George Mathewson
Below are 10 true things I’ve discovered about Sarnia. Or, then again, I might be pulling your leg. Answer True or False to each. Score seven or more out of 10 and give yourself a high five.
1 – The longest day of the year arrives on June 20, the summer solstice, when Sarnians enjoy 15 hours and 23 minutes of daylight. But shift workers and golf course groundskeepers in this city have noticed something strange - that the earliest sunrise of the calendar year actually comes three days earlier, on June 17.
2 –The residents of Point Edward are better educated and make more money than Sarnians.
3 – A company called Magic Waters Fountains once sued Sarnia when city hall refused to pay for the company’s plan to fix a flooding problem.
4 – A newspaper columnist visiting from Huron County once called Sarnia a “gross” city and compared it to a Star Wars weapon manufacturing plant.
5 - In response, Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley told the editor of the newspaper that the visiting writer’s column, called ‘Just Thinking,’ was an oxymoron.
6 – A Sarnia strip club is so eager to hire French-Canadian dancers that it posts job ads in Quebec offering free travel, inexpensive accommodation and mild winter weather.
7 –LCBO stores in Sarnia recently raised money for the Canadian Liver Foundation.
8 – A resident of Sarnia in the year 1835 would have had a mailing address of The Rapids, Sarnia Township, County of Kent, Western District, Upper Canada, Province of Canada.
9 – In 1917, members of a German secret service in Michigan were charged with conspiring to blow up the St. Clair River tunnel by rolling dynamite into the tunnel on a platform attached to roller skates.
10 – Curling was the first organized sport played in Sarnia.
ANSWERS:
1 – True. But the phenomenon happens everywhere in the northern hemisphere.
2 – True. Average full-time employment income in Point Edward was $56,629 in 2011, the highest in all of Lambton County. (Sarnia’s was $50,866). And 51% of village residents have a post-secondary education, also highest in the county. (Sarnia 48%). Source: Sarnia Lambton Workforce Development Board, Statistics Canada.
3 – True. In 1990
4 - True.
5 - True. Bradley also called the writer’s comments “inaccurate, juvenile and dour.”
6 – True.
7 – True. In March
8 – True
9 – True. The conspirators did time in Leavenworth Penitentiary.
10 – True. Scottish immigrants formed the Sarnia Curling Club in 1870.
Yes, they are all true.