Down on the Valley

The Globe and Mail, in giving some background on Colonel Russell Williams, the former commander of CFB Trenton who has been charged with the murder of two young women, takes a moment to disparage the area in which I was born and raised:

Born on March 7, 1963, in the Midlands region of England, young Russell was quickly uprooted for a new life in Chalk River, Ont.

The 800-person village, which is home to Canada's premier nuclear research laboratory, was hiring experts - including Russell's father David Williams, a metallurgist.

David and his wife, Nonie, had another son, Harvey.

The marriage soured and they divorced. But in the remote and frigid Upper Ottawa Valley, Ms. Williams found love again, and married Mr. Sovka, in 1970.

Okay, so we aren't the most open-hearted and lively people, but come o-

Oh, they mean the place....

Yeah, it gets pretty cold up there. But hey, my dad worked in Chalk River, too (as did my brother), and I ain't never killed nobody. Yet.

(Coincidentally, I've been reading a lot of Ottawa Valley-set Alice Munro stories lately, and it's not like the place comes off much better there, either.)