The Ottawa Journal from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • Page 35

I 1 Saturday, October 19, 1968 The Ottawa Journaf Saturday Section jtt-, 'The Terraplane' A New Twist By JEFF CARRUTHERS The latest off-shoot of the air cushion vehicle family lis truck-like "Terraplane," currently undergoing tests for the department of transport at Orleans, 10 miles east of Ottawa. The "Terraplane" can use its four-wheel drive on cut-. over or bulldozed land; switch to four paddlewheel drive over marshes andxthrough lakes aitd rivers; and use a large airplane propeller for extra power up inclines or at high-speeds: The truck rides on a cushion of air, supplied by a niiiimiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiii A Young Wives Sale By NINO LO BELLO CLUJ, Rumania1 Looking for a wife? Come to the once-a-year "Girl Market" of Caina and pick one out. Once every year the outdoor "Girl Market" stages its annual event which is now officially more of a folklore tourist attraction. But- let's call a spade a spade and say that in spite of Communist authorities who say "No! No!" a peasant lass will say "Yes! Yes!" if she likes the young feller who asks for her hand.

I After all, this is how mountain wbmen of Transylvania have been finding husbands for centuries and no johnny-come-lately government is going to tell these hardy females how to land a man. Today, therefore, the yearly, occurrence which usually takes place on the next-to-the-last Sunday in July is carried out in such a way that iiiiiiiimiiiiiiiMHiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiMiiiiiiiHiiiimiiiiiiiiiw to Air-Cushioned Transport huge Ian underneath Its flatbed and controlled by eight rubber skirts three on each side and one at each end which determine its clearance. The front and rear axles are each powered by individual 45 hp motors. Each of the four, wheels has paddles attached to its rims. and-built by a French firm, Berlin and Cie, the prototype "Terraplane BC 7" was obtained for the tests by Hoverwork Canada Limit-' ed, the Canadian agent.

The tests being conducted at the Land Engineering Trials Establishment of the the Rumanian Secret Police (many of whom deliberately look the other 'way) do not notice it if a would-be husband shopping for a mate proposes to a girl "on sale in the Market." OH, THERE are other attractions like folk dancing exhibitions, comedy skits, games of skill and chance, gastronomic tidbits and souvenirs to buy aplenty. But the some 50,000 people who visit Gaina Mountain in Rumania on that particular Sunday all keep their nosey eyes focused for the open-air marriage negotiations, deals that' are often closed in a matter of seconds. How did Gaina come about? Centuries ago someone a bright idea, no doubt a woman. Because the men of Transylvania would leave home to work at their solitary jobs as shepherds for six months at a time before "yiM -Li Then Department of National Defence will give Transport' and Hoverwork officials an idea of the "Terraplane's" commercial possibilities by next spring, a Hoverwork spokesman says. Its developers feel it would be ideally-suited to Canadian off-road transportation needs, particularly in the North.

On level ground, the vehicle is capable of speeds up to Si) miles an hour. Over roughly" cleared track with obstacles, its speed is about 30 miles an hour. On water, it has a speed maximum of six' piles an hour. taking a week vacation, the girls who stayed behind had little chance to meet, eligible males their age. And so it was' decided that on one day of the year, the men from ail over the scattered hills could convene at a designated spot and so would the gals.

Selected as the meeting place was Gaina Mountain, a few hours drive from the city of Cluj. Hundreds of beauties deeming themselves ready for marriage would dress up in their best finery, pack all their per-sonal and the livestock that poppa offered them and display all this and themselves at Gaina's "Gir Market" where all parties went to reach a fancy figure. During the day the boys would parade up and down and iize up Cupid's candidates before making a pick. Any girl who agreed right oh the spot to become some man's wife would close up her trunks and valises and go off with her new-found husband to live wherever he happened to have his home. Mother and Dad would be there to beam approval.

According to some unofficial records, nearly every maiden who marketed herself at Gaina ended up married. I ONCE WED, the husband went off again to the faraway hills with his sheep to come home only periodically. Communication between him and his wife was kept up with an ancient system of blowing on long, 10-foot horns. The women would blow these elongated trumpets using a code language, and hubby would always have news from back home. Let there be a note signalling danger and in a matter of minutes the lone spouse would have enough help on hand until her.

absentee husband reached the scene. Though the nist regime has not been able to curb the "Market," the women who run the Gaina impose but a single regulation on every transaction: Only one to a customer! (Pholo Ftaluris) The Biggest Cheese In the World One way to attract attention is to be big. A sure way is to be the biggest in the world, whether it be a build- cheddar cheese. The biggest cheese ever made in the world was produced at Perth, Ont. It weighed exactly 11 tons, which is a big hunk of cheese.

It was 28 feet around and stood six feet high. The big cheese required the milk' of 10,000 cows for one and 12 cheese factories in the vicinity of Perth contributed two days curd for its production. What possessed them to manufacture this monster? Who would want to buy pounds of cheese in one chunk? In a way it was a publicity stunt, but the idea behind the making of this mammoth cheese was a laudable one. It was sponsored by the. Dairy Branch of the Department of Agriculture, and was made in a few days in September, 1S92.

During the next year the greatly ballyhooed 1S93 World's Fair was to be held in Chicago and the big cheese was to be part of Canada's exhibit at the Exposition. AFTER SPENDING the winter in the freight shed at Perth it was loaded on a flat car, and on April 17, 1893, started on its triumphal journey to Chicago. A special' train was provided by the Canadian Pacific Railway. A cheering throng crowded the station platform to bid the cheese farewell while the Perth Citizens Band played patriotic music. At every station en route (an advance timetable was widely publicized) the inhabitants for miles around gathered at the stations to view the Mammoth Cheese.

The fact that many prominent people, including the Governor General, Lord Stanley, had visited the cheese in its winter quarters at the freight shed helped to spread its fame. And there was no' nonsense about it: no bevy of Dairy i v. Photostory By Hal Kirkland Maid Queens accompanied the cheese to share the spotlight. The Mammoth Cheese made it on its own dignified, solid presence. WHEN THE CHEESE was unloaded at Chicago it was hauled on a special float to the World's Fair site to be placed with the Canadian exhibits.

At that time the making of cheddar cheese was big business in Canada. The industry was based almost entirely on the export market 90 per cent was exported and we were producing more than 200 million pounds a year. What better place to advertise than at an International Exposition? And it must be said that the big cheese co-operated beautifully, because it Was rio sooner placed with the Canadian display when it obligingly crashed through the floor and had to be moved to a specially reinforced floor in another building. The Chicago Tribune a many other newspapers in the States featured this misadventure "Mammoth Canadian Cheese Crashes Through Floor." Now the big cheese along with Little Egypt, the exotic dancer, became the talk of the Fair. TODAY, the tables are turned in Canada's cheese industry.

Our export ot cheddar is negligible, and now 90 per cent of our cheese production is consumed in Canada, often under such appealing names as Swiss, Parmesan. Blue and Camambert. Really our most distinctly Canadian-cheese is Oka, made in the Trappist Monastery at Oka, Quebec; The big round chedd a cheeses that our grandfathers kept in the cellar and turned every day during the winter are fast becoming a thing of the past. ft BOYD'S CHEESE FACTORY, near Innisville, is one of the few remaining factories still making the round cheddar Fraser Schoolhouse An early advertisement on the opening of a school in New Edinburgh is dated 19th June, 1838, and appeared in the Bytown Gazette. The original schoolteacher, James Fraser, who fought in the Rebellion of 1847, had previously taught in both Mont-1 real and Quebec before he was brought to Ottawa by Thomas MacKay, founder of New Today the Fraser Schoolhouse, the attractive stone building on John Street, near Sussex Drive, has been restored by National Capital Commission which uses it as a district -headquarters; Roderick Clack, Chief Architect with the NCC, says the restoration of the old schoolhouse is not "too far out of context." He also says there were a number of alterations during the many years of tenure which changed the appearance of the building.

When the schoolhouse was restored, Mr. Clack said, it was thought the original building didn't have dormers. Further studies revealed, however, it was always a two-storey struclure with Too, the original doors were probably cedar plank, Mr. Clack says. The present doors have been slotted to allow light to penetrate inside.

GLADYS BLAIR. When brought from the cheese factory they were already bandaged with cheese cloth and enclosed in a very thin wooden casing Made from a special type of elm that could be bent full circle. Now even the sprinkling of old cheese factories that are still operating are changing to square cheeses. In a few years the old round wooden cheese box will be a museum piece. In those days the cheese was not sold until a month old, and some factories had as many as 2,000 cheese, on hand which had.

to be turned every day. THE S. community cheese factories that stood on every other crdss in rural Ontario are now obsolete and are being replaced by larger, more modern and fewer plants. If you want to see one of the old fashioned cheese factories in operation, go soon, while there are still a few. And before you find one you will probably pass abandoned factories standing at the roadside, forlorn relics of the once numerous, familiar factories scattered over the countryside.

If you fail to find one, there is a model pioneer cheese factory at Upper Can- ada Village, near -Mprrisburg, Ontario. At one time there Nwere more than 500 cheese fact. ies, in Eastern Ontario; nor there are only a handful. Of the 12 cheese factories, in the Perth area that took part in the making, of the mammoth cheese only one the factory at Balderson is now operating. WHAT HAPPENED to the big cheese after the World's Fair? Well, theyTiad a buyer, wealthy British tea importer, Thomas Lipton, later to become Sir Thomas Lipton, yachting enthusiast.

Sir Thomas had a nice appreciation of the value of publicity. A deal was made and I a i i kii i to jjV 21000 fSSI 's '-tr Wjiemo HARRY McINTOSH of Almonte, poses beside the replica of Perth's "big cheese," which is located on Highway 7. on the village outskirts. Mr. Mcintosh started making cheese in 1905 and was the first president of the dntario Cheesemakers Association, which he organized.

In 1925, he won the silver medal second prize at the British Dairy-Exposition in England for the best cheese made in the Empire. the' cheese was shipped to-England. When it landed in Liverpool a rumor was circulated that the cheese had gone bad, due, it was said, to its long sojourn at the Fair where the weather was oppressively hot. Mr. Lipton said the deal was off and the Canadian Government, to its dismay, had.

the cheese on their hands again. George Publow and J. Ruddic'k, of the Dairy Branch of the Department of Agri culture, rushed over to Eng- id and had a cheese expert examine the giant at Liverpool. Heeported that the decay was confined to the top 12 inches sothere was a lot of good cheeseSeft. It was later soUVto a high- class caterer in London nam ed Jubal Webb.

Fortunately Mr. Webb wl a sensitive, imaginative man and regarded his purchase as something more than an ordinary commercial After all, the mammoth iiiiiirjiiiiiiMifiitiiiitiiMiiiMiiiii riiiiriiMiiiiiiMiiJiiiiiiiNdiiuMiiiMiiiMiiiiiiJinttfiiiriiiifiiiifiiiiNiiriiir an's recipe by MflYON Apple Crisp, Unless you have been a 12-year-old boy on a farm with 800 Baldwin apple- trees, you don't know about a late fall task in the orchard. When there was a heavy crop, we "propped." the branches to prevent their breaking. We had several thousand sturdy saplings of maple and oak of varying lengths. At the top of each was a V-shaped angle where we left stubs of branches.

A prop was set under a branch. Come November, on Saturdays, I hitched Old Jerry to the farm wagon and collected the props to use the next' year. Old Jerry was a faithful farm plug, and fortified with a few of mother's sugar cookies, we worked along together, finishing another prs-winter task. For this apple crisp use four large or six small apples, one teaspoon lemon Yl Canadian cheese had the show at the 1 1 a World's MR. WEBB, to his credit, made quite an occasion of cutting up the famous cheese.

There was a most dignified and formal ceremony. Sir Charles Tupper represent the Canadian Government and the Horn Hiram Black the Canadian cheese industry at the cutting ceremony. So the obsequies of the famous mammoth cheese were carried out in a fitting and dignified manner. Some years later a monument was erected in Perth to" commemorate the cheese. The monument, incidentally, is a classic example of representational art (see photo).

But the hundreds of once busy cheese factories have fallen by the wayside, abandoned, unsung and forgotten. Jhe not too distant future therem ay be only one left the onexat Upper Canada Vil lage. PEARSON With Cheese juice, one tablespoon orange juice, 12 pieces of cheddar cheese the size of kidney beans, three fourths cup flour, one cup sugar, three fourths teaspoon cinnamon, one fourth teaspoon nutmeg, one fourth teaspoon allspice, four shakes cloves, one tablespoon light brown sugar, one fourth pound butter or margarine, 12 pieces butter the size of kidney beans. Put apple slices in greased shallow six by nine baking dish; scatter the cheese bits. Drizzle on the lemon juice and orange juice.

Sift flour, white sugar and spices into bowl; add the brown sugar and mix. Cut in butter with blender until mixture is crumbly. Pat crumb mix onto apples. Scatter the 12 pieces of butter. Bake at 375 about 45 minutes or until done.

four. Good alone, with heavy cream or with Ice cream. and Now (Journol Photo by Dominion Wide) V.J1.