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Substack Notes
The times are rough, and there is no use pretending otherwise. The old order is loosening; Canada is in deep water. But a ship comes through rough seas not by the size of the waves but by the keel — the deep, unseen line that holds the boat true when everything above the waterline is chaos. That is what this publication tries to be, and it is why it is named what it is named.
Canada is a fortunate ship: a captain who has navigated deep water before, a crew of real depth, passengers who have kept their faith rather than rushing the rails. The job of the Vertical Dispatch is to keep its eyes on the water — to read the storm and name the record clean, without ego, without spin, without letting the swell of the moment decide the heading.
Every keel is laid somewhere. Mine was laid at Ship Head, at the tip of the Gaspé, where the St. Lawrence opens into the Gulf and the land runs out — land’s end, under a lighthouse that has stood watch for more than 140 years. My father, Ellison, was born on that rock; five generations of my people before him. This dispatch is the foundation under all the others: a Canadian story of the men who taught me what it means to be carried safe through rough water.
One day my father read a great wave without fear and glided our small boat over it, my brother Billy beside me. He swam the icy January sea when his skiff overturned, and lived. He was taken that same December on a cold night. Billy is gone now too. They are all in the keel — the father who read the wave, the brother who rode it beside me, the light that has never gone out at land’s end. The waters are rough. The keel holds. Walk with the words. 🕯️
