Back alive (almost)

CoyoteChris said:

I LOVE Downton Abbey! On PBS on the 19th here in Spokane, they will do all the episodes of season 2 at once.
I missed the last one.....
Chris who has all the Jane Austen DVDs

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dorispulaski said:

This would be my grandad's uncle, Captain John O. Spicer who discovered the Spicer Islands in the Foxe Basin in 1879. He also had a fixed base at Akuliak on Baffin Island:
http://www.mysticseaport.org/index....id=16182FF4-1E4F-379B-60CCAEDFE10A8C30#spicer

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demarinis5 said:

Who is Mr. Dice? Thank you for your great report and thoughts on 4CC.

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Dee4707 said:

I love it too!! I was surprised that no one started a thread in Le Cafe about it.

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dorispulaski said:

Back on thread topic,

Chris, How did you (and the audience) enjoy Ross Miner's performances? I know Ross is no where near the level of Patrick or Dai, but I have watched him compete at Liberty since he was in Juniors, so I am always interested.

I was so thrilled that he won a bronze at 4CC's!

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Scrufflet said:

I've been following the Downton Abbey thread on FSU. It has gotten much soapier lately but I still love it. The first season was brilliant! Maggie Smith stole every scene she was in. My curmudgeonly husband fell off the couch laughing every time she opened her mouth. She had the best lines! Her lines haven't been as good this season but she's still brilliant. Dee4707, start a thread!

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dorispulaski said:

Chris, 1879 was a warm year, so Captain Spicer was able to sail into the Foxe Basin further than he had in previous years, and there found a low lying piece of land that he named Spicer Island (why not, if you've got it, flaunt it AFAIR, Captain Spicer claimed those island(s) for himself, not for the United States. it was a different age.) In following years, Foxe Basin was frozen in again all year. Finally when another ship got into the area, they didn't find the island, and people assumed Captain Spicer was hallucinating or drunk when he found the Spicer Islands, or had simply named a large ice floe.

And so the islands were not listed when Canada was made a Confederation in 1867, because they were not discovered yet. So they never belonged to the British Empire. Then the ownership of the islands were not enumerated whenever the US and Canada wrote & signed whatever treaties described the extent of their demesnes in any subsequent years because no one believed they existed. As the original post said, even today things are unsettled in the Arctic. And islands in the Eastern part of the north are of mixed ownership, usually Danish and Canadian, but there are even two tiny islands, St. Pierre and Miquelon, close to southern Newfoundland that still belong to France.

And that's how the situation was in the 1930's. Then in the early 1930's, a Canadian plane flew over the area and saw the islands (perhaps they were mapping the north); the newspaper didn't say. What to do! These islands of dubious ownership existed. The newspaper clipping said that at the behest of the US government, Mr. William C. Spicer Sr., my grandad, had ceded ownership of Spicer Island(s) to the Canadian government, and it said this was done in a formal document. I think I remember seeing part of the document itself, but I could be imagining things. If you're really interested, when I get back to Groton, I'll dust off my copy of the Spicer Genealogy where I found the article tucked in, and see if I can find exactly what it says.

For one thing, I don't remember whether Cap (my grandad) ceded ownership of all the islands known as the Spicer Islands, or whether he just ceded Spicer Island. There are certainly a North and South Spicer Island, and there are apparently more than were originally apparent (at least four little bitty ones). You can check this out if you Google Map North Spicer Island, Baffin, Nunavut, Canada. And I don't think the area Captain Spicer occupied for many years on Baffin Island, Akuliak (or Spicer's Harbor) was ceded to Canada formally. I believe Baffin had been covered in earlier treaties, but I'm thinking that since Captain Spicer wasn't one to do claiming for the US, perhaps a point could be stretched, and that he had a claim there, too.

So if the US government wants to claim ownership of bases in the Arctic, perhaps they should come to me (as the executrix of my Dad's estate, dad being Cap's only child, as Cap was executor of his dad's estate, and his dad was the person Captain John Spicer left his residual estate to, as he had no children), and I will happily sell them my personal rights to whatever it is we might own in the Arctic. For one thing, I don't remember whether Cap signed over mineral rights Back in the 1930's this was all kind of a big joke in The New London Day, our local paper, which still exists BTW. I don't think those documents were loophole free.

That would be so cool! I could afford to go to skating competitions again.

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dorispulaski said:

I loved Ross' Casablanca program last year at Nationals He's one of those skaters who is just better live for me, than on the TV, so I wondered how Untouchables was live. His Para Ti SP at 4CC's is the best I have seen him skate that piece on TV at least.

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demarinis5 said:

Who is Mr. Dice? Thank you for your great report and thoughts on 4CC.

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SkateFiguring said:

Oooh, any picture of Mirai sitting with Dice? I assume Mr. Dice.

I think Daisuke is often called DiceK as well.

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