Kingston and Frontenac County.

John Abbott is a professor of history at Laurentian University’s Algoma University College. He is the co-author of The Border at Sault Ste Marie and The History of Fort St. Joseph.

The caution against judging a book by its cover applies as much to books as to people. Serious readers are apt to dismiss out of hand any volume covering 117 square inches, freighted with coloured photographs on glossy stock, and promoting the pulchritude of persons or places. Kingston and Frontenac County, however, is no mere coffee table ornament. Alex Ross possesses a quality that animates the work of all great story tellers from Herodotus to Stephen Leacock: the facility to take his listeners by the hand and turn hearing into sight. John De Visser, ever the consummate professional, provides photographs that enhance rather than compete with the text.

Ross begins his story of Kingston in the agora, the city’s venerable market square. “It’s Saturday, a sunny late August morning, and I am sitting on the edge of a fountain in the corner of Kingston’s Market Square. The market throngs with late-season tourists, Tilley-hatted seniors, parents pushing kids in strollers and Queen’s University students gearing up for the fall term… They wander from stall to stall, checking out everything from honey and maple syrup to jams and mustards, beef, giant sunflowers and gladioli, fresh corn, hats and clothing…” Then we’re introduced to some of his friends whose personalities are woven into the urban tapestry: poets and writers, real estate agents and retired university professors, men, women, and children in strollers. Within the space of a paragraph we’ve made them our own, and we’re listening to Ross describe the structures that constitute the square’s rich mid-19th century architectural fabric.

Ross’s command of the storyteller’s art, his capacity for exploring the memories of living witnesses and his knowledge of current events and history inform every chapter. Geography, geology and the importance of the Frontenac Arch as a link between the environments of the Canadian Shield and the Appalachians—a function warranting its designation as a World Biosphere Reserve—are the significant topics in chapter 1, “The Natural Environment.” The following two chapters focus on Kingston and Frontenac County, respectively, putting their public and private places and spaces into spatial, temporal, and personal contexts. Chapters 4 and 5 examine the way in which the inhabitants of the place have made their living and spend their leisure time. Chapter 6, “The Way Forward,” is a sometimes tough, sometimes tentative survey of the possibilities.

Highly Recommended, especially for those who may be considering relocation to Kingston and Frontenac County.