Map of Burgton and Cedardale County
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A Brief History of Burgton and Surrounding Cederdale County

Before the arrival of the Europeans, the greater Cederdale area was inhabited by the Chippekwanee people. Unusual among indigenous people, the Chippekwanee subsisted as performers, specializing in the ritual gaggam for neighbouring tribes of greater importance, in particular the fierce Tuskaweejees. They were known to be inept at hunting and gathering, and cowardly in war. The Chippekwanee were almost annihilated during the "Blutkrieg" of 1755 and pushed to the marginal reserve lands north of Burgton (now the rich Red Indian Oil Field). Today, thanks to some wise investments, they are a thriving nation of entertainment lawyers, gaming entrepreneurs and film producers.

The first European to arrive in the area was the Walloon explorer, Kuhl Moosht, who dubbed the area "Welttrekk" - Empire of the Flies - prior to joining the 1607 Chippekwanee road show, "The Full Wampum Revue - Or, Are You Married?". In the infamous "Chippekwanee Purchase" of 1626, the area was fraudulently sold to both the Danish and the French by Edmoond, the half-breed, bastard son Moosht sired by a Chippekwanee woman, Shawannahantas. The Danes flipped the land to the English, and the disputed claim was the basis of the subsequent warfare that plagued the area. The French were first to settle the area, establishing a trading center and fortress at Mont D'Epoisses de la Vallée à Grenouilles, site of what is now Burgton. The English under General Stiffley moved to expel the French in 1738. The French under DuPouff, in alliance with the Chippekwanee, successfully rebuffed the English (having buffed them earlier in the Battle of Insignificant Creek) over the next 17 years in what became known as The Long Slow War. Parliament, growing impatient with Stiffley's progress, enlisted a Prussian mercenary army to strengthen the attack. This next phase of the conflict, the "Blutkrieg", was particularly bloody, with sixteen thousand French and almost seven thousand Chippekwanee lost in the two month battle to drive the French back 300 yards into the agreed boundary of New France. This is the origin of the borderline separating Cedardale from Champlain County.

The Prussian mercenaries were granted plots of land by the British in repayment for their service, and soon began bringing over frau from the old country (celebrated every October in "Frau Days" - "Cover your daughters, it's Frau Days!". More Englanders arrived and before long the area was the site of working farms and a busy cattle market. In an effort to put the bloodshed behind them and legitimize their claims, the settlers founded the Municipality of Town-Burg in 1757 under the leadership of Gideon Hyde, Enoch Sanford and Zebulon Brockway. Due to Burgton and environs' utter lack of strategic importance, it was spared involvement in any of the major conflicts that defined the territories and politics of the continent for the next century and a half, emerging happy and fuzzy at the beginning of the twentieth century a mildly prosperous and sub-typical, semi-urban Canadian country town.

But big things were in store for Burgton. In 1918, the town became "North America's First Television Community" when Dr. Alexander Faulkner's Electroglyph Studios were established, and his invention, the Pictobulator, was installed in the homes of Burgtonites in a failed effort to pioneer the medium. During the Second World War, Burgton was home to the Allies' notoriously secret Camp 7 facility. Though shut down in the 1960s, the function of the still secure camp remains a mystery to this day. The Joint Allies Committee on Secret Facilities will neither confirm nor deny that the camp was used for experiemtns in giantism - believed to have involved the genetic engineering of giant insects and rodents to be used as weapons against the enemy.

One legacy of Camp 7 was South Burgton, "the other side of the tracks". The military facility was built by black labourers, and many of them stayed on after the construction of the site to work on the expanding railroad system, Burgton having become an important junction due to Cederdale County's rich deposits of industrial base aggregate. Consequently the South Burgton are had a brief heyday as one of the hotspots of jazz culture, supporting clubs like Milt's Batland, the Five Cent Dime and the Belmont, psawning dances like the Hoanie and the South Burgton Boogaloo, and fashions like canoe shoes, shoulder pants and the corn cob hat.

Burgton (pop. 18,000) is now mainly known for two massive depression-era public works projects: Cedardale County Penological Home for Wrong-Doers (Burgton Extra-Maximum Penitentiary) and the Cedardale Full Works Authority College for the Performing and Visual Arts. The twin structures (identical designs by Sir Regburton Heartstone) dominate the high terrain on either side of the town. The two institutions provide most of Burgton's employment, and divide the town politically. Affiliated with the Art College of the Heartstone Institute for the Study of Penal Architecture and the Jones Museum of Middle American Art (The Jones).


Did you know?

The Town Crest of Burgton depicts the fierce Tuskaweejees (left) and the inept Chippekwanee (right). See the full version.