Elevating

Did you get the census thing stuck in your door the other day? The envelope from Stats Canada, I mean. Gotta fill it out and send it in cuz it’s the law, right? Count yourself in.

Last count, back in 2011, we were 25,258 souls. Hard to believe, but with a few of us coming and going over the last hundred years, that number has gone up and gone down by a body or two, but 25k has been the sum total of County residents, year after year.

That’s something like the average snowfall for around here in May is 0.0 although you’d expect a breakthrough in numbers after the last few nights sitting around the wood stove.

So for some reason, I am thinking about this as I sit on a dirt bank at the corner of Salem and Whitney Roads wearing a toque and mitts at sunrise. My own fault, yeah, I get it. But why? Curiosity, I guess? I haven’t been the same since a local farmer told me that this was the highest point in the County. Go on. Really? Go figure! Yep, that’s what I said.

Around here, I’ve learned that elevation is measured by whether or not you can see the cement plant from where you are on a clear day. I mean even mariners who, back in the old days would use Scotch Bonnet or Point Petre lighthouses for navigation, have tossed that all away. Now, if you can spot the cement plant’s stack from out there on the big water, happy times. You are not far from home. It’s sorta like the sailors out of Toronto Island in a way: never losing their bearings having the CN tower handy.

I’m afraid to say, fans of Lake on the Mountain, Macaulay Mountain and Waupous that the four-foot high, cement geological survey marker that I’m sittin’ next to has a lot of green moss growing on it, showing its age. And that tells me that this is the standard for the four-hundred- foot elevation on our flat, limestone, irregular—the land shape and not the people, for the most part—headland of a place. Yep, 400 feet is all we got. And it’s all downhill from here to the low-shore between Huyck’s Point and Wellington. Not sure how the folks in that part of town will take this? I’ll do a census review at the bar at the Drake and let you know.

No wonder my friends up in Trent Hills ask me how things are doin’ on the flats. I mean, come on. They are only a 10-storey building higher than us. And so what if they have the rolling moraine for topography?

We have winery tours in stretch limos on the flats and our four-hundred-foot geological marker will soon be added to the map. I just know folks will be impressed after a few winery sojourns and tastings, sitting at this very spot waiting for the steam of the stack near Picton to be seen billowing among the clouds. They’ll have to lower the tinted windows in the limo to fully appreciate it, mind you, as long as the mosquitoes don’t spoil the mood.

So there you go. The seventh wonder of the County! The sun has the stack backlit against the early, champagne- and cerulean-tinted sky and I can say I have been there—or here, rather.

But please remember to do the census thing. Living in a place, it’s actually a city according to amalgamation rules: we are a city with a population density of 24 persons for every square kilometre, or 62 per square mile. The census distribution network creates employment and delivery people are compensated for mileage.

We want to honour anyone who can hit up twelve thousand doors within an area of 1,048 square kilometres (405 square miles) and not want to scream. And, by the way, back a hundred years ago when they first did censuses around here not knowing that one day this would be a foodies’ region, J.L. Kraft had just received his first patent for making cheese, Mr. Peanut was created and you could buy one of the first electric refrigerators for nine hundred bucks.

Happy days, indeed.