I have been editing older posts and have noticed that some videos feature singers and fiddlers who let their feet dance. There are similarities between Celtic music and French Canadian folklore. Nicolas Pellerin dances: podorythmie.
French Canada also has fiddlers, as do many cultures, as well as legends. La Chasse-galerie is one such legend. Honoré Beaugrand wrote its finest telling. It is rooted in French legends. I will look for translations or retell the legends.
In the area of folklore, our best source could be the Voyageur Heritage Community Journal & Resource Guide (WordPress).
Les Rencontres Esca, Nicolas Pellerin & Les Grands Hurleurs
English-speaking and French-speaking Canadians are not incompatible. Lord Durham suggested an assimilative Union, but Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, the Reformers, mapped out a genuine union.
Therefore, would that Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine had been alive when Confederation occurred. Confederation had French-speaking opponents, but several French Canadians wanted to join Confederation and Sir George-Étienne Cartier had good reasons to persuade his province to enter into a strong partnership: Confederation.
But …
When the ancestral thirty acres (trente arpents) could no longer be divided or were too expensive to puchase; when, moreover, there was no prospect of employment in Quebec, between 500,000 and 1,000,000 French-speaking Canadians and Acadians left for the United States. Le curé Labelle asked farmers to go north and make land (faire de la terre), but many couldn’t. This period of Canadian history is called the exodus.
When Québécois fully realize the harm John A. Macdonald inflicted on 1) Amerindians, 2) French Canadians, and, to a large extent, on 3) English-speaking Canadians, they must stay calm. All must stay calm.
We have a future to build, and it must be built harmoniously.
About Covid-19
A word on Covid-19. Quebec and other Canadian provinces have entered the second wave of the Covid-19 crisis. Let us protect one another and make sure that people do not resort to suicide. Losing one’s position is a terrible affliction, but this is a crisis and governments must help. People are afraid. My little area of Quebec is a pale yellow zone, but that will probably change. Quebec City, Québec’s capital, is the current epicentre of the pandemic in this province. However, it seems Covid-19 will not spare anyone. I’ve been indoors since early March. It isn’t good. Yet, I pity those who must go out. Let us help one another.
A few novels tell about the exodus and the many obstacles French Canadians had to face. These are:
I have written posts about all four novels. Besides, these are novels I have taught. As you know, my teaching-load was very wide: six areas. It was all but lethal. I also created language-lab components.
Pine Island, Georgian Bay by Tom Thomson (1914–1916) (Google Images)
I was writing a post that was erased. So I will be brief. I have started to edit my Canadiana pages: 1 and 2. To a significant extent, literature is written in a context. It may not be a clear product of its time nor a clear product of an author’s life, but it doesn’t stand in a void. For instance, there are elements such as intertextualité, archetypes, genres, modes, themes, and an author and his time.
The two pages listing posts on French Canada contain the title of literary works reflecting the history of French Canada. They require a little dusting. Much has happened since 2012, when many of these posts were written.
New France fell to Britain in 1759 (Quebec City), 1760 (Montreal), and by virtue of the Treaty of Paris, 1763. The Quebec Act (1774) gave French-speaking Canadians a status that approximated the status of English-speaking Canadians. The Governor of Canada was Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester.
The Quebec Act, 1774
2. The Constitutional Act, 1791
After the American Revolutionary War, the United Empire Loyalists moved to Canada. The Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the large province of Quebec into Upper Canada and Lower Canada. Most of the inhabitants of Upper Canada spoke English. In Lower Canada, the majority of Canadians were French-speaking (Canadiens). English-speaking newcomers also settled in Lower Canada. The Eastern Townships would be home to a large number of English-speaking Canadians. But many French-speaking Canadians felt Lower Canada was their land.
Both the citizens of Upper Canada and Lower Canada rebelled in 1837-1838. The Crown levied money from its British North American colonies.
The Constitutional Act, 1791
3. The Act of Union, 1840
Lord Durham investigated the Rebellions of 1837-1838. He recommended the union of the two Canadas. He hoped English-speaking Canadians would outnumber French-speaking Canadians.
My posts are delayed because of essential business. Quebec is closed.
My main meal comes from meals-on-wheels. As I was going to pick it up, wearing protective gear, I bumped into an assembly of people who doubted we should take authorities seriously. They were not standing at a distance from one another and I saw a person coming out of the swimming pool room.
I didn’t think I had it in me to transform myself into the manager of the building. It was an incredible moment. What I said and wrote in emails was, basically,
disperse immediately and do not let anyone into the building. If something is delivered, it stays in the lobby and someone rings your apartment. Three apartments are for sale. Real Estate is not an essential service. No one comes to visit apartments. If a rule is broken, I’ll call the police, the RCMP (Mounted Police), la GRC (Gendarmerie royale canadienne) …
This morning I saw a sign asking people not to use the swimming pool.
Our worst enemies are the people who are too arrogant to obey the law. They don’t know that their freedom ends where the freedom of others begin. Only food, medication and the mail can be delivered.
I then had a conversation with a friend who is a postmaster. Mailmen will not ask you to sign if there is a delivery. That is contact. Covid rests on surfaces, which may include the mail.
One must also realize that there is very little medical help. I often tell people that if they wish to be well treated, they should go to the vet’s office. They have to learn medicine carefully as animals do not speak, except “en son langage.”
I am embedding music played by Hank Knox, a member, by marriage, of Sir Ernest MacMillan‘s family. My dear friend Andrea, whom I lost to cancer recently, was Sir Ernest’s niece. I knew the family but not closely, except for Andrea. We became friends when David and I rented the lower floor of her house.
David had found employment in Toronto. We were in a hotel looking for a home. David drove through streets he knew I would like. He saw a sign on a big tree and Andrea standing outside. He learned that she loved music and cats. So David said he would pick me up because he was certain I wanted to live in that house and that a friendship would grow. I must phone Betsy. She sent me harpsichord music.
Phillips was very interested in Japanese prints. The work shown above is a woodcut.
Many new Canadians first settled in Winnipeg. My husband’s grandmother, the wife of a British aristocrat, was sent to Winnipeg. Her husband claimed their son was conceived by a “lover.” I suspect he wanted a younger wife. Fortunately, her son received a good education and always looked after his disconsolate mother.
You may remember that Winnipeg had been the Earl of Selkirk‘s Red River Colony. After Rupert’s Land was purchased by a fledging confederation (c. 1867). Louis Riel negotiated Manitoba’s entry into Confederation. He was hanged in 1885 for the execution of Orangeman Thomas Scott. Orangemen prevented French-speaking and Catholic Canadians from settling in the land the legendary voyageurs had opened up. They were educated in English-language schools. The matter was not solved until the Official Languages Act of 1969, and not altogether.
Moreover, the newly confederated Canada sent Amerindians to reservations. Many Canadians have Amerindian ancestry, prairie Métis, primarily, but also the people of Quebec and other provinces. Many settlers to New France married Amerindian women because France was not sending women to its colony.
The Great Plains
I lived in Regina in the late 1970s, but my work was not related to my professional qualifications. I was offered a position as translator in Winnipeg, but decided to accept a teaching position at St. Francis Xavier University, in Nova Scotia. I loved Nova Scotia, but regret my decision to teach at StFX. Everything went wrong. The life of a translator would have suited me and I loved the prairies. One could see forever.
So here I am. Probably a descendant of an Amerindian who lived in the 1600s and the former wife of a British aristocrat. My past has been leaping at me from behind. Do you think this is a temporary disorder, or am I about to write a book?
