Laurentian Heritage WebMagazine

The quiet dirt road is canopied by large maple and elm trees. The edge of the road drops off towards small lakes and marshes bordered by poplars and willows, with dogwood and reeds along the shores. On the other side, the low, rolling hills of this, the beginning of the Laurentian Shield, are tree-covered, as well. There are no squared log farmhouses, no cleared fields, no domestic animals, no barns, no schoolhouse, no mail delivery, no blacksmith, no stores, no Orange Lodge, no community dances, no picnics, no children playing… There is a church and cemetery -- that’s all.

As cross-country skiing grew in popularity, and after World War I, overtook showshoeing as the winter sport of choice in Montreal, improvements continued to be made to the sport. The most obvious was the invention of the ski tow. It meant no more puffing up the hill for what felt like hours just to whiz down in what felt like minutes!

The town of Val David, the location of the first settlements north of Ste- Adele, was once known by t its post office, Mont Morin. Named for A.-N. Morin, it opened in 1873. The first few families, the Ménards and the Dufresnes, were larger than life, both figuratively and physically. Two Menard brothers married Dufresne sisters and the Dufresne brother did right by a Menard sister. It is no surprise that the Ménards' mother became known far and wide as La Mère Ménard. Smaller than her sons, she was about six feet tall and was a woman to be reckoned with.

In the early 1600s, when Samuel de Champlain first explored the St Lawrence beyond Hochelaga, the North American continent was peopled with a series of small nations with amorphous borders. These peoples had highly ritualized communications among them and long-standing enemies and trading partners. Champlain could not know that the Algonquin nations that he met were in the middle of border skirmishes with the Iroquois nations to the south, but he realised quickly that he had to choose sides when his meeting party was attacked.

Thousands of tributaries, streams, springs and small lakes contribute to the headwaters of the North River system. Most of them seem to bubble right out of the ground as though the Laurentian Mountains were a place where water itself was created. This extraordinary system ties the whole lower Laurentians together in its sustaining web, belying the arbitrary-sounding name that it bears. Ironically the North is the southernmost river in the Laurentians. It is also the least navigable and generally runs at a higher elevation.

(Continued from Part 1)

We call it the town of Weir, but its real name is the Municipality of Montcalm. Even in the phone book, however, it barely clings to its real name. In the Municipal listings in the blue pages the town hall (Hôtel de Ville) is usually listed with its address, most of the time marked as being in the town that is being described. An example of this can be seen in the listing for Prévost, which is identified as being on Curé Labelle Boulevard in Prévost.

After the signing of La Grande Paix in 1701, ending the French and Indian Wars, the Sulpicians set up a mission at Lake of Two Mountains ostensibly to maintain peace between the Iroquois and the Algonquins. In exchange for this noble and selfless act the French crown gave the Sulpicians exclusive fur-trading rights to the territory. The Sulpicians sold off these rights to French entrepreneurs and did their best to convert the Iroquois and Algonquin to Catholicism.

According to the Commission de toponymie, Quebec's official naming agency, the township of Howard, created in 1871, was named to honour Sir Frederick Howard, fifth Earl of Carlisle. Howard was Commissioner of the Colonies during the very difficult period of the American War of Independence and was sent to the colonies in the 1770's to try to pacify the Americans. Despite the resulting war and the creation of the United States, his mission demonstrated that he was a very capable man. He succeeded in getting an audience and in commencing dialogue.

Sir William Johnson was the superintendent of northern Indians based in New York in the 1750's and 60's and was a significant military leader during the Seven Years' War. His particular strength was that he had the confidence of the Six Nations of the Iroquois. He was also a shrewd businessman and established one the greatest fortunes in the 13 Colonies prior to the creation of the United States. He brought his son John with him on his military campaigns and John became a respected military leader in his own right. Around 1752 Sir William took a young Mohawk teenager in as his consort.