--September 1, 2021.
For the second year in a row, the Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network (QAHN) will partner with local cultural organizations to support museum and heritage activities that explore the history of Quebec’s diverse English-speaking communities.
The Belonging and Identity in English Quebec initiative is funded by Quebec's SRQEA and will enable QAHN to provide mentorship and grants of up to $5,000 to 11 different communities.
“We’re thrilled to be working again with so many people eager to share their talents and perspectives on Quebec’s culture and heritage,” said QAHN projects director Dwane Wilkin, announcing the names of this year’s Belonging and Identity partners.
Community groups from Montreal, the Eastern Townships, the Montérégie, the Laurentians, and the Gaspé Peninsula are planning a wide variety of local history and heritage activities in the coming months, representing $40,000 in Belonging project funding:
- KlezKanada is organizing a klezmer music celebration in Montreal’s Jeanne Mance Park that will coincide with this year’s Journées de la Culture in September and the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, featuring performances, jam sessions and a discussion centred on Quebec’s Yiddish cultural heritage;
- Vision Gaspé-Percé Now is hosting a day-long festival in the village of Douglastown to celebrate the arts, culture and heritage of English-speaking communities along the Gaspé Coast, featuring traditional music and dance, arts and crafts, storytelling, workshops and an historical photo exhibit.
- The Société d’Histoire du Canton d’Orford will produce a series of four bilingual history podcasts about Orford Township’s early settlement, focusing in particular on the role of English-speaking colonists;
- The Eastern Townships Resource Centre (ETRC) at Bishop’s University in Sherbrooke is mounting an outdoor and virtual exhibition to share research into the little known Black history of the region;
- The Greenwood Centre for Living History in Hudson will restore and display its rare copy of the 1791 Dorchester map of Lower Canada, and develop online interpretation materials to show how maps were used to foster “British” identity among early colonists;
- Mile End Memories will research and publish a history about the vanished Irish community of Montreal’s Mile End neighbourhood, and create a new walking tour with stops at key heritage sites such the Shamrock Lacrosse Club and the parish of St. Michael the Archangel, as well as other vestiges of the community that may remain;
- The Morin Heights Historical Association is coordinating production of a feature-length film documentary about the Laurentian community’s former life as a magnet for international recording stars;
- The Richmond County Historical Society will make and install a trilingual historic interpretation panel (Abenaki, English and French) to accompany its outdoor heritage mural in the town of Richmond;
- The Canadian Centre for the Great War in Montreal is developing a bilingual digital exhibition to highlight the experiences of soldiers from Quebec who volunteered or were conscripted into the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War;
- The Colby-Curtis Museum in Stanstead will work with elderly English-speaking volunteers to gather personal stories and portraits for the museum’s 2022 exhibit on the history of everyday life in a border community;
- The Quebec Genealogical eSociety in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, will host a conference in early 2022 to share information with genealogists on researching ancestors identified with various cultural groups in the province.
In addition to providing financial assistance for local community projects, Belonging funding will allow QAHN to offer another series of online history presentations during the coming fall and winter months.
Members of the heritage network, which was founded in 2000, play a vital role in local historical education and heritage preservation across Quebec.
QAHN gratefully acknowledges the support of the SRQEA.
