Many grassroots alternative publications emerged from Dumont Press Graphix, but one important community newspaper actually preceeded it. On the Line, one of the early Canadian alternative newspapers, was established by a volunteer collective from the Gabriel Dumont Memorial Commune in Waterloo, started publishing ion June 23, 1970. Within two months, the editorial and production staff had determined that the paper needed to establish its own typesetting and production resources in order to become sustainable. Nine months and a whole lot of labour later, Dumont Press was born, opening its doors in May 1971.

For better or worse, I post here the link to the blogspot:  http://dumontpressgraphix.blogspot.com

There can be found some photos of the 40th reunion, among others.

Dumont Press Graphix was not the only counter-cultural institution to emerge from the Gabriel Dumont Memorial Commune in 1970. Though far from politically correct, the band Running Dog and His Electric Lackey showed that having fun could be just as subversive. 

The band was the creation of Nick Sullivan (aka Nick Savage) and Rosco Bell, both of whom later worked at DPG. Their performances, infrequent and at times incomprehensible, provided comic relief to the otherwise serious business of overthrowing the state. Their satirical songs were as likely to provoke outrage as raised eyebrows and quizzical grins. 

A major breakthrough concert occurred at the 1970 CUP conference in Naramata BC where the band played to a crowd of enthusiastic student journalists, many of whom were high on LSD. Accompanied by the Red Wobbly Chorus, the band put on a show for the ages, highlighted by a reading from The Little Red Book: Quotations of Chairman Mao — in Swahili. Survivors of the event say it still made as much sense.

Another notorious gig happened in a church in Toronto at a benefit concert for striking workers. The band opened for the legendary folksinger and union organizer U. Utah Phillips. The show proved to be a lesson from the Better Know Your Audience school of musical endeavours. The band was barely into the first song of their set when they elicited loud booing from some audience members who took issue with the lyrics of “Come to the Orgy”. The booing and catcalls were so disruptive the band stopped playing and attempted to leave the stage only to be surrounded by a group of angry militant lesbians who were not in the least swayed by the band’s protestations that this was, after all, satire. Before things got too ugly, the ever-resourceful Phillips took the stage and calmed things down with a soothing  rendition of “Solidarity Forever”. Who knows how it would have turned out otherwise.

By the end of the 70s the band had dispersed to various parts of the country and never performed in public again, except for a few impromptu get-togethers over whisky and marijuana. This past year, however, the band celebrated its own 50th anniversary by releasing The Running Dog and His Electric Lackey Anthology of Scurrilous Songs. The songbook is available for download at http://scott-sullivan.com/dogbook. A YouTube video based on a 1979 concert by Rosco Bell is also available at https://youtu.be/8innp_mCrBo.

Never ones to lose sight of a great idea, the planning committee for Dumont's sixth anniversary celebrations came up with a unique and allegedly easy-to-organize proposal: "Last year's party was such a blast! Let's do it all over again!"

And so, the plan for a new series of annual festve frolics was announced, and soon consummated. Memories are hazy and the records are spotted as to how many years these recurring, time-insensitive Fifth Anniversary gatherings actually took place (perhaps there are t-shirts out there that might reveal the truth), but we do know that by 1981, common sense had again prevailed, and that year's anniversary gatherings were duly and correctly acknowledged as The Dumont Tenth.

Any excuse to get together for music, great food, sofyball and political struggle!...

The Memorial Collective was established August 1, 1969.  In the summer of 1969, the apartment where some of us lived had become overcrowded, and in any event, the lease was not renewed due to complaints.  More on this later.  I remember looking at a house for sale on Albert Street, but in the end it seemed a bit complicated.  And after moving, I recall Mike's generosity in treating us all to dinner at the Ali Baba Steakhouse.

It was that September that Gary and I jointly purchased a Pentax Spotmatic, a camera with which we had become familiar at the Chevron.  The images which I am about to add were taken with that camera.

I never worked at Dumont Press Graphix nor did I know anyone who did, prior to my first random encounter. as I explain later. I was merely a student in Mohawk College Journalism who wanted to take a bud fishing in my ‘hood.

So a warm spring day in 1972 found myself and Michael, my English prof/bud/house companion driving the back roads of Glenelg Township, looking for an access to the Rocky Saugeen River. This area of rocky rolling hills and cedar bush, about halfway between the town of Durham and the port of Owen Sound, was where I grew up. I thought I remembered a fine spot from times fishing with my grandfather. Grandfather Jim had spent his life on the Rocky, tending a hydro powerhouse that fed Durham, and later in life, just fishing his retirement upstream on the same river.

However, on that afternoon, the location of that particular sweet spot continued to evade my memory. I nudged Michael in the passenger seat. "Maybe these folks can help out," I muttered, as we rolled to a stop alongside two easy ambling bodies, all with plenty hair and akin to peers, I figured.

"Not sure of what river access you are looking for," was the cheery reply, "but come up to our house and you can fish the river from the back of our place."  So we did just that, which is how we first met Gary and Elaine.

Up at the mint green farmhouse we encountered times much more interesting than fishing, as it were. Not sure which came first, the home brew or home grown. Whichever, it did spur on conversations that seeded some lasting relationships for me, in particular with Gary whom I had just met on the road, and with Elaine as well.

As I recall, at the house we met Michael, Phil, Penny, Rosco, Joannie, Marty, Bowden (I think, though his name was spelled Bowdoin) several dogs, a horse and two goats. Eventually, I too came to live at the farm, which was known as Markdale, after a nearby village. I was there for the summer season, before embarking on a western road adventure with Corli, Moo and Janice Lee.

Thus began my acquaintance with Dumont Press and its extended family. As a student of journalism at Mohawk College, I had very little introduction to the various community and social activism print media, the likes of which Dumont Press published. I do know that I was impressed with Dumont’s role in what journalism could become, outside the scope of the daily papers I had worked on. I do recall some folks’ names, but not all I had met during my brief year between the farm and Kitchener/Waterloo.

As my attention and interests shifted to a more community-active type of journalism, I landed a job with the Chesley Enterprise. Bill, the publisher, had come out of Cape Breton originally, and educated me on life on the east coast. The west coast with its rugged beauty had proven to be too expensive and overwhelming for this rural
Ontario guy.

As I have already mentioned, those were heady times. The encounters with what Dumont Press was able to do helped to reset my thinking of my future in journalism. Not long after, I answered to the opportunity to work on a national award-winning weekly paper, the Eastern Graphic of Montague PEI. Led by the fearless Scotsman Jim MacNeil, it seemed to embody the voice of a community. Today, it is still afloat under the steerage of Jim’s son Paul, as capable and fearless as his father I believe. The Eastern Graphic continues as a respected active weekly on PEI.

Time would eventually find all these Dumont folk, farm friends and acquaintances scattered across the country east to west. I recall a trip to PEI by Gary Robins and Ken Epps in 1975 doing a history of community and alternative newspapers across Canada. They had unearthed the early ‘70s story of an Island activist paper called The Broad Axe, borrowed from a turn of the century paper of same name. Its motto banner read “Hew to the line and let the chips fall where they may”.

The Eastern Graphic under fearless Jim operated much the same. He would come to annually publish the earnings of every civic employee on the Island... public info but it did raise hell. We loved those days.

I did eventually get lured away from journalism and into renewable energy construction... spawned by Pierre Trudeau’s federal Liberal dollars. As a reaction to rising oil prices of the early ‘80s and his particular belief in renewable resources, it did seem that the social activism of the ‘70s was going to sprout real change here on PEI. But that, my friends, is another story.

After nearly 30 years here on PEI, I relocated back to my part of Ontario for a fifteen-year stint running Bikeface Cycling bike shop, first in Durham and then Owen Sound. One day in the shop I get a call from Gary... calling from the same road where we had first met… nearby the old Glenelg farmhouse. Another mint moment, I thought.

My partner Patty and I retired from the shop in December 2019 and moved back to PEI just ahead of the COVID crisis. These days, with plans for a Regina or anywhere else trip in virtual suspension, I have lots of time to reflect and ponder the road from Glenelg to here, and all those folks I try to keep close. Be well friends.

As I look back to those days, I realize that life was fluid and constantly changing. The places that I lived and the people that I lived with now seem as though they were in flux, so I can’t identify points of stability. Consequently I can only recount events from my own perspective, and will have to leave it to others to fill in the gaps or the missing chapters.

Penny and I moved to the farmhouse near Markdale in October or November 1972. We had been living in the country near Old Killaloe, but realized we were not prepared to survive the winter there. We joined a group of people who we had known from Kitchener-Waterloo except possibly Doug. I’m not sure whether he arrived before or after us.

“Markdale” was a mid to late nineteenth century house clad in asbestos panels probably over clapboard on wood or timber frame on a rubblestone foundation. It was cold and drafty, heated by a cook stove and a parlour stove, so it required considerable quantities of firewood. There were sources of firewood close at hand. The County had brushed out the road allowances and left the wood where it was cut, perhaps intending to come back for it later, or perhaps realizing the locals would clear it up pretty quickly. This yielded small to medium sized cherry which we “kiln dried” on the stove top before it made its way into the firebox. The major source though was the giant elms that had been recently killed by the dutch elm disease and were still standing in the valley toward the Rocky Saugeen. They were magnificent trees that often stood twice as high as other trees surrounding them.

Without referring to a particular incident (which I think Corli will still remember), I can say it could be hazardous felling dead trees that were 100 or 120 feet high. But the really hard work was splitting the elm with an axe. Elm has a sort of spiral interlocking grain which made it very stubborn. It seemed the side yard was always full of elm waiting to be split.

The companionship at Markdale was lively and congenial. I learned to play cribbage which I often lost, and bridge, in which I believe I held my own. There was a piano, guitars, I had my violin and viola. There was lots of music. There were frequent visitors.

By way of preamble I should state that those of my generation will remember the Cold War, and for those who don’t, I should try to explain the pervasive dread that engulfed many in the nineteen fifties and sixties. It’s really hard to conceive of now, but life on the planet could have been ended in five minutes by the push of a couple of buttons.

In 1958 I moved to Ottawa to begin grade 5. In Ottawa, being the capital of country, the threat of nuclear war was taken seriously. I can remember my teacher drawing some of the window blinds and instructing us to get underneath our desks. It was awkward. But that was it. Nothing about what to do afterwards. We carried on with our study of Christopher Columbus, or whatever it was.

The threat of Armageddon was kept alive with the Cuban missile crisis and then the life and death struggle between Communism and Capitalism in Vietnam. Some referred to it as a war, but officially it was a “conflict”.

I try to paint a picture of the political climate I faced as a young adult to explain why I, and others, felt the need to develop self reliance and resilience, and why many became part of the “back to the land” movement. There were other reasons of course, but the hope of being able to survive a nuclear war was on my mind. Many of the people associated with Dumont had a stint of living in the country and some have remained there. The possibility of nuclear war was diminished with the dissolution of the USSR in 1991.

In the nineteen sixties I became more aware of health and the environment, as did many others; thinking about food and diet, where food came from, how it was produced and so on. At Markdale we produced eggs, goats’ milk, and had a large vegetable garden. I also became a more versatile cook there, learning to make bread and yeasted confections, sponge cakes, and other dishes.

It astonishes me now to think back to 1967 when I left home and was sent forth into the world, that I had no effing idea of how to plan and prepare a meal. The general idea and expectation was that I would scrape by for a few years until I could marry someone who knew these things. Over the course of the next few years I was disabused of that notion. I certainly appreciate the time I spent in Metal Shop, but I can’t say my public school education was well rounded. Markdale was an important part of my education in food and the culinary arts.

One of the defining characteristics of the era was the proclivity of people to live in co-operative and communal housing. No history would be complete without some acknowledgement of this fact. Indeed, the very foundations of Dumont Press Graphix were conceived in a communal dwelling and involved most, if not all, of the communards therein.

The popularity of student-run co-operative housing actually got a kickstart in 1966 with the opening of Hammarskjold House on the eastern edge of the University of Waterloo campus. Named after Dag Hammarskjold, the second Secretary General of the United Nations, the residence was financed by the student federation; the building replaced a number of houses across the street that had been used as co-op housing, and served as a more affordable alternative to the Student Village.

My introduction to ‘Hammer House’ occurred in March 1968 after I, along with Cyril Levitt and Grant Gordon, was evicted from the neighbouring Waterloo Towers apartment building following an overly boisterous party. Given 72 hours to vacate, I was fortunate enough to find a room in the residence for the remainder of the term. I can’t say it was ideal. Residents were required to perform chores, or “fags”, as part of the deal and as one of the last people to move in I got the fags no else wanted, one of which was to empty the institutional-sized garbage cans in the cafeteria. Try to picture a disabled kid trying to shift around a bag of garbage that weighed almost as much he did. Students sure threw out a lot of food!

Meanwhile, the co-op divested itself of the houses across the street, except for the one which had been used previously as a kitchen for the residents. The co-op’s intention was to convert it to a coffee house so they leased it to a group of people who would carry out the alterations and run the coffee house in lieu of rent. Over the course of the summer of 1968, Jim Hunter, “Corli” Shirley and Graham Dadson built the coffee house in the basement, named it “Cape Fogo” and waited for the masses to pour in. Alas, the masses never showed up so they agreed to rent the house and invited me and Charlotte von Bezold to join them that fall. This became Waterloo’s premier hippy house and was known thereafter simply as “132”. One of the notable features of the house was the jukebox in the living room which had a never-changing collection of 60’s hits. I remember many a morning waking up to the gently soothing strains of “Harper Valley PTA”.

Soon after I moved in, as more and more people were being busted for smoking dope, Jim and I went and talked to a lawyer (Morley Rosenberg?) about our legal rights and subsequently printed a flyer entitled “What To Do When the Cops Show Up” which we distributed on campus. This was my first real taste of political activism.

The house became a bit of a landmark and home to a number of students, hippies and general ne’er do wells including several who later worked at Dumont. Meanwhile, across the street was the aforementioned Waterloo Towers, where a group of students lived en masse in a 10^th floor apartment, sharing two bedrooms, the living room and the balcony.

The original 1968 tenants, Eddie Hale and Philippe Elsworthy, were eventually joined by Gary Robins, Mike Corbett and John Pickles, five hippies in the two-bedroom apartment; Jim Klinck moved in the following May; Roddie Hay showed up two weeks later and lived on the balcony for the next three months. Brian Switzman and Cyril Levitt became regular visitors, as did Brenda Wilson from the co-op house next door. Bryan "No Notes" Anderson and Gerrit Huvers also became regular visitors and eventually forgot how to find their way home. Larry Burko and Bruce Steele were Friday night regulars after Film Night (which Larry ran), but generally did find their way home before sunrise, which was handy, as all the beds, couches and assorted spaces were already full. On many levels, it felt like a cultural oasis. By July, there were nine people living in the two-bedroom apartment. Then they got evicted.

The denizens of 132 also used to socialize (read ‘smoke dope’ and ‘drop acid’) with their friends at 1009. Now, 132 may have had a jukebox, but 1009 had a TV and so it was that on the afternoon of July 20, 1969 a motley assortment of hippies and other adventurers gathered round the TV to witness the first moon landing. On a personal note, the event proved to be anti-climactic as I had dropped acid the evening before and stayed up all night so that when the astronauts set foot on the moon for the first time, I was sleeping peacefully beside the TV, oblivious to history.

However, the eviction from 1009 proved to be pivotal in the history of Dumont Press Graphix. Forced to find a new home, the residents, along with a few friends, fourteen people in all, moved into a new home at 192 King St. South. Forsaking the original moniker of “Pepperland” from the movie Yellow Submarine, they named their home the Gabriel Dumont Memorial Co-operative to honour the military leader of the Riel Rebellion, although it was most commonly known as 192. It subsequently restructured as the Gabriel Dumont Memorial Commune.

I moved into the house in 1970 soon after On the Line began publishing and plans were being developed for Dumont Press Graphix. I can’t say I had much to do with either of these initiatives, preferring to spend most of my days and nights (mostly nights) creating music with Nick Sullivan of Running Dog and His Electric Lackey fame, and in 1971 I moved to the farm at Markdale where I stayed for two years, eventually moving back to the city to work at Dumont.

Upon my return I moved into another house of renown, the House of Zonk, a big old farmhouse on the southern edge of Kitchener. At any given time it was home to 10-15 people, an ever-changing cast of characters bound together by a love of good times and good dope. It featured multiple bathrooms, a chicken coop, the largest kitchen and living room I had ever seen, and a real coal furnace. Real coal! Oh, the luxury!

Until I moved into Zonk I had been fortunate enough to have never been in trouble with the law, not for lack of trying. That changed one night after Larry Caesar was arrested for drinking wine while attending one of the local movie theatres. He also happened to be carrying a couple of joints, enough evidence to give the narcs cause to raid his home. Rumour had reached the ears of the constabulary that Zonk was being used to peddle drugs so this was just the excuse they needed to conduct a full-blown raid. After frisking the half a dozen of us who were home at the time, they herded us into the kitchen while they searched the rest of house. As mentioned, the kitchen and adjoining living room were huge and at one point, I noticed the cops were nowhere in sight, so I took the opportunity to get to the phone and called my brother who was a lawyer in Toronto. As the cops looked on, stonefaced, I had everyone speak to him in turn so he could advise them of their rights. The cops were not amused and exacted their revenge by making me accompany them to the station when they had finished their search. They let me leave at about four in the morning. They found almost no dope in the house but still charged everyone with possession, charges which were dropped at the first court appearance. Hippies one, cops zero ...

There were many such houses in Kitchener-Waterloo in those days. Some were co-ops providing cheap accommodations for students and low-income people. Others were full-blown communes where the residents shared everything – expenses, incomes, each other – in a grand experiment in alternative living. When I look back, I realize how important and formative the co-operative experience was to me and, I am sure, to many of my friends and the people reading this. We learned how to share, to be open with each other, to solve problems together, to support each other through the hard times and to celebrate the good. By writing this I hope to jog a few memories and inspire others to share their stories of co-operative living. I look forward to reading them.

-- with contributions from Gary Robins

So infused with the spirit of era (and no doubt a generous dose of marihooji), I wrote the following little ditty:

(To the tune of Solidarity Forever)

Mine eyes have seen the dishes piled up in the sink all night

Our electric bill is soaring ‘cause we won’t turn off the light

Tom and Mary are not speaking cause they had another fight

But the commune must go on

Refrain

Weeeee don’t want responsibility

Won’t get a job and raise a family

And we’re broke as you can plainly see

But the commune must go on

In the spring of ’71, I returned from Europe, broke, having travelled for 8 months and not knowing what was next. Back in Kitchener-Waterloo I found work at Camp Columbia for the summer. Reconnecting with friends and meeting new ones, I heard that Dumont was looking to hire in September. Yes!

I didn’t know anything about newspapers (other than reading the Chevron and having friends who wrote for it) or typesetting. But I could type and I knew I liked the proposed co-op/collective model of Dumont -- a fit with my values having grown up a Mennonite girl (United not Old Order) and definitely a fit with my developing feminist and left leanings. And then (luckily) Janet, Mary and I found a house to rent on Ahrens Street. Just a roll out of bed or a stagger home, either way Dumont was close by. The Station Hotel was an added bonus (greasy breakfast or late beers).

I learned a lot at Dumont. I never did become proficient at layout, and couldn’t match Winnie and Nick in the ticker tape contest of accuracy and speed, but I could organize the scheduling, figure out the finances, bring meetings to consensus and to an end, and be a worker bee, willing and dependable. I learned that although we might all agree about what had to be done, we needed to identify the different tasks to do them well; some people were a lot better at some tasks than others. So when there was a time crunch it made more sense for me to do the proofreading than to try to fit type onto a layout page when the text was too long.

I learned how to participate in a meeting, how to speak up, how to get the “agenda” done, how to work with a variety of personalities in various states of mind with different skills and interests in a sometimes tense, down-to-the-wire atmosphere.

Dumont meetings were often long and at times tedious. There were as many as 18 people working at Dumont in the early 1970s and meetings were deliberately non-hierarchical. We had neither set format nor designated chair. Often, leadership in directing or managing a meeting fell almost inevitably to the few more naturally inclined towards creating an agenda, taking notes, devising next steps and ensuring that everyone who wanted to speak were able to do so. Discussion was encouraged.

We often went around in circles, everyone having a say and then repeating once again to clarify or make sure that we were heard accurately. There was a dusty, over-stuffed couch with pillows that sank to the floor and a couple of large armchairs that were always taken before I arrived. Many of us pulled up chairs and stools and, if I remember correctly, most of our meetings were in the late afternoon.

A meeting that sticks in my mind was one attended by a large German Shepherd – at the time we had no policy on dogs or cats at work. The meeting had been going on for some hours with people coming and going, taking short breaks, and speaking sporadically. At some point the muscular and rather fearsome Shepherd was shooed off a chair to make room for humans. The Shepherd reluctantly stepped down from his position of comfort, slowly pacing around the room looking for another spot to sit (or so we thought). Much to our surprise, the Shepherd suddenly started to jerk off in the middle of the meeting!

Throughout my working career, I’ve been a keen observer of human behavior. And as I continued to fine-tune my meeting skills, maneuvering my way through difficult personalities and challenges, this event would often come to mind. What more could possibly astonish me!

I don’t remember there being much “to do” about the Shepherd’s bad behavior. In the early 1970s we were reluctant to voice feelings of shock or disgust when it came to sexual activity, canine or otherwise. But, the image of this shepherd and our shared personal responses over tea at Ahrens Street or beer at the Station Hotel remain with me to this day.

Ahrens Street was my base for three years, a long time in those years. Janet, Mary, Winnie, Jane, Lesley (and Sara) and David Monoogian are friends even now, 50 years later (although I have lost touch with David). Sitting at the Ahrens Street dining room table we shared many pots of tea, lots of laughter, passionate discussions, angst, tears, friendships, visitors, great meals, and some very personal growth.

A Moral Imperative

Ah, yes, I remember it well - but not so very well (it seems) without the helpful prodding of girlfriends with a shared history from the early 1970s. Back then, if you didn’t work at Dumont you knew someone who did.

For some, Dumont was the embodiment of “praxis” or “theory put into practice.” For others, it was this funky co-op typesetting shop on the second floor of the old Mitchell button factory on the corner of Weber and Victoria Streets in Kitchener. From the very beginning (for me) Dumont Press Graphix had this air of spent enterprise, Depression-era politics, and mysterious past encounters. Its musty wood smell, rickety unreliable freight elevator, high-beamed ceilings, exposed piping and tall multi-paned windows (some of which were cracked or broken) hinted at something more durable and larger than me.

In the early 1970s, we were all searching for something. The world we grew up in (when we learned more about it) proved not that attractive or inviting. Our studies at university provided insights but not necessarily answers. How might we begin to make sense of the world we inherited? How might we reshape it or improve its systems to better reflect our deepest heartfelt values? Isn’t this both the challenge and the burden that every new generation faces? At the time, it wasn’t so much a choice as a moral imperative.

Bridging Two Silos

I arrived at Dumont by way of the Eby Street commune, a political collective composed of two separate houses that lasted less than a year (perhaps a little over 6 months). The commune was an ambitious venture, an experiment into shared living that went beyond co-op housing. We pooled our financial resources, scheduled household responsibilities, cooked and ate together, and met as a collective at least once a week to discuss possible actions that might reflect our commitment to change.

There were, if I remember correctly, 12 of us altogether. The individuals I remember well are those I grew closer to while at Eby Street or those I had met on campus at University of Waterloo: Betty Burcher, Vicki Mees (a frequent visitor), Randy and Joy, Wally, David Monoogian, Peter Warrian, Heather Webster.

While at Eby Street I met Bill Aird, perhaps through Peter Lang (my partner and husband) or perhaps at RSM (Radical Student Movement) meetings on campus. One of our ongoing, recurring topics was how to bridge the gap between the two silos of university and community. We were all in some way connected to university either as teachers or students and we debated ad infinitum how we might share what we were learning with the community at large, how we might work to bridge the gap between the privileged and working classes.

I remember asking Rod Hay, when I was very new to the RSM, why were we so preoccupied with the working classes when so many universities did not question their “ivory tower” status. I remember his smile and simple response: We are the children of working class men and women. We are numerous. There are more of us than there are jobs. To keep us off the street (so to speak) the “powers that be” made it easier for us to enter university. We are learning about ourselves and in the process we are learning about privilege. And because we are the children of working men and women we see things differently. The balance seems uneven.

Rod may not have used these exact words. But, this is what I retained. There were large numbers of we so-called “baby boomers” at Waterloo and we did not come from wealth. Our loyalties lay elsewhere. Outside the universities, Kitchener-Waterloo was largely a working class city.

On the Line

I remember Bill Aird as one of the key players in the community newspaper On the Line. I liked Bill, his thoughtful way of speaking and his passion for the underprivileged. I decided to help distribute On the Line in downtown Kitchener. I also participated in the Dare Strike (front page news in On the Line) as one of many students showing their support for the Dare factory workers. I became friends with one of the families involved in the strike and later rented an attic apartment from them.

As has been described in other articles on this website, On the Line was inspired by the insight that information is powerful and that the press plays a key role in sharing and disseminating information. It didn’t take long to carry this insight one step further: Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one! Owning the means of production was also one way to reduce costs for creative and independent journalism.

Dumont – A Precarious Tolerance

When I started at Dumont in 1971, I knew nothing about photocomposition, perforating machines, punch-hole tapes, paste-up boards, layout tables, waxing machines, proofreading, editing, photography, organizing payrolls, scheduling, and shift work. But I did know how to type (and yes to this day I believe I can type faster than Nick Sullivan, aka Nicky Savage) and I was a seasoned worker.

By the time I arrived at Dumont I already had several years work experience. I graduated from high school in Montreal when I was 16. Instead of immediately going to university I enrolled in Business College (the former Mother House at the corner of University Avenue and Sherbrooke Street West) and for two years afterwards I helped send my brothers to university. Mine, was a working class household from the Montreal East End: Catholic, dominated by a widowed war bride whose modest hope for her daughter was that she marry well.

I think that the black and white photos of Dumont’s early days capture some of my fondest memories of Dumont. It was a difficult place to work at times – not everyone shared the same work ethic or “praxis.” But, it was a world where creativity and best efforts were respected and encouraged, where we struggled to learn and to improve our skills, where techniques were shared and judgments (for the most part) withheld. Bit by bit, we were learning from each other and sharing – no matter how difficult or painful.

This precarious tolerance applied to our personal lives as well as our daily tasks at Dumont. We were all in and out of relationships, trying to make “head or tail” of marriage, couples, sexuality, commitment, personal freedom, individualism and collective growth. We took on so much!

When the Dumont minutes of Tuesday September 7, 1971 were written, Peter Lang and I were no longer living together. I was living at Courtland Avenue with Trudy Chippier and Diane Mason. Trudy had separated from Eddie Hale and Diane had separated from Bob Mason. Although living apart from our former partners all six of us continued to work at Dumont.

When I look back now, some 50 years later, I am amazed that we dared to walk this delicate tight rope between the personal and the more public space of work. I’m sure scheduling became the art of the impossible. Fortunately, Dumont had people like Liz Janzen and Bill Aird creating the master schedule. We also had production managers for each 7-hour shift, overseeing continuity from one shift to the next, coordinating perforator and computer tasks, design and layout. At the best of times, selecting production teams and assigning tasks required a fair bit of sensitivity and ingenuity.

I remember Trudy Chippier from the “Trudy and Eddie Hale days” when both were obsessed with securing business contracts from the universities and Conestoga College, locating raw materials for light tables, massive hanging ceiling lights, second-hand perforators and a working Compugraphic photocomposition machine (about the size of a refrigerator). The two of them together were a force of nature. They also owned Dumont’s only van – a used, white, Ford Econoline. This crude box of a van had two front seats, with the engine serving as a heated third in between, a scuffed flat floor that stretched from the front seats to rear-end loading doors, perfect for hauling thousands of newsprint.

Trudy’s and Eddie’s farmhouse was memorable for its dancing parties: the Rolling Stones (I Can’t Get No Satisfaction, Gimme Shelter, Let’s Spend the Night Together), Janis Joplin (Me and Bobby McGee, Ball and Chain), The Grateful Dead (Keep on Truckin), Rod Stewart (Maggie May was one of Trudy’s favourites), Jefferson Airplane (White Rabbit, Somebody to Love), and last but not least Led Zeppelin (Stairway to Heaven).

Diane Mason was new to me at the time. I remember Diane and Bob fondly and when Diane and Dan Chabot discovered each other (he too worked at Dumont) I was just as pleased for the two of them. All three were delightful individuals and an absolute pleasure to work with. They were serious, compassionate, hardworking, and reliable. And as I remember it, all three had a great sense of humour. When times were bad, they didn’t dump on others. I remember sleeping on Diane’s waterbed while at Courtland – an added attraction until it sprung a leak.

I rather enjoyed reading the introduction to the proposal on “hiring and firing” dated May 29, 1972. This intro reads like a “treatise” on “form” and was written by Lizzie (Liz Janzen) and me. To this day, Lizzie and I remain good friends. When I read this archived document I could imagine the two of us deciding to put the “obvious” to print to ensure a shared footing when discussing “hiring and firing.” I wonder now if it was over pots of tea at Ahrens Street or drinks at the Station Hotel.

I recently received these pictures from Ralph Riener. They were definitely taken on his old Leica rangefinder, but he's not sure whether I took them or he took them. He's in the pictures, but I'm not, so he thinks I might have taken them. I don't think I was that good a photographer back then, so I might have taken the picture of him, but the others have what I think is a very good kind of framing and perfect focus, neither of which shows up consistently on pictures I took during that time.

 Cynthia, Reevin, Ralph, and I all worked at Dumont at some point during the first half of the 1970s. Marie, as most people know, was within the inner circle of the Dumont community. All five of us lived at 296 Guelph St. (demolished about eight years ago) for the first few months of 1970, probably February until sometime in the spring. Ralph and I lived there until the end of September, I believe. Many other familiar names lived there at some point as well, including Andy Telegdi (and his monkey), Rick Degrass, and Nick Savage. Eddie Schneider lived there a few years later with a slightly younger group of people.

It takes a Village to raise a child, it takes a Community to sustain a Collective.

A significant key to Dumont’s early success and certainly to much of its vitality were the relationships the shop established outside the workplace. These were centred around things like the Dumont Ducks (players and fans), the Food Co-op, the Awarehouse Books Co-operative, trade union support, Running Dog concerts, OPIRG, the K-W Women’s Centre and an endless array of communal gatherings, potlucks and festive gatherings celebrating a wide array of significant and/or eclectic cultural and political milestones.

It was this environment of communalism and co-operation that nurtured and sustained the social lives of the staff of Dumont Press, their housemates, co-conspirators, fellow travelers and assorted vagabonds through our years together. It was a time not without its share of bumps and hiccups, from relationship breakups to political discord to friction over individual work styles. All of these were part of the picture, but to a large extent, it was that sense of community that kept us rolling, and encouraged us to look out for each other.