Mirrors of Stone: Fragments from the Porcupine Frontier

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.

Mirrors of Stone is a record of Charlie Angus’s personal search for
connection in place, time, and community. It is vibrant, even edgy, with
questions calculated to test conventional wisdom and provoke
explanations for events long covered by an agreeable conspiracy of
silence. Angus recognizes that storytelling is the very soul of history.
These stories entertain as they offer insights into the meaning of life
on the Porcupine mining frontier of northeastern Ontario. They were
inspired by haunting photographs embedded in gravestones found in the
graveyards of Timmins, Tisdale Township, and Dead Man’s Point, South
Porcupine. These monuments and their auras have been captured in
black-and-white photographs by Louie Palu.

Readers who have seen occasional reference to silicosis in the
metropolitan press will hereafter link the curse to individual human
beings, their families and communities. Those ignorant of the
indignities suffered by Italian Canadians in the early months of the
Second World War, the bitter animosity that poisoned relationships
between “red” and “white” Finns, or the origins of the
co-operative movement on the Porcupine frontier and the rivalry between
“left” and “right” within that institution will be
enlightened—and connected. Connection, indeed, is the leitmotiv of
this work. “Memory,” Angus writes, “is not merely a private
collage of experiences, it is part of a larger social whole—a sense of
shared obligation and comfort.” This volume deserves to be read by
anyone interested in the search.