For the purpose of what I’m going to try to accomplish in this week’s column, forget everything you know about Long Sault, and its parkway.
Imagine that you are listening in on this conversation taking place in our local tourist information office. Two different tourists arrive, one from Georgia (the USA one), the other from Georgia (the Europe one).
One, the very inquisitive one, asks, “Am I right in supposin’ you folks named yer parkway after some record-breaking very, very long sault? When did it take place? How long was it? Five feet? Eight? When I was a child, I once did a ten-foot summer sault.”
The other tourist, with a decidedly different accent, being rather impatient and more knowledgeable, interjects with, “This ‘sault’ is ‘rapids’, not as in the ‘suh-mur-saalt’ you are referring to. Besides, it’s pronounced ‘sue’, as in the girl’s name.”
The young summer student behind the brochure desk has little or no knowledge about this area. She never lived in the so-called ‘Lost Villages’ that her grandparents reminisce about. She never played in the forested hills and fields of grain and grazing cattle that became islands and bays, thanks to the flooding caused by the Seaway dams.
She also doesn’t know of the slowly diminishing rivalry between ‘Village One’ and ‘Village Two’, which were eventually named Ingleside and Long Sault.
Some of the old-timers still carp, “Why was that parkway called the ‘Long Sault Parkway’? Didn’t they know Ingleside’s at the other end!”
There’s some rumbling about a movement to get the name changed to a more just and appealing “Lost Villages Parkway”. That’s a more intriguing name, a better bait to attract curious tourists. It would also complement the praiseworthy efforts of the Lost Villages Museum, located opposite Lakeview Heights.
What do you think? Would the name change be worth the fuss, changes on the maps, tourist brochures and the cost of repainting the road signs?
