1980s American Cars, Guns, Gadgets and Consumer Goods [Atmosphere, look, minutiae]

[Icelander]

I've got a technical question for the forumites.

1) How good was 1985-1988 forensics at determining time of death for decomposed bodies recovered from a river in spring?

Assume that the victim was thrown into the river at some time ranging from four weeks to six months before, imperfectly weighed down and came floating up with the spring. We'll say that a typical body would have been thrown there in January, recovered in April or May.

2) How large would the window for 'time of death' that a typical ME would leave himself in such a case be? Are we talking that he could determine death to within a certain three day range, a certain week or a certain month?

3) Would late 80s forensic science be able to tell from such a decomposed body if it had been stored in a freezer previously to being disposed of in the river?

For arguments sake, let's say that the bodies were stored in a freezer for anywhere from a week to six months.

--3a) Assuming they could not tell, how much would this skew the time of death estimate?

--3b) Assuming that they could tell, how much extra uncertainty regarding precise time of death does this introduce?

[Icelander]

I actually have a question that is not about the ruralest of rural Maine!

Does anyone here live in New York City or know a lot about it?

I'm looking for a street somewhere in the Greenwich Village where it might be plausible that there could have been a small warehouse which was not in use for three years or so. There can have been a developer which owned it, with plans to turn it into condos or gallery space or whatever, but for some reason, the property simply sat idle for three years.

It would be best if the area around it could be dilapidated as well. Also ideal if this could be close to the Hudson River, but I realise that riverfront property is probably expensive enough so that it makes little sense for no one to make constructive use of it.

Cool if it is in an 'off the grid' area. Good if no one lives nearby, though in New York City, I realise that this is a pretty tall order. Make it 'no one important lives nearby', i.e. an area with artists, squatters, the homeless, etc.

I seem to recall the East Village being pretty run down in the 80s...

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I'm fairly used to stories featuring Native Americans in the American Colonies/United States between 1750 and 1890, with the setting moving progressively West during the first century and with most of the classic tales being set on the Great Plains, the Dakotas or on either side of the Mexican borderlands.

What I do not have is a good feel for 'civilised' Indians in the area of the original 13 colonies during the latter part of the 19th century. Nor do I know much about Native Americans or First Nation people for much of the 20th century.*

What I'm considering is the background of an NPC named Joseph Greybear. He was born in 1944, in Allagash, Aroostook County, Maine. At the time of play, he is therefore aged 44. He might not have an entirely commonplace background, in that he was born to a very old and eccentric Mi'kmaq, who avoided any settlement too large for him to be able to know everyone in it personally, and his eight or ninth wife, a pretty young Métis woman with Maliseet ancestry, from St. Francis, Aroostook County, Maine. I would like to avoid making his background farcical, rather than merely eccentric, however.

Greybear is also a veteran of the United States Marine Corps. His enlistment would have been for four years, he'd have enlisted fairly early in 1967 and been deployed 4-6 months later.

After his 6-month tour was done, he'd have offered to extend it to 13-months in exchange for the R&R benefits this brought. This means rotation back stateside in mid-1968 or so. While there, he and a corporal from his squad, who had both unofficially performed the role of sharpshooters and scouts for their company, were both offered a post in a Scout/Sniper platoon. Both of them volunteered to be deployed again despite the policy of a 2-year stateside post after a combat tour** and he was back in country in 1969, for another 13-month deployment.

I'm considering several questions:

a) How fluid was the border between the United States and Canada for Native Americans/First Nations people in the 19th century? Greybear's father was very old and lived between 1864-1958. Could the older Grey Bear have viewed the distinction between Canada and Maine as immaterial, having family on both sides? Or were there strict measures taken in the 19th century to prevent Mi'kmaq or Maliseet people from ignoring the border and being Canadian when it suited them and Mainians on other occasions?

b) I've read some stuff about the abuses of Canada in regard to the schooling of First Nations children. How plausible is it for someone who grew up in the 1870s and was an adult by 1882 to have escaped any form of formalised schooling in either Canada or Maine? If not very plausible, could he have learned to read and write from priests, but never actually attended one school for very long?

c) How plausible is it for Joseph Greybear to have been successfully kept from going to the Allagash Public School between 1950-1964? His father would have taught him to read and write, along with the necessaries of trapping, stalking and shooting, and only when his parent died did the local priest manage to have Joseph given some proper schooling, in a Catholic school in St. Francis.

d) How plausible is it for Greybear to have been able to extend his second tour even further than 13 months and/or to take a short R&R break and then immediately continue for another tour in 1971?***

e) What rank would be most likely hold after four years as a Marine? Exemplary soldier, highly valued observer in a Scout-Sniper Platoon, brilliant fieldcraft and good at teaching new Marines how to patrol, but in temperament always subservient to his older friend, also an enlisted Scout-Sniper, but most likely one rank higher.

*As regard modern Native Americans, in so far as they are distinct from other Americans, I've read books written by modern Native American historians and anthropologists, seen movies set on reservations and visited a reservation in Connecticut. Granted, said reservation was a giant casino and not very representative of anyone's culture, unless it represented our collective abnegation of culture.
**Which limited men with normal 3-4 year enlistments to only one combat tour unless they explicitly volunteered for more or were unlucky enough to belong to a unit with a messed-up deployment schedule or have an MOE which was deemed vital/scarce enough for this unofficial policy not to apply.
***He had originally enlisted because his best friend did. That best friend became transfered with him to the Scout-Sniper Platoon, became his Sergeant and usually worked with him as the bolt-action rifle sniper of their scout-sniper team. This best friend lost his brother in combat in 1968 and in 1969, he discovered that his other brother had gone AWOL in Thailand. Just before Christmas, 1970, the best friend's wife died of a stroke. At that time, the Sergeant should have gone home and taken care of his young son, but was psychologically unable to face going home after all these losses. Instead, he did all he could to remain in the combat zone, where he understood his duties, and left his son in the hands of his parents and in-laws. Greybear wouldn't want to leave his friend, even if he privately thought he was being stupid.

The Civilized Tribes lived in a manner similar to white southerners. According to wikipedia they still were ruled politically by Indian-style chiefdoms rather then English, French, or Spanish style aristocracy or American style bourgious republicanism. Culturally they were indistinguishable from many whites and often intermarried. They were certainly Christianized and they had a plantation economy similar to that of the South complete with African slaves. During the Civil War they fought on both sides as fairly conventional looking soldiers and at least one was at Appomatox with the Union army.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I'm fairly used to stories featuring Native Americans in the American Colonies/United States between 1750 and 1890, with the setting moving progressively West during the first century and with most of the classic tales being set on the Great Plains, the Dakotas or on either side of the Mexican borderlands.

What I do not have is a good feel for 'civilised' Indians in the area of the original 13 colonies during the latter part of the 19th century. Nor do I know much about Native Americans or First Nation people for much of the 20th century.*

What I'm considering is the background of an NPC named Joseph Greybear. He was born in 1944, in Allagash, Aroostook County, Maine. At the time of play, he is therefore aged 44. He might not have an entirely commonplace background, in that he was born to a very old and eccentric Mi'kmaq, who avoided any settlement too large for him to be able to know everyone in it personally, and his eight or ninth wife, a pretty young Métis woman with Maliseet ancestry, from St. Francis, Aroostook County, Maine. I would like to avoid making his background farcical, rather than merely eccentric, however.

Greybear is also a veteran of the United States Marine Corps. His enlistment would have been for four years, he'd have enlisted fairly early in 1967 and been deployed 4-6 months later.

After his 6-month tour was done, he'd have offered to extend it to 13-months in exchange for the R&R benefits this brought. This means rotation back stateside in mid-1968 or so. While there, he and a corporal from his squad, who had both unofficially performed the role of sharpshooters and scouts for their company, were both offered a post in a Scout/Sniper platoon. Both of them volunteered to be deployed again despite the policy of a 2-year stateside post after a combat tour** and he was back in country in 1969, for another 13-month deployment.

I'm considering several questions:

a) How fluid was the border between the United States and Canada for Native Americans/First Nations people in the 19th century? Greybear's father was very old and lived between 1864-1958. Could the older Grey Bear have viewed the distinction between Canada and Maine as immaterial, having family on both sides? Or were there strict measures taken in the 19th century to prevent Mi'kmaq or Maliseet people from ignoring the border and being Canadian when it suited them and Mainians on other occasions?

b) I've read some stuff about the abuses of Canada in regard to the schooling of First Nations children. How plausible is it for someone who grew up in the 1870s and was an adult by 1882 to have escaped any form of formalised schooling in either Canada or Maine? If not very plausible, could he have learned to read and write from priests, but never actually attended one school for very long?

1) How porous the border was depended a lot on what people you belonged to. Maliseet and Mik'maq (usually rendered Micmac up to the late 1970s), existed on both sides of the border and readily travelled between Canada and the U.S. Treaties between Canada and the U.S. generally provided for free passage of First Nations peoples across the border without let or hindrance. While Passamaquoddy have put forward a land claim against St. Andrews, New Brunswick, there haven't been any Passamaquoddy residents in New Brunswick since at least the 1930s and they have never had a Canadian reserve. As a sidenote, status Indians in Canada, as opposed to non-status Indians, have never been regarded as legally Canadian citizens. Thus a Maliseet is a Maliseet resident in Canada rather than a Canadian Maliseet or Maliseet-Canadian.

As an example of the iffiness of travel, Canada didn't particularly want Sitting Bull on our side of the Medicine Line (border) but he was able to press his claim that he and his followers were Canadian Indians by showing possession of a Queen's Medal for Chiefs. He was admitted for indefinite residence on a promise to abide by the Grandmother (Queen)'s laws.

Another First Nation that might be encountered in Maine would be the Penobscot. All four First Nations speak languages belonging to the Algonquin family.

2) while I can't answer for Maine, the grandfather might have had formal schooling on the reserve in New Brunswick, assuming he's either Maliseet or Miq'Maq and a status Indian. The school would not have been a residential school but might have had white teachers (or not).

The only residential school in the Maritimes was at Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, was run by the Sisters of Charity and operated from about 1920-1968. It was primarily for orphans, though its mandate was expanded early on. About 10% of the Miq'Maq population attended and by most accounts it was initially about as horrific as any other residential school.

A Maliseet (or Mik'Maq) Metis is unlikely as Maliseet and Miq'Maq didn't tend to marry foreigners.

A couple of points for colour. Mik'Maq were noted for their baskets and have treaty rights in New Brunswick to come onto any property and cut down a tree for the purpose of making a basket. (The any tree may be limited to any ash tree, the traditional tree for making the lathes that will be woven to make the basket, as I got this at second hand from my mother, whose father had it happen on his land.) Mik'Maq are sufficiently well known for their basketry that telling someone on the Six Nations reservation that someone is a Mik'Maq can elicit the insult, "damn basketmaker". In addition to waterproof baskets for fish, they sold baskets for potatoes to local farmers around harvest. Most potatoes were put in barrels but most farmers would buy a basket or two every harvest as well.

In fairness, the Maliseet and Mik'Maq have a long and hostile history with the Mohawks (who are part of the Six Nations). Every New Brunswick schoolchild knows the tale of brave Malabeam, a Mik'Maq woman captured by a Mohawk war party who were on their way to attack a larger Mik'Maq community and how she tricked them into tying their canoes together as she led them down the river and over Grand Falls (now Edmundston, New Bruswick), where she and they met their deaths.

From roughly 1950 through to the mid-1970s, most N.B. schoolchildren also had a Social Studies/History unit that taught them some of the Glooscap tales. (Algonquin myths, such as why Turtle's shell is black, or how Beaver dove and brought Glooscap land from the bottom of the water to make new land from when a flood destroyed the world.)

By the way, people from Maine don't refer to themselves as Mainians. Among New Englanders they're from Down East or Down Easters, a term also occasionally used by New Brunswickers to describe themselves. When New Brunswickers want to annoy their cousins from Down East, they're Maine-iacs.

Among Canadian Maritimers, New Brunswickers are Herring Chokers, Nova Scotians are Bluenosers (and the ship takes its name from the term, not the other way around) and people from Prince Edward Island, (P.E.I., pronounced as the individual letters, conversationally,) are Spud Islanders. None of the nicknames are considered perjorative but woe betide the "damned Ontarioite" [damned Ontarioites are any Canadian from west of Quebec who don't identify themselves, as well as actual damned Ontarioites] who uses the wrong nickname.

As for an earlier question regarding social conservatism. While people of Aroostock County would have laughed as hard as anyone else at the scene from 1981's Stripes:

Recruiter: Are you homosexual?
Harry Ramis's character: Do you mean like flaming?
Bill Murray's character: No, but we are willing to learn.

homosexuality wasn't well-accepted at this time. Even in Canada, businesses catering to homosexuals were occasionally being firebombed, sometimes by mistake as the bombers mistook the business for an abortion clinic. A gay couple from Boston wouldn't advertise their relationship. After five or ten years, they might come out to people in the area that were considered close friends and some others might guess that they were more than hunting buddies. On the other hand, no one would expect a howling mob to pull them out of their cabin and send them on their way, if only because there wasn't any group that well-organized with that kind of agenda.

White women being whistled at by groups of black teens wouldn't invite a lynching but it did make the women uncomfortable, even if they were comparatively liberal and enlightened about racial equality, many of them felt intimidated and tended to avoid travelling to Bangor alone for that reason.

As far as 10' satellite dishes and what programming was available, I'd assume that they were pretty much the same as the ones sold across the line in Canada. Aside from picking up both east and west coast network broadcasts (ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CBC, Radio-Canada [French CBC], CTV, ATV [CTV's Atlantic affiliate network], Global and TV-Ontario [educational channel] and a few independents like CHCH-TV), the 10' dishes with their receivers brought in broadcasts from around the world. One of our neighbours in Ontario used to get a kick out of watching broadcasts from Saudi Arabia, as well as sports broadcasts from the UK and Australia with his 10' dish. It was that competi6tion that led both the FCC in the States and the CRTC in Canada to regulate the satellite industry by mandating the current 3' dishes that can only pick up local (North American) broadcasts.

One jaw-dropping,"what-the-blazes" moment for me was being told by my cousins in Maine that when they wanted to find out what was "really" happening in the U.S., they tuned into the CBC (and that turned out to be a thing, even among Down Easters without Canadian relatives). More conservative Down Easters would tune into the MacNeil-Lehner News Hour on PBS.

[Curmudgeon]

Supplemental to the whole former thirteen colonies thing, a look at U.S. maps of the eastern U.S. shows comparatively few reserves in the former thirteen colonies area and what reserves there are, are smaller in size than reservations further west. Most tribes in the area were removed to the Indian Nation [Oklahoma] in the 1800s. The Cherokee of Kentucky are the most widely known case of Indian removal but the policy covered pretty much all of the eastern U.S., with a few notable exceptions such as the Seminoles.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

1) How porous the border was depended a lot on what people you belonged to. Maliseet and Mik'maq (usually rendered Micmac up to the late 1970s), existed on both sides of the border and readily travelled between Canada and the U.S. Treaties between Canada and the U.S. generally provided for free passage of First Nations peoples across the border without let or hindrance. While Passamaquoddy have put forward a land claim against St. Andrews, New Brunswick, there haven't been any Passamaquoddy residents in New Brunswick since at least the 1930s and they have never had a Canadian reserve. As a sidenote, status Indians in Canada, as opposed to non-status Indians, have never been regarded as legally Canadian citizens. Thus a Maliseet is a Maliseet resident in Canada rather than a Canadian Maliseet or Maliseet-Canadian.

Grey Bear (1864-1958) was a Mi'kmaq, born on US soil (recently US soil, as per the Aroostook War) to two First Nation Mi'kmaq. His son, Joseph Greybear (1944-), was born in the US to old Grey Bear and Léane Helia Francis, a sixteen-year-old Acadian/Maliseet US citizen from St. Francis, Aroostook County, Maine.

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

2) while I can't answer for Maine, the grandfather might have had formal schooling on the reserve in New Brunswick, assuming he's either Maliseet or Miq'Maq and a status Indian. The school would not have been a residential school but might have had white teachers (or not).

The only residential school in the Maritimes was at Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, was run by the Sisters of Charity and operated from about 1920-1968. It was primarily for orphans, though its mandate was expanded early on. About 10% of the Miq'Maq population attended and by most accounts it was initially about as horrific as any other residential school.

Would anyone have made a particular attempt to catch a Mi'kmaq boy growing up in the 1860s and 1870s if he did not want to stay on any reservation, refused categorically to be subjected to formalised indoor schooling, ran away whenever disciplined and spent as much time in the woods as he could?

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

A Maliseet (or Mik'Maq) Metis is unlikely as Maliseet and Miq'Maq didn't tend to marry foreigners.

Well, someone was marrying all these French trappers. :)

Modern Maliseet seem to be as likely to have French or Anglo-Saxon names as they are to have even translated versions of Algonquin names and not a few whose picture I could find online had light (grey) eyes.

Is an Acadian French girl born in 1928 with Maliseet ancestry very implausible?

Her parents do not need to be married, necessarily. In fact, she was not on good terms with her family by age sixteen, so perhaps she never had much contact with them. She was Catholic, however, taught by the local priests.

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

In fairness, the Maliseet and Mik'Maq have a long and hostile history with the Mohawks (who are part of the Six Nations). Every New Brunswick schoolchild knows the tale of brave Malabeam, a Mik'Maq woman captured by a Mohawk war party who were on their way to attack a larger Mik'Maq community and how she tricked them into tying their canoes together as she led them down the river and over Grand Falls (now Edmundston, New Bruswick), where she and they met their deaths.

Cool. I even have connections with Edmunston in my adventure. Two of the 'Fighting Hilton's have appeared and there are some suggestions that a few of the possible villains may have connections over the border from Fort Kent, Frenchville and a few of the other border towns.

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

From roughly 1950 through to the mid-1970s, most N.B. schoolchildren also had a Social Studies/History unit that taught them some of the Glooscap tales. (Algonquin myths, such as why Turtle's shell is black, or how Beaver dove and brought Glooscap land from the bottom of the water to make new land from when a flood destroyed the world.)

Would people generally recognise the term 'chenu' or 'chenoo'?

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

By the way, people from Maine don't refer to themselves as Mainians. Among New Englanders they're from Down East or Down Easters, a term also occasionally used by New Brunswickers to describe themselves. When New Brunswickers want to annoy their cousins from Down East, they're Maine-iacs.

Among Canadian Maritimers, New Brunswickers are Herring Chokers, Nova Scotians are Bluenosers (and the ship takes its name from the term, not the other way around) and people from Prince Edward Island, (P.E.I., pronounced as the individual letters, conversationally,) are Spud Islanders. None of the nicknames are considered perjorative but woe betide the "damned Ontarioite" [damned Ontarioites are any Canadian from west of Quebec who don't identify themselves, as well as actual damned Ontarioites] who uses the wrong nickname.

Can you call someone who lives in Northwest Aroostook County a Downeaster? It seems off, as they are nowhere near the sea, not particularly east for anyone in New England and they live several hundred feet off the ground.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Can you call someone who lives in Northwest Aroostook County a Downeaster? It seems off, as they are nowhere near the sea, not particularly east for anyone in New England and they live several hundred feet off the ground.

"Among New Englanders" definitely includes Down Easters. While I've never been in the northwest portion of Aroostock county, the fact that people in the eastern part of the county refer to themselves as Down Easters, despite being nowhere near the sea and also living at comparable elevations suggests that not only could you call them Down Easters [with a space and the E capitalized], they would call themselves Down Easters. You may recall an episode of Murder, She Wrote where Jessica asks a suspect if he was from Down East and he replied that no, he was from Maine. That was as big a tip-off to my mother that he was lying like a trooper by not recognizing the native term as it was to Jessica.

Provided that he doesn't break any laws, particularly the laws restricting alcohol sales to Indians, no one outside his First Nation is going to be interested in catching a Miq'Maq boy. The behaviour you're describing wasn't particularly different from that of white New Brunswick schoolchildren in the 1930s and 1940s, other than they'd be working on the family farm rather than in the woods.

Schooling in New Brunswick wasn't compulsory until the mid-1930s and then only to age 14 at first. My mother went to school from 1938-1948 and each year the grade she advanced to switched to texts supplied free by the government from texts supplied by the student or their family at their own expense. High school ended with grade eleven and you sat your Junior matriculation exams at the end of grade eleven. If you planned to go to college or university, you sat your senior matriculation exams as well [which were also administered at the end of grade eleven]. Particularly good county school boards with money to burn saw that each school had a classroom library, consisting of dictionaries, atlases and encyclopedias. Poorer county school boards didn't.

Someone was marrying all those fur trappers but the fur trappers were far more likely to be Quebecers than Acadians, given that those Acadians who returned after the expulsion resettled along the North Shore of New Brunswick [draw a diagonal line from the northwest corner of New Brunswick to the southeast corner so it runs through Chatham, the part on the northeastern side of the line is roughly the North Shore] and were primarily fishermen along the coast and farmers inland.

An Acadian-Maliseet girl in 1928 isn't highly implausible but somewhat unlikely. A point to bear in mind is that she has several social stigmas: if she actually looks First Nations there are places that won't serve her (mostly restaurants and hotels) and people would tend to keep an eye on her; she's French-speaking, which will be the big deal source of prejudice in any part of English Canada at the time and in the U.S. as well, [she may very well have been told to "speak white", if she attempted to use French in a primarily English community]; and finally, in the U.S. she isn't a Metis, she's a half-breed which was generally more poorly regarded than a full-blooded Indian.

As for chenu or chenoo, maybe among the Acadians but it's not a term I've ever heard either of my parents or any of my family back East ever use.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

"Among New Englanders" definitely includes Down Easters. While I've never been in the northwest portion of Aroostock county, the fact that people in the eastern part of the county refer to themselves as Down Easters, despite being nowhere near the sea and also living at comparable elevations suggests that not only could you call them Down Easters [with a space and the E capitalized], they would call themselves Down Easters. You may recall an episode of Murder, She Wrote where Jessica asks a suspect if he was from Down East and he replied that no, he was from Maine. That was as big a tip-off to my mother that he was lying like a trooper by not recognizing the native term as it was to Jessica.

Fair enough. 'Down Easters' they are. People in the Upper Saint John River Valley ('The Valley', locally) might call themselves Madawska Acadians or just Acadians (at least those who aren't Scots-Irish from Allagash), but I suppose they will be Acadian Down Easters by the 1980s. By all accounts, the Acadians in the Valley have resisted Anglophone assimilation pretty stoutly, but after a century and a half, they must still think of themselves as American.

I found records that indicated that in the 1970s and early 1980s, people who only spoke (very) broken English still lived in Fort Kent. An East European immigrant who lived in Fort Kent from the 20s until she died in the late 70s spoke better French than English, often finding it impossible (in the 1970s) to express an idea in English. Of course, she died still speaking her native Yiddish at home.* The smaller St. Francis and Saint John Plantation might well be the same, minus the Yiddish.

It seems that until the 50s, almost no one in Fort Kent, Frenchville, Madawska or the smaller townships down the Saint John River Valley read a newspaper or listened to the radio in English. They were forced to use it in school, but they spoke Acadian French at home. A majority of them still speak it in 2016, even though they have been forced to go to school in English since the 1920s.

Mind you, that means there could still be a really old person living at the time of my adventure, in 1988, who has never gone to school in English, who has lived all her life among French speakers and who has always consumed all her media in French. An American, with American-born parents and grand-parents, to whom English is a foreign language they hear a lot from visitors to their town.

Anyone wishing to go to college, do business outside of their small town, go into politics or just avoid being considered an insular potato farmer, however, would avoid speaking French, even if they grew up with it as a first language. I also found an interview with an Acadian who first sat in the Maine State Legislature in 1986 and she found that fellow Acadians there actually tried to hide the fact that English wasn't their first language.

She was shocked at the idea of 'staying in the closet' (her words) and the interview was about the giant strides in preservation of the culture and language since then, not to mention equal rights for Acadian French speakers, but it indicates that in the 80s, the power structure spoke English. Full stop.

*Yes, there was at least one family of Upper Saint John River Valley Jews. The old woman's sons mostly ran Chevy dealerships in the larger towns of northwestern Aroostook County.

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

Provided that he doesn't break any laws, particularly the laws restricting alcohol sales to Indians, no one outside his First Nation is going to be interested in catching a Miq'Maq boy. The behaviour you're describing wasn't particularly different from that of white New Brunswick schoolchildren in the 1930s and 1940s, other than they'd be working on the family farm rather than in the woods.

How long did these laws endure in Canada?

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

Schooling in New Brunswick wasn't compulsory until the mid-1930s and then only to age 14 at first. My mother went to school from 1938-1948 and each year the grade she advanced to switched to texts supplied free by the government from texts supplied by the student or their family at their own expense. High school ended with grade eleven and you sat your Junior matriculation exams at the end of grade eleven. If you planned to go to college or university, you sat your senior matriculation exams as well [which were also administered at the end of grade eleven]. Particularly good county school boards with money to burn saw that each school had a classroom library, consisting of dictionaries, atlases and encyclopedias. Poorer county school boards didn't.

What did people do after 14? Those who wanted an education, that is?

Were there any religiously-run schools for age 14+ people, that may have prepared them for a university education as a doctor, lawyer or priest?

Teacher's schools?

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

Someone was marrying all those fur trappers but the fur trappers were far more likely to be Quebecers than Acadians, given that those Acadians who returned after the expulsion resettled along the North Shore of New Brunswick [draw a diagonal line from the northwest corner of New Brunswick to the southeast corner so it runs through Chatham, the part on the northeastern side of the line is roughly the North Shore] and were primarily fishermen along the coast and farmers inland.

Fair enough.

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

An Acadian-Maliseet girl in 1928 isn't highly implausible but somewhat unlikely. A point to bear in mind is that she has several social stigmas: if she actually looks First Nations there are places that won't serve her (mostly restaurants and hotels) and people would tend to keep an eye on her; she's French-speaking, which will be the big deal source of prejudice in any part of English Canada at the time and in the U.S. as well, [she may very well have been told to "speak white", if she attempted to use French in a primarily English community]; and finally, in the U.S. she isn't a Metis, she's a half-breed which was generally more poorly regarded than a full-blooded Indian.

Well, she didn't take up with a crazy old woodsman when she was fifteen because US society welcomed her, so that's okay. By the time she left the old man, I had imagined that she went to Canada and eventually drifted to Montréal, where her story had a depressing end in the 50s, the sort of depressing ending that all too often follows a young girl without friends or relatives to turn to running away from a bad relationship to a big city.

She's important to my story mostly because one or more of the priests who educated her felt a responsibility to ensure the education of her son, at least once the wily, stubborn, intransigent and frightening old man who kept him out of school had died.

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

As for chenu or chenoo, maybe among the Acadians but it's not a term I've ever heard either of my parents or any of my family back East ever use.

That's fine. I had thoughtfully provided the NPC who used it to the PCs with enough knowledge of other Algonquin language to be able to tell the PCs that the Ojibwe call them wendigo.

[Icelander]

Special Agent Frank Corelli (b. 5th of March, 1943, Camden, NJ) is an old-school agent. He's a veteran of Vietnam*, an outdoorsy sort who goes on hunting or hiking trips on his vacations and very self-reliant. He fixes his own car, does home repairs himself** and likes to be prepared for every contigency.

He's usually scornful of technological marvels from the Digital Age, distrusting their reliability under 'real-world' conditions. He prefers well-made mechanical things to high-tech gadgets. He much prefers heavy steel to plastics, wood to composites. He supports US manufacturing if he can.

In GURPS terms, the character has skill 10-12 in a lot of 'handy-man' skills and skill 12-14 in survival, orienteering, hiking and suchlike. He has also has Common Sense and a quirk relating to careful preparation. We have established in game-play that the character packed extensive cold-weather gear and safety equipment, and bought more once the storm warning came.

With this in mind, what are some items available in the 1980s that I should not forget to have the character pack in his Ford F-150 pick-up for a trip out of town in winter, when they might be caught in a storm?

Brand and model names if possible. Some details of weight and cost if not.

What an 1980s vintage rescue beacon be like?

What about a survival kit?

What kind of tools would he pack?

What kind of clothes?

Etc.

*Captain, USMC (Ret.).
**Though not on eletrical things. Not any more.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Icelander

With this in mind, what are some items available in the 1980s that I should not forget to have the character pack in his Ford F-150 pick-up for a trip out of town in winter, when they might be caught in a storm?

Sand bags (to weight down the back of the truck for better traction in snow), tire chains, rock salt, kitty litter (spread it under the tires to increase traction), windshield scrapers.

Originally Posted by Icelander

What about a survival kit?

Several gallon jugs of water, beef jerky, granola bars, canned food (with can opener), compass, flashlight, first aid kit, small bottle of bleach with eye dropper (for purifying water), cord, rope, string, utility knife, swiss army knife, duct tape, basic tool kit (hammer, pliers, screwdrivers, etc.), lighter, hatchet, rags/bandannas, blanket (several, actually), signal mirror, whistle, flares.

Originally Posted by Icelander

What kind of tools would he pack?

A shovel, particularly a square-ended shovel optimized for snow rather than dirt. Broom (for sweeping away snow).

Originally Posted by Icelander

What kind of clothes?

Long sleeved flannel shirt, long underwear, insulated pants, wool socks, work boots, jacket, parka, scarf, mittens, gloves, stocking cap, ski mask, ski goggles.

I'm probably forgetting some, but this is a good list to start from.

Luke