Laurentian Heritage WebMagazine

LAURENTIANS QUIZ #6: LACHUTE (ANSWERS)

1) b) La Chute is French for "the waterfall."

2) a)

3) a)

4) c) Jericho, Vermont.

5) a)

6) c)

7) b) The Argenteuil Agricultural Society, founded in 1826, has held an annual exposition ever since. The first Argenteuil County fair was held in St. Andrews East in 1826. For the next fifty years, different towns hosted the event. Since 1877, the fair has been held in Lachute.

8) a)

9) b)

10) b) These are the falls of the North River.

LAURENTIANS QUIZ #6: LACHUTE

1) How did Lachute get its name?
a) The town is named after Edmond La Chute who established a mill there in 1802.
b) The town is named after a local waterfall.
c) Lachute is a corruption of “The Shoot,” which referred to an annual hunt that took place here in the 1800s.
d) Lachute is a corruption of the Indigenous word Lac’heutkt’ewah, which translates roughly as “good fishing place.”

THE IRISH HERITAGE OF THE LAURENTIANS

This month the McCord Museum of Montreal opens an exhibit entitled “Being Irish” to celebrate over 250 years of the Irish presence in Quebec. Usually what comes to mind when referring to our Irish history is Montreal and, to a lesser extent, Quebec City, where people of Irish origin have been, and have remained prominent in large numbers consistently for over two centuries. However, less known but equally important is the Irish rural heritage in Quebec. One area, first occupied by Irish settlers, was the vast tract of unsettled wilderness, to the north of the St. Lawrence.

THE STONES OF RAWCLIFFE

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.