#Northern Ontario Ontario news

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The Ontario government is moving forward with plans to reinstate passenger rail service in northeastern Ontario.

Ontario's associate minister of transportation, Stan Cho, was in North Bay Thursday where he announced that the province will spend $139.5 million on three new train sets as part of the plan to bring back Ontario Northland passenger trains.

Cho said many communities, businesses and individuals have been calling for the return of the Northlander, and the province has "heard those calls loud and clear."

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[ask-hws-canada]

((I’m gonna take a small break bc of school starting tomorrow, but here have some shitposting to get to know some of the provinces better))

[doueverwonder]

I made it all the way back to 1648!!!!!!

i've also solved the debate in my family over whether we're Scottish or Irish; the answer is Yes.

[iii-days-grace]

It’s always funny to learn that a band is Canadian like, I just now learned that Tokyo Police Club (‘Your English is Good’) are from Newmarket, Silverstein are from Burlington and of course Sum 41 are from Ajax

there’s something in the water in the greater Toronto area that sprouts pop punk bands I guess :O

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Tenant Of Razed Home Used False Name," North Bay Nugget. April 25, 1933. Page 3. --- Open Inquiry Into New Liskeard Fire ---- Blaze Was Within Month of Buying Insurance ---- CONTINUES TODAY ---- Woman Thought Wife Has Husband at Cochrane ---- (Special to The Nugget) New Liskeard, April 25 - Evidence that a man known as M. A. Doyon is actually Achille Levesque and that Mary Doyon, who was believed to be his wife is the wife of a man living near Cochrane and the mother of four children there was offered when Deputy Fire Marshal Edward Jordan, of Toronto, opened an investigation into a fire which razed two Lake Shore homes here on Good Friday last. Levesque himself, tenant of one of the two destroyed cottages, was on the stand the greater part of yesterday. Further disclosures were expected when the hearing resumed today.

The two dwellings which were burned were owned by Henry Bertrand and John Meyers and evidence was offered that the one in which Levesque was living was the fourth he had occupied in eighteen months. Fire broke out in this cottage within a month of Levesque placing insurance on the contents, according to the evidence, which also showed that this was the first home in which Levesque had carried insurance. With total coverage of $1,500 Levenque claimed $350 loss. Mrs. Doyon, in whose name the policy was carried, was not home the night of the fire.

[sandramiksaauthor]

Holidays at the Cottage | opening gifts, writing, and reflecting on the ...

[candela888]

Same-sex marriage in 2003 vs. 2013 vs. 2023

(20 years of change)

More info below:

----

2003:

Marriage : Netherlands, Belgium, British Columbia (CA), Ontario (CA)

Civil unions : France (including overseas territories), Germany, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Greenland, Rio Negro (AR), Ciudad de Buenos Aires (AR), California (US), New York (US), Hawaii (US), Vermont (US), Canary Islands (ES), Aragon (ES), Catalonia (ES), Andalusia (ES), Extremadura (ES), Castilla-La Mancha (ES), Castilla-Leon (ES), Madrid (ES), Valencia (ES), Asturias (ES), Basque Country (ES), Navarre (ES), Balearics (ES), Quebec (CA), Alberta (CA), Manitoba (CA), Nova Scotia (CA), Geneva (CH), Zurich (CH), Portugal.

----

2013:

Marriage : Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, South Africa, Spain, Portugal, France (including overseas territories), Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, New Zealand, Washington (US), California (US), New Mexico (US), Minnesota (US), Iowa (US), Maryland (US), DC (US), New Jersey (US), Delaware (US), New York (US), Connecticut (US), Rhode Island (US), Vermont (US), Massachusetts (US), New Hampshire (US), Maine (US), Hawaii (US), Mexico City (MX), Quintana Roo (MX).

Civil unions : Greenland, Colombia, Ecuador, Merida (VZ), United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Finland, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Australia

Recognizes marriages performed abroad : All 32 Mexican states and Israel

----

2023:

Marriage : Netherlands (including overseas territories), Belgium, United States, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Colombia, US Virgin Islands, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Malvinas/Falklands, France (including overseas territories), Spain, Portugal, Andorra, Germany, Slovenia, Switzerland, Austria, Malta, Guernsey, Jersey, United Kingdom, Isle of Man, Ireland, Gibraltar, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Greenland, Luxembourg, Faroe Islands, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, St. Helena, Pitcairn Islands, Gibraltar.

Civil unions : Bolivia, Italy, Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Aruba, Curaçao, Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Montenegro, Greece, Cyprus, Estonia, Liechtenstein 

Recognizes marriages performed abroad : Namibia, Israel, Nepal, American Samoa

----

Future :

Same-sex marriage is under consideration by the legislature or the courts in Aruba, Curaçao, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, India, Japan, Liechtenstein, Namibia, the Navajo Nation, Nepal, Thailand, and Venezuela, and all countries bound by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), which includes Barbados, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Suriname.

Civil unions are being considered in a number of countries, including Lithuania, Peru, the Philippines, South Korea, Ukraine, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Latvia, Panama, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Thailand, and Venezuela.

----

[nasa]

NASA Inspires Your Crafty Creations for World Embroidery Day

It’s amazing what you can do with a little needle and thread! For #WorldEmbroideryDay, we asked what NASA imagery inspired you. You responded with a variety of embroidered creations, highlighting our different areas of study.

Here’s what we found:

Webb’s Carina Nebula

Wendy Edwards, a project coordinator with Earth Science Data Systems at NASA, created this embroidered piece inspired by Webb’s Carina Nebula image. Captured in infrared light, this image revealed for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth. Credit: Wendy Edwards, NASA. Pattern credit: Clare Bray, Climbing Goat Designs

Wendy Edwards, a project coordinator with Earth Science Data Systems at NASA, first learned cross stitch in middle school where she had to pick rotating electives and cross stitch/embroidery was one of the options.  “When I look up to the stars and think about how incredibly, incomprehensibly big it is out there in the universe, I’m reminded that the universe isn’t ‘out there’ at all. We’re in it,” she said. Her latest piece focused on Webb’s image release of the Carina Nebula. The image showcased the telescope’s ability to peer through cosmic dust, shedding new light on how stars form.

Ocean Color Imagery: Exploring the North Caspian Sea

Danielle Currie of Satellite Stitches created a piece inspired by the Caspian Sea, taken by NASA’s ocean color satellites. Credit: Danielle Currie/Satellite Stitches

Danielle Currie is an environmental professional who resides in New Brunswick, Canada. She began embroidering at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic as a hobby to take her mind off the stress of the unknown. Danielle’s piece is titled “46.69, 50.43,” named after the coordinates of the area of the northern Caspian Sea captured by LandSat8 in 2019.

An image of the Caspian Sea captured by Landsat 8 in 2019. Credit: NASA

Two Hubble Images of the Pillars of Creation, 1995 and 2015

Melissa Cole of Star Stuff Stitching created an embroidery piece based on the Hubble image Pillars of Creation released in 1995. Credit: Melissa Cole, Star Stuff Stitching

Melissa Cole is an award-winning fiber artist from Philadelphia, PA, USA, inspired by the beauty and vastness of the universe. They began creating their own cross stitch patterns at 14, while living with their grandparents in rural Michigan, using colored pencils and graph paper.  The Pillars of Creation (Eagle Nebula, M16), released by the Hubble Telescope in 1995 when Melissa was just 11 years old, captured the imagination of a young person in a rural, religious setting, with limited access to science education.

Lauren Wright Vartanian of the shop Neurons and Nebulas created this piece inspired by the Hubble Space Telescope’s 2015 25th anniversary re-capture of the Pillars of Creation. Credit:  Lauren Wright Vartanian, Neurons and Nebulas

Lauren Wright Vartanian of Guelph, Ontario Canada considers herself a huge space nerd. She’s a multidisciplinary artist who took up hand sewing after the birth of her daughter. She’s currently working on the illustrations for a science themed alphabet book, made entirely out of textile art. It is being published by Firefly Books and comes out in the fall of 2024. Lauren said she was enamored by the original Pillars image released by Hubble in 1995. When Hubble released a higher resolution capture in 2015, she fell in love even further! This is her tribute to those well-known images.

James Webb Telescope Captures Pillars of Creation

Darci Lenker of Darci Lenker Art, created a rectangular version of Webb’s Pillars of Creation. Credit:  Darci Lenker of Darci Lenker Art

Darci Lenker of Norman, Oklahoma started embroidery in college more than 20 years ago, but mainly only used it as an embellishment for her other fiber works. In 2015, she started a daily embroidery project where she planned to do one one-inch circle of embroidery every day for a year.  She did a collection of miniature thread painted galaxies and nebulas for Science Museum Oklahoma in 2019. Lenker said she had previously embroidered the Hubble Telescope’s image of Pillars of Creation and was excited to see the new Webb Telescope image of the same thing. Lenker could not wait to stitch the same piece with bolder, more vivid colors.

Milky Way

Darci Lenker of Darci Lenker Art was inspired by NASA’s imaging of the Milky Way Galaxy. Credit: Darci Lenker

In this piece, Lenker became inspired by the Milky Way Galaxy, which is organized into spiral arms of giant stars that illuminate interstellar gas and dust. The Sun is in a finger called the Orion Spur.

The Cosmic Microwave Background

This image shows an embroidery design based on the cosmic microwave background, created by Jessica Campbell, who runs Astrostitches. Inside a tan wooden frame, a colorful oval is stitched onto a black background in shades of blue, green, yellow, and a little bit of red. Credit: Jessica Campbell/ Astrostitches

Jessica Campbell obtained her PhD in astrophysics from the University of Toronto studying interstellar dust and magnetic fields in the Milky Way Galaxy. Jessica promptly taught herself how to cross-stitch in March 2020 and has since enjoyed turning astronomical observations into realistic cross-stitches. Her piece was inspired by the cosmic microwave background, which displays the oldest light in the universe.

The full-sky image of the temperature fluctuations (shown as color differences) in the cosmic microwave background, made from nine years of WMAP observations. These are the seeds of galaxies, from a time when the universe was under 400,000 years old. Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team

GISSTEMP: NASA’s Yearly Temperature Release

Katy Mersmann, a NASA social media specialist, created this embroidered piece based on NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) global annual temperature record. Earth’s average surface temperature in 2020 tied with 2016 as the warmest year on record. Credit: Katy Mersmann, NASA

Katy Mersmann is a social media specialist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. She started embroidering when she was in graduate school. Many of her pieces are inspired by her work as a communicator. With climate data in particular, she was inspired by the researchers who are doing the work to understand how the planet is changing. The GISTEMP piece above is based on a data visualization of 2020 global temperature anomalies, still currently tied for the warmest year on record.

In addition to embroidery, NASA continues to inspire art in all forms. Check out other creative takes with Landsat Crafts and the James Webb Space telescope public art gallery.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[its-ticsticstics]

As an First Nations Indigenous Person here in Turtle Island (Canada, Northern Ontario)

I want to remind people of the terminology largely used here, at least in my community;

First Nations and Indigenous are really the only academically accepted terms for referring to us. The term "Native American" is never used here, it usually refers to those in the USA, and even then, I doubt its a proper term for there. Aboriginal used to be used, but now its mainly recognized (again, here were I live) as a term for the first peoples of Australia and New Zealand.

A lot of elders in my communities and even a lot us younger generation still also call ourselves Indians. This is NOT for white people to call us. The use of this term is complicated and needs a whole different post.

Eskim* is a slur and in Canada the only accepted term is Inuit (or Inuk, for singular).

And as an aside to all of this;

All of our tribes/bands are UNIQUE and have their OWN NAMES.

When you say any of these terms, without identifying a particular tribe (and even then you may have to narrow it down to a specific region); YOU ARE SPEAKING GENERALLY. It will not apply to all of use and every individual culture within that group.

I'm Anishinaabe/Ojibwe and Alongquin; my partner is Mohawk. We're both First Nations, but our mother tongues and teachings are still different. And even then, its different from those who are from these same tribes but live in the USA, especially in language speaking.

There is so so SO much nuance to describing First Nations Peoples and it cannot be taken for granted.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

First Nations leaders and families from northern Ontario are calling on the province’s Inspector General of Policing to disband the Thunder Bay Police Service and have a new police service investigate some of its cases.

“The Thunder Bay Police Service has turned into a cold case factory when it comes to investigations into the deaths of Indigenous Peoples. There is a complete lack of trust. Everything has broken down and it can’t be repaired. It’s like watching a disaster unfold in slow motion, and it has life-changing consequences for our members,” said Alvin Fiddler, grand chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, an organization that represents 49 First Nations in northern Ontario.

“It is time for the provincial government to show they care about what is happening in Thunder Bay and disband this Service. Our families don’t need any more reports – they need action.”

Several reports since 2018 have documented systemic racism in the Thunder Bay police force and outlined how investigations into the sudden deaths of Indigenous people have been tainted by racist attitudes and stereotyping.

A confidential report obtained by APTN News found the sudden deaths of 14 Indigenous people were so poorly handled they had to be reinvestigated.

That is in addition to nine deaths that were already been reinvestigated. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland, @vague-humanoid

[beyondthisdarkhouse]

Well, I just got VERY distracted.

I was researching wholesale sewing supplies companies, and came across one from Eastern Canada that showed their shipping policies and times, which included a map like... this.

I've simplified the colours from the original, but not the positions of anything. And that made me DISTRACTED, because like... if you have also spent time staring at road maps of the prairie provinces, let me ask you: what the entire actual fuck, eh?

Let's superimpose. (Click for better resolution)

This map is sus in so many ways I can't even explain what went wrong here. The northern shore of Lake Athabasca gets faster shipping than Winnipeg? Kindersley is a priority destination, but Regina isn't? Edmonton has been usurped by (*reads smudged writing on hand*) Edson? The best shipping in Alberta is not centrered around Calgary, but, like... Nordegg? It's not on the map, but I swear to god it's fucking Nordegg. Also, who the hell did Saskatchewan have to fuck to get that kind of relative priority? (Come to think about it, though, if I were in charge of Saskatchewan, I'd absolutely sell my honour for some kind of rural logistics boost. What else would I do with it?)

And I wouldn't mind, except that this is the map that tells me how fast my shipping is gonna be! This is the only indicator on their website that lets me know whether my shit will arrive tomorrow, or a week from now!

(Okay, self. Deep breaths. I'm getting a bit upset and overblown here. It's okay. Clearly my shit wouldn't arrive until the next business week whether I lived in the Pembina Valley or not.)

So, in the larger map, Ontario, Nova Scotia, Vancouver, and Victoria are all where they ought to be. But what if, I don't know, these shipping zones were the right size and shape, but just in the wrong place?

I'd still be desperately curious to know what Saskatchewan did. And if I had to accept them, I'd guess they'd be more like...

If I'm right, clearly it's not just one thing wrong with them. They're not off in similar directions or amounts. At which point my only explanation would be that, like... someone started out with a shitty map, compressed the image, and then tried to blow it back up into a regular image again. And then it happened three more times, if not more.

MY FELLOW CANADIANS: DO BETTER

That's it that's my post. I wash my hands of the subject and will focus on suppliers from BC.

Except, just for fun, Saskatchewan's suspiciously spacious shipping corridor (what a great new tongue-twister!) with some European scale for spice.

[piizunn]

ᓄᐦᑕᐃᐧᕀ ᐊᐢᑯᑖᐢᑯᐱᓱᐣ nohtawiy askotâskopison, My Father’s Cradleboard by Morgan Possberg Denne

The New Gallery, November 18 - December 22, 2023

“Cradleboards have been used for thousands of years by our ancestors to carry and love for our future generations. They have protected us, acted as an external womb, and given us a place as children to watch our parents' culture and learn from a safe distance. I’ve always wondered if the fact that neither my father, his father, or myself was ever put in a cradleboard may have had a long term impact on our development, personhood, and our coping mechanisms to the ways that colonialism, residential schools and the foster care system has affected my family.

Now as an adult I deeply wish I could rewind the clock and put myself, and my father before me, and his father before him in a cradleboard as a child. To softly sing songs to us, give us safety, and to give us a connection to our culture in a safe environment. Maybe this would fix things. As kids when we were supposed to be kept safe and playing in the woods we were instead being prepped for the meat factory - the eternal meat grinder of colonialism.

The western world teaches us to push aside this childhood imagining and innocence - “These things can’t be undone!”, but what if they could? In another world somebody took better care of us, in another time we learned to drum and sing and dance, in another place we were listened to by adults who had the capacity to love and care for us.

These hot chest and aching throat feelings, the times of biting back angry tears and saying “It’s fine” have to count for something….right?”

“Morgan Possberg Denne is Two-Spirit millennial scoop and foster care survivor; with settler, Cree, Metis, and Chippewa blood connections. They have grown up in treaty 7 territory, and have relatives in southern and northern Ontario. Morgan creates imaginative, illustrative objects which could be seen as pieces of possible narratives, different ways to connect with the past and potential futures through layers of abstraction with no right or wrong answer. What matters to them is not accurately recreating the past or to predict the future, but rather to capture an inner truth and a possible alternative reality of colonial experiences. In a sense, creating new culture from a series of “what-ifs” and new stories / lore. Their work has been recently shown at the Confederation Centre for the Arts and Gallery Gachet.”

(Photos belong to me and the description and artist bio are courtesy of The New Gallery’s website)

[IDs:

1. a large wall hanging made from fish leather,

2. a close up of the same piece. the artwork has faint text cut out of the green tea tanned fish that reads “hey it’s not your fault, you know that right?”

3. a photo of the space showing a video projected onto several fish skins, a table with a vest and a hat made of fish leather, and on the table are cartons made from rawhide.

4. a coatrack on which are a rawhide hunting ruffle and rawhide fishing net resembling a badminton racket

5. a shelf seen in the background of image 3 containing a astro-turf shirt, a hand gun and pocket knife made from rawhide and a fish leather circular clip with a piece of dark hair hanging off the shelf.]

[lucithekingofhell]

Hello, my King!

The first folk tale I want to share with you is about the Chasse-galerie! Back in the 1800s, French-canadian men would travel hundreds of miles North to go cut lumber for rich Englishmen, usually for the paper industry at the time. Sadly, this meant that these men would most often spend Christmas and the New Year alone in the wild woods of what is now Northern Quebec and Ontario. There is a fascinating tale that the men would make a pact with the devil to fly a magical canoe over 500 miles in a few hours so they could go spend New Year's Eve with their fiancees, then return to the wood camp before 6 am, which was when they had to get back to work.

Does that sound familiar? 😊

"Acabris, acabras, acabram! Fais-nous voler par-dessus les montagnes!"

"What a fascinating tale! But now that you mentioned it it does sound quite familiar! Hm, maybe the tale was true, we'll never know!"

[lesbiantaylorswiftstan]

today is canada day, so here are some canadian things that i think the bau members would enjoy

hotch would love tim hortons. he wishes they had it in the states. he'd love going on a timmies run through the drive thru on the way to work. he'd love the ubiquity of tim hortons. not quite on every street corner, but pretty darn close. he would enjoy cheap, decently good coffee, and it would be so practical. his turn to bring snacks for jack's soccer tournament? box of timbits for the kids and one of those portable coffee things for the grown-ups. he doesn't know what to get someone as a gift for christmas/birthday/promotion at work? tims gift card

rossi would love canadian wines. obviously, he loves italian wine first and foremost, but he'd enjoy a good niagara region or okanagan valley wine. he'd love to go on a getaway to niagara-on-the-lake and spend the days doing winery tours, playing golf, and not answering his phone. i think he would also love roots. he'd never wear it outside the house, but he would love some good quality roots sweatpants, sweater, and wool socks

jj would love canadian snacks that aren't sold in the states. she always forgets to eat real meals when she's working, so she keeps one of the drawers of her desk stuffed with snacks. if she went to canada, she'd buy so many snacks to stock her desk with. ketchup chips, all dressed chips, coffee crisp, smarties (the canadian kind, not the american kind - we call those rockets), butter tarts, nanaimo bars. she'd find ketchup-flavoured cheetos at the store and buy so many bags of them. she'd totally get stopped at the border for accidentally trying to smuggle kinder surprise eggs into the us

emily would love québecois and northern ontario french. she learned french in france with parisian teachers, which is completely different from the way french is spoken in québec and northern ontario (which are also different from each other), both in terms of accent and vocabulary. i think she'd love trying to understand their accents and picking up new words (mostly things like tabarnak, câlice, etc)

in my mind, reid has a total sweet tooth, so i think he'd love all things maple. maple cookies, maple fudge, maple candies, maple lollipops. i forget what it's called in english, but his favourite thing would be tire d'érable. maple taffy? the thing where you pour hot maple syrup on snow and then put it on a popsicle stick and eat it. he'd have maple candies living in his pockets and at the bottom of his messenger bag for ages

derek would love small-town ontario craft breweries. obviously craft beer exists outside of canada, but literally every small town in ontario has a craft brewery or two. it's like a big thing. my dad's a beer guy and he takes detours driving places to stop at his favourite craft breweries or to go to a new one. i feel like derek's the kind of guy who enjoys cracking open a cold one after a long day of flipping houses, so he'd enjoy getting a two-four of different kinds of craft beer from a local brewery and stocking his fridge

i tried so hard to think of one thing penelope would love, but honestly i think she would love everything. she'd come back from a trip to canada with so many souvenirs. a roots toque, a bottle of real canadian maple syrup, several snacks that aren't sold in the states, handmade moccasins, a mug with indigenous artwork, and a little bobblehead moose dressed as a mountie for her desk

[writingcold]

Bound

AU Jake X Chris slash 

A/N: At the announcement of Mirador, and that first picture of Jake and Chris, my brain went to the following blurb. I have been working on an AU currently titled The Dead. This story is about soulmates that have been cursed to live apart - and at the time of story, they have lived many lifetimes apart. Within the story there are 6 versions of our Jake set in many different eras, just as there are 6 different versions of Maéva - the Y/N character. It has been so fun to write! But I am rambling. The point is, the following blurb is just ONE of the lifetimes that Jake has across 400 years. I was only going to share it with a few friends, but then @katuschka, @its-interesting-van-kleep and @thewritingbeforesunrise really have thrown their support behind me and this blurb. The rest I’ve shared with - you know who you are - are such an amazing group, so I hope they enjoy the revisited blurb. I’ve cleaned it up a bit, polished it, honed it a little more. This will NOT be in the story proper, it’ll be mentioned, but not known to the main character. At least at this point, it is not. Our secret. And as always, thank you to @edgingthedarkness for listening to me carry on and on and on and on… and on about this story and being so patient with me over the mess that it is. 

***This is an 18+ story for adults only. This is a blurb of Yakov Petrov (Jake) and Christian Hertel (Chris Turpin inspired). It is an AU set in time when Michigan was voted in as a state.***

Content warnings: Sexual situations m/m, oral, unprotected sexual situations, a little angsty (of course, and loops back to the actual story), a touch of Yakov (Jake) being a brat.

Word count: approximately 2600

Journal Entry - Yakov Petrov, June 1862

     The commission had come in August of 1854 to survey the new territories of the northwest. Christian had reservations, but the money would be good, lodging and food was included. He had enough hands to set out like a grand jungle expedition into the wilds of the unexplored lands of the United States. I did not understand his reservations. To set out into the wilderness that only those native to the land had known? What adventure. What a privilege to see and paint and study. But, my Christian was the one who gained the commission, not I. It would be his decision to go and his decision to take whom he felt would be fitting to the project. Just because we shared our appetites with each other, did not mean that I would attend the expedition. 

     We had boarded the ship in Boston, May of 1855, that would take us first to New York, then up through the St. Lawrence Seaway, into Lake Ontario. We’d then follow the Niagara River to Lake Huron. From Lake Huron, we’d find ourselves on the Detroit River to finally push our way into Lake Michigan. Detroit would be our destination for a fashion. Christian had called it our last stop of frayed civilization before traversing into the untamed wilds of the north lands. 

     I will not be untrue - being aboard those ships brought me a joy from the core of my spirit, but a mournfulness as well. I felt this joy to be old, sunk down in the marrow of my bones and beyond me in a way that was confusing and best forgotten the moment my feet touched the land of Detroit. We were housed in what was considered a grand house of the region, but after such luxury in Boston and Philadelphia, I was finding myself holding my tongue from spoiled and rude comments. A tent in the grand garden of our townhome would have been more comfortable.

     A month of those conditions prepared us for the path before us. We had native guides and set out with a troupe of sixteen hands to carry and maintain our academic venture. Christian was a marvel in his organization of those men. He wanted to start at the northern point of Sault Ste. Marie. That meant more travel by water, which was fine. The commission demanded each step be documented - not just in paint and charcoal, but recording for scientific reasons, the flora and fauna, the animals, the geography. All of it was to be recorded and sent to Washington, DC, for study. That was to be our nature of work, and we would follow it to the letter.

     My foot touched the aged pier of Sault Ste. Marie and I felt an illness within that I could not explain. Christian wanted to send me home to Boston, I was so taken. I took to a bed in a passable inn and shook with a fright that I could not shake. It was in my blood. It invaded my breath. I sent Christian on with the promise that I would catch up if he were to leave me a guide. I was behind him by weeks, only, but in that time, my soul seemed to cry over the wild, windswept land that was this already old place. I found myself walking upon the grounds of a once great shipmaster’s house that overlooked the great lake of Superior. The French manor house that barely clung to its elaborate balconies, was a ruin. It was a ghost of memories that seemed to dance and toy with any and all who passed it by, eliciting the imagination of grand balls and fancy turns of women’s voluminous skirts. 

      It was on this scrap of field that I felt it for the first time, an ache that would go on to haunt me the rest of the journey. I set up my easel and painted what I saw: the town and the port beyond this desolate beauty that hurt my spirit for unknown reasons. Perhaps it colored my stroke a bit, leaving me with a melancholy piece that once set, was boxed and housed to make its way back to the capital. This ache was ever present as I finally was well enough to move across the peninsula to catch up with Christian. It was a dogged feeling that I knew this land as sure as I knew myself. Odd, as I never had been anywhere except the grand cities of the east coast.

     It was a reunion of quiet touches and catching up when I did finally reach the party. My Christian was always so enigmatic when it came to our relations. He might one day grasp me by my whole body and not let go without a laugh and caresses that were never hidden, while the next, may only be in the form of a clandestine brush of the back of his hand against my thigh. I did not mind. It kept me guessing and intrigued and returning to him for more. This reunion, however, he walked away from me as if upset. I followed him, calling his name like a wounded puppy might.

     I followed into the deep woods, where the light dappled on the ground as if fighting to penetrate with its goodness. I suddenly realized, goodness was not meant to see what he needed, nor wanted from me. His mouth crashed into mine with a carnal anger that left me breathless and needing more. No coherent words passed between us. Only desperate touches and demanding utterances graced us as he nearly tore my clothes from my body. His fingers knocked my hat from my head and his eyes stilled in absolute offense.

      “Damn it. Why did you cut it, Yakov?” he growled as he discovered my hair much shorter than when he had left me.

      He tugged it at the roots, pulling my head back to expose my throat to him. He ravaged my skin, leaving not an inch untouched. My man knelt in the black dirt and sucked me down, leaving me ruined and ready for him and only him to love as only he could love me. He kissed and lapped and ground his mouth on me until I was nearly weeping and close to orgasm before he clutched me with a kiss that was full of passion. He wrapped his hand around both of our girths and began to rub hard. Feeling his cock against mine was one of my favorite things, and to have him eye to eye with me, reading my face as he fed my need was near otherworldly. My love poured out on the air in my sighs and moans of pleasure.

      He turned me, helped me to find my hands on the gnarled bark of a tree. His mouth sucked at my shoulder with promises of love and adoration as his cock found my entrance. And he loved me. He penetrated me in a hard press that filled me with a desire that no one had ever given me. He loved me. Each in was demanding while each out was a caress and need for more. Yes. He loved me. And when we both reached a pitch that could no longer be staved off, we danced in ecstasy as our high crescendoed into a shared gratification. He held me and I held onto him in the dirt. Our skin was inflamed with joy and our words gentle towards each other. 

     My fingers tangled in his sun kissed golden hair and smoothed across the manicured mustache that resided over his lip. How many days had I woken to this face only to be so enraptured by it each and every time. And he looked upon me the same. His fingers in my dark brown threads, even though I had cut it quite short, and across the hair on my chin. Always with such love. Always with such care.

     We worked our way across spidery waterways. Through dense forests and broad meadows. One word was always on my tongue - beautiful. There was no green like it on the wind battered east coast. Surely, this virginal green was unlike anything on this fledgling continent. It was strong against the eye, yet the wind pushed it as if with a whisper of promise of what settling it would provide. Eagles, in grand mass, relegated in towering pines, while the deer were thick in numbers, grazed unaware of the dangers that were to come. Industry was waiting. It was our purpose to sell the dream of this ground to industry. Christian both hated the idea, but loved it for what riches it would bring to the region. Hated for it would surely be destroyed under the bootheel of man. Loved it, as he captured the most natural golden beauty through our work.

      We had been in the wilds for well over a month. We pushed our way south, sketching, recording, painting. Day after day brought something new to be cataloged. Something new to be puzzled over. But most of all, captured. We were capturing the spirit and nature of this land. 

      The cold came swiftly in this region. Our party was forced to choose - build cabins and wait out the harshness of winter, or try to rush to the south and east to Detroit before the ice bound up the land and winter there. Christian ordered for cabins to be built - we were to settle and capture a winter’s season in the new land. We were not the only ones in this region. A new village was chartered and was beginning to grow as the last of our timbers were set in place for our shelters. I spent hours sketching and painting - even putting in the men as they labored. Frankenmuth. They were going to call the village Frankenmuth, so I titled the painting as such.

      I knew hard winters. I knew winters where the sun seemed to extinguish itself for days on end and the ocean would lash at the shore in unrelenting undulation that was sure to tear permanently at the land. But this - this winter in this land of Michigan was beyond me. There were moments of crystalline beauty and desperate cruelty of storms that lingered. Christian laughed at my poetic rendering of what was around us, but it is what it was. Horrid. But beautiful. 

      The spring of 1856 was slow to thaw. Despite there being still snow on the ground, Christian and I were out, wrapped in heavy furs and easels in hand to sketch the landscape. It was midafternoon before I realized that he had put me into the picture he created. I laughed at him as he gazed at his work with an eye that I knew well. He was smitten with me, still. He had started to apply paint here and there, but he left it unfinished as my ministrations to him had become too blatant for him to ignore. My usual trick to get him to love me rather than paint me.

      On the eve of our resumed expedition, he held me with the lament of wanting me to be his forever. He wanted to marry me as he would a wife. He seemed so adamant and passionate about it. We were together, that was enough for me. 

       He became sullen and started to argue with me. He pulled away and it was as if the Earth was pulling away from the moon. He was unconsolable in the moment about how I was changing with this land. I was changing? How? He said to look at his drawing, how I looked to the land like it was my lover. I was baffled. He said that I would talk in my sleep about love. At first he thought that it was himself that was causing my midnight sighs and caresses. 

     “Unless my name is suddenly changed to Maéva, I doubt very much that it is I who is featured in your deepest dreams, Yakov,” he had argued.  

     “But if you’re angry about dreams, surely you see the absurdity of your argument,” I fought back, showing that I was totally unaware of what he was talking about.

      I smoothed back his hair, dragging my fingernails over that patch of skin just behind the shell of his ear. I watched as he quivered under my touch. I pressed kisses to his furrowed brow, cooing and whispering my love. I promised that I would be his husband and he would be mine in our hearts. It would be enough. I took his tongue into my mouth, sucking it hard enough to elicit a soft chirp. I relished the taste of his creamy skin, passing my mouth across the sparse, downy patch in the middle of his chest. 

      “I want you to quit cutting your hair,” he growled as I found his cock with my lips. “Why do you cut it when it’s so pretty?”

       I pressed behind his ball sack hard as I slid my mouth up the shaft with a saucy pop. “Ever think it’s to make you upset with me, Chris?”

       His eyes pinched at the edges as I looked up at him, my chin coming to rest on his thigh. He trailed his fingers down my cheek. I knew what he wanted of me. I knew and so I took him into my mouth until I was downright slobbering. I spit into his entrance as he moaned loudly, egging me on. I wrapped my hands around his thighs to spread him enough for me to enter him. And we made love, face to face.  My eyes roved across his lean body, loving each turn of bone and stretch of skin. The way his mouth stretched with pleasure, and how the head of his cock peeked out as he stroked himself tightly as I moved with confidence within him. I bent, his thighs pressed hard around my hips as I lapped at the precum on his head with a moan of satisfaction. The hard inhale of breath and I knew one more trick to send him into another plane. I swirled my tongue over the head as I pressed in, snapping my hips into his rump. My fingers dug at the meat of his flanks as I dragged my tongue over the softness of his belly, circling across his nipple before sinking my teeth into the flesh of his shoulder to unravel each other until we were a complete mess.

       In the darkness, he slept well as I held him close. I listened to his breathing for hours. It was shame that kept me stirred. He was not wrong about how this land was claiming me. This woman - Maéva -  was haunting me in my slumber. The meaning of it was so blurred. It made me hold to him all the tighter. It was him that I loved. I belonged with him. He understood me best. Yet, this woman was a memory of deep time. She belonged to another time, another existence. I knew it deep in my bones, just as I had felt the joy of crossing all those rivers to come to this land. But my heart was cleaved in two, wasn’t it? A fractured shard that belonged to one that was not in my time of now. It was that piece that I could never surrender to my Christian. And he was mine. I pressed my face into the mass of golden hair to allow his perfume to swell around me. He was mine.

I hope you liked my tangent here into Yakov’s life. It was such a tangent that strangled me, and continues to play in my brain even though this is pretty much it for Cake Lane in this story. I’m not sure when The Dead will be ready to go. Life has been so busy, making writing time sporadic, but I’m getting there. I will be putting out a new tag list sign up when we’re closer to release, but for now, this will remain tag-less as it's just a one off. Until then - happy reading, happy writing, happy creating!