus left my career as a truck driver behind me.

    I also spent some time working as a construction labourer in those early days after university. Again, it was good experience, to see the world from that vantage point; I left that behind as well when I fell into the teaching profession. I see value in working at a wide range of jobs, in one’s youth, because every line of work entails a particular way of looking at what life is about and what it has to offer. There is value in a job well done, whatever the line of work may be.

    A person is always the same, changing “self,” whatever the line of work or circumstance of life may be. What varies is how a person is viewed, in many cases, depending on their line of work or the circumstances. What we all share is our humanity; that’s what I believe, anyway.

    One thing that did stay with me, from my truck driving days, was the practice of double shifting when driving a manual transmission car. Supposedly, that cuts down on wear and tear on the transmission system. Finally, I switched to cars with automatic transmissions as I got tired of the need to attend to the shifting of gears. Another thing that stayed with me was the practice of using a quick flashes of the headlights to let a driver (e.g. a bus driver) know that it was okay to merge into the lane ahead of me. That’s part of the language of the road, when you drive a truck.

    In the past several years, after a few problems on the road, I’ve learned to focus closely on “the zone” right in front of me as I’m driving, with regular glances at my rear-view mirrors. Over the years, a person can get complacent about driving, whether a motorcycle or a car or truck. I’ve learned, as the years have gone by, that there is no room, no room whatever, for complacency as we travel down the road.

    Reply

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