The Lesson ~ [Patrick Lalonde] was born 1889 ~ Treaty 8 would be signed in 1898, the province of Alberta not created til 1905. I met him in 1966 when he was founder and president of the Faust Indian and Metis Progress League, and knew him til his death. He was involved in the very early years of the Alberta Indian Association. He homesteaded in the Peace district, farmed at Driftpile, had land in Grouard, trapped, worked as a carpenter, settled in Faust. His travelling was motivated by opportunity, and partly caused by bureaucratic interference ~ in his case usually an Indian agent. This is also heard from people on the lakes north of our big lake. There, in the early days, so the old people have told, when bureaucratic meddling disturbed them, some would move their families farther north to another small lake. We know they soon ran out of lakes. Upon gentle prodding, Pat Lalonde might relate to me something of his life, sometimes prefaced with "I don't want to hurt you" ~ for he found it painful to relate of an injustice done by one of my race. I thank him for that. I was at a visit of Pat with [Jean Chancelet] ~ who came from France, walked from Edmonton with three oxen in 1910 and farmed at Grouard, McLennan, High Prairie, Girouxville. They were kindred spirits and fell into an easy conversation in French. They respected each other and their lives. It is what bureaucrats lack. Now I know what it's like ~ and that's the lesson. 'I don't want to hurt you.' ____________________________________________________________
Adam's Acreage ~ The [Company of Young Canadians] in 1969 paid each of us an honorarium of $50 for every month served, and Alona and I needed to decide what to do ~ where to go (throw a dart at a spinning globe?). We decided for [Faust]. Purchased lots 15 and 16 of Adams' Acreage (plan 1540ET) from an old Swede (Gunnar Odegaard) for $50 an acre. It had an aged log house (left by Bruneau?) on lot 16 in which we lived til it burned; Art Newman had a foxfarm on lot 15 until after the war. (Garth Lodge remembers the Adams residence at the corner of first street west and first avenue south.) We had three daughters on that land, and we raised them as the pioneers and the Cree we had found here ~ making our way from day to day, eating from the garden and animals, heating the new-built log house with firewood, on our fifteen acres. During the seventies the world changed and we became relics at a young age (old people visited to say it made them happy to see their way of life validated). We were heartened for a time by a small group of back-to-the-land enthusiasts and years were spent co-operatively building houses and other large homestead projects that grew into a North Country Community Association. ___________________________________________________________________________ |
beautiful rural hamlet along the shore where within the last decade or so population doubles in summer with daytrippers, vacationers and tourists, and properties are purchased for holiday cabins other nearby hamlets are rapidly becoming (or are already) bedroom communities with high-end residences little room is left for long-time residents my own rural residential lifestyle on fifteen acres (of now prime location) yields the municipality $200 in assessment revenue annually while everything written below ('take my money ~ earn my contempt') is true and stands, municipal law easily overpowers any and all of it (and i do not expect the minister ~ nor the member of the legislative assembly and member of parliament, to answer my plea) this is why i am an [anarchist], for none can have power over another without serious deleterious consequences to a free and harmonious society read [this] for the nature of freedom |
| Machinations of Bureaucracy how I lost the vote  When I purchased our land (two lots of Adam's Acreage) in Faust in 1969 we received one title.Alberta Municipal Affairs administered the property tax administration directly and we were issued annually two separate Assessment Notices for lots 15 and 16. In 2001 we put both our names on the title as owners of an estate in fee simple PLAN 1540ET, LOTS 15 AND 16.  1970 The MD combined the tax notices on its taxroll for administrative purposes.
MD website Summer 2009  Property identified as Lot 15 Block 1 (Sep 18)  November 2 2009 Lot 16 has disappeared and parcel survey boundary line erased, we lose a vote. The same fate has befallen Lot 9 and Lot 10. (The clumsy revision is obvious.) Two new subdivisions, each with a vote ~ which they were essentially able to buy. Obviously, I should have anticipated this descent into rampant development, subdivided my frontage into thirteen lots and gain as many votes.  Lots 16 and 10 cannot vote. 
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~ and the numbers are always different
________________________________________________________________ o freedom and democracy at the municipal building in the village on his plot of land the old man works and rests king, protect him from your underling freedom to be left alone is really all we have o freedom and democracy those veterans who fought and died for freedom and democracy albert _________________________________________________________________ |
