The Coral Gables Times

Thursday, January 18, 1962, page 19 (of 28)

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An Exciting Trip Via the Big Ditch

PANAMA CITY, Panama—Air travelers and others besides those on ships transiting the Panama Canal may now see and experience the historic engineering wonders of the $380,000,000 man made ditch that lifts and lowers ships 85 feet, about the height of a seven-story building, across the Continental Divide. The Panama Canal Company has provided this unique sightseeing opportunity with the Las Cruces, a 64-foot specially designed vessel, to carry 200 passengers through the Canal. It is available for public use. Heretofore, only those on ships in the Canal could view the overall immensity of the international facility. Separate features, such as the Canal's six massive double locks, Gatun Lake and Gaillard Cut, a lowered mountain, could be seen separately from land vantage points, but not in their relationship to each other in the complete Canal facility. The new $95,000 Las Cruces offers a novel adventure for air travelers to Central America and Panama as a sharp contrast to Panama's Spanish colonial landmarks. For example, it shows passengers on Pan American Airways, a few hours out of Miami, how man's engineering genius has reduced the ocean distance between New York and San Francisco by 7,803 miles. They will see the harnessing of nature in a gigantic 10-year job by as many as 40,000 men working at one time. Their views also include current widening work and long stretches of fluorescent lights along the banks that are part of a current $90,000,000 Canal improvement program to widen and deepen the famed Gaillard Cut out of Gatun Lake. The Las Cruces trip, in addition, includes a lesson in geography at first hand. The alignment of the Isthmus of Panama is such that the Canal runs from northwest to southeast, not east - west as generally supposed. This puts the Canal's Atlantic entrance 33.5 miles north and 27 miles west of the Pacific entrance. For this reason, the sun rises over the Canal out of the Pacific, and sets in the Atlantic. Transiting vessels go north and south, rather than east and west. Passengers on the Las Cruces soon will have a choice of three cruises of different lengths. One will be an eight-mile, one-hour trip each way between Gamboa, a mid-point of the Canal where the vessel is based, to the Pedro Miguel Lock on the Pacific side. Another will be a 25-mile route from Gamboa through Gatun Lake to the Gatun Locks toward the Atlantic side, about two and a half hours each way. The longest trip will be three and a half hours each way from Pedro Miguel Locks on the Pacific side to Gatun Locks on the Atlantic.

Excusez-moi, Mademoiselle: Do You Speak English?

MONTREAL — Take a taxi anywhere in the Province of Quebec and the chances are 10 to 1 the driver will ask "Ou allez vous?" — French for "Where To?" Go shopping, especially in eastern and northeastern Montreal, or anywhere in Quebec City, and salespeople will ask in French if they can help you. As a Canadian and resident of "New France," you would take this for granted. You probably would answer in French, even though your first language is English. And in conversation with another Quebecer, you might jump from French to English and back without a thought. You think nothing of it when you halt your car at a stop sign that says "Arretez -Stop" in both languages, or, on driving in from the United States are greeted with signs proclaiming "Bienvenue a la Province de Quebec." And in some small towns down the St. Lawrence River from Montreal, you are not overly surprised when you see signs in store or restaurant windows announcing "here we speak English." That's because Canada has two official languages—English and French. Legal documents are acceptable in either language, laws are drafted bilingually, and in the Federal Parliament in Ottawa, it is common for a lawmaker to speak in either language — and sometimes switch languages—in mid-speech. Every so often the heavily French-language majority in Quebec becomes worried that French is being down-graded. There currently is a surge of such feeling. La Presse, a Montreal French-language newspaper, recently devoted an entire page to what was billed as an expose of a Federal Government move to subordinate French as an official Canadian language. The newspaper, one of four French-language dailies in a city that has only two papers printed in English, took particular issue with a letter sent by a Customs Department official to a Quebec-New York border point. The letter said that since everyone at the border office was bilingual it was suggested that the office's reports henceforth be submitted in English. The reason given was that not all government officials in the customs service in Canada spoke French and those who didn't had to wait until a federal translation department produced copies in the other language. The newspaper also noted that some signs facing motorists entering Canada from the United States told them they were welcome to Canada—in English—while a number of New York State signs facing people driving south were in French. But despite fears expressed by La Presse and other newspapers and organizations, Quebec, and especially Montreal, still are bastions of the French language.

Opera Set For Fair

SEATTLE, Wash. — Verdi's "Aida," one of the most spectacular operas of them all and featuring an internationally noted cast, will be a highlight of the entertainment program at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. A company numbering 333 will perform the $125,000 production in the new Opera House on the fairgrounds next June 7, 9 and 11. The fair runs from April 21 to Oct. 21, 1962. The Seattle Symphony's opera committee is sponsoring the production which will feature Milton Katims and the Seattle Symphony orchestra; Gloria Davy in the title role. Other stars in the cast include Sandor Konya, tenor at the Vienna State Opera as well as La Scala of Milan; Robert Merrill leading baritone from The Metropolitan, along with the Met's Irene Dalis, mezzo and William Wilderman, basso, in addition to Jan Rubes, basso, of the New York City Center Opera.

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