Faced with the emotional turmoil and disrupted travel schedules in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, many of our members were unable to attend the Montreal conference planned for later that week. Indeed, we thought long and hard about whether or not the conference should even be held, but in the end, two simple facts argued persuasively for the event to go on as planned. The first was the fact that disrupting our daily lives was no doubt a major goal of the terrorists - one on which we did not wish to grant them victory. The second was the realization that several of our members, including some from overseas, were already en route and there would be no way to let them know of a cancellation. So the conference was held with 31 in attendance, instead of the 50 who had planned to be there.

As usual, registration was an informal get-together on Thursday night. As exhibits were being set up all around us, we took the time to get to know one another - new acquaintances and longtime friends alike.

André Bouchard's wife Monique was kind enough to offer to take spouses around the city on Friday when all the conference talks were scheduled. So at one end of the room, spouses planned their day out, while at the other end, NASS members met CCSQ (Commission des Cadrans Solaires de Québec) members and talked about their joint passion.

The door prizes that have become a common feature of registration night included a direct east/west universal dial with analemmic hour lines - won by Roger Bailey - and a pewter and resin pillar dial designed for the latitude of London - won by Tony Moss of the U.K.

Friday morning began with a moment of silence for those lost in the disasters earlier in the week. We then decided that with some reworking of the schedule, all of the talks of those who were able to make it to Montreal could be delivered on Friday, followed by the bus tour on Saturday - thus allowing us to adjourn on Saturday evening instead of Sunday afternoon, allowing those who had to drive long distances to get a good start.

André Bouchard began by giving us a first look at the the Stewart Museum collection of sundials that we would be seeing on our Saturday tour. He noted how the variety and wide range in age of the sundials helped to capture and illustrate the cultural diversity of the region. The collection illustrates the importance of France and French civilization of the 16th and the 17th centuries in that part of the continent, in New France and along the Mississippi River. It also gives an idea of the changes that occurred in the 18th century, when Quebec became a British colony.

Fred Sawyer then introduced a new NASS publishing project - a series of digital facsimile reprints of rare works on dialing. He presented a hardbound copy of the first book in the series (Samuel Foster's The Art of Dialling, 1638/1675) to our conference host André Bouchard.

Then Robert Felix spoke to us about the Sunmaster 2002, a very interesting form of universal ring dial that he has developed, beautifully engineered and and is selling in his sundial shop in Basel, Switzerland.

After a brief break, Bob Kellogg explained the new developments he is working on in the area of digital sundials, which he introduced to at NASS' first conference, in Washington DC. By using the shadow plane concept that has been discussed by Mac Oglesby, Fer deVries and Bill Maddux in earlier issues of The Compendium, Bob has found a means of creating vertical declining digital dials suitable for window installation. The interior view of the dial presents the local time in real alphanumeric form such as "12:30 PM". He plans on having a completed one to show us next year in Tucson!

André then gave us some background information on the Commission des Cadrans Solaires de Québec, outlining its history (having been formed the same year as NASS) and its ongoing work. CCSQ maintains a very healthy registry of Quebec sundials, publishes a quarterly bulletin (LE GNOMONISTE) and has its own web site.

Fred Sawyer then introduced a new type of horizontal dial he has developed which uses a clock face. The dial is based on a geometric construction pioneered by Samuel Foster in the 17th century. It is a special case of Foster's circular nomogram (perhaps the first such nomogram ever invented), converting the non-uniform motion of the gnomon's shadow across the horizontal plane into a reading on a perfectly evenly-spaced dial face. Fred then surrounds the circular face with two scales based on a 1915 patent by William Pilkington that make adjusting the reading for the equation of time and for DST as easy as looking up the current date. Fred had a sample of the new dial that Mac Oglesby had made for him.

An excellent lunch at the hotel was topped off with a viewing of a 1935 cartoon feature The Sunshine Makers. This brief film had been identified by Robert Adzema as one that had influenced him as a child to be interested in the interplay of light and dark - and eventually to become a dialist sculptor. Fred Sawyer tracked the cartoon down and was able to show a digitized version of it being run from a computer.

Following the lunch break, we held a brief annual meeting with reports from Fred as editor and president and from Bob Kellogg as treasurer. The election of new officers for the 2002-2003 term was noted: the nominating committee had put forward a slate consisting of Sara Schechner, repeating in the position of Secretary, and John Schilke, replacing Claude Hartman as Vice President.

Bill Gottesman then spoke about his "Mathematical Expedition to the North Pole", presenting a method for aligning a sundial by taking three time readings over the course of a day. Rather than discussing formulas, Bill illustrated his talk quite effectively by juggling a bowling ball.

Roger Bailey next reviewed "The History and Use of Armillary Spheres", tracing the history of the armillary sphere from its origin by the ancient Greek and Babylonian astronomers to its use throughout history.

Briefer, informal presentations were then done by Kate Pond, with an update on her sun sculptures - one of which many of us were able to see as we crossed the border by car from Vermont into Canada; Bill Gottesman, with an update on the Focusing Dial he first presented at the Hartford meeting; Harris Morrison, telling us about developments in his marketing of portable sundials - including a new garden ring dial designed for him by Sara Schechner; and Don Petrie, with a discussion of a simple home-made trigon for laying out sundials.

Tony Moss then followed these talks with his presentation: Before Your Very Eyes! - a practical introduction to the layout of a sundial using Adobe Illustrator software. Tony showed us all exactly how he prepares the artwork for the beautiful brass dials he makes, discussing a variety of tools, techniques and shortcuts.