Author: Dan Griswold

We camped four nights this past week near Halifax, Nova Scotia, a city with a splendid harbor-front boardwalk and links to the Titanic and another major maritime disaster, the Halifax Explosion of 1917.

On the disaster theme, our first stop on Saturday morning was Fairview Lawn Cemetery where 121 victims of the Titanic are buried. In the days after the liner sank, several ships were sent out from Halifax to recover bodies still floating in the frigid waters where the ship went down. Of the more than 300 recovered, some were buried at sea, others claimed by relatives, and the rest buried at three cemeteries in Halifax, with the largest number at Fairview. Many were never identified, so we saw rows of simple headstones inscribed “Died April 15, 1912,” followed by a three-digit number. The numbering system allowed the recovery team to keep track of the bodies and whatever personal items were still on them for later identification. One headstone was erected especially for “an unknown child,” the only infant body recovered. The child was later identified as 19-month-old Sidney Leslie Goodwin, the youngest member of a large family that perished and the only one whose body was recovered. During our time there we saw guides leading two small groups and a bus full of tourists arriving just as we were leaving.

At the harbor front, we walked through the shops in the Historic Properties, which were once warehouses on the waterfront. We admired the tall ships docked at the harbor and shared an ice cream cone while sitting in the Adirondack chairs along the boardwalk. Our main destination, however, was the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, where we learned a few more details about the Titanic and saw artifacts from the recovery. At the museum you can see the only deck chaired recovered from the ship. Most of the clothes on the recovered bodies were eventually burned, but somebody was moved to save the pair of shoes that were still on Baby Goodwin. I didn’t know that it is a maritime tradition to carve objects from the wood recovered from wrecks. One such “wreckwood” object in the museum is a cribbage board made from a piece of oak from the Titanic (see photo). I’d read a book on the Titanic years ago (Unsinkable: The Full Story of The RMS Titanic by Daniel Allen Butler) and toured the excellent Titanic Museum in Pigeon Forge, TN, so I knew the basic story, but I did learn a few new details, such as the fact that Capt. Smith was inexperienced with larger ships.

Another maritime disaster we learned a lot about at the museum was the Halifax Explosion. On the morning of Thursday, December 6, 1917–during World War I when Halifax was teaming with activity–the French war ship Mont Blanc was entering the harbor laden with TNT, airplane fuel and other explosives. Shortly before 9 a.m., the ship collided with a Norwegian relief ship and immediately caught fire. At 9:05 a.m. its cargo exploded in what was the largest manmade explosion in human history before the atomic bombs in 1945. It killed 2,000 and injured another 10,000 while wiping out a third of the city. It flung large pieces of metal more than 3 miles away. The bomb blast was estimated at 2.9 kilotons. The museum provides dramatic details, including the story of the port worker Vincent Coleman who knew the ship was about to explode but remained at his station to telegraph a warning to incoming trains. He died moments later in the blast. We joined a free guided talk on the disaster and watched an excellent short documentary film from the 1950s with the voices of people who actually witnessed it.

After our time in the museum we walked up the hilly streets away from the harbor for a restful walk through the Halifax Public Gardens. The Victorian-era park was full of beautiful flower arrangements, large trees and water fountains. It was one of the loveliest public urban spaces we’ve come across in our travels. From there we walked back down to the harbor front for dinner at the well-known seafood restaurant Salty’s.

On Sunday we joined the good folks at Bedford Presbyterian Church (PCA) for the 10 a.m. worship service. The pastor preached a good sermon on the parable of the sower. He told us afterwards that he is from Michigan originally, and we talked to other church members with American connections. In our four Sundays in Canada, we have twice live-streamed services from our home church, Grace OPC in Vienna, and while in Quebec City we attended the only English-speaking church in the city, Quebec Baptist Church. Most of the churches we pass by in Canada are either Catholic or Anglican, but we did count three Pentecostal churches in Newfoundland.

On Monday, our last full day in the Halifax area, we spent the entire morning watching the royal funeral for the late Queen Elizabeth II. We were fortunate that we could receive TV broadcast signals for two stations at our campground, and one of them carried the entire service. Being part of the Commonwealth, the Canadian commentators were especially informative about the royal family and the ceremony. Elizabeth and I were both encouraged by the many Bible verses that were read, the traditional hymns that were beautifully sung, and the strong Christian message from the pulpits.

That afternoon we drove down the coast to the picturesque lighthouse on the granite rocks at Peggys Cove. We’ve seen a number of lighthouses on our travels the past two years, but this was one of the most striking. We had fun jumping across the rocks and looking back at the lighthouse and up the coast. This is a major tourist spot, with 10 or so tour buses parked in the visitor’s lot near the lighthouse.

From there we drove further down the coast to the historical fishing village of Lunenberg. This was a thriving fishing port in the 18^th and 19^th centuries with a number of colorfully painted houses and other buildings still standing from that era. Its harbor is home to Bluenose II, a working replica of a famous fishing vessel from the 1920s called the Bluenose. The town is so well preserved that it’s been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We arrived toward the end of the afternoon as most of the shops were closing, so we didn’t get the full effect of Lunenberg as a lively tourist destination. We did walk through its streets and admired the buildings, including the oldest house in town, built in 1760, and the beautiful St. John’s Anglican Church, founded in 1753.

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Earlier today (Tuesday) we hitched up the RV and drove through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and then across the 7-mile long Confederate Bridge to Prince Edward Island. We’ll spend three nights here at the PEI National Park on the north coast. We are now neighbors to the home that was the setting for the L.M. Montgomery novel Anne of Green Gables!

We’ve spent several days on our trip on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, savoring the coastal highland scenery, the fiddle music, and the history of invention and 18^th-century military rivalries.

We first arrived at our campground near Baddeck–pronounced Ba-DECK, as we soon learned–more than a week ago for a couple of nights on the way to visit Newfoundland (see my previous post). Cape Breton Island lies at the northeastern end of Nova Scotia, connected to “the Mainland” by a short causeway.

On the Saturday that we arrived, we attended the nightly ceilidh (KAY-lee) at St. Michael’s Parrish Hall in Baddeck. Ceilidh is Gaelic for a visit or gathering, usually involving fiddle music. We heard the delightful fiddling of Rachel Davis, accompanied by Buddy MacDonald on guitar. (You can see a clip of her playing here.) If you like Appalachian fiddle music, you’ll like the Cape Breton version. On our return visit to Baddeck after our Newfoundland trip, we attended another ceilidh at the same venue, this time listening to Dara Smith-MacDonald on fiddle, accompanied by Adam Young on piano. The hall seats about 80 people and was full of retirement-age folks like us on both our visits, mostly Canadians from Ontario and the West but also quite a few Americans. It costs $15 (Canadian) per head and includes a locally baked oat cookie and tea during the intermission. (Be sure to call ahead that day to reserve seats.)

The next day, we drove the 180-mile Cabot Trail along the coast of the island and through Cape Breton Highlands National Park. This is considered one of the great scenic drives in North America. The scenery was a beautiful amalgam of green mountains against a shimmering sea. A highlight of the drive was a four-mile round-trip hike on the Skyline Trail, which took us out to a viewing platform overlooking the Gulf of St. Lawrence on a sunny day. We also put our feet in the surprisingly warm waters of the Atlantic at Ingonish Beach. As we neared the end, we enjoyed the short and free ferry ride to Englishtown and on to Baddeck. (Here are additional photos posted on FB.)

After eight days across the Cabot Strait in Newfoundland, we returned to the campground in Baddeck for another three nights. On Wednesday we toured the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site in Baddeck, learning about the life of the “gentle genius” who invented the telephone. Bell (1847-1922) grew up in Scotland but his family moved to North America after two of his brothers died of respiratory ailments. He carried on his father’s work of helping the deaf learn to speak, eventually marrying one of his students. He and his wife and family moved to Baddeck in 1886, attracted by its natural beauty. The historic site displays this quote from Bell:

“I have travelled around the globe. I have seen the Canadian and American Rockies, the Andes, the Alps and the Highlands of Scotland, but for simple beauty, Cape Breton outrivals them all.”

The exhibits gave me a fuller understanding of his work. Along with the telephone, he invented an improved phonograph, encouraged the first airplane flight in Canada in 1909, and helped build a hydrofoil that set the speed record on water in 1919. That’s quite a famous connection for this town of 800. (The other famous connection is that a forefather of Ian Vasquez of the Cato Institute lived in Baddeck and once worked for Bell.)

On Thursday we drove to the Atlantic coast side of the island to the reconstructed 18^th-century French fortress and port of Louisbourg. In 1744 Louisbourg was the main French-controlled Atlantic port in North America. It was heavily fortified and was exporting millions of pounds of cod to Catholic France each year for its Friday fish fries. But then the British besieged and took the city not once but twice, in 1745 and again in 1758, the second time burning and leveling it to the ground. Beginning in the 1960s, the Canadian government began reconstructing the central part of Louisbourg, aided by meticulous records the French government had kept of the buildings and the estates of everyone who died there. The result is this splendid recreation of a mid-18^th century French port and garrison, staffed by locals in period costumes, running a café, explaining life in the homes, and even firing muskets and cannons! The effect is quite captivating.     

On Friday we broke camp in Baddeck and towed the trailer across the province to the capital city of Halifax, where we plan to spend four nights. Here’s a map of the extent of our travels so far.

During our time in Newfoundland this past week, we spent two full days in Gros Morne National Park along the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The park is a geological wonder, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. On Wednesday we joined a boat cruise up Western Brook Pond, a 10-mile-long, 500-foot-deep freshwater lake with 2,000-foot cliffs on either side. It’s like a fjord, but it was cut off from the Gulf of St. Lawrence when the glaciers from the last ice age retreated and the ground rose when the weight of all that ice was removed. The boat tour guide said that explains why they found whale bones on a cliff far above the edge of the lake. We saw four waterfalls coming down the cliffs into the lake.

On Thursday we joined a guide-led walk along the Tablelands, one of the rare places in the world where the earth’s mantle is exposed. The mantle normally lies several miles beneath the crust, but geologists theorize that this mantle was thrust up by a collision of continents millions of years ago. The mantle is made of different minerals than the crust and is generally toxic to plants. That and the orange color of oxidized iron gives it its bare, alien appearance. Because normal plant nutrients are scarce, we saw three different kinds of carnivorous plants. We looked down a valley carved by the glaciers, and climbed up to a small waterfall fed by a spring. If you visit Gros Morne, we recommend both of those excursions. If we had more time in the park, I might have tried climbing the park’s namesake mountain and taking the Green Garden hike. (See more photos from the park here on FB.)

On Friday, we left the RV at the campground and headed up the Great Northern Peninsula along the Viking Trail. The trail is a 230-mile highway that hugs the Gulf of St. Lawrence and leads to the remains of a Viking settlement at the top of the island. Along the way on Friday we stopped at the Lobster Cove Head Lighthouse just outside Rocky Harbour near our RV park. The lighthouse offered a lovely view of the harbor, views made more poignant by the Canadian flag fluttering at half mast in mourning for the queen. Elizabeth especially enjoyed the exhibits at the lighthouse keepers quarters. We next stopped at Cow Head, where Elizabeth visited two knitting shops! At Arches Provincial Park we walked underneath the rock formations by the sea; a young Chinese national working in Canada snapped the photo of us together under the main arch. Further up the coast, at Flower’s Cove, we took a short path to the shore to see very rare evidence of thrombolites. The roundish stone mounds were left behind by tiny life forms that biologist believe are some of the oldest on earth. The only other place where such evidence of thrombolites exist is on the other side of the world, in Sharks Bay, Western Australia. I’d seen photos of these strange bun-like rock forms in books, but it was a highlight to actually walk among them.

The Viking Trail (Highway 430) was a beautiful drive, with the sparking waters of the gulf on one side and the green, rounded tops of the Long Range Mountains in the distance. And everywhere, in the small fishing villages as well as alongside the road, we saw stacks and stacks of firewood. So much wood stored for the long winter! In a memoir I saw in one of the shops in Cow Head on growing up on the Great Northern Peninsula, the dust cover blurb said that here, “A man was judged by the size of his woodpile in the spring. It was a symbol of his ability to provide every necessity for his family.” By that measure, I can attest that the men in this region remain responsible and conscientious!

On Saturday morning, we joined a Northland Discovery boat excursion from the harbor in St. Anthony, the largest town at the north end of the peninsula. It was too late in the season to spot icebergs, but we were hoping to see whales. Paul, the captain and guide on the 2-hour excursion, said they had spotted humpback whales earlier in the week. The weather the day we went out was blustery and the sea was swelling, which probably explains why we didn’t see any whales. We did see a lone harp seal, an ocean sunfish, aka a mola mola, and a large leatherback turtle, which the captain said was a rare sighting. The captain also took us by what he said was the largest sea cave on the island, which was 100-by-100-feet at its opening and 200 feet deep. He told us the story of a fisherman who in 1955 was stranded in the cave for six days before being rescued. The captain said that the icebergs that come down from Greenland in the summer often carry seals into the St. Anthony area and sometimes even polar bears! One of the bear visitors is now mounted in the town’s municipal building, and another starred in this YouTube video after it wandered onto the roof of a house in town earlier this year. We could see the house from our boat.

After the boat tour, we spent an hour touring an exhibit in St. Anthony on Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, a medical missionary to Newfoundland and Labrador. Dr. Grenfell was born in northern England in 1865, studied medicine at the London Hospital, and dedicated his life to Christian service after hearing an address by D.L. Moody. He founded hospitals and established charitable programs to serve the thousands of underserved fishermen in the region. While seeing hundreds of patients a month, he also delivered gospel messages, wrote 33 books, and lectured widely. He’s one of a number of remarkable men and women we’ve learned about on our travels.

That afternoon we visited another World Heritage site, the Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows. The site was uncovered by archeologists in the 1960s and is the only definite proof that the Vikings reached the North American continent. We walked by the small mounds of dirt that outlined the sod buildings the small party had built in about 1,000 A.D. The highlight was entering one of the large recreated huts nearby and listening to the Viking-clad park employees tell us about life at the encampment. It impressed me that they were able to forge nails for their boats from iron ore found in the nearby bogs. They stayed about 10 years before burning the camp and heading back to Greenland. We also walked the 1.5-mile coastal trail, which allowed me to plant my foot on the small tip of the island considered “subarctic tundra.” Down the road from the site is a 10-foot bronze statue of Leif Ericson. (See my photos from the Viking Trail at FB.)

Tomorrow we’ll roll the RV onto the ferry at Port aux Basque for the six-hour, 96-mile trip across the Cabot Strait back to Nova Scotia.

On Tuesday, August 30, we left our campground near Quebec City and drove across the St. Lawrence River east and south into New Brunswick. Crossing the border into the Maritime Provinces we left the land of “French only” and into the Atlantic time zone, an hour ahead of Washington, D.C., time.

Our first stop was the city of Grand Falls, where we stayed one night at one of the nicest camping spots we’ve had in all our RV travels. Our door opened to a view of the Grand Falls gorge, a U-shaped bend in the Saint John River with 200-foot-high rock cliffs on either side. The next morning, before we hitched up, Elizabeth and I hiked along the gorge to view the 75-foot water falls at the heart of the town.

On Wednesday we drove four hours through heavy rain to Moncton, N.B. Along the way we spotted five moose by a small river in the woods not far from the road. Moncton is a mid-sized city with a Costco and two Walmarts. It describes itself as the hub of the Maritimes.

On Thursday, under gloriously blue skies, we explored the Hopewell Rocks on the Bay of Fundy about an hour south. At high tide the rocks appear to be small islands with trees, but at low tide they are high stone towers on narrow bases surrounded by the sandy sea floor and clumps of seaweed. The difference there between high and low tide is an amazing 46 feet. (Here’s a batch of photos I posted on FB.)

On Friday, while Elizabeth kept busy at the RV, I drove to another spot on the bay called the Joggins Fossil Cliffs just across the provincial line in Nova Scotia. The tides aren’t as high here, a mere 35 feet or so, but the cliffs have yielded a cache of fossils from the Carboniferous Period that geologists date to 310-325 million years ago. Walking along the beach our guide Jordan pointed out fossilized plant stems and a tree trunk. This is the age that coal formed, and we could see an exposed black seam of it on the beach. The guide said they had found fossilized bones from an early reptile that proceeded the dinosaurs by a hundred million years or so. The visitor center there had clear, colorful, and informative exhibits on the fossils found there as well as general earth history.

On Saturday, we hitched up the RV and drove into Nova Scotia and out to our campsite on Cape Breton Island near the small but significant town of Baddeck. (I’ll post about Baddeck further down the road since we’ll be back there later on our trip.) On Monday we loaded the RV onto a huge ferry at the dock in North Sydney for the seven-hour ride to Newfoundland. On Tuesday we drove to our current campsite near Gros Morne National Park.

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We’ve now been traveling through Canada for two weeks. We can’t say enough good about our experience so far. The people are friendly, the roads and services completely modern, and public places clean and attractive. Canada has its own franchises—Tim Horton’s coffee shops are ubiquitous—as well as American favorites. A&W Root Beer joints are far more common north of the border than in the USA—a cultural phenomenon that perhaps one of my Canadian friends could explain!

A recent article I read said that visits by Americans to Canada are still down 45 percent compared to pre-Covid levels. The biggest complaint is the need to register on the “ArriveCan” app and to provide proof of vaccination. Neither was a barrier for us. We’ve been vaccinated, and I found downloading and entering our info on the app to be no challenge, even though I’m a typical Baby Boomer when it comes to online tech. We spent less than an hour in line to pass through border control when we crossed the bridge with our truck and RV from upstate New York.

The Canadians dollar is currently worth about 77 US cents at the current exchange rate. As tourists, we appreciate the relatively strong US dollar, although everyday items in Canada seem to cost about what they do in the US even after converting. Gas in Canada costs around $1.60 (CA) per liter, which converts to just under $5 (US) per gallon. Canadians use a $1 dollar coin, not paper notes, which we find convenient, especially when using the campground laundromats. As everyone knows, the Canadians affectionally call their dollar coin a loony, after the bird engraved on it. That led to this email exchange between Elizabeth and the campground manager in Moncton after we asked about the laundry facilities:

Hi Elizabeth,

Yes we have a laundry room that is open 24/7.  It takes 2 loonies to wash and 2 loonies to dry.  We can make change if you need it.

Nancy Ryder

Stonehurst Campground

Thanks Nancy. Does that mean I’ll have to get my husband to come along to make us 2 loonies doing the laundry!!!! Ha ha

See you soon.

During the past week we made our way through Quebec along the St. Lawrence River. What a beautiful part of North America—the scenery, the history, the food!

After our time in Montreal, we towed the RV on Friday to a campground near Quebec City on the far northeast end of Ile d’Orleans. The island is known as the Garden of Quebec. It is quilted with vineyards and farms growing strawberries, raspberries, potatoes, and corn. We sampled the local produce, including Tomme cheese and the best sweet corn I’ve ever eaten. Our friends Andre and Letha du Plessis camped on the island years ago with their children and expressed their love of the place.

On Saturday, we drove into Quebec City and found a parking spot near the city center. We loved walking the cobblestone streets of the old upper and lower towns. We drank coffee on the terrace outside the famous Hotel Frontenac overlooking the river below. We took a ferry from the lower town over to the south side of the river and back. (I’d post more photos but we continue have trouble with internet connections.)

From the hotel we walked along the promenade above the cliffs overlooking the river, alongside the walls of the Citadel, and onto the Plains of Abraham. The rolling expanse of green space was not named after the Old Testament patriarch but after Abraham Martin, the original owner of the land. On September 13, 1759, British forces led by Gen. James Wolfe scaled the cliffs in the pre-dawn darkness, surprising the French defenders. After an hour’s fighting, they occupied the city, winning a key battle in the Seven Years War with France. The battle basically won Canada for the British.

On Monday we drove along the north side of the river to Charlevoix, a region of striking scenery where the southern edge of the Canadian Shield rises above a widening river. Highlights were a free round-trip ferry ride across a section of the river to dock on the Isle-aux-Coudres, a bit of pottery shopping, wading into the river at the beach at Saint Irenee, and an afternoon tea on the veranda of the Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu, near Le Malbaie. As we looked out on the river there in perfect summer weather, we could see two passing freighters and the southern bank of the river more than 10 miles across.

After a week in the province of Quebec, we hitched up the trailer on Tuesday morning, crossed the river, and drove on to New Brunswick and a one-night camping spot in Grand Falls and today on to Moncton in a steady rain. Lord willing, we’ll spend the next four weeks in the Maritime Provinces and Newfoundland.

[Dear readers: I may not be able to post regularly on this blog for the rest of this RV trip. Poor or non-existent internet connection has made it a real challenge to upload the text and especially the photos. I will continue to post photos and comments on FaceBook.]

A week ago today we began a seven-week RV trip that will take us through eastern Canada and then back home through the Hudson Valley of New York. Our itinerary includes Quebec, the Maritime Provinces, and Newfoundland, which can only be reached by a seven-hour ferry ride.

We intended to enter Canada on Saturday, but I forgot to pack may passport! Our friend, neighbor and pastor, Dan Clifford, kindly sent it to our campground along the St. Lawrence River near Clayton, NY, via FedEx. It arrived on Monday just before noon.

We entered Canada with our 30-foot travel trailer early that afternoon. The entrance at the Thousand Island station took about an hour. The friendly Canadian border agent asked us if we were going to leave anything in Canada and if we had any firearms (no to both) and where we were going. When we told him our itinerary, he gave us several suggestions of what to see.

With our stay in Ottawa cut down to one night, we only had time to go out to dinner with a long-time friend of Elizabeth from her time in the hotel business in England. Elizabeth had not seen Christine since the mid-1980s, but they had kept in touch and had plenty to talk about, as good friends do.

On Tuesday morning, we hitched up the travel trailer and drove to our current campground on the northwest edge of Montreal. Yesterday we drove the truck into the city and spent the afternoon walking through Old Montreal. We paid $14 (Canadian) each to enter the ornate Notre Dame Basilica and were treated to works played on its giant pipe organ, including Bach’s wonderful Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (see this 30-second FB clip). At a coffee shop Elizabeth wrote a birthday note to her friend in Ottawa and then we caught a one-hour cruise on the St. Lawrence River that took us beneath the huge Jacques Cartier Bridge.

Tomorrow we’re off to spend four nights at an RV park on the Ile d’ Orleans on the St. Lawrence River near Quebec City.

My father, Donald W. Griswold, was born 108 years ago today, on August 6, 1914. We all remember him fondly for his devotion to his wife, family, community, career, and country. Below the photographs is the eulogy I delivered at his funeral in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, in 2005. For more details about his life story, here is an obituary posted at the time by the local funeral home.

Eulogy for Donald W. Griswold (1914-2005), delivered by Daniel Griswold, Sauk Centre, Minnesota, July 25, 2005:

My Dad was a good husband, a good father, and a good man, and he enjoyed a good life. In his final years, he surrendered many of the activities he enjoyed one by one, and he did so with dignity, grace, and good humor. I would often remind my Dad that he had a lot to be thankful for. He would always respond, “I know.”

His greatest blessing in this life was my mother. She looked after him for almost 59 years with love and patience. He had the best in-house hospice care any man ever had. Another great blessing for my dad was the town of Sauk Centre. On behalf of my family, let me thank the people of this church and this town for being such good neighbors to my mom and dad for the past 34 years. My dad could not have picked a better place to settle and run a newspaper. And these past four days, you have shown your love through cards, phone calls, visits, and all that wonderful food that piled up in Mom’s kitchen.

Anyone who knew my Dad well, or maybe for 15 minutes, knew that he admired Abraham Lincoln. One of the characteristics of Lincoln that he told me he admired was that Lincoln was always thinking. Like his idol, my dad’s mind was always working—whether he was crafting an article or an argument, or solving an engineering problem at home or the newspaper. His ceaseless mental exercise kept him sharp to the end. When I was home for a brief visit only ten days ago, he was retrieving articles for me to read from the pouch of his walker. He had just finished reading David McCullough’s new book, 1776, and was reviewing it when he died.

There was much about my dad’s life to admire. Four years ago, on his 87th birthday, I sent him a letter, telling him the lessons I had absorbed from him over the years.

Dear Dad …

I enjoyed our telephone conversation today. You remain in good fighting form. If you thought I sounded good in articulating my arguments on C-SPAN on Saturday, you deserve a good chunk of the credit for teaching me how. I’ve been listening to you do basically the same thing for 40 years or so.

Other things I’ve learned from watching you at home and at work:

• Study history. It is more interesting than most stories people make up, it’s true, and it helps us understand our present condition. We can learn much from the examples of great and good men in history.
• Get your facts straight. People are persuaded by facts. If you get a fact wrong, your opponents will jump on it to undermine your credibility and cause.
• Stick to your principles. Friends and acquaintances come and go, but sound principles endure. They are worth fighting for.
• Deal honestly with people. No short-term gain from dishonesty is worth sullying your reputation.
• Work steadily. Show up for work at the same time each day, the earlier the better. A slothful man is next to worthless.
• Look at the big picture. Ask yourself how your actions contribute to making this a better society. Avoid petty personal squabbles.
• Support your family. Support them financially in comfort but not in luxury. Be faithful to your wife.
• Appreciate things for their usefulness, not the status they confer. This applies to meals, clothes, cars, houses, etc.
• Measure people by their character. Are they honest, do they think clearly, do they care about principles and the big picture? Money, big houses, and flashy cars mean nothing.
• Observe moderation in personal habits. Late nights, excessive drinking, and time-consuming hobbies distract from steady work, principles, and the big picture.
• Don’t demand or expect perfection in others. This applies to co-workers as well as children. I feel sorry for those men I meet or hear about who say, ‘I could never live up to my father’s expectations.’ You always took pleasure in my modest triumphs and always had a kind word, never harsh, when I stumbled.

Well, I’m sure I could think of more lessons I’ve learned from you, Dad, but I think these cover most of the major ones. I’m thankful to the Lord that I have been able to call you Dad for these almost 43 years. You and Mom have been wonderful parents. May you enjoy good health and many more birthdays.

Love, Dan.

Ninety years may seem to be a long time, but it is a brief moment in the eyes of God. The prophet Isaiah tells us in Chapter 40:

And in Chapter 55:

I thank God for such a wonderful dad.

The Immigrant Superpower: How Brains, Brawn, and Bravery Make America Stronger, by Tim Kane (Oxford University Press, 2022, 250 pp, $29.95)

In today’s polarized debate over immigration, Hoover Institution scholar Tim Kane offers fresh and nuanced arguments in his new book, The Immigrant Superpower: How Brains, Brawn, and Bravery Make America Stronger.

As an Air Force veteran, a Ph.D. economist, and card-carrying conservative Republican, Kane represents a point of view on immigration that is underrepresented on cable TV and the Twitterverse. While the book offers an informed analysis on more familiar economic and cultural questions, his central argument that immigration puts “the power in American super power” should appeal to a broad cross-section of Americans, especially in our time of rising conflict with rivals China and Russia.

“The only way to win the great power competition of the 21^st century,” Kane writes, “is by embracing America’s identity as a nation of immigrants.”

Immigration boosts America’s “soft power” in the world by attracting talented scientists and entrepreneurs from other nations, while enhancing our national image as a haven for oppressed people. But immigration also enhances America’s hard power by strengthening the U.S. military compared to our chief rivals.

“We should be wary that the restrictions some politicians today want to place on legal immigration might hurt the long-term strength of the American military,” Kane writes, reminding us that the U.S. military has relied heavily on immigrants to fill its ranks during war time.

Immigration represents a key advantage for the United States militarily against demographically-challenged Russia and China. “Not only have the immigrants increased the population of the United States decisively – putting the power in American super power – but a disproportionately high percentage volunteer to serve in the ranks,” Kane writes. “Furthermore, immigrant soldiers are disproportionately heroic. That’s not just a claim rooted in anecdotes. Across all of America’s conflicts, one out of five recipients of the medal of honor are first-generation immigrants.”

Looking back on our history, immigrants were a huge advantage to the north in the Civil War. Kane notes that at the outbreak of the war there were more immigrants in the 10 square miles of lower Manhattan than over the 770,000 square miles of the confederacy. And in the 20^th century, first- and second-generation immigrants from southern Europe–what one critic characterized as the “dark Mediterranean sub species”–fought bravely alongside their fellow Americans on the beaches of Normandy and the Pacific, and other battlegrounds in both the First and Second World Wars.

In one of the more original sections of the book, Kane offers evidence that presidential greatness tends to be associated with a more favorable policy approach to immigration. Two of the nation’s greatest presidents, Washington and Lincoln, embraced immigration. At a tavern in New York City after the British finally left in 1783, Washington offered the toast, “May America be an asylum to the persecuted of the earth!” And President Lincoln, in a letter to Congress, advocated “a system for the encouragement of immigration,” calling it “this source of national wealth and strength.”

No ethnic group benefited more from Washington’s vision of America as a haven for the oppressed than the Jews of Europe. Jews began to flee the continent in 1881 as anti-Jewish pogroms swept through the Russian Empire after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. During the decade that followed, Kane notes, one-third of Europe’s Jewish population fled to the United States. That door was tragically shut with “the shameful turning away of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution during Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency.”

Like more immigration-skeptic conservatives, Kane argues for limiting immigrant access to welfare, which has the political benefit of making American voters more comfortable with expanding immigration. He affirms the need to offer asylum to those fleeing persecution, but reasonably observes that most nations deny asylum to applicants who are arriving from a safe third country. He believes that border walls can play a constructive role in curbing illegal immigration and other problems at the border.

Kane isn’t worried about whether immigrants are assimilating into American culture. As in past generations, immigrants and their children are learning English and largely embracing traditional American values. Today’s culture wars are more of an internal struggle among the native born. As Kane writes, “The problem today is not that immigrants aren’t assimilating to American values but that young Americans aren’t assimilating to American values.”

Instead of a sweeping overhaul of the immigration system, Kane favors more incremental reforms. He argues for expanding the under-appreciated diversity lottery visa, describing it as a program that radiates soft power in a way that is unmatched by our rivals. He supports economic agreements with other market democracies to allow the freer flow of people along with goods, services, and capital. (I’ve argued myself for such agreements with Canada and the United Kingdom.) He wants Congress to expand work visas, setting higher standards while raising ceilings on the numbers.

When it comes to immigration, Tim Kane is no stereotyped “open borders” liberal. He’s an economically literate, Republican veteran with a wealth of practical policy experience. In The Immigrant Superpower, he asks the perfectly sensible question, “Why would we change the policy and approach that has made America the strongest country of all time?”

Of all the ways to get exercise, my favorite is hiking through a stretch of beautiful scenery, with a preference for woods, rushing streams, and mountain peaks. In the past year, I’ve been able to indulge my interest as my wife Elizabeth and I—both recently retired—traveled across the United States with an RV in tow, visiting more than 20 national parks. Along the way, I was able to hike some memorable trails in such parks as the Great Smoky Mountains, Big Bend, Yosemite, Olympic, Glacier, and Yellowstone, as well as the mountains of Colorado.

In contrast to a treadmill or a swimming pool, hiking gets you out in God’s creation, breathing fresh air, seeing new sights, with no special skills required other than reasonably good health. And hiking also reminds me of deeper truths by providing a metaphor of our journey through life.

I can think of at least three ways that hiking reminds me of our life in this world. One way is that on the hiking trail, as in everyday life, the more difficult path is often the most rewarding. Steep switch backs up a mountainside can strain our knees and tax our lungs, but they can also take us above timberline to the highest spots where we can see stunning vistas for miles and miles.

In a hike through Lydford Gorge in southwest England in 2016, we came across a sign at a fork in the path that pointed one way for “LONG AND EASY” and the other for “SHORT AND STEEP.” In this case, both paths led to the same destination, but on other trails, the seemingly easier path can lead us astray. In John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian comes to his own fork in the road, with one path leading up to “Hill Difficultly,” and two others appearing to be easier but labeled “Danger” and “Destruction.” The pilgrim takes the correct path, despite its promise of difficulty, while Formalist and Hypocrisy take the other two, both leading to fatal dead ends. Bunyan concludes the scene with this verse: “Better, though difficult, the right way to go/ Than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe.”

This lesson came home to me the hard way more than 30 years ago when we were living in Colorado and I climbed Pikes Peak for the first time. A popular path to the 14,115-foot summit, Barr Trail, is both long and steep, covering 13 miles and climbing 7,000 feet from the trailhead to the top. More than halfway up, I came to a fork in the road and, probably because I was tiring and my brain was a bit short of oxygen, I missed the sign and took the path that looked easier. It proved to be a side trail leading to a dead end called the “Bottomless Pit.” Once I realized my error, I had to turn around and, back at the fork, continue my journey upward because it was too far to go back down. I eventually reached the summit, exhausted by the extra effort but elated to tears.

Another way hiking mirrors our walk through life is that, in my experience, it’s better to stick to established trails than to blaze one’s own path. This doesn’t mean that we mechanically follow the crowd, but that we humbly rely on the wisdom of those who’ve walked before us. As the Lord spoke through the prophet Jeremiah, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.’” (Jeremiah 6:16).

Sticking to a marked path can avoid unnecessary trouble while leading us to the most rewarding destinations. If you try to find your own way by leaving an established trail, you can end up in a thicket, or going in circles, or worse. In fact, established paths are the best and often the only way to reach our desired goals, whether it’s an overlook at the rim of Yosemite Valley, success in your profession, happiness in marriage, or eternal rest with God in the Celestial City. In all those journeys, I’m grateful for the more “ancient paths” that have been blazed before us.

Years ago I read Tolkien’s The Hobbit to our three children. Early in the book, Gandalf warns the hobbits to follow the Old Forest Road as the best way to get through the “cursed forest”:

Stick to the forest-track, keep your spirits up, hope for the best, and with a tremendous slice of luck you may come out one day and see the Long Marshes lying below you, and beyond them, high in the East, the Lonely Mountain where dear old Smaug lives, though I hope he is not expecting you.

Many readers will know how the story unfolds. Despite the wizard’s warning, the hobbits stray from the path and end up lost and at the mercy of the wood elves. For the hobbits, as for us, sticking to the path and doing what’s right, far from being boring and predictable, can lead to the adventure of a lifetime.

Many beautiful and well-established trails remain uncrowded exactly because they are strenuous and remote. I recently hiked a 9.5-mile loop along the Fiery Gizzard Trail near Tracy City, Tenn. The white-blazed path led me over moss-covered rocks, along a rushing stream, past waterfalls, and up to scenic overlooks. In my five-plus hours on the trail, I didn’t encounter a single other person, even on a mild 60-degree December day.

A third life lesson I’ve learned from hiking is the reward of steady, sustained, if unspectacular effort. It’s amazing the spots you can reach if you just put one foot ahead of the other mile after mile. On the back end of a two-day, 20-mile backpacking hike in Colorado two years ago, I was able to motivate myself up a steep series of 16 switchbacks by tackling them two at a time, telling myself I’ll savor the view for a minute at every other turn. Before long I was going over the ridge line and on my way back to the parking lot and home.

A corollary to this lesson is not to stop but to keep going even when you’re tiring. When I took that wrong turn on Pikes Peak, feeling weary and a bit discouraged, I fell in with an older and more experienced hiker on his way up. As we plodded along together, he gave me a piece of advice that I’ve always remembered: when you’re tired, keep walking, even if it means taking slower and shorter steps. Better to make slow, steady progress than no progress at all.

I’ve found these rules apply whatever kind of path I’m walking. In the Psalms, the writers took comfort in knowing God was with them wherever they were, whether on a mountainside or in a meadow or a dark valley. In Psalm 18 we read, “[God] made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights.” In Psalm 143, God is asked, “Teach me to do your will, for you are my God! Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground!” And even at the lowest and most difficult moments, Psalm 23 declares, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

Whatever path you’re called to walk at this moment in your life, my advice is to not fear the more difficult path, to stick to the trail, and to keep walking, one step at a time, until you reach the end.

Finished Moby Dick last week (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1993). It’s a wondrous work of genius. Among the more memorable passages was the image of the ship heading into the night with the fire of the blubber boiler blazing on deck (p. 350), the encounter with the Rachel and its distraught captain seeking his son in the missing boat (p. 432), and Ahab peering into the deep to see the open maw of Moby Dick rising to the surface (p. 448– see the cover from another edition below). 

Ishmael counts it time to go to sea “whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul.” The sermon early in the book calls us to be “only a patriot of heaven.” Melville describes the sinking of the whale ship Essex by a whale in 1820 on p. 172, which I’ve read may have inspired him to write the book.

I loved the descriptions of the sea, such as this passage on p. 442 just before the final encounter with the white whale:

It was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of the air and sea were hardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only, the pensive air was transparently pure and soft, with a woman’s look, and the robust and man-like sea heaved with long, strong, lingering swells, as Samson’s chest in his sleep.

Or this as the Lakeman on p. 215 recounts an encounter with Moby Dick where “the appalling beauty of the vast milky mass, that lit up by a horizontal spangling sun, shifted and glistened like a living opal in the blue morning sea.”

The most sympathetic character to me was Starbuck, the first mate who appealed in vain to the captain to give up his monomaniacal quest. I would want to be him in such a forbidding situation—competent, loyal, yet speaking the truth to power and guarding the general interest of others. Starbuck said, “I will have no man in my boat who is not afraid of a whale.” Melville writes that, “By this he seemed mean that not only the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.” In a final confrontation, Ahab waves a pistol at Starbuck and orders him on deck. But Starbuck, “mastering his emotion, he half calmly rose, and as he quitted the cabin, paused for an instant and said: ‘Thou has outraged, not insulted me, sir; but for what I asked thee not to beware of Starbuck; thou wouldst but laugh; but let Ahab beware of Ahab; beware of thyself, old man.’”