Verse 05

Page history last edited by Oregonian 3 months ago

General notes on Verse 5

This verse is thought to be linked to Image 9 and a casque on either Notre Dame Island or Saint Helen's Island in Montreal, Canada.
The verse includes at least two references to the poetry of Gilbert Parker, who was born in Ontario and wrote about Canada. The second of these references ("wingless bird") is from a poem that specifically mentions Montreal, which makes the city-verse pairing in this case very likely to be correct.

Interpretation

Lines

Interpretation(s)

Lane

- The word "lane" according to Merriam-Webster is defined as:

1. a narrow passageway between fences or hedges.

2. a relatively narrow way or track: such as

a : an ocean route used by or prescribed for ships

b : a strip of roadway for a single line of vehicles

c : air lane

d : any of several parallel courses on a track or swimming pool in which a competitor must stay during a race

- How are shipping lanes labeled? Are they numbered in a way that could be represented by two twenty two?

A lane is a strip of deck 2 metres wide. A lane metre is an area of deck one lane wide and one metre long, that is, 2 square metres (21.528 sq ft) Most commonly associated with "roll on/roll off" vessels - cargo ships and ferries.

- Given the checkered pattern that is so prominent in Image 9, the most likely competition having lanes might be auto racing. And the most prominent auto racing venue in the Montreal area is the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Notre Dame Island in the Saint Lawrence River. The track was built in 1978 and is the home of the FIA Formula One Canadian Grand Prix.

- Alternatively, it could refer to the rowing and canoeing basin on Notre Dame Island. The basin was built for Montreal's 1976 Summer Olympics and it forms a long rectangle of lanes.

Two twenty two

- These words appear on their own line, suggesting that they may be a separate clue, rather than an identifier of the lane.

- This could be "222" or "2202" or "2 20 2." (Note that it doesn't say "twenty-two," which would be the standard way of writing "22.")

- Oddly enough, there is a bowling alley near the Montreal Airport at 222 Montée de Liesse, but nothing else suggests that we should be looking out in that direction west of Mount Royal.

- The current street address for the grand prix racetrack is 222 Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, but the road name (at least) must have been different in 1980. The track was originally called the Île Notre-Dame Circuit and it was only renamed after the death of Gilles Villeneuve in 1982. It would be a huge piece of the puzzle if someone were to find an exterior photo of the offices from around 1980 with a street address visible.

- For many years, Route 2 was a major highway running through Quebec. When the roads were renumbered in the 1960s, part of the highway near Montreal became Autoroute 20. According to Wikipedia, the stretch where the two highways overlapped "was referred to by Anglophone Montrealers as Highway 2-20 (or 'The Two and Twenty')." If the clue refers to this roadway, it would still leave us with an additional "two," which might be an exit or something.

- Given the presence of an "X" in Image 9 to represent the 10th month, it's very possible that what we're looking for here is a set of Roman numerals: II XX II. At the southern tip of Saint Helen's Island, by the Place des Nations, there was once a small parking area that consisted of four open spaces, two blocked-off spaces, and then four more open spaces: IIII XX IIII. It's certainly possible that, when Preiss visited in 1980, the parking area was narrowed to just two spaces on each side and the markings would have formed the right numerals. Unfortunately, we don't have any 1980 photos of the area, so this is only a hypothesis. (See the collection of Montreal aerials for more info.)

You'll see an arc of lights

- The layout of the Gilles Villeneuve Circuit has changed a few times over the years. Between 1979 and 1987, the start/finish line for the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve was at the northern tip of Notre Dame Island beside the east end of the Passerelle du Cosmos (Cosmos Bridge). The image at left below is from the Motor Sport Database file for Montreal. The image at right is from a trading sticker collection for the 1980 race series.

At the west end of the Cosmos Bridge (on Saint Helen's Island) is the Montreal Biosphère. It's a spherical geodesic dome that was built for Expo 67. People standing at the racetrack wouldn't be able to see the whole dome, but they would be able to see the top of the sphere on the horizon and it would definitely form "an arc." (The word "lights" could refer to either artificial lighting from inside or to the way the dome caught the sunlight.)

- This line appears to be summoning the searchers across the bridge from Notre Dame Island to Saint Helen's Island.

Here is the view looking northwest from where the finish line of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve was located in 1980. (Note the Tour de Lévis (Lévis Tower) visible above the trees to the right of the biosphere.)

Weight and roots extended

Together saved the site

Of granite walls

- These lines suggest that a flood or some other natural disaster could have washed away the foundation of a building ("granite wall") if roots and rocks hadn't prevented the erosion. If that interpretation is correct, we should be looking for a historic site near a river or beach.

- Notre Dame Island is an artificial island that was built in the Saint Lawrence River in 1965 to prepare for Expo 67. It doesn't have "granite walls" and it hadn't existed long enough in 1980 for "roots extended" to save it from anything.

- This line appears to be very directly confirming that we should cross the Cosmos Bridge from Notre Dame Island to Saint Helen's Island. That move would put us in a place with historic granite fortifications. Saint Helen's Island is a natural island in the river. The extended roots of the vegetation along the perimeter of the island are what hold the rocks and soil together to prevent erosion. (There may have even been a sign in 1980 to educate the public about the important role of riparian vegetation.)

- It would be very useful to see a closeup of this sign at the southern tip of Saint Helen Island. It appears to show a cross-section of the edge of the island.

Wind swept halls

- This line seems to describe a ruin or an abandoned building where wind is blowing down hallways.

- "Wind-swept" appears as a description in Gilbert Parker's short poem The Citadel.

- Because of the "67" in the flower, it has often been suggested that Image 9 might be connected in some way with the site of Expo 67, which took place in Montreal on Saint Helen's Island and the adjacent (artificial) Notre Dame Island. Between 1968 and 1984, the exposition structures and grounds on both islands were open to the public in the summer months as an exhibit called "Man and His World." According to Wikipedia, the site was largely deserted and windswept by the late 1970's and early 1980's:

"With the site falling into disrepair, and several pavilions left abandoned and vandalized, it began to resemble ruins of a futuristic city. ... After the 1981 season, the Saint Helen's Island site permanently closed, shutting out the majority of attractions. Man and His World was able to continue in a limited fashion with the small number of pavilions left standing on Notre Dame Island. However, the few remaining original exhibits closed permanently in 1984."

Citadel in the night

- According to Wikipedia, "A citadel is the core fortified area of a town or city. It may be a fortress, castle, or fortified center. The term is a diminutive of 'city' and thus means 'little city,' so called because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core." (Wikipedia also offers a disambiguation page for other meanings of "citadel.")

- The Salvation Army Citadel Corps Building is located at 2085 Drummond, just a few blocks away from the "legeater dog" outside the George Stephen House located at 1440 Drummond.

- The Tour de Lévis (Lévis Tower) might be the closest thing that would qualify as a "citadel" near the Biosphere. It was built in the 1930's and it stands as a solitary, fortified tower on a hill, offering "360-degree view of the islands, the river, downtown Montreal and the surrounding areas." The tower has commonly been used for watching fireworks ("in the night").

- The Saint Helen Island Fort might be another structure that could qualify as a "citadel" on the island.

- None of the structures that have been proposed in Montreal seem like particularly strong matches for "citadel." It's likely that the word appears in the verse (alongside "night" and "wind swept") primarily to steer the reader to the poetry of Gilbert Parker. The Parker connection makes the following line ("wingless bird") a clear connection to Montreal.

A wingless bird ascended

Born of ancient dreams of flight

The reference to the "flight of a wingless bird," comes from Gilbert Parker's poem, The Bridge of the Hundred Spans. The only city mentioned in the poem is Montreal, which presumably makes the city/verse link very clear, but the choice of those specific words out of a fairly long poem very likely carries some other significance as well.

The additional reference to "ancient dreams of flight" makes this almost certainly a reference to some form of aircraft invented by humans. If the aircraft is "wingless," there are really only two possibilities: a helicopter or some lighter-than-air vehicle (e.g., a balloon, blimp, or dirigible).

Option A: a helicopter

- Long before heavier-than-air flight had been achieved, Leonardo da Vinci drew up sketches for a machine that could fly with a rotor on top.

- Is there a helicopter connection to either Saint Helen Island or Notre Dame Island? There was a helicopter landing pad on Saint Helen Island as part of Expo 67. We need to find out when it was removed and whether it was gone by the time Preiss visited in 1980 or 1981.

- This could refer to the Air Canada pavilion at Expo 67: it clearly resembles the da Vinci sketches of the flying machines. (In fact, the Air Canada pavilion was later repurposed as the Leonardo da Vinci Pavilion at the 1970 Man and His World exposition, which was held on the same site.)

- The official description of this pavilion in the Expo 67 Guidebook is almost a perfect match for these lines of the verse. It speaks of "Man's mastery of the air … the spirit of flight … Man's conquest of the air, from his first fanciful dream to the achievements of today." There was even a section of the exhibit called The Dream.

Option B: a balloon

- According to Wikipedia, there is a historical tie between the Montreal area and ballooning: "On September 8, 1856, French aeronaut, Eugène Godard, operating a balloon called Canada (the first aircraft ever constructed in Canada), piloted the country's first successful passenger flight, carrying three passengers from Montreal to Pointe-Olivier, Quebec."

- According to an article published in the Montreal Gazette in 2001, the launch site was "behind the Wesleyan Church in Griffintown, adjacent to the municipal gasworks whose output would lift the Canada." Griffintown is now a neighborhood in Montreal, directly southeast of the Golden Square Mile and very close to the St. Lawrence River. The Wesleyan church was located on the corner of Ottawa and Ann Streets, at the same intersection as the gas works. It seems well worth searching Griffintown area for image matches and for a historical marker or something similar that commemorates the launch.

- Pointe-Olivier is now called the Municipality of Saint-Mathias-sur-Richelieu. It is located about 15 miles east of downtown Montreal. A balloon flight from Griffintown to Pointe-Olivier would have crossed the St. Lawrence river just below the southern tip of Saint Helen's Island. (The island of Notre Dame had not yet been constructed at that time.)

Beneath the only standing member

Of a forest

To the south

- Can this be anything other than a single old tree in a cleared area?

White stone closest

- The rules for The Secret specifically (and firmly) rule out any cemeteries, so the "white stone" isn't going to be a headstone. But Preiss obviously felt confident that this particular stone wasn't going anywhere and would still be around for months or years to come. It's a reasonable guess that either this stone is big and heavy (over 100 pounds) or this stone is attached somehow to the ground or to a structure.

- It would be unusual for a large, exposed stone to be naturally white. We may be looking for a stone that is (or was) painted white.

- Why "closest"? Does this mean that there's more than one white stone?

At twelve paces

From the west side

- Preiss is giving us directions here, but the phrasing is convoluted. We are juggling at least two landmarks - the tree and the stone - but it isn't clear whether the burial spot is beside one of those two features or whether it's a separate feature entirely.

- If we start below the solitary, large tree, is it the forest that's "to the south" or is it the white stone? Do we start our pacing at the tree or at the stone? And does starting "from the west side" mean that we pace westwards, or do we just start on that side but go in some other direction?

- It's possible that the tree is twelve paces from the west side of the stone and we should dig under the tree (or vice-versa). But this interpretation only makes sense if "to the south" modifies "a forest." It's possible that Preiss was talking about a forest that once stood at the southern tip of Saint-Helene Island.

Get permission

To dig out.

- The instructions tell us to "get permission," but they don't tell us from whom. This suggests that the ownership of the spot (and the appropriate contact person) will be obvious.

- The Ontario One Call system probably didn't exist back in 1980, but maybe the "get permission" bit was meant to tell us to use whatever equivalent was available. (In any case, searchers would be wise to use the system before attempting a dig now.)

We now have several aerial views of the northern end of Notre Dame Island from around the time Preiss buried the casque.

The drawing below is the track map that appeared in the official race programme for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix. (There's also a photo and map in the 1980 programme for the race.)

The perspective in this drawing is from above Saint Helen Island looking southeastwards toward Notre Dame Island.

For comparison, the photo below was taken on August 21, 1980. This view is from the southern end of Notre Dame Island looking north. The 1980 Canadian Grand Prix was held on September 28th and you can see the grandstands under construction in this photo. (More aerial photos of Saint Helen's Island and Notre Dame Island are available, but you need to be using a browser that can handle TIF files.)

Questions:

Does anyone have more information about Eugène Godard's balloon, the Canada? A 2001 article in the Montreal Gazette called it a hot-air balloon, but that seems unlikely. Given that it was launching from the gasworks, it seems more probable that it was a hydrogen balloon.
Has anyone found any night photography showing Saint Helen Island? It would be helpful to know what structures were illuminated. The current leading candidates for an "arc of lights" are the Biosphere and the Jacques Cartier bridge.

Other Notes:

The initial letters of lines 9 through 13 spell out "ABBOT" which may be a clue in some way. An abbot is a Christian clergyman, particularly the head of a monastery. Given that the figure in Image 9 is making some kind of church signal with his hands ("here's the church, here's the steeple"), it's possible that our final destination will be a church property of some sort and we are supposed to ask the abbot for permission to do the dig.
When Eugène Godard launched his balloon, the Canada, from Griffintown in 1856, the launch site was beside the Wesleyan Church at the corner of Ottawa and Ann streets. A few blocks further down Ottawa are the ruins of St. Anne's Church, which was built in 1854. There may be some connection there.
It's also possible that "CABBOT" is a hint toward Cabot Square in Montreal (although it seems unlikely that Preiss would misspell the name).
The official souvenir map of Expo 67 is available online as a very high-resolution image. The Air Canada pavilion is structure 332.

Question: Is the white stone at the southern tip of Saint Helen's Island really THE white stone that Verse 5 is telling us to find?

For some time now, searchers have had their eye on a large white stone just south of the Place des Nations on Saint Helen's Island. In some ways it fits the written and visual clues very well. In other ways, it doesn't. To hash it all out, this table lists the pros and cons of this solution. Please contribute your ideas and insights!

(photo contributed by wiki user wildshadow20)
YES! It must be the right stone!	NO! It can't be the right stone!
- It's a large, white stone. (And the only one we know of on the island.) - It's probably been there for a long time and Preiss could be sure that it wasn't going anywhere. - The verse describes "a forest to the south" and the stone is under some trees at the very southern tip of Saint Helen's Island. - It's beside the Place des Nations, which would have been "windswept halls" in 1980. - The Place des Nations also has symbols on it that are very similar to the "runes" in the image. - From the southern tip of Saint Helen's Island there's a view across the water to the Habitat 67 building that seems to be in the image. - The view from the southern tip of Saint Helen's Island would also show the path taken by the Canada when it flew across the St. Lawrence river in 1856. - Maybe the tree closest to the stone was significantly larger than the other nearby trees in 1980. - The verse is telling us that the casque is buried under the tree. We should start at the white stone, go twelve paces from the west side of it (westwards, toward the tree) and dig there.	- Apart from the checkered flag cuffs, nothing in Image 9 points to either Notre Dame Island or Saint Helen's Island. In fact, many clues in the image seem to be pointing us to a different Montreal location inside the Golden Square Mile. The clues leading us to this particular stone on an island in the St Lawrence river are coming almost entirely from the verse. - There are lots of trees around and the Expo 67 map shows that the trees have been there for a long time. There's no "only standing member of a forest." - How would we "get permission" to dig at this site? Who would we ask? It's not like this is in somebody's front yard or something. - Big Flaw: There's an electric light fixture (a lamp post) very near the stone and it must be powered by underground wiring. There's no way that Preiss would be crazy enough to have us dig where we might hit a power line. (But maybe the fixture was only installed later.)
Changes since 1980:
The pavement at the southern tip of the island has an inlaid compass rose, which was at one time thought to have some connection to the puzzle. It has now been confirmed that the compass decoration was installed well after 1980. The lamp post beside the white stone would almost certainly be a dealbreaker if it existed in 1980. But maybe it was installed more recently? The road or path that curves around the southern end of the island and goes by the white stone and the lamp post appears to have shifted position a few times over the years. It would be great to find more pictures of how the spot looked in 1980.
Diagramming the sentence(s):
The phrasing at the end of the verse is maddeningly vague, but let's take a stab at diagramming it out. For the sake of this analysis, let's assume that the white stone at the southern tip of Sainte Helene Island is really THE white stone. Beneath the only standing member of a forest to the south, White stone closest at twelve paces from the west side. "To the south" would seem to modify "forest" and "of a forest" would seem to modify "member," so those lines would all seem to go together and would seem to tell us that we should go south from the earlier clues and look under a tree. The second bit is trickier. If "from the west side" applies to "twelve paces," it would seem to suggest that we start at the west side of something and go twelve pace (presumably going westwards). But where do we start? Interpretation #1: The lines are telling us to go to the tree, find the closest white stone, and then take 12 paces from the west side. So "closest" means "closest white stone" and "from the west side" means "from the west side of the stone." Interpretation #2: The second line is helping us identify the tree by telling us that this tree is the one closest to the white stone. It further confirms the spot by telling us that the stone is 12 paces from the west side of the tree. So "closest" means "closest tree" and "from the west side" means "from the west side of the tree." Problems with Interpretation #1: A) It sends us toward the streetlight and the underground power lines. B) It would put us out in an incredibly hard-packed dirt and gravel road where digging by hand would be almost impossible. C) "Twelve paces" is an incredibly vague way to describe an exact spot for digging. It's really hard to believe that Preiss would say "Hey, go borrow a pickaxe and spend a few weeks excavating a crater in the middle of a maintenance road. Don't electrocute yourselves." Problems with Interpretation #2: If the rock is only mentioned as a confirmation of the correct tree, then we are apparently meant to dig at the tree. But what side? West side? How far out from the trunk? It's not as vague as "twelve paces," but it's still a long ways from "X marks the spot."

Comments (Show all 78)

The thing I love about this hunt is that it teaches me so much weird and interesting history about the places involved!

Your suggestion about "ruelle" led me to an article about the history of Montreal's "Ruelles Vertes" (green alleyways): http://untappedcities.com/2013/08/07/montreals-ruelles-vertes-green-alleyways-help-the-environment-and-create-a-sense-of-community/
A link in that article led me to a 1969 documentary called "Les fleurs c'est pour Rosemont" about the movement that started it all: http://www.onf.ca/film/les_fleurs_c_est_pour_rosemont/
And check out that doorway featured in the splash page for the documentary! Was that what Preiss was referring to in this verse? Probably not. But it's an interesting coincidence.

Hi guys, I've just dropped a couple of images on Image 09 thread and wanted to share here some thoughts about the poem.
This has already been posted on another site but wanted to share with you as well...

Referring to the poem, I wanted to point out, in case it could be of help, that two twenty two in French (Montreal's first language) would be "deux vingt deux", whose pronunciation sounds like "dévant de" which means "in front of".

Checkered patterns have been said to look like checkered grand prix flags. Flag in French is "drapeau". The park on St. Helene's island is parc Jean-Drapeau.

I thought that the wingless bird could be the Concorde plane, whose shape is peculiar and "less winged" than other planes. We have Concorde Bridge which links the island to Montreal.
"Lane" can be translated as "circuit" and we have Villeneuve Circuit on the island.

I've been visiting Lévis tower and the nearby area but couldn't find anything else relevant. The tower should have been part of a citadel in the past. There's a cannon museum on the island and cannons could look similar to the little thingy next to the legeater in the picture. No white stones next to the tower, apart from some guardstone bollards which probably haven't been there forever.

I was thinking to go and visit the white stone you pointed out in this workspace.

I'll be around for few days, let me know if you want to meet/discuss/dig!

Cheers!

Hi all,
New to this hunt but I’ve been doing some research and have some interpretations I’d like some comments about. First of all there the citadel of Montreal used to exist but was taken down to allow for the extension of the rue de Nore-dame. But I don’t think this is the citadel. I think the citadel is “Old Montreal”. Old Montreal was a walled city and is the core or most fortified part of Montreal. And while these walls themselves are not granite they are limestone (which could be chalk white) BUT to preserve these walls when they were removed for progress, they have replaced them with granite tiles to walk on. So the “roots extended”(history) and the “weight” (people walking on them) together have saved the walls which are now granite of the citadel of Old Montreal. Park “champ-de-mars” has existing limestone wall (only public place it can still be found) which protected the Jesuit and St laurent strongholds (citadels?) and place Jacques Cartier is near the “residence du governor” (citadel?) and has these granite tiles where the wall used to be. Also the checker pattern and Color matches the floor at st Patrick’s basilica. Which is also within the old city walls.

Anyway I look forward to thoughts.

Sorry I forgot a couple things.

Also the flower on the image resembles the stained glass window of st Patrick’s basilica. Which if you look at at night has only one green peak that looks like a “ lone tree”

On a completely different tack... have we suggested Mount Royal Chalet as a possible location. If we look at the coat of the figure in the picture, we see GWL and the Leg Eater Dog (see my comment on the picture page). If we align them correctly, the flower would be roughly at the Mount Royal Chalet. There seems to be a white something in the google map just to the West of the building (https://goo.gl/maps/1yeHqkW5X6n) could that be stone? Can't tell from google map... The area has stone halls, granite retaining walls etc. but no arc of lights.
Just a thought???
B

Lane = The Saint Lawrence river and maybe the metro, Expo Express or the hovercraft to Ile Sainte-Helene.
How can this not be on Ile Sainte-Helene (Weight and roots extended, Together saved the site, Of granite walls)
Shape of his mouth is Montreal
Shape of beret is shape of Ile Sainte-Helene
67 in flower Expo67 or Habitat67
Legeaterdog (Montreal/George Stephen House)
Image next to Legeaterdog (Metro,Hoovercraft,Submarine ,Habitat67?)
The square with the X appears to contain two runes (wunjô/Joy ,laguz/Lake water or Ocean ) Maybe Complexe aquatique on Ile Sainte-Helene
Wind swept halls = Long-abandoned building underneath Jacques-Cartier Bridge (Made of stone and is white)
Citadel in the night =Levis tower,Saint Helen Island Fort or (Why in the night??)could this be the lighthouse , which stands on a white painted stone .
A wingless bird ascended, Born of ancient dreams of flight = Helicopter ?? Helicopterpad north on the island next to the heli-hover Terminus(555)
or This could refer to the Air Canada pavilion at Expo 67 which was located very close to the Metrostation and Complexe aquatique on Ile Sainte-Helene

Everything points to Parc Jean-Drapeau or atleast Ile Sainte Helene

The Dutch Cornelius Drebbel invented the first submarine also the Dutch famous for water, ships and engineering.
The word Fée = Fairy (Could this be ferry??)
222 (555 = Map Location number of Terminus Helipad and Hovercraft of Expo67 )
P1 could also be parking spot 1.

His hands are the biggest mystery , maybe his fingers form a E for East.
https://ibb.co/HPzKwwW 1980 from Ile Notre-Dame
https://ibb.co/BKNcwDy 1927
https://ibb.co/HX8NTHY 2008
https://ibb.co/vZxXjh3 The Lighthouse
https://ibb.co/xj2dq7L public transport map Expo 67
https://ibb.co/cY1WfJ0 Metro station (Looks like the weird robot in a way , also to the left is a stairs going up)
https://ibb.co/Xtrp2Fp Steward Museum/Saint Helen Island Fort
https://ibb.co/gdwr5ts La Ronde No clue how old this is.

Those are great photos! Good work!

The most likely solution has always been the southern tip of Saint Helen's Island, positioned in some relation to the white stone. But that lamp post with the underground wiring is a huge obstacle. It would be great if someone could scour the public records in Montreal to find out exactly when the lamp was installed. Proving whether or not it was there in 1980 would be a big step forwards.

Full credit to a wiki user named Laurel who found the Griffintown location for Godard's balloon launch! This has the potential to be the first big breakthrough in this puzzle in years. The Griffintown clue fits in with all sorts of existing clues and it's exactly the sort of historical detail that Preiss would have loved to include. If any puzzle solvers in Montreal are interested in pursuing this, it would be great to see some photos of neighborhoods, parks, landmarks, and such. It's particularly interesting that St. Anne Park is directly in line with Drummond Avenue, the site of the legeater dog.

Laurel, I've given you access to the site. Feel free to add your own contributions.

Might be worth to look into although in the early 80s Griffintown was mostly an industrial neighbourhood, not really the kind of place a tourist would visit and dig a hole. Sadly the area is now mostly condo towers built in the ~5 yrs, thus the cask would probably be lost...

Yeah, after looking into it for awhile I came to the same conclusion about Griffintown. BUT... I'm still pretty certain that Godard's balloon (the "Canada") is the "wingless bird" being described in this verse. The balloon launched from the gasworks in Griffintown and then drifted eastwards across the river. The southern tip of Sainte Helene Island would be the best place in the entire city to see the flight. It makes sense that, after leading us on this route across the bridge and down through the island, Preiss would have us pause to consider the historic importance of the spot.

https://imgshare.io/image/image2.vvOvF
Ive send this to your email delete this if you got it.

"Wind swept halls" - this has to be a reference to the Expo buildings.

The Expo 67 buildings were in such a state of disrepair in the late 1970s that the sci-fi show Battlestar Galactica filmed an episode there ("Greetings from Earth"). I made a short clip of the building footage here: https://youtu.be/ViEo_Vg8EgQ

Legeaterdog (Fleur de Lys) + Golden Square = the start point.(GSHouse)

Lane = Rue Peel or Green Metro line that runs almost directly under the GSHouse

Two twenty two = Rue Peel Rte 112 (also location of Peel station)+-222meters away from starting point

You'll see an arc of lights , possible definition of arc : a curved path

Weight and roots extended Together saved the site Of granite walls , Could this be about the Metro lines

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Metro#/media/File:Metro_Montreal_Evolution.gif

hi, since the solutions for this casque isn't really solved yet, I thought I would post my own findings here in hope someone will get the right solution.
My findings for this date back 6 months ago, but I don't think that would be a problem.
I took another turn of this solution, instead of thinking of the current F1 solution, I went with the Mount royal solution.
This is because of the shape of the collar. you can see the outline of the lake and the outline of the road south of mount royal.
in the verse you read about a wingless bird ascended. this is a reverence to the mount royal funicular railway.
this also explains the next line of the verse, because it dates back to 1959.
if you follow the same path the railway took, you end up next to the cross on top of mount royal.
this could be the reverence to the only standing member in a forest. Because it is in a forest and its a one of a kind structure.
from there the rest of the verse is simple, but i cant pinpoint the location because there isn't enough information on google earth.
To me this solution makes much more sense than the current one, and i am willing to share this information because Montréal isn't on my road during the road trip i will make next summer
hope this information is useful
kind regards
Bram Eltink
ps the arc of light is the kondiaronk belvedere

Hi! I'm new here and as a Montreal local, I thought about something that I didn't see referenced anywhere. The line "You'll see an arc of lights" might be referencing to the lights on top of Place Ville Marie? To anyone not familiar with it, Place Ville Marie is a building located in downtown Montreal with a big rotating light on top that projects 4 rotating beams of light. The projector has ben there since 1962, and at night, it's possible to see a litteral arc of light in the sky every 30 seconds. It is said that the lights can be seen up to 30km away, so it might not be helpful to pinpoint the exact location of the casque, but I'm thinking that this could be what is referenced in the verse.

Hello Joel MTL and welcome.
I’m fairly new here too and working on the Montreal, San Francisco, New York and Charleston puzzles.
Your RBoC building “arc of lights” theory is really interesting – I thought it may have be the airport or Olympic Stadium but have never been convinced.
Can you confirm whether the lights are visible form the Laurentian Lanes bowling alley (“Lane Two twenty two”)? My theory for the casque site is near the white stone on the southern point of Saint Helen’s Island and if a line is marked on a map from West to East along the bowling alley location through the RBoC location it goes straight to the Southern point of Saint Helen’s Island.
Also, are you available for any BOTG detective work if necessary?

typo - from the Laurentian Lanes bowling alley

The Laurentian Lanes bowling alley (Lane Two twenty two) , George Stephen House (legeater lamp post), Royal Bank of Canada building (arc of lights) and South point of Saint Helen’s Island (white stone closest) are all in a perfect line.
http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/file/152125017/verse_5_markers_montreal.jpg

....and the Trafalgar School for Girls building (stepped collar in image 9) is in line too!

I can plot 6 potential markers in a straight line, surely this isn’t coincidence. http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/file/152449107/Montreal_markers.docx

Could The Place des Nations pavilion be the “Beneath the only standing member Of a forest To the south”?
A - It is the only Expo 67 pavilion, of a forest of pavilions, situated on the southern tip of St. Helen’s Island.
B – You could actually stand beneath the outer structure.
C – It has four sides, so we’re told to go to the side with “White stone closest”.
D – It fits with ‘The Secret’ theme – a place of nations.
http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/file/152449110/place_des_nations_montreal_ca.jpg

I have composed my solve idea for verse 05, image 09 in detail and uploaded it here.
http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/file/152552670/Verse05_Limeys_solve.docx

From the ‘Questions’ section:
“Does anyone have more information about Eugène Godard's balloon, the Canada? A 2001 article in the Montreal Gazette called it a hot-air balloon, but that seems unlikely. Given that it was launching from the gasworks, it seems more probable that it was a hydrogen balloon.”
Reply:
The article states “A special takeoff site was prepared behind the Wesleyan Church in Griffintown, adjacent to the municipal gasworks whose output would lift the Canada.”
So it was probably filled with coal gas.

Interesting! I think it almost HAS to be true that the balloon was filled with coal gas, despite the danger. The only other possibility that I was considering was that maybe they had a pipe with a burner at the gasworks and they were just using the gas to heat the air. They probably didn't have any cylinder to compress and carry the gas, so a hot air balloon would have to just depend on the initial heat it had at the launch. I'd love to have some balloonist weigh in on whether that would even be possible.

According to Wikipedia, coal gas is composed of equal parts of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gas Hydrogen is significantly lighter than air, and was used to lift the Hindenburg, but carbon monoxide is close to the same weight as air. So coal gas would have about half the lifting power of hydrogen. Would it still work? Maybe! It's odd that we still haven't found any picture or description of the balloon. Do we even know how many people were riding in it?

If I were a passenger on the Canada, one my (many) concerns would be that a gust of wind could slightly compress the balloon and push a cloud of carbon monoxide down onto the passengers. If they really did use coal gas, they must have sealed off the balloon to prevent that happening.

No health & safety worries back then Oregonian!
Hydrogen was expensive and hard to get in large quantities and I believe that the gas in the balloon was controlled by a gas valve.

Here’s a link to an interesting history of ballooning and how dangerous those early days were:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w9RowkJ1yY&t=1252s

From Wikipedia:
"Charles Green (31 January 1785 – 26 March 1870) was the United Kingdom's most famous balloonist of the 19th century. He experimented with coal gas as a cheaper and more readily available alternative to hydrogen for lifting power……Green was the first to demonstrate, in 1821, that coal-gas was applicable to the inflation of balloons. Before his time pure hydrogen gas was used, a substance very expensive, the generation of which was so slow that two days were required to fill a large balloon, and then the gas was excessively volatile."

The Gazette article mentions that "Godard’s wife decided to stay behind," and, frankly, that strikes me as a very wise choice.

This might seem a little far-fetched, but it's striking just how well the balloon flight ties in to "an arc of lights." The rise of municipal gasworks in the mid-1800s meant that two things happened around the same time: Bridges were lit up with rows of lights and people went up in balloons to marvel at the view. I found a really interesting article in the "British Art Studies" journal about balloon flights over London and what people thought of them.

"In 1865, the scientist James Glaisher described the way that gaslights illuminated the outline of the serpentine river Thames when seen from a balloon: 'On leaving Charing Cross I looked back over London, the model of which could be seen traced—its squares by their lights; the river, which looked dark and dull, by the double row of lights on every bridge spanning it.'"
https://www.britishartstudies.ac.uk/issues/issue-index/issue-22/gasworks-ballooning-and-the-visual-gas-field

It might just be a coincidence, but it might be that Preiss mentioned the "arc of lights" to get us looking at the bridges and the history of when and how they were illuminated. And maybe that would help lead us to the gasworks and what happened there. One thing I'm sure of is that Preiss did a little research on the history of Montreal and we just haven't yet managed to find the source he was using.

Okay, this is really pushing the bounds of credibility (I know) but keep an open mind and give this a thought: For several decades now, people have struggled to explain the "legeater dog" in Image 9. It's clearly based on the lampposts outside the George Stephen House on Drummond Street in Montreal, but none of the other clues steer us to that neighborhood and a crowded, dense, urban area would be a terrible place to bury a casque. So if Preiss was just trying to throw in a distinctive bit of local art, like the Bowman in Chicago or Laureate in Milwaukee, why did he choose something so small as the footpost of a lamp?

The answer appears to be staring us in the face. IT'S THE GAS. Montreal has been powered by coal gas since the mid-1830s. Coal gas is what would have powered those upscale street lights outside the George Stephen House (built in 1883). The high levels of municipal gas production is what allowed Montreal to light up the whole city in 1860 to celebrate the opening of the Victoria Railway Bridge. https://christophermoorehistory.blogspot.com/2013/08/ And the reliable production of high amounts of coal gas is why Eugène Godard chose Montreal to be the site of the country's first passenger balloon flight.

The dogeater wasn't a hint toward the Stephen House or Drummond street. It was a hint toward gas and the arc of lights that could appear on bridges, and toward the flight of a wingless bird that was made possible by that same gas. It's crazy, but it works. And it's very much in the style of the other puzzles.

Oregonian, strangely I was thinking about the significance of the ‘legeater’ at the weekend and was composing an idea to add here - but with an opposing view.
I was also asking myself the question “why is the ‘legeater’ a prominent part of the image for such a small thing”?
It would never have been found as a city confirmer - look at the significant buildings used in other images such as the Chicago Water Tower, Cleveland Terminal Tower or Boston Armory.
So consider this : What if It’s the dig spot Aha! identifier? (like the Chicago fence post).

THIS IS THE ONLY VERSE TELLING US TO “GET PERMISSION TO DIG OUT”.

Could BP have liked this unique post base so much that he decided to use it as a casque locator - Having been granted permission to place the casque on the George Stephen House property (maybe in a planter, like Cleveland), with the proviso that any searchers were instructed to ask permission from the club owners to retrieve it? http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/file/159116472/George-Stephen-House_c-2009_google_maps.jpg
There were definitely trees and plenty of white stone fronting the house. http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/file/159116475/George-Stephen-House_c-1989.jpg
Sadly if this was the spot, it’s surely gone judging by this image by Thomas1313 of the substantial building works carried out a decade ago to turn it into a boutique hotel! http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/file/159116478/George_Stephen_House%2C_Montreal_2013_by_By%20Thomas1313%20-%20Own%20work%2C%20CC%20BY-SA.jpg
Check out these images: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Exterior_of_George_Stephen_House

From the ‘Questions’ section:
“Has anyone found any night photography showing Saint Helen Island? It would be helpful to know what structures were illuminated. The current leading candidates for an "arc of lights" are the Biosphere and the Jacques Cartier bridge.”
Reply:
As previously posted by ‘Joel MTL’ on this page in Feb 2023, I agree with the notion that "arc of lights" could be the rotating lights on top of the Ville-Marie building. Fitted in 1962, they have been illuminating the Montreal night sky every night ever since.
https://www.mtl.org/en/experience/montreal-iconic-rotating-beacon-atop-place-ville-marie#:~:text=The%20four%20beaming%20rays%20from%20the%20Royal%20Bank,was%20installed%20atop%20Place%20Ville%20Marie%20in%201962

Have a Happy New year hunters!
Here’s some alternative ideas for “Lane Two twenty two”

“Lane”
- The 1976 Olympic Games Women’s 200m final gold medal winner was Bärbel Wöckel (née Eckert) of Germany who won in a time of 22.3 seconds and was running in lane 2. In fact Germany took the first five places all between 22.3 and 22.6 seconds with the sixth place taken by The Soviet Union in 23.0 seconds.
- Patrick Lane, Canadian poet who co-founded the small-press publisher ‘Very Stone House’ in 1966.
- A painting set in Montreal entitled “The Lane” by Robert Pilot, Canadian painter. https://www.klinkhoff.ca/content/feature/248/artworks7051/
- A. T. Lane, Montreal bicycle pioneer https://www.montrealbicycleclub.com/at-lane.html

‘Lane’ in French = ‘Voie’
‘Voie’ translated to English can mean Lane or Route.

“Two twenty two”
Route 2 was a previous number used for a major highway in the Canadian province of Quebec.
During the 1960s until being renumbered, Route 2 and the A-20 ran concurrently.
Older Anglophone Montrealer’s sometimes still refer to the section of the A-20 west of the city as Highway 2-20 (or "The Two and Twenty"),even though the Route 2 designation was dropped in the mid-1970s.
Also there are TWO sections of the A-20, separated by a 57 km (35.4 mi) gap.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Autoroute_20

A July 26th 1975 ‘Montreal Star’ newspaper article on page 24, under the heading “Lakeshore Highway Expansion In Works”, refers to the route as "Highway 2-20”, as do several other articles up to the newspaper’s closure in 1979.
http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/file/159380859/Montreal_Star_Highway_2-20_articles_1975_%26_1979.jpg
https://www.newspapers.com/paper/the-montreal-star/27347/?msockid=1c4caf53776662100630ba35767963fb

Following the Saint Lawrence River through one of the more densely populated parts of Canada, its central section forms the main route of the Trans-Canada Highway.
Upon its original completion, the Trans-Canada Highway was the longest uninterrupted highway in the world, it was almost exclusively a two-lane route for its whole length across the country.

yay! i emailed oregonian about this several months back. just couldn't figure out the last 2 of 2 20 2 so didn't post it here.

the only thing i could find for the last 2 would be like an Exit 2. and if you searched exit 2 it puts you at Ave Pierre-Dupuy which is on Notre Dame Island, but there is a Rue Pierre-Dupuy off the A20 near Port de Longueuil. 45.53, -73.52

The Canadian highway numbering system is insane! It's very hard to sort it all out.

Here's what I've got:
- There was originally a Route 2 that ran across Quebec. All the different parts of it have now been incorporated into different roads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Route_2
- The section of Route 2 that was turned into the A-20 was just a 21-mile stretch running eastwards from Vaudreuil-Dorion east of Montreal to where R-138 branches off in Montreal West. Nothing in that section is relevant to The Secret.
- Let's assume that the locals were flexible with the nickname and called it the "two and twenty" even past the intersection with R-138. Continuing on that road, the A-20 first overlaps the A-15 through Pointe-Saint-Charles and then both of those roads overlap with the A-10 on the Samuel-de-Champlain Bridge to Longueuil. So the bridge is really the A-10, the A-15, and the A-20. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Autoroute_20
- After crossing the St Lawrence on the bridge, the A-20 runs north along the east bank, past Notre Dame Island and Saint Helen's Island.
- This is where we would really need a road map from 1980. In the stretch of the A-20 from Pointe-Saint-Charles to Old Longueuil, which exits would have provided a plausible route to the islands? And what were the numbers for those exits?

One option would be to get off the A-20 and approach from the south on Ave Pierre-Dupuy through Cite du Havre and then cross the Concorde Bridge. It might have also been possible to cross the Victoria Bridge to Notre Dame Island, depending on how those roads were configured at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Bridge_(Montreal)

The only other option would be to cross the river on the A-20 and follow it north and then cross back to the islands on the Jacques-Cartier Bridge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Cartier_Bridge

Can anyone can find a 1980 map and show an Exit 2 that would have worked with any of those routes?

yeah been looking the last few days and the exit signs are crazy. i honestly don't think they use a number system for Exits. just how many km away an turn off is. i also thought maybe it was a mile/km marker 2 but i haven't found that yet if one exists.

Here’s a portion of a 1967 map showing Route 2 and Autoroute 20 labelled together and then splitting into two routes going north on either side of St. Helen’s and Notre Dame islands, maybe focusing our attention on this area?
http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/file/159712764/Montreal_V5_Route_2_%26_Autoroute-20_1967.jpg
Alternatively, we see Route 2 and Autoroute 20 labelled together and then maybe we’re meant to follow Route 2 (2-20 then 2). Now labelled Route 138, it forms Sherbrooke Street.
Sherbrooke Street goes straight through Ville-Marie (RBoC building ‘arc of lights’), the Golden Square Mile, and crosses Drummond Street where, as we know, we find the legeater lamppost. http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/file/159712767/Montreal_Route_2_Golden_Square_Mile.jpg
On our way we’ve passed the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts where the Rembrandt painting ‘Landscape with Cottages’ was among those stolen in the 1972 “Skylight Caper” robbery. The ruffled part of the hat in Image 9 looks like a close match to the painting along with the flick of hair matching the tree in the painting. http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/file/159712770/image_9_hat_and_Rembrandt_painting.jpg
Sherbrooke Street then carries on up to Pie-IX Boulevard (‘P1X’ in Image 9) and past the Olympic Stadium and Montreal Botanical garden (‘76’ in the flower).
Sherbrooke Street could be the crease on the chin in Image 9, with the mouth being Autoroute 40, this would put the tip of his nose where the Golden Square Mile would be.
It’s puzzling that the image clues fit well with the Golden Square Mile but Verse 5 fits well with the Expo ‘67 site.

In my view the golden square mile shown as a gold square in the painting is the search zone. You need to search within this area otherwise the golden square mile is useless.

Here’s a couple of fun facts for February.
#1. There was a Canadian ‘Pulp and Paper’ pavilion at Expo ’67 which highlighted “The Beauty and Utility of the Forest”. 44 stylized tree tops created the unique roof.
Curiously there was a solitary smaller building with a single tree top roof to the south, next to the rowing basin sloped concrete protection which had ‘white stones’ on it. Nowhere to bury a casque, and also I believe it was gone by the ‘80’s.
http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/file/159848688/Canada_Pulp_%20%26_%20Paper_Pavilion_member_Of_a_forest_To_the_south.jpg

#2. Page 14 of ‘The Secret’ states that the Dutch ‘Klabautermannikins’ settled in “Wildcat Creek”.
In Lane County – Oregon, there is a Wildcat Creek and also a Route 222 – although not named this in the ‘80’s by the looks of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Route_222

It should have been "Five Fun Facts for February" followed by "Many Marvelous Mysteries for March" and then "An Aha! Answer in April," but we'll let it slide.

There wasn't a rowing basin in 1967. It was only added later, after the expo, to prepare for the the Olympics. So everything where the Pulp and Paper Pavilion once stood would have been destroyed by the construction before 1976. This photo shows how that spot looked in 1980: https://depot.ville.montreal.qc.ca/vues-aeriennes-obliques-1960-1969/VM94-B253-016.tif

(Still, it would be really neat to find out that they saved the fake trees from the expo and had them all piled up somewhere on the islands with one of them standing up in 1980.)

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Verse 05

General notes on Verse 5

Interpretation

Questions:

Other Notes:

Question: Is the white stone at the southern tip of Saint Helen's Island really THE white stone that Verse 5 is telling us to find?

YES! It must be the right stone!

NO! It can't be the right stone!

Changes since 1980:

Diagramming the sentence(s):

Verse 05

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