Following is a sample of correspondence, questions, and other fluff that we receive here at the Touch of Tuque:

I enjoyed your website about tuques. Please also note on your website that tuque is the _expression (and common winter headgear) in Northern New York State or "The North Country". Particularly in the towns along the St. Lawrence River and the Canadian border.

In fact, my high school soccer team once wore tuques as an unofficial piece of required equipment.

Kent

Monsieur,

I am trying to trace my family history in Quebec. Mon pere a ne Chambord mais mon oncle et ma tante habite en La Tuque. Ils sont decede maintenant. My oncle Leger Martel was the mayor of La Tuque at one 
time. 

I have visited La Tuque and truly enjoyed its beauty and splendor. My grandfather is buried there as well. If you know an E-mail address I can contact regarding my family tree I would appreciate it very much.

Mon nom est:

Armand

You guys know where I could score a toque like the ones Dave and Rick wore in the movie? Any help would be great.

Thanks, Chez

[NOTE: The correct answer is 'Canada']

from a LATUQUOIS in exile in the Ottawa area.

I spent my childhood in La Tuque, beautiful little city them, now filled with "strange" McDonald's KFC, etc... I go back to this place three times a year to visit my brothers and mother.

It's nice of you for putting this short historical note about that place.

Regards from Chelsea, Québec.


Pierre

P.-S. Pardon my poor english.

A famous TUQUE bearer was Montreal Canadiens (NY Rangers, St.Lousi Blues) goalie Jacques Plante, shown here the year, 1954 (?) before he graduated in the National Hockey Leangue. Too bad the pictire is so small. Interesting fact : Plante used to knit himself his tuques.

Cheers.

Pierre

[NOTE: See 'famous' for picture in question]

Though I'd let you know about a fantastic band called The Tuques...they have a video to view on www.zed.ca (look under "music", then "folk/roots")

They also have a small website www.thetuques.com.

Fun website by the way. I enjoyed myself.

Jenn

Hello Jeff McKenzie,

I am geologist from British Columbia which shares your fascnation with tuques. I am writing an article (for Geist Magazine) and would love to interview you. The only problem is that the article is due in short order. 
If you would like to do an interview over the weekend, give me a call  with a good time and phone number.

Warmest ear regards, Tom

Dear Mr. M.:

We are writing you in regards to your article about Tuques from Dec 31, 2003. (http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20031201.wmacgregor01/BNStory/Front/)
We have noticed significant similarities between some of the content in your article, and our web-page, the
Touch of Tuque (http://web.syr.edu/~jmmckenz/tuque/), a general source for Tuque related information and
history.

Your article states, "While any number of world celebrities have been captured in tuques — singer
Enrique Iglesias, explorer Jacques Cousteau, U2 guitarist The Edge, actors Robert De Niro and Jack
Nicholson — the only Canadian faces that leap immediately to mind when tuques are mentioned are Bob
and Doug McKenzie, the original hosers." These celebreties, with the exception of Enrique Iglesias,
are listed, with picutres, on our web page as famous people who wear tuques. Who would ever think of
DeNiro as a tuque wearer? Or The Edge for that matter? 

(Also, your list of tuque related names/places seem to be similar to some of the links from our web-page.)

Maybe we are just imagining these similarities. But if you had copied content from our web-site without
citing us, we are very disappointed.

Sincerely,
Jeff McKenzie and Matt Lachniet
Authors, "Touch of Tuque"

Thanks for this. I had a tonne of research for the article and, of course, much was made of the many people who do wear tuques who are not hockey players. I listed some, not others, and gathered the list from several sources. I have checked out your site and it's superb, for which I congratulate you, but as I don't save such research (writing five times a week it would require a warehouse!) and cannot say whether or not it was among the many sites I looked at. I would think, however, that the list would come fairly easily to anyone, especially the U2 guitarist and Nicholson. If I did get the DiNero idea off your site, I thank you for that and would only say that in any such article, information comes from all over, and if it came from yours I am grateful and thank you for that. I see my own articles and quotes from them pop up everywhere without reference, and this is simply the way it goes in a business where research builds and content forms. It would be wrong for anyone to steal original creative material, obviously, but I would like to think we would agree that seeing an image and repeating its existence is hardly the same. I take very seriously intellectual property and assure you that had I been writing about tuque sites I would have mentioned yours. Perhaps it will be a topic to return to, and I will be delighted to mention your excellent site as a good reference for any reader wishing further details.

Keep warm,

Roy

Thanks for the quick reply. 

We really enjoyed your article. We apologize if the tone of our first letter was too strong -- we feel
(overly) possesive about this subject as we seem to have the only web-site devoted to the Tuque Phenom.

Word on the street is that an extensive article on Tuques in Canada is going to be printed in Geist
Magazine this spring. Check it out if you get the chance.

Talk to you soon,
Jeff and Matt

No, no -- the apologies should be all mine. I'm a fanatic about these things, and if I erred I would immediately try and repair. I can't even decide if I did or not. I went for a walk, stewing about this, and went over the list again and again, thinking Cousteau would be obvious to me (I'm a nature freak) and Jack Nicholson is a family joke (they say we look alike, same forehead, same evil grin) and I'm a U2 fan and I have three lovely daughters who love Enrique, so I can think all were popping in my pea brain. Bob and Doub McKenzie is a no-brainer, even for me. But DiNiro, probably I did pick it up visually. Then I wondered how that would work. If I quote Trudeau and double check with Colombo, do I need reference Colombo? And where would it stop? All I can say is I am not trying to be a prick, not angry, but trying to be a responsible journalist at all times, and I assure you that I'd make appropriate reference if another time comes.

In fact, keep me posted. I double checked your site, love it, and got such grand response to the original article (which was 90 per cent about what I saw with my own eyes in Edmonton, at least) that there might be a follow up after the feature comes out on you.

I don't even know where you are?

Tuque, Quebec?

Thank you, lads, for your very kind response. We all have responsibilities to each other.

Best,
Roy 

Hi Roy:

I apologize for not getting back to you earlier. Life has been sort of hectic… I am actually in the
laundry-mat right now, and thought it is time to respond.

Matt (the co-author of our web-site) and I have talked about the issue of sources and such, and have came to a very profound conclusion… who are we to even insinuate that anyone might have ‘lifted’ information from our web-site when a significant amount of our content (such as famous tuque wearers and the ‘tuque history’) have been cobbled from numerous unacknowledged sources. In fact, looking at the whole situation, I think we may well owe you an apology – I really hope that we did cause you any angst. Not to sell ourselves short, a lot of the stuff is original, such as the map of tuque distribution, pictures of us and our friends with tuques on, and the images of tuque styles.

As for the history of the ‘Touch of Tuque’ website, Matt and I started it in reaction to none of our friends knowing what the definition of a tuque was, yet everyone owned one. Myself, a displaced Canadian, and Matt, and displaced ‘Michigonian’, decided one weekend to drink some beer and throw together a website about the tuque. At the time we were both graduate students in the Department of Earth Sciences at Syracuse University. The response to web site has been great – I was amazed to see that almost 5000 people have visited the site. As far as we can tell, our website is the only dedicated site to the tuque.  To paraphrase Homer Simpson, “If it is on the internet, it must be true.”

Talk to you soon,
Jeff

Dear Sirs:

I would humbly like to submit that Tuque can refer to any dog that is athletic and outdoorsy. There is, of course, a debate as to what kind of dog is actually a Tuque so let me give you the history:

The original Tuque (also known as The Tuque, El Tuque, and Tuquer) is a black lab who continues to spend most of his life following humans on hikes, swimming, going on extended and unauthorized excursions from his house, etc. For some unknown reason, his nickname became El Tuque (pronounced like 'two kay') which was quickly shortened to El Tuque and eventually, simply "Tuque". El Tuque is still used on formal ocassions.

Since that time, a few of us in the Boulder, CO crowd have referred to certain dogs as Tuques. Originally, only black labs qualified, however, we soon came to realize that not giving Tuque status to other cool dogs was not showing respect for dogs which have excellent outdoor qualities. Therefore, mutts and purebreds alike can all be Tuques - there is no discrimination. However, smaller dogs that watch TV and get professional hairdos are certainly not Tuques.

Tuque can be used as qualifier as in "oh yeah, he's definitely a Tuque" meaning that if you were on a long, multi-day hike, you'd be psyched to have that dog along.

Tuque can be used as a verb. The most common verbiage would be "he's just Tuqueing" meaning that he's doing something only a Tuque would be doing such as chasing squirrels, playing with some neighborhood kids like its his official duty, snatching hamburgers from the table, etc.

As a side note, it's worth noting that myself or none of my friends knew that Tuque had other meanings. None of us speak French (or are from Canada) and we thought Tuque was simply a unique word we came up with.

Your consideration is appreciated.

Thanks,

Karl Nichols