History has been kind to Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, his fame and crest borne on the high-end cars built in the city he founded. It has no reason to be; Cadillac had no respect for history, faked his noble origins, and ensured that whatever scraps may be found about him before […]
Tag: montreal
En raison des vacances, un ralentissement de service
After several major service outages, the STM has started giving more frequent updates about what is delaying metro users. Following suit, I have the follow service update: Delays will be caused by a two week trip to Europe. It’ll be my first time back in since I arrived in Montreal 18 months ago so it’s […]
From Laurier, A Gilded Age, and Its Unravelling
With the news that in preparation for the G8 summit later this month, the small town of Fermanagh in Northern Ireland has been decked out in the image of a sadly lacking prosperity, it is worth recalling a similar event from the nineteenth century, albeit at a different stage of the economic cycle. The 1897 […]
From Lionel Groulx, The Birth of a Race
Of all the stations in the metro system, Lionel-Groulx is the most controversial. Named after the priest and historian, he dominated a strand of French Canadian intellectual culture from the 1920s to his death in 1967. To his admirers, including former students at Université de Montréal, André Laurandeau, a future editor of Le Devoir, and […]
At McGill, Cholera’s Death Carnival
A big welcome to all my new readers and followers since Marian Scott’s piece in the Gazette. I hope you’ll feel free to ask questions, give advice, offer corrections, and above all enjoy the posts. And with posts in mind, here’s this weeks. In recent years fears of global pandemic have hardly been out of the […]
From Place d’Armes, a Picture of Awful and Thrilling Beauty
On 25th April 1849, a group of Montrealers set out from Place d’Armes and burnt their country’s parliament to the ground. The army and police did little, despite warnings. Afterwards, among those arrested was the editor and owner of the Gazette. In 1849, the effects of the previous decade’s Rebellions were still vividly felt, and […]
On the Blog, Some Updates; On the Fridge, Some Magnets; On Facebook, a Page
This week I have been fortunate enough to have had a number of conversations with Marian Scott, of the Gazette. She has put me straight on a number points and the posts on Peel and Henri-Bourassa have been updated accordingly. In the case of Peel, I say that the street was opened in 1845. This, […]
