So many things to talk about

Tags

Archie, Canada., Jean Vanier, Maud Lewis, Meghan and Harry, Montreal, Politics, Royalty

There are so many things to blog about I feel like I should start one of the YouTube channels and talk endlessly about this and that, like so many people do. I have noticed though that they tend to attract the vacuous crowd who have angst about everything and nothing. It is also a way to make a lot of money easily. SO NO I won’t do that to you world wide readers.

In the last week we have had the demi-mondaine saga of Harry and Meghan, their lives remind me of La Traviata by Verdi.  They have been milking the baby story for all it’s worth. Can they now receed into the shadows and invent a life that has meaning. How about Harry going back to being a soldier and Meghan doing sit-com or reality shows. The whole affair about the baby was beyond ridiculous and now the name Archie? Really? First thing I thought was Archie Bunker or Archie and Jughead, as for Harrison ok, it’s Star Wars and Harrison Ford, was he not a boyfriend of Meghan at one point? No title for the kid but will he be on the family payroll? I also found showing off the baby in the Great Hall of Windsor castle a trifle dramatic, a bit Downton Abbey like and Meghan saying she had just bumped into Prince Philip as if… I wondered why not meet the Press at their little servants cottage at Frogmore, more genuine if you want to play how simple and down to earth you are. The two of them, phoney baloney.

A book I have been reading is the life of Maud Lewis the folk art painter. Not really a biography as much as a chronicle of a very sad life and an even sadder married life with a parasite of a husband who exploited here and barely noticed her existence. Her own brother Charles cut off all ties after her unwed pregnancy and she in turn living in shame denied the existence of her own daughter. Severely handicapped she led the life of a recluse. In spite of it all was able to produce those incredible paintings. The author of the book is a relative, Lance Woolaver, he paints a picture of Nova Scotia and the Digby area, not pretty,  a lot of grinding poverty, ignorance, lack of social services, isolation, racism, bigotry, the place appears pleasant to Summer tourists who have money and travel around, but that is a mirage, all very third world. Nova Scotia today still has deep pockets of poverty and scenic beauty and a rich history. It only makes her work even more wonderful when all these elements are taken in.

In Canada politically speaking the Government of Justin Trudeau is seen by pollsters of all stripes to be sinking and we could be headed in October for a Conservative majority with Andrew Scheer as PM. God help us, this is a man who has made lying his main political plank, has no policies on anything, he is a multi-millionaire, money all made from his political activities. Copies word for word Trump’s ideology, associates himself with hate groups and neo-nazis calling for the Prime Minister to be killed. Is a religious zealot and of course attracts basically the white supremacist vote. The popularity of his party right now stems from the political troubles of PM Trudeau. Conservative Senators in our Canadian Senate have been blocking through procedures crucial votes on bills knowing that the Parliamentary clock is ticking down to the end of the Session in June.

The Green Party in Canada is hoping for big gains, which is quite possible, but will not be able to form a government. Trudeau may still get re-elected simply because of the loathing Scheer inspires but if Scheer and his cronies get elected we will be in big trouble like Ontario is with former dope peddler Doug Ford (FordNation). Populism in Canada is making big strides, there is an evil wind blowing.

 

And on another topic all together and quite different.

Yesterday Jean Vanier died in Paris at the age of 90, he was a doctor of Philosophy and an Canadian Navy Officer who horrified by the Holocaust and the Atomic Bomb decided to dedicate his life to Peace. He is known as the founder of L’Arche which is a world wide organization which as Vanier described it as establishing the unique value of the intellectually disabled. The principle he established is very simple, he said; ”The most important thing is not to do things for people who are poor and in distress, but to enter into relationship with them, to be with them and help them find confidence in themselves and discover their own gifts.”

Jean Vanier (1928-2019) was the son of eminent Canadians, his father was General Georges Vanier, a Canadian World War One hero, a diplomat and Governor General of Canada. His mother Pauline Archer Vanier of Montreal, a lady of great distinction who came from a celebrated family in the history of Canada. Both his parents were nominated for Beatification in the Roman Catholic Church for their Piety, Faith and humanitarian work.

Jean Vanier had siblings and they too distinguished themselves in their respected fields.

I had the opportunity to meet him in 1996 in Amman, Jordan, he came to visit his cousin who was my Ambassador at the time and a little get together was organized at the Residence. I was immensely impressed with his quiet dignity and is words which gave another look at what the world could be like. What he proposed was not utopia, he proved it by the success of L’Arche around the world and the legacy he leaves. The World today needs more like Jean Vanier, we lost a great humanitarian.

“The fundamental principle of peace is a belief that each person is important. Do you believe you are important? Do you believe that we can do something to make this world a better place?”

– Jean Vanier –

 

 

 

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Another Christmas 2018

Tags

Canada Français, choir, Christmas, Montreal, Noël, traditions

We had friends today for Christmas Lunch, it took me about an hour to set the table. I had polished all the silverware a few days ago and all the linens had been ironed.

The menu was classic French Canada fare, tourtières, Ragoût de pattes de cochon avec boulettes, a breast of turkey. For dessert we had mulled wine jellies and Plum Pudding flambé with brandy, a great meal.

Later I watched the Christmas Day message of the Queen, her messages are well crafted and never say more than need to be said on this day. The photos on the desk are related to what the Sovereign is saying, they also convey the message of continuity. This year a photo of her father as a young man in the Royal Navy during the First World War, not yet aware that one day he would become King. Then a photo of a young bride and husband with their first child, the Prince of Wales, who one day will be King. The group photo is of her son HRH Prince Charles on his 70th birthday with the Duchess of Cornwall surrounded by his own children and grand children. Continuity, the Queen is a great-grand mother now. The one absence today HRH Prince Philip who at 96 has retired from the public eye.

Today on Radio-Canada Christmas programming the host tenor Marc Hervieux spoke of his childhood and played this great classic of the Midnight Mass in parishes in French Canada, Ça berger, assemblons-nous. ( Shepherds let’s gather) the singer was one of the very great operatic tenors in Canada in the 1950’s  Richard Verreau (1926-2005). He was a neighbour in Montreal for about 10 years. A wonderful voice with a tragic ending. The Choir is Les Disciples de Massenet, a group with a 90 year history.

 

Such sacred music is muscular and sounds almost like a martial air. It says come let’s go now, nothing is more important, leave your flocks to look after themselves, the Messiah awaits you. There is no greater calling.

Ça bergers assemblons-nous
Allons voir le Messie
Cherchons cet enfant si doux
Dans les bras de Marie
Je l’entends, il nous appelle tous
Ô sort digne d’envie

Laissons là  tout le troupeau
Qu’il erre à  l’aventure
Que sans nous sur ce coteau
Il cherche sa pâture
Allons voir dans un petit berceau
L’auteur de la nature

Ça bergers assemblons-nous
Allons voir le Messie

Cherchons cet enfant si doux
Dans les bras de Marie
Je l’entends, il nous appelle tous
Ô sort digne d’envie

Que l’hiver par ses frimas
Ait endurci la plaine
S’il croit arrêter nos pas
Cette espérance est vaine
Quand on cherche un Dieu rempli d’appas
On ne craint point la peine

Ça bergers assemblons-nous
Allons voir le Messie
Cherchons cet enfant si doux
Dans les bras de Marie
Je l’entends, il nous appelle tous
Ô sort digne d’envie

 

Towards Xmas

Tags

Canada., Christmas, Food, French, life, Montreal, Music, Quebec

This week listening to Radio-Canada in the morning I heard some old Christmas favourites from my childhood. One was Mon Beau Sapin, Roi des Forêts known in English as O Tannenbaum. This was the song the second wife of my maternal grandfather, we called Tante Fernande would sing each Christmas at lunch at my grandfather’s house when all his children and spouses and us grandkids would gather for the traditional meal, gifts and benediction. It was an old, I dare say a very old tradition going back several generations, the family patriarch would bless is family for the New Year. Tante Fernande would have cooked a turkey it was always an excellent birds and very juicy, serving peas and mash potatoes and cranberries which she called Atoka, dessert would be a mix of chocolates, Bûche de Noël and other sweets. I always thought that Atoka was the real name for cranberries but it turn out that Atoka is a Quebec recipe for processing cranberries after they are harvested. It gives a much sweeter fruit and has none of the tartness found in canned cranberries. Tante Fernande was a cook who did everything from scratch including her cranberries. You could not buy canned cranberries back then or if you could it was not done on good homes.

The dishes used to serve the Christmas meal was on two dinner sets, one was white with a dark blue and gold rim, the other set was their wedding dinner set which I have now.

There were other songs and my aunts knew one each, a favourite, one was Petit Papa Noël, my Mom use to sing that one. It is not an old song, the melody is taken from an old Ukrainian song and the words written in 1944 were about a child asking Santa to bring his father home for Xmas from the POW camp in Germany. After the war the words were changed erasing any reference to the war to what we hear today. It is a song that you would learn in school and my mother knew it well.  It was part of every Christmas music recital at school in French Canada. Tino Rossi premiered this song in 1946 and it became his Christmas signature song. Radio-Canada played it today as part of their weekend Christmas show it brought back a tidal wave of memories.

On this score the French service Radio-Canada is doing a much better job with their Christmas programming than the CBC who is playing a mix of commercial music. Tomorrow 23 December, the CBC will have an all day Christmas concert as they do every year from the European Union broadcasted live starting at 9am. Radio-Canada will have its programming, vintage shows from the 1940 to 1970. Despite the fact that such programming might be speaking to an older generation, it is still enormously popular.

Maybe it speaks about a time when Christmas was not about shopping and stress. The Media today puts a heavy emphasis on how stressful and unpleasant it is, with those awful relatives. I wonder why it has to be this way, not to mention the trove of bad news. It sounds almost perverse.

Gifts use to be in my mother’s childhood an orange which was a luxury then, books, clothing like a scarf or a sweater. For us it was books, sweets or the dreaded Fentex slippers your gradma knitted for you, some small amount of money like a $5. bill new and crisp or a board game. The adults were not stressed, no one was driving around shopping in malls, it was a nice holiday with a focus in Roman Catholic Quebec on religion and midnight mass recalling the traditions of Old Canada and France.

The other popular song and remains so to this day is J’ai vu maman embrassé le Père Noël sung by Line Renaud who is 90 years old. This 1956 version is one you will hear on the radio. Renaud was and remains one of the great French singer of her time.

Well we avoided the stress of Christmas and it is something I never quite understood why so many people whipped themselves into a frenzy.  I think that a lot of the stress is made up on false notions about gifts and having to please other people, it is somewhat artificial. I hope you all have lots of fun and enjoyment out of the Holiday Season.

My Best Wishes to You!

 

As the past vanishes

Tags

decor, Family, Food, hospitality, Hotels, memories, Montreal, Restaurants

Two days ago I read in the Montreal Gazette that George Lau the owner of L’Orchidée de Chine was closing his restaurant after 34 years in operation. The restaurant is located at the corner of Peel street and De Maisonneuve in Montreal. This was a favourite of my parents who lived just one block North on Peel street. So many family reunions took place there over the years. George is aging and he and his sister Eva want to move on, his children have their own careers. George Lau came to open his restaurant after the celebrated and luxurious Ruby Foo’s restaurant closed on Decarie Blvd. He wanted to have a Chinese restaurant with class for fine dining with dishes well prepared in a traditional manner.  L’Orchidée de Chine was also the place where we had my father’s wake, all his favourite dishes and champagne, the way he and Mom would have wanted it.  My Dad had known George and Eva for decades.

Over the years many restaurants in Montreal patronized by my parents came and went. Years ago a standard was Les Jardins du Ritz in the Ritz Hotel on Sherbrooke street and its famous garden with duckling pond, you felt like you were in Paris. This was before the renovations 10 years ago when all changed.

Then there was many years ago The Coffee Mill on Mountain street, which closed around 1994, a Hungarian coffee shop which catered to so many Hungarians who fled the Uprising of 1956 in Hungary. It was very European, in its food, service and atmosphere, my mother loved it.

My parents also loved The Beaver Club dining room at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, it was modelled on the famous Fur merchant’s Club established in 1785 near Beaver Hall Hill it closed in 2014.

Le Paris on Sainte Catherine street West, my parents knew the owner a Frenchman and it was a great little restaurant. Then the owner died suddenly and the restaurant closed a year later.

It seems that when I go back to Montreal now there are less and less places left where my parents and all of us went to, replaced as time moves on my more hip places but not as it once was.

Not in Montreal but in New York my Dad liked The Plaza hotel before it was turned into a condo style hotel and the restaurants and bars all closed. Only the Palm Court is left but it is not quite the same.

My parents spent their lives in the hotel/retaurant business and my Dad loved to find new restaurants and find out who was the Chef and what was his background. Before his death a few years ago, it became difficult to go out with him, he did not like the direction restaurants in general were taking, too much decor and not much on food and service. He was often appalled by the lack of attention to details or cleanliness, he wondered why people would put up with such low standards, noise and expensive prices. He did not find often good value for the money spent. In the last year of his life he was teaching restaurant management at the Hotel School in Montreal, he told me how un-motivated the students were and he finally asked them why they wanted to work in the hospitality industry, the answer was to make money, he was shocked by the answer. He explained to them that you went into that business because you liked people and wanted to offer a service not to make money.

For me there is nothing or little to return too in Montreal nowadays, I do not recognize the City, it has changed a lot and the people we knew save a few old friends are gone. The  place of my childhood is gone but then again this is what happens in life, nothing stays the same.

St-Viateur Bagels, Montreal

Tags

cuisine, Food, Jews, life, Montreal, Outremont

Montreal a metropolis of 4 million people, the second largest French speaking city in the World after Paris, has a Jewish population that has been part of the fabric of the city for over 200 years. Almost every neighbourhood of the city has a Jewish population with its businesses, schools, synagogue, restaurants, delis, institutions and the Jewish general hospital. As a child I lived in Snowdon where there was a large Jewish population, other neighbourhoods like Hamstead, Côte Saint-Luc, Westmount, NDG and Outremont all have their Jewish enclave and because the population has been there for such a long time, it has developed its own character and ways of doing things. Jewish owned businesses in Montreal, you always have service in French, English and Yiddish.

Montreal is known for the quality of its Smoke Meat and its bagels. I could not leave Montreal without a dozen bagels. So I went to the St-Viateur street in Outremont, the area has, for as long as I can remember, a large Orthodox Jewish population dressed in the famous black garb and fur hats. Outremont is a wealthy French speaking neighbourhood and the Orthodox Jews are simply part of the fabric.

Bagel St-Viateur  (since 1957)

263 Rue Saint Viateur Ouest, Montréal, QC, Canada

Ouvert 24h/24, 7 jours sur 7

(514) 276-8044

It is an institution in Montreal and a remarkable one at that, the bagels as you can see in this photo above are hot, fresh, just out of the oven. Even when they but them in a bag, you feel the heat and that wonderful aroma of just baked. A Polish Jew, Myer Lewkowicz who immigrated to Canada in 1946 learned the trade of making bagels from Hyman Seligman who was already in the business. Mr Lewkowicz explained that when he arrived in Canada, he knew nothing of bagel making, it became his lifelong trade.

The Montreal Bagel is different from the New York one, first it’s smaller, sweeter and the  hole is bigger. Quality ingredients go into making them, the pastry is hand rolled, they are boiled in water with honey, they are cooked on a wood tray in a wood oven, they are turned over once and taken out at just the right moment when crunchy. They make 3 dozen bagels per hour in the oven. A perfect bagel takes 20 minutes to cook, a slow process but what quality! Same family, same recipe and the original shop on St-Viateur.

St-Viateur Bagel is world famous and today in Montreal there is 2 bakeries and 5 coffee shops where sandwiches and salads are served just like in 1957 when they first opened.  WEBSITE http://www.stviateurbagel.com

 

 

 

Music and the Season

Tags

Birthday, Easter, French radio, Johnny Mathis, JS Bach, life, Montreal, Radio Canada

Since we do not have a TV at home we listen to a lot of radio programming. Lately I have been switching from CBC to Radio Canada, it is very interesting to observe that the same Crown Corporation has such different programming for two very different audiences, might as well live in completely different countries.

The CBC/Radio-Canada broadcast all across Canada to all regions over 6 time zones. Most of the programming comes either from Toronto for the English service and Montreal for the French service. Some of the programming is regional like here in the Maritimes to cater to local taste and offer regional news.

But the differences are deeper, discussion topics are also presented differently, in English care is given to a politically correct approach in what is said and in the presentation. Different cultures and different mentalities, the two solitudes 60 years later and despite 35 years of official multiculturalism, these differences between French and English communities remain.

This morning on Radio-Canada being 18 March and with Easter approaching, the host of the Sunday morning show was explaining how Sacred Music had little place on the radio nowadays if compared with some 40 years ago. It is true that even at Christmas time radio stations including State Broadcaster have a tendency to stick to the more secular pieces, they may do Messiah but not much else. Radio-Canada will play more French Christmas music of European and Canadian tradition and promote French culture at the same time. So the host told us that he wanted to play the work of J.S.Bach, the Saint Matthew Passion, a very reflective piece on the theme of Easter. It was a beautiful recording with great voices. We are still a few days away from Easter Week and Good Friday so in modern terms it was early for such music but on a Sunday it was the perfect moment.  The CBC will also have Sacred Music on Sunday’s like Choral Concerts but may stick to a more restricted schedule of the actual Easter Weekend.

This does not mean that French speaking Canada is more religious not at all, it is more in the remembering of old traditions and how things use to be done or this is how the host of the program presented it.

The music of JS Bach’s sent me in a reflective mood again this being my Birthday week, I get like that each year.

On the other hand, in another completely different field of music, they were playing some Johnny Mathis songs last night and of course the 1957 hit Chances are came on. I can say that this is music for my generation and grew up listening to such music which I like.

 

 

 

Nostalgia

Tags

Birthday, CBC, Family, Montreal, Music, Peggy Lee, Radio Canada, San Francisco, Tony Bennett

The definition of the word Nostalgia is thus; a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.

I always get this at this time of the year as my birthday approaches. Lately we have been listening to Radio-Canada the French language national broadcaster whose head office in is Montreal. They have a lot more music than the English service of the CBC in Toronto who appear to be big on talk show, Radio-Canada also has a wider choice of music, I find it more agreeable.

Radio-Canada plays a broad range of classical music and popular music but will do more retro music from the 1930’s to 1970’s, Brazilian, South American, West African, Middle Eastern. I do prefer it to the mostly American/Canadian hipster music played on the CBC which is very limiting and who has developed the unfortunate habit of talking to listeners as if they were 5 years old and on the French service you do not get news every hour.

So here is this song by Tony Bennett, I left my heart in San Francisco which was a favourite of my parents, I heard it last night on the radio programme C’est si bon, I remember this song from the late 1960’s, lots of family memories.  I visited San Francisco in 1982 and stayed at the St-Francis Hotel, the have a very good memory of the city. Another song by Peggy Lee, my favourite being Is that all there is, again it brings back vivid memories of Montreal between 1966-1972 the downtown core.  All this was 50 years ago but it was a far more optimistic period than what we see today.  A lot of the people I knew then are gone now and the City has changed beyond recognition. This is not to say that we did not have a good life afterwards. Like a lot of people the past it seems was less complicated than life today one wonders about all the change and if there is just a little too much of it.

 

 

The last week

Tags

Canada., Charlottetown, cruise, Montreal, PEI, Ships

We are having a beautiful Fall Season with temperatures well above normal. I heard this week that Winter in the Maritimes this year should be warmer than normal  and snow levels well below normal. Given that we have an Atlantic weather pattern this may mean more rain and fog and temperatures like those of Continental Europe in the 0 to +5 C. range, which is easy to take.

The cruise season is coming to an end this week on Friday. The Disney Ship is coming into port for the very first time and its arrival had been expected for some time. With the end of the cruise season usually most tourist related businesses close and quite a few have already closed. Some restaurants who cater usually to tourists will try remaining open until Xmas time. The whole idea now for some years has been to extend the tourism season to 9 months instead of the usual 4 months. In the long run many business owners would like to have a year round season with activities etc. But for this to happen we will need more direct flights to Charlottetown airport all year round. At the moment Halifax which is only 20 minutes away by air or 3 hours by car is an international hub, Montreal and Toronto are the other two major airports but in Winter flights to those two cities are cut down severely which creates a problem for our growing population and our link to the rest of the planet.

The cruise liner leaving as seen from the park behind our house.

Talking of which, PEI has now reached a total population of 152,000 people, with 49% of the entire population of the Island living in the greater Metropolitan area of Charlottetown, this according to statistics recently published. I had no idea I lived in what can be described as a Metro City area. Our population is still a majority of over +55 years old and growing. But then again in Canada the population is aging rapidly despite high level of immigration, which it turns out is not the solution to the aging demographic.

No 2 West street is for sale at $1.2 million, it is a Georgian style house and property on the water.

View from West street, Fanningbank the Official Residence of the Lieutenant Governor since 1834.

The City last night was very quiet, no cars in the street and almost no one about. It is a luxury to have this sort of quiet. The cold I had all last week is finally over, a lot of coughing, lack of sleep and discomfort.

I am also attending this Fall, courses at the Seniors College which is a program offered by Holland College. One course is on French painting in the period of 1830 to 1871, a troubled period in France and in Europe marked by emerging social movements due to the transformation of society in general with the industrial revolution. France is going through one Royalist regime to another and finally a return of the imperial regime with Napoleon III the nephew of the great Napoleon. How does painting and painters express themselves in this age.

Here the cruise ship turns to exit the harbour and enter the Strait before turning Westward.

The other course is given by the Head of the History dept at the University of PEI. Dr Ed MacDonald gives superb lectures and they are highly informative and entertaining. There is a lot of history to PEI and its Capital Charlottetown founded in 1765 by the British.  The old city is drawn like a Roman Military Camp and it has kept to this day the original plan. There is a lot of history in Charlottetown, a lot more than I suspected, it is complex and there are many actors. If Charlottetown at one time in the history of Canada occupied the 11th rank in terms of large cities in our country with Confederation it has been pushed to the margins and is now around 130th in the ranking. In 1867 with Ottawa as the new Capital of the Dominion everything shifts from the Atlantic to central Canada and Montreal becomes the Metropolis and big shipping port some 1000 km away.

This week our new Lieutenant Governor took Office, she was sworn in at Tignish which is an old Acadian settlement dating back to 1799. This is a first on the Island, since all Governors have always been sworn in at Charlottetown.  She is from Tighish which is on the Western tip of PEI about 2 hours by car from Charlottetown. The PEI Regiment also has a new Commander, Colonel Moriarty. Someone pointed out to me that when Antoinette Perry was named Lieutenant Governor, the first thing that came to mind was the person who gave her name to the Tony Awards, but that Antoinette Perry died in 1946 in NYC.

This week is also busy, we are having a visitor who is coming to look at houses as she is moving to PEI from Toronto. I also made an appointment to have the car serviced for the Winter, I always like to have this done before the rush.

 

 

 

The National Anthem

Tags

Anthem, Canada., CBC, EXPO 67, Montreal, Quebec City

This morning on CBC Radio 1, Michael Enright on Sunday Edition had a program all about Canada. The first segment was about our National Anthem O Canada, the second part about EXPO 67 which was held 50 years ago in Montreal, the most successful World  Exhibition ever held in the World, something I remember well I was 11 yrs old. How wonderful that was, one of my best childhood memories. The third segment was about how there his 3 founding Nations in Canada, the Indigenous, the French, the English and how we are finally coming to understand that fact.

He had Musicologist and Historian, Robert Harris to explain it all and how wonderful it was to hear. http://www.cbc.ca/listen/shows/sunday-edition/episode/13062323

Just wonderful, Robert Harris explained so many secrets about our National Anthem, the opening two stanzas of O Canada is taken from Mozart’s March of the Priest from the Opera Magic Flute. How wonderful is that given that our Country was born from a series of drinking and dancing parties here in Charlottetown and Quebec City held by the Fathers of Confederation in 1864.

The second incredible secret is that the National Anthem of Canada was written/com posed for the Saint Jean Baptiste Society in June of 1880. A French Nationalist Anthem to be sung at a Convention of French Canadians who had gathered from all over North America in Quebec City. The lyrics are about the French in North America and the music is martial, reference to God, the King (France) and our ancestors in this land.

How did it become the National Anthem of Canada? Harris explained that in 1902 King Edward VII was visiting Canada and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir in Toronto decided that they needed to sing an Anthem about Canada and not the Royal Anthem, God Save the King. So they arrange for a quick translation of the lyrics into English to sing for the Royal visit, the result was not very good and was difficult, cumbersome to sing, nothing like the French version. A few years later in 1906 Judge and poet Robert Stanley Weir wrote the English lyrics to O Canada, he changed them again in 1908, 1909, 1913. For a long time we had the 1921 lyrics which most English speaking Canadians know.

We will have to wait 1964 and the debate on the New Canadian Flag in Parliament to have another debate about making O Canada the Official National Anthem.  But that did not work out, to much opposition, too many English Canadians wanted to keep the Royal Anthem and having to swallow a new flag to replace the old Red Ensign was too much politically. Again in 1967 and 1968 Parliament tried and failed and again in 1976 and again in 1980 at the time of the first referendum on Quebec Independence. This time it worked and O Canada became our Official Anthem. Though many Canadians had taken it as the Official Anthem for many previous decades.

Currently a Bill in the Senate C-210 would amend one sentence of the English Lyrics of O Canada from IN ALL THEY SONS COMMAND to IN ALL OF US COMMAND. This to satisfy the Feminists in Canada. It would appear that many do not know that the English lyrics have been amended in the past many times, this includes the media who are very confused on the topic. Senators who hold a more traditional point of view oppose any change.

All this to say that the radio program was most interesting on the history of our Anthem, they also played several various versions from 1908, 1910,1927 and a famous one by Roger Doucet, tenor who for years would sing the National Anthem in both French and English before the beginning of a Hockey game at the old Forum in Montreal. He changed 2 words of the Anthem in 1979 before a game, at first the crowd in the Forum is silent not quite understanding what went on and then suddenly the reaction. The words, inserted by Doucet were Our Rights and Liberty, a reference to the upcoming Quebec Referendum and the demands of French speaking Canadians.

Nothing is ever simple in Canada. My favourite rendition c.1960 is the one with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal with Maestro Wilfrid Pelletier and chorus sung in French. It is quite beautiful.

 

Ô Canada! Terre de nos aïeux,
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!
Car ton bras sait porter l’épée,
Il sait porter la croix!
Ton histoire est une épopée
Des plus brillants exploits.
Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.
Sous l’œil de Dieu, près du fleuve géant,
Le Canadien grandit en espérant.
Il est né d’une race fière,
Béni fut son berceau.
Le ciel a marqué sa carrière
Dans ce monde nouveau.
Toujours guidé par sa lumière,
Il gardera l’honneur de son drapeau,
Il gardera l’honneur de son drapeau.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Montréal 17 mai 1642

Tags

375, anniversaire, Celebration, Maisonneuve, Montreal

Today at 9am the bells of the churches in Montreal rang for the 375th Birthday of the City founded on this day in 1642. The city is spending $1 Billion dollars on the Birthday, an incredible sum of money, but hey, it is a great city, my family have lived in Montreal for 300 years. In my life time I saw the city host one of the most well attended Universal World Fair in 1967, build a modern subway system running on tires and not rail, the Olympic Games of 1976.  A city of 4 million people, the Paris of the New World, great restaurants, wonderful museums, great architecture, seat of UN Organizations and other international bodies.

Place D’Armes with the statue of its founder and the Basilica Notre-Dame, 1673.

The history of Montreal spans some 8,000 years. At the time of European contact, the area was inhabited on the South shore of the St-Lawrence valley by Iroquoians, a distinct group of Iroquoian-speaking natives. Jacques Cartier became the first European to reach the area now known as Montreal in 1535 when he entered the village of Hochelaga on the Island of Montreal. In May 1642 Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve and Jeanne Mance founded what was at the time with a handful of others a religious mission named Ville-Marie. They had a tough time of it, isolated from the Capital Quebec City and under constant threat by the Iroquois. The small settlement was almost wiped out several times by attacking natives, until the Sun King Louis XIV sent regiments of troops which resulted in 1662 in the great Peace of Montreal. In 1644  Jeanne Mance founded the first hospital l’Hôtel Dieu in North America, North of Mexico City. A hospital which is still in operation today.

Montreal ones of the great city of the world. Happy Birthday to my home town.

 

View from the Marina in the Old Port of the City

View of downtown from the Mont Royal

The flag and coat of Arms of the City of Montreal designed by Mayor Jacques Viger in 1833. The flag represents the 4 ethnic groups living in the City at the time, French, English, Scots and Irish.