The Robicheaus Go To Expo '67

Forty years ago this summer Canada celebrated its hundredth birthday by hosting a World Exposition in Montreal. Like many other Canadian families, we discussed the possibility of going to Expo '67, but with news reports of the time talking about the shortage and high prices of accommodations, our parents reluctantly decided that the cost of housing and feeding eleven people was just too much. We kids had resigned ourselves to the fact that the bright lights of Montreal and the international excitement of Expo were not to be when a visitor to the Island changed all that.
For years, every spring and fall, a travelling salesman from Montreal called on the Islands’ stores with a stock of drygoods and various items. While conducting business the subject of Expo came up and Dad mentioned that he would like to go but with nine kids couldn't afford it. The salesman mentioned that he had been to Expo several times and it was a wonderful thing that all kids should get a chance to see. He also mentioned that he owned a cottage near Montreal and he could let us use it for free for a week. That night Dad announced that we were going to Expo after all.
A couple of weeks later we were on our way! As if cramming two parents and nine kids plus luggage into one station wagon wasn’t enough, my sisters convinced my parents that there was room for one more. A friend from Maine, Joyce Farnsworth had just arrived to visit her grandmother for a few days, the next thing she knew she was shoehorned into the back seat and on her way to Quebec.
These were the days before seatbelt laws, so my sister Joyce and brother John, the two smallest, sat in the front with our parents and the rest of us took turns sitting in the back seat or laying way in the back on top of the luggage.
When we finally arrived in Montreal my father went to pick up the key at an address the salesman had given him, it turned out to be Bens, a deli famous in Quebec, indeed in all of Canada, for their smoked meat sandwiches. It seemed that the “salesman” was in fact the owner of several businesses and owned not one but two cottages on a lake in the exclusive Laurentian Mountains. My father returned to the car with the keys to both cottages and a huge party tray of smoked meat and cheese that had been presented to him, this turned out to be our lunch for the next few days.
Expo was as exciting as all the hype made it seem. The impressive geodesic dome of the U.S. pavilion, the British pavilion with its Union Jack painted tower, Ontario with its 360 degree slide and film show. The Nova Scotia pavilion featured a wooden schooner being built on site, and the Canada pavilion had its birthday theme song, which was heard everywhere, (“CA-NA-DA, now we are 20 million”). The passports made you want to visit countries according to how cool their stamp was, at the end of each day we would compare passport stamps. Le Ronde, the huge amusement park with the great rides was even more impressive when it was all lit up at night. We even got to ride on the recently opened Montreal subway, unique at the time because it ran on rubber tires instead of rails. After four days of visiting nearly every country in the world, getting lost, standing in line, feeling sick from too many hot dogs and too much sun and still more standing in line, our time at Expo was over.
Heading back to the cottage for our last night, my father got stopped for speeding. The policeman told him he had to pay a fine on the spot, Dad told him he only had enough money for gas to get us home and couldn’t pay the fine. The policeman replied that there was no way out of it, either he paid the fine or he would go to jail. Dad said, “O.K. I guess you’ll have to take me to jail, but that car has my wife and ten kids in it, you’ll have to take them too.” The policeman looked at the car, called his commanding officer, then told Dad that he guessed this time he’d let him go with just a warning.
The next morning we once again wedged ourselves into the car and began our two-day, pre Trans Canada Highway trip home.
All these years later, I still look back on this, the longest trip we ever took as a complete family, as a highlight of my youth.