01/1/25

Québec

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Suggested Sources:

  • Louder, D., Morissonneau, C., and Waddell, E. 1979. Du continent perdu à l’archipel retrouvé: Le Québec et l’Amérique française. Cahiers de géographie du Québec, 23(58), 5–13. https://doi.org/10.7202/021419ar

Related Contents:

“La Bolduc”

“Félix Leclerc”

“Gille Vigneault”

“Pauline Julien”

“Paul Piché”

“Raoûl Duguay”

“Robert Charlebois”

“Claude Gauthier”

“Claude Dubois”

“La bottine souriante”

01/1/25

Fédération des francophones hors Québec (1975–1991)

NOTE: The Fédération des francophones hors Québec (FFHQ) becomes the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada (FCFA) in June 1991.

Suggested Sources:

12/29/24

Boîtes à chansons

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Suggested Sources:

Related Contents:

 

12/28/24

Abitibi-Témiscamingue

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Suggested Sources:

“Generation Mobilisation,” short  documentary film by Mélanie Kistabish, Eza Paventi & Kim Nguyen Xuan: https://www.nfb.ca/film/generation-mobilisation/

NFB synopsis: One hundred years after signing Treaty 9 with the federal government, the Abitibiwinni of the Algonquin Nation are calling for respect for their lands, history, culture and rights. Since 2004, Wapikoni Mobile has been giving young Aboriginals the opportunity to speak out using video and music.

Related Contents:

Raoûl Duguay, “La biti a tibi”

12/28/24

Hudson’s Bay Company

Hudson’s Bay Company was chartered on May 2, 1670. It began as a fur trading business as aresult of the increasing demand in beaver fur, and it would later become one of the largest furtrade companies in the world. As of today, Hudson’s Bay Company is a private business ownedby a holding company. The company was founded when French traders Médard Chouart desGroseilliers and his brother-in-law, Pierre-Esprit Radisson, after being rejected Quebec andFrench support, sought patronage of England by proposing a trading route that reached theinterior part of the continent. This route eventually gave traders easy access to fur resourcesfrom the local indigenous people. After being persuaded by Prince Rupert of the idea of a furtrade and its economic potential of that region, King Charles II agreed to finance a voyage toHudson Bay.
The first voyage happened on June 3, 1688 with Radisson setting out on the Eaglet and desGroseilliers on the Nonsuch. The Eaglet was damaged by a storm, however, the Nonsuchreturned a year later with a cargo of beaver pelts. Convinced by this return, later on May 2,1760, King Charles II granted a Royal Charter to Prince Rupert and his “Company ofAdventurers of England trading into Hudson’s Bay,” hence the Hudson’s Bay Company wasofficially established. This royal charter gave the company the control of trade and ownership ofall lands surrounded by the water flowing into the Bay, which was later named Rupert’s Land,this totaled to be more than 3 million square miles of land. This territory ultimately becameprovinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, southern Alberta, parts of British Columbia, northwest-Nunavut Territory, northern Ontario, and northern Quebec. It also covered regions of present-day Montana, Minnesota, and North and South Dakota. In fact, many parts of Rupert’s Landlater became known as “Métis Homeland” by the Métis people.
As a result of the fur trade, Indigenous people’s lifestyle and economy has changed; manycame to rely on European manufactured goods and food for survival, and led to an increasedcompetition among Indigenous peoples for European goods. Previously, Indigenous tradersmostly acted as the middlemen, as they brought furs from communities hidden further inland totrading posts. Later more indigenous people moved away from their territory in search of furanimals in order to obtain a better trade position.
Among the goods traded, beaver pelts were the most valuable to the settlers, and they wereconsidered the highest quality after trapping during fall and winter months. The indigenoustraders traded beaver pelts for metal goods like guns, also textiles and food. They had acurrency of the fur trade which was the Made Beaver coin, this was introduced in order tostandardize trade; one beaver coin was equivalent to one prime beaver skin.

Suggested Sources:

Arthur J. Ray, “Hudson’s Bay Company,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, Nathan Coschi, Leanna Fong, Sasha Yusufali, Nathan Baker, and Jessica Poulin (eds.). Published online, 2 April 2009; Last edited, 19 January 2013. Accessed online, 6 March 2025, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/hudsons-bay-company

Harris, Carolyn, “Rupert’s Land,” Canada’s History. Published online, 26 October 2016. Accessed online, 6 March 2025, https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/exploration/rupert-s-land 

“What is Rupert’s Land?” Rupert’s Land Institute. Accessed online, 6 March 2025, https://www.rupertsland.org/about/what-is-ruperts-land/ 

“The Fur Trade,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, Accessed online 6 March 2025, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/timeline/the-fur-trade.

“Hudson’s Bay Company Beginnings,” ‌CBC History, Accessed online, 6 March 2025, https://www.cbc.ca/history/EPCONTENTSE1EP6CH1PA5LE.html 

Related Contents:

Métis People

Other Materials:

Film about Métis struggles with monopoly of HBC: https://www.nfb.ca/film/mistress_madeleine/

Synopsis (NFB): Part of the Daughters of the Country series, this film, set in the 1850s, unfolds against the backdrop of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s monopoly of the fur trade. In protest, some Métis engage in trade with the Americans. Madeleine, the Métis common-law wife of a Hudson’s Bay Company clerk, is torn between loyalty to her husband and loyalty to her brother, a freetrader. Even more shattering, a change in company policy destroys Madeleine’s happy and secure life, forcing her to re-evaluate her identity.

12/28/24

J’entends le moulin

French Lyrics:

J’entends le moulin (tique tique taque)

Mon père a fair bâtir maison.
La fait bâtir à trois pignons.
Sont trois charpentiers qui la font.
Le plus jeune c’est mon mignon.

Qu’apporte-tu dans ton jupon?
C’est un pâté de trois pigeons.
Asseyons-nous et le mangeons.

En s’asseyant il fit un bond,
Qui fit trembler mer et poisson
Et les cailloux qui sont au fond.

English Translation:

I hear the millwheel (tique tique taque)
My father is having a house built.
It’s being built with three gables.
There are three carpenters building it.
The youngest is my darling.
What do you have in your apron?
It’s a pie made of three pigeons.
Let’s sit down and eat it.
While sitting down they all lept up,
Causing the sea and fish to tremble,
and the stones on the bottom of the sea.

 

Selected Sources:

12/28/24

Les voyageurs

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 “Shooting the Rapids”

Top: “Quetico Superior Route, passing a waterfall.” Painting by Francis Anne Hopkins, 1869.
Botton: “Shooting the rapids, in a master canoe.” Painting by Francis Anne Hopkins, [date].

 

Suggested Sources:

Related Contents:

“C’est l’aviron” (traditional)

“J’entends le moulin” (traditional)

“V’là le bon vent” (traditional; France)

“Chevaliers de la table ronde” (traditional)

“Auprès de ma blonde” (traditional; France)

“À Saint-Malo beau port de mer” (traditional; France)

Other Materials:

12/20/24

Pauline Julien (1928–1998)

Pauline Julien was a singer, actress, songwriter born May 23, 1928 in Trois-Rivières, Québec. Her father’s first cousin was Maurice Duplessis, the former Premier of Québec, who was apparently a source of encouragement for her at the beginning of her career.

Julien was known for her expressive power — likely influenced by her experience as a theatre performer — earning her the nickname “the passionara of Québec.” In 1951, she went to Paris to study theatre, finding a place for herself in bohemian Parisian circles, where she met artists like Boris Vian, Bertolt Brecht, and Léo Ferré. It wasn’t until 1954 that Julien made her debut as a singer while on tour with the Bernard Bimont Company in France. The public responded very positively, and she started to make the transition to spending more time on music, spending a lot of her time singing in Left Bank cabarets.

Also around the mid-50s, she had two children with her then-husband, actor Jacques Galipeau, from whom she later separated in 1957. She made her return to Canada the same year that they separated, where she continued pursuing music, incorporating local songwriters and composers into her repertoire — particularly Gilles Vigneault. She released her first album, Enfin … Pauline Julien, in 1962, then Pauline Julien the following year; she worked with artists like Claude Gauthier and Claude Léveillée, and performed in major venues in both Canada and Europe. At the International Song Festival in Sopot, Poland, she sang Vigneault’s “Jack Monoloy” and won second prize.

Julien was very politically active, dedicated to feminism and the fight for Québec’s independence. During Queen Elizabeth II’s visit to Canada in 1964, Julien was invited to perform for the queen but refused. She was also arrested and imprisoned for eight days — as was her second husband, Gérald Godin, a poet and Parti Québécois politician — during the 1970 October Crisis. In 1969, she interrupted a speech by the Canadian Secretary of State Gérard Pelletier’s at a ministerial conference on Francophonie by yelling, “Vive le Québec libre!” She also regularly participated in rallies and events organized around humanitarian aid.

In 1985, Julien had to stop performing due to degenerative aphasia, which affected her ability to speak, and she committed suicide in 1998.

Suggested Listening:

Sources:

Léger, Marthe and Sarah Hanahem. “Pauline Julien : naissance de la ‘passionaria du Québec.’” Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec, 4 June 2024, https://www.banq.qc.ca/explorer/articles/pauline-julien-naissance-de-la-pasionaria-du-quebec/

Rioux, Christian and Betty Nygaard King. “Pauline Julien.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 4 March 2015, thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/pauline-julien. 

“Pauline Julien, la pasionaria du Québec.” Radio-Canada, 28 Sept. 2018, https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1126694/pauline-julien-quebec-politique-archives.