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Tag Archives: Le Vent du Nord

Le Vent du Nord’s “Confédération”

21 Wednesday Apr 2021

Posted by michelinewalker in Canadian Confederation, Indigenous People, Québec, The Great Ministry

≈ Comments Off on Le Vent du Nord’s “Confédération”

Tags

Confederation, Great Ministry, Le Vent du Nord, Louis Riel, Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine, Quebec in Confederation, Robert Baldwyn, Sir John A Macdonald, The Act of Union, The Northwest Rebellion

“La Confédération”


Although it is quite long and somewhat repetitive, I am publishing this post. In Confédération, Le Vent du Nord ensemble tells that French-speaking Canada was created three times.
1) New France was defeated.
2) Patriots were exiled after the Rebellions of 1837-1838.
3) Confederation isolated Quebec.
However, it is difficult to say to what extent being confined to a single province harmed French-speaking Canadians. What I know for certain is that English-speaking and French-speaking Canadians are two compatible populations.

—ooo—

On 1st July 1867, four provinces of Canada federated: Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. These provinces were suffering attacks by the Fenians, an Irish brotherhood whose mission was to free Ireland. Fenians lived in the United States, but some lived in Canada. Moreover, the United States purchased Alaska on 30 March 1867, three months before Confederation. Canadians feared annexation which led to the purchase of Rupert’s Land from the Hudson’s Bay Company and a motivation to bring British Columbia into Confederation. On 20 July 1871, after being promised a transcontinental railroad, British Columbia entered Confederation. Canada would stretch from sea to sea. (See Maps of Canada.)

Confederation

  • a continuation of the “Great Ministry”
  • a new Canada

Confederation, however, was not a continuation of the ‘Great Ministry‘ formed by Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine. The Great Ministry unified Ontario and Quebec, or the Province of Canada. It was a bilingual and bicultural Canada where French-speaking and English-speaking citizens were equals. Such was the Canada Métis leader Louis Riel envisaged. He therefore “halted the Canadian land surveys on 11 October 1869.” (See Louis Riel, The Canadian Encyclopedia.) The arrival of Orangemen at the Red River Settlement was premature and could be described as a landrush. The purchase of Rupert’s Land from the Hudson’s Bay Company had yet to be finalized. In addition, no policy governing the allocation of land would exist until the Dominion Lands Act was passed. It received Royal assent on 14 April 1872. (See Dominion Lands Act, The Canadian Encyclopedia.) 

The Act of Union

  • the Rebellions of 1837-1838
  • Lord Durham’s recommendations
  • the Great Ministry (Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine)

Confederation would not reflect the “Great Ministry.” It would instead be consistent with John George Lambton, Lord Durham‘s recommendations. After investigating the Rebellions of 1837-1838, Lord Durham recommended the union of Upper Canada and Lower Canada. The Act of Union was passed in Britain in July 1840 and in Canada on 10th February 1841. Upper Canada and Lower Canada would constitute the Province of Canada.

Lord Durham expected that, in a Province of Canada, English-speaking Canadians would soon outnumber and absorb the French-speaking minority. The Act of Union was passed in Britain in July 1840 and in Canada on 10th February 1841, but it was followed by the “Great Ministry” In 1848, Canada obtained the responsible government it sought in 1837-1838.

Lord Durham also recommended that the language of the Assembly be English. The languages of the Assembly would remain French and English. When Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine, the first Prime Minister of the Province of Canada, addressed the Assembly, he spoke French shortly and then switched to English. He set a precedent.

The Terms of Confederation

Confederation marginalized Quebec. Under the terms of Confederation, the British North America Act, 1867, the children of French-speaking families could not be educated in French outside Quebec. In public schools, the language of instruction was English. The assimilation of French-speaking Canadians had been Lord Durham’s intent when he proposed a united Canada, the Province of Canada. So, as immigrants arrived in Canada, their children attended English-language schools. John A Macdonald (10 or 11 January 1815 – 6 June 1891) was an Orangeman and the Orange Order was anti-French and anti-Catholic. (See Orange Order, The Canadian Encylopedia.)

By 1864, the ‘great ministry’ seemed a memory. It was replaced by the great coalition of Canada, the government that would usher in Confederation. George-Étienne Cartier, the premier of Canada East, had good reasons to lead Quebec into Confederation. Confederation offered a secure environment, but Quebec would not be an equal partner. Outside Quebec, the children of French-speaking Canadians would be educated in English, unless they attended private schools, which was another problematic. So, bilingualism and biculturalism played itself out as la question des écoles,[1] the school question, i. e. publicly funded French-language schools outside Quebec. Therefore, John A Macdonald was Prime Minister of Canada after Canadian Confederation, a Confederation that was not bilingual and bicultural, except in Quebec.

“Macdonald has come under criticism for his role in the Chinese Head Tax and federal policies towards indigenous peoples, including his actions during the North-West Rebellion that resulted in Riel’s execution, and the development of the residential school system designed to assimilate Indigenous children.” (See John A Macdonald, Wikipedia.)

RELATED ARTICLES

Maps of Canada (15 October 2020)
About Confederation, cont’d (6 October 2020)
About Confederation (15 September 2020)
Sir Wilfrid Laurier: the Conciliator (15 July 2020)
Canadiana.1
(page)

_________________________
[1] Comeault, G.-L. (1979). La question des écoles du Manitoba — Un nouvel
éclairage. Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française, 33(1), 3–23.
https://doi.org/10.7202/303748ar

—ooo—

Love to everyone 💕

Sir John A Macdonald (Britannica)

© Micheline Walker
20 April 2021
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Le Vent du Nord: Lettre à Durham

11 Thursday Mar 2021

Posted by michelinewalker in Foklore, French songs, Music in Canada

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Antonine Maillet, Glascow, Julie Fowlis, Le Vent du Nord, Les Nègres blancs d'Amérique, Lettre à Durham, Lord Durham's Report, Pélagie-la-Charette, Pierre Vallières, The Expulsion of Acadians

Le Vent du Nord‘s Lettre à Durham with Julie Fowlis, in Glasgow

Le Vent du Nord‘s Lettre à Durham

Le Grand Dérangement: the Expulsion of Acadians

A discussion of the concept of anamnesis could take us to Plato but it also leads to Canada and, more precisely, to both provinces of New France: Acadie and the current Quebec.

In an earlier article, October 1837, I wrote that the deportation (1755) was cruel. It deprived 11,500 Acadians of their home, and exiles were put pêle-mêle aboard ships that sailed in different directions, including England and France. Families were divided. “Approximately one-third perished from disease and drowning.″ (See Acadians, Wikipedia.) Some sailed down Britain’s Thirteen Colonies and walked from Georgia to Louisiana. They are the Cajuns of Louisiana. Some exiles returned to Acadie, but not to their farms.

Antonine Maillet’s Pélagie-la-Charrette

Errance et Résistance, an article, is my reading of Antonine Maillet‘s Pélagie-la-Charrette (1979). The novel is an anamnèse. Pélagie is a deported Acadian walking back to Acadie with other deportees using a charrette, a cart. When the group reaches Acadie, they exclaim: la terre rouge, a reference to the biblical mer Rouge, the Red Sea. The soil is rouge, which may result from the huge tides of the Bay of Fundy (from fendu, split). Pélagie-la-Charrette earned Antonine Maillet the Prix Goncourt 1979 (France).

The Bay of Fundy (fendu)
The Bay of Fundy (fendu) between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and inside Nova Scotia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lord Durham’s Report

In 1838, George Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham was sent to the two Canadas to investigate the Rebellions of 1837-1838. In his report, he depicted French Canadians as culturally inferior to English Canadians. Although it was not the grand dérangement, Lord Durham’s Report was humiliating. French-speaking Canadians did not have a history and lacked a literature. French Canadians quickly built a literary homeland: la Patrie littéraire, which was an anamnesis.

Comme bien des Britanniques de l’époque, Lord Durham est convaincu que les valeurs et les politiques anglaises sont supérieures à celles des autres nations et qu’en les appliquant, une société est vouée à la prospérité. À l’opposé, il considère les Canadiens francophones comme étant un peuple sans histoire et sans littérature. [As did many Britons in his time, Lord Durham believed English values and policies were superior to those of other nations and that a society putting these into practice was bound to prosper. Contrarily, he looked upon francophone Canadians as a people without a history and without a literature.]   

Le Rapport Durham | Alloprof

These were inebriating days for Britain’s Empire. What does the Sun Never Sets On The British Empire Mean? – WorldAtlas. In his Report, Lord Durham recommended that the two Canadas be united, which led to the Act of Union of 1841. Lord Durham’s Report was humiliating. It was hoped that the Act of Union would lead to an assimilation of French-speaking Canadians. You will hear the words: à genoux, on their knees and cicatrices (scars). However, after the two Canadas were united, Robert Baldwin (1804-1858) and Sir Louis-Hyppolite LaFontaine (1807-1864) built a government for a bilingual Canada with a responsible government. Then came Confederation (1867). Its precedent was Durham’s Report, not the Canada envisaged by Baldwin and LaFontaine.

Matters have changed. The Patrie littéraire, an anamnesis, was successful. However, during the 1960s, terrorists, the Front de libération du Québec (the FLQ) killed and maimed, but they ceased to be active after the October Crisis of 1970. Pierre Vallières (1938-1998) published Les Nègres blancs d’Amérique (The White Niggers of America) in 1968, but he had killed as a member of the FLQ. During the 1960s the Felquistes (FLQ) put bombs in mailboxes and other locations. Vallières converted. It was a troubled decade.

There are ups and downs, les hauts et les bas, but we live peacefully.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • October 1837 (27 February 2021)
  • Le Vent du Nord: Celtic Roots (16 Fébruary 2021)
  • C’est dans Paris … (14 February 2021)
  • Louis-Claude Daquin’s “Le Coucou” (2 February 2021)
  • Les Grands Hurleur’s “Le Coucou” (1 February 2021)
  • Quebec Ensembles (29 January 2021)
  • Violoniste & Violoneux (27 October 2020)
  • Blanche comme Neige (28 August 2020)

Sources and Resources
Le Vent du Nord – Home

Love to everyone 💕
I had to modify this article. I have been suffering from mental fatigue and my memory fails me.

© Micheline Walker
11 March 2021
WordPress

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Le Vent du Nord: Celtic Roots

16 Tuesday Feb 2021

Posted by michelinewalker in Acadia, Canada, Music in Canada, Québec Songs

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Celtic music, Le Vent du Nord, podorythmie, the BBC

Le Vent du Nord performs Octobre 1837, recorded by the BBC

Quebec Music’s Celtic Roots

I enjoyed listening to C’est dans Paris … The melody is so soothing. I do not think that album or CD is on the market at this point. It was recorded in December 2020, during the Covid-19’s pandemics. Moreover, C’est dans Paris is French folklore. The very last sentence of the song, C’est dans Paris … reads as follows

 C’est pas l’affaire d’une servante … de se farder.
 [It is not a servant’s business to wear makeup.]

Equal Temperament

However, three of the musicians I featured in my was post were in Britain in 2015 performing Celtic music. This time, the ensemble has a fiddler, a violoneux, or violinist/fiddler. Certain performers play with different ensembles. You will notice that at the very beginning of the group’s performance, the violineux/fiddler plays consecutive notes that span less than a semitone. Using a string instrument, such as the violin, and certain wind instruments, a musician is at liberty to play two consecutive notes spanning less than a semitone. On a piano, one plays a semitone by moving from C (white on a piano) to C sharp (the next black key). There are smaller units than the semitone, but a piano cannot produce these smaller units. Were it not for the development of equal temperament, an arbitrary division of the scale into semitones, instruments could not play together. When I was a student of music, the European music theorist who developed equal temperament was Vincenzo Galilei, Galileo Galilei’s father. More research has led to new findings.

Celtic Music

The piece we are hearing today is Celtic music, or it has been influenced by Celtic music. Our fiddler is sitting on a chair and uses podorythmie. Podorythmie is not step dancing. Our fiddler is emphasizing the rythmic pattern of the piece the group is interpreting. Until research proves underwise, podorythmie originates in Quebec and Acadie. As for step dancing, it occurs in many cultures, including Quebec. Podorythmie is a technique that was not used when I was a child in Quebec. Its use or revival dates back to the 1970s. As well, in the Quebec of my childhood, before 1960, there were fiddlers, but the piano was the instrument of choice. We have heard Jean Carignan, an accomplished fiddler, perhaps the best ever, play with the legendary Jehudi Menuhin. They played a piece composed by André Gagnon who died in December.

Le Vent du Nord

Many of Quebec’s Irish population came to North America at the time of the potato famine. My great-grandmother was Irish. These immigrants were very poor, as were many French Canadians. The McGarrigle sisters also had ancestors who moved to Quebec in order to eat. Owners evicted tenants who could not pay the rent.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is logo-vdn-trans-header-200px.png

RELATED ARTICLES

  • C’est dans Paris … (14 February 2021)
  • Violoniste & Violoneux (27 Octobre 2020)
  • Quebec Folklore: Celtic Roots (24 October 2020)
  • Blanche comme neige, cont’d (30 August 2020) 
  • Blanche comme neige (28 August 2020)
  • Old French Song : Le Navire de Bayonne (8 August 2018)
  • Sir Ernest Macmillan: a Testimonial (9 January 2012)

© Micheline Walker
16 February 2021
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