Dear Friends,

This is the time of year when we invite our readership to Stillwater, MN, to the Lowell Inn, for fellowship and a speech. This year we are celebrating our 49th year of continuous publication. Our principal speakers this year will be Jigs and Jo Ann Gardner, who have been regular writers for the St. Croix Review for many years. Jigs presents a description of their presentation:

When I first spoke at a St. Croix Review banquet several years ago, I explained that our experience of Canadian ways made us see the value of the American system, that Canadians had been subservient to Great Britain where we had rebelled and founded a government based on the freedom and independence of its citizens. As we realized that our radicalism was essentially a form of anti-Americanism, we became conservatives.

Our PowerPoint presentation, “Gardens of Use & Delight,”based on the book of the same name that we co-authored, is a chronicle of our experiences on the land, showing how, over 30 years, we created a beautiful, old-fashioned, hand-horse-powered farm landscape featuring fruits, flowers, roses, and herbs despite the challenging maritime climate and poor soil. Our talk is also about how that experience helped to convert us to conservatism because it forced us to face and conquer these difficulties. In other words, farming in Vermont, where we had lived before moving to Cape Breton in 1971, had been so easy that we could afford to have silly ideas, utopian fantasies, but Cape Breton with its difficult, unforgiving land forced us to be realistic. Realism is a key component of conservatism. I don’t think we stress that enough, but we’ll demonstrate it with our images, showing how we transformed a barren farm into a lush landscape by the simplest means. The inexpensive, low-tech approach we used to solve the practical problems we encountered, moreover, can be applied to any situation, anywhere.

While we will both talk, my wife, Jo Ann, is much better at this than I am, having lectured for years all over the U.S., so you’ll be in for a treat.

We will begin gathering for our annual meeting at 6:00 p.m. in the Banquet Hall of the Lowell Inn on, Thursday, November 10. There are directions to the Lowell Inn on the other side of this letter. We hope you may come to what will certainly be a wonderful evening. Even if you cannot attend the dinner, please consider making a donation in support of our work. All contributions are tax-deductable. Checks should be written to Religion and Society, Inc., the 501(c)(3) foundation that publishes the St. Croix Review.

The Lowell Inn is located at 102 Second Street North, Stillwater MN (651) 439-1100.

If you are visiting from the Twin Cities take Highway 36 east to downtown Stillwater. Turn left onto Myrtle Street at the third traffic light. Go one block and turn right onto Second Street North. The Lowell Inn is located at the corner of Myrtle and Second Street North.

If you are coming from Wisconsin on Highway 94, exit immediately after you cross the bridge into Minnesota from Wisconsin onto Highway 95 North. Turn right (north) onto highway 95 and proceed through Bayport into downtown Stillwater. Turn left onto Myrtle Street at the third traffic light. Go one block and turn right onto Second Street North. The Lowell Inn is located at the corner of Myrtle and Second Street North.

This year our event will be held in the Banquet Hall for the first time. The Banquet Hall is right next to, or directly south of, the parking garage.

The Lowell Inn has a parking garage next to the Inn that our guests can use free of charge: take the ticket at the garage and exchange it for a voucher at the front desk.

The gathering will begin on November 10, and 6:00 p.m. in the Garden Room. The dinner will be served at 7:00, with the speech to begin after the dinner.