The French in Canada

It is a beautiful way to begin an article in National Geographic Magazine, an eight-page color photo section.  Mr. William Dow Boutwell writes in the April, 1930, issue, a short history of "Quebec, Capital of French Canada."

"Not until one ferries out to the front gate, near the Isle of Orleans, turns about, and steams up to the city from down river - not until then can one feel the full grandeur of Quebec.  To do this is to approach the rock as did the first white men."  Jacques Cartier, a frenchman, discovered the 1535 site of Quebec.  One year later, he erected "a great cross, bearing the legend, "Francis the First, by the Grace of God, King of the French" (p. 516).

The French owned not only Canada but close to half what would become the United States of America at one time.  "Everyone who lives in Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ontario, and Manitoba must regard Quebec as once the capital of his country" (p. 521).  New France once covered land down to the gulf of Mexico.

The inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, had his summer home and his laboratories on the shores of a lake near Quebec, Bras d'Or Lake.  He was also one of the founders of the National Geographic Society (photo caption, p. 514).

Quebec was a large, important city in 1930.  Major products used in Canada and exported included wood from the forests, aluminum and gold from mines.  Power from the St. Lawrence River seemed to be limitless.

This city in the North particularly delighted in winter sports, a love that persists today.  "Tobagganning down the triple chutes of Citadel Hill, skiing, bob-sleighing, snowshoeing, skating, curling, and other winter sports are making Quebec a North American St. Moritz.  At night carnivals the snowshoe clubs march, their members dressed in uniforms as varicolored as those of Christmas carolers" (photo caption, p. 509).  Perhaps one summer soon I'll visit Quebec and see all the historic and modern places myself.  (I find winter travel most burdensome!)