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The 1851 census of Grenville Township identified a population of 1,200, split evenly between Catholics and Protestants. The break-down by ethnic group was 362 French Canadians, 544 English-speaking Canadians, and 187 Irish-, 77 Scottish-, 28 English- and 2 American-born immigrants.

If you had to name a première river that flows from the very heart of the Laurentians, you would surely choose the Rouge. The Rouge River runs 220 km, originating in the Réserve Faunique Rouge-Matawin, northwest of Mont Tremblant, and follows a winding course southward. Eventually it tumbles down the south face of the Laurentians and empties into the Ottawa River, just west of Calumet, near the very place I was born. The Rouge has everything; slow meandering turns, lots of white-water rapids ranging from Class I to V in intensity and several spectacular un-runnable waterfalls.

Lac Carlin, also known as Carling Lake, is just northwest of Pine Hill, Quebec, along Highway 327, in the lower Laurentians. Today it is the site of an upscale golf course and hotel…a classy resort destination.

In May 2008, I got a call from Heather (Stone) Foley, who lives in Rawcliffe, Quebec. She told me James Stone was visiting from BC. I had been a classmate of Heather’s throughout grade school in Grenville and a good friend of her younger brother, James. But I had only seen him two or three times in the intervening fifty years.

"Grenville" -- as in Grenville Township, Grenville-sur-la Rouge Municipality and Grenville Village -- trace their name back to William Wyndham Grenville, a British statesman who served briefly (1806-1807) as British Prime Minister, during the time that Grenville Township was being established and surveyed.

The death toll in a pandemic can be staggering, but a supplementary measure of devastation can also be read into the stories of survivors.

Looking northward from Grenville, about three miles, one sees the Laurentians rising sharply a few hundred feet, presenting a formidable barrier. To the northeast, a stream called the Kingham River cuts through, draining a small valley which reaches back into the hills at the eastern edge of Grenville Township.

During World War Two, the fabric of No. 2 Company of the Canadian Forestry Corps drew heavily on the English-speaking sons of Argenteuil, leveraging their skills with the axe and the crosscut saw, honed on the family bush farms of their native county. No. 16 Company was formed around their French-speaking “bucheron” counterparts.

A major concern for the entire historical community of Quebec has been, and remains, our vast and varied religious heritage. Regardless of language or denomination, our cities, towns and countryside are populated by empty, or seasonal, or much diminished churches, many of which have old cemeteries attached to them.

The Township of Abercrombie, comprising Shawbridge, a part of Piedmont, the village of Ste. Adele, and Fourteen Island Lake, was named for General James Abercromby. Exactly why he should have been so honoured is a bit of a mystery. It could be someone’s sense of humour — an encrypted message to the future inviting us to look back and see that the victors in war are not always winners.

Nominingue is above all a lake! On the Indigenous peoples’ route to their hunting and fishing territories. Algonquins, Iroquois and others travelled the tributaries of the Ottawa: the Nord, the Rouge, the Petite-Nation, the Lièvre et the Gatineau. It was their custom to name locations they visited on their travels. Does "Nominingue" have its origins in the Iroquois or the Algonquin languages? Who could tell? According to Mr. B.A. de Montigny, Nominingue means in Iroquois: "red paint".

One of the most obvious landmarks in the Morin Heights and St. Adolphe d'Howard area was the large dome on top of Lac St. Denis Mountain. This enormous puffball mushroom lingered on long after the base, Canadian Forces Station Lac St. Denis, closed in 1986. There are also the remains of a village on the shore of Lac St.Denis that originally housed the base personnel.

The River: The history of Lanaudière is first and foremost a story of the great settlement movement along the St. Lawrence River, the only major highway for the original inhabitants and, later on, for the new arrivals from France. The Indigenous heritage has been traced back as far as the 14th century through archeological sites in Quebec. Today, in the far north of the region, the village of Manawan remains a reserve where a community of Attikamek lives.

Naming the Laurentians: A History of Place Names "Up North," isthe title of a new book written by Joseph Graham,and published by Les Éditions Main Street Inc. An anthology of stories about Laurentian places and how they got their names, it covers centuries and involves peoples and nations from far and wide.

Doctor, researcher, teacher, writer, and curator: “It’s doubtful if any one person did more in her generation, to make McGill known throughout the medical world” than did Maude Abbott, who was born and raised in St. Andrews East.In 1890, Maude Abbott applied to the McGill Faculty of Medicine, which was not yet ready to allow a woman to enter.

Ste. Agathe and the surrounding lakes have been the favoured destination of generations of North Americans. Ours is a Quebec town that has absorbed and reflects all of the various cultural influences that make up Canada.The indigenous peoples, the Weskarinis-Algonkians, wintered in our area for centuries before their fateful defeat at the hands of the Iroquois in 1651. Even so, its name may well come from the Algonkian word Mittawang, meaning sandy shores.In 1849 the first hardy settlers arrived, a handful of families with descendants in the community to this day.

Where the North River divides the first mountain ranges of the Laurentians from the St. Lawrence plains, the settlement of what later became Shawbridge was established in the early nineteenth century. The first inhabitants came from Ireland and many descendants of these families still live in our area.

The earliest nineteenth century settlements of the Laurentians were intended to be agricultural, in spite of the unpromising terrain and the very short growing season.

Tracing your family roots can be challenging, many times disappointing, more often that not frustrating yet rewarding. As I have been “chasing down” my family, I have been fortunate to have made contacts with other individuals who not only share the passion for genealogy, but our families are sometimes related to each other. Our paths crossed by way of Argenteuil and Terrebonne counties in Quebec and sometimes in Montreal.

Author’s note: From response received from visitors to the Rawdon Historical Society website, there seems to be a great interest in Rawdon during the middle of the last century. In response to this interest, I have dug out my collection of the Rawdon News Bulletins and tried to portray Rawdon as it was at that particular time. I admit to using this source extensively for the following article, but I know that the editor and his staff would give whole hearted approval, were they still here.