Chibougamau Calling

Just returned from a week-long trip to the mining town of Chibougamau. With a population of just over 7,000, it's considered the largest community in the vast Nord-du-Québec (839,000 square kilometres), yet barely registers in our literature. As far as I know, it has spawned no writers of note. I've yet to come across a work of fiction that is set in the town. That said, Chibougamou sometimes receives fleeting mention: in Yves Beauchemin's Le matou, Lise Tremblay's La danse juive and 'Maîtresse des hautes œuvres' by Anne Dandurand. This passage, from The Calling by that 'well-known and well-regarded' novelist Inger Ash Wolfe, is typical:

It had taken him a day and a half to drive through Quebec, keeping to the 117 and the 113 through Chibougamau until the highway brought him back down toward the St. Lawrence.

I suppose the biggest connection the town has with the world of books is as birthplace of former Chapters president and CEO Larry Stevenson. Sadly, there are no bookstores in Chibougamau. The shortest route from the town to the nearest Chapters store – a nine hour journey of 692 kilometres – is below.

Joseph Quesnel and Gold Pan City

Joseph Quesnel died 200 years ago today. I expect the anniversary will pass unnoticed by the remnants of our daily newspapers. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Quesnel was the most accomplished dramatist and poet living and working in the Canadas. A businessman and militia officer, his life in the arts has been traced back to 1780, when he performed with several amateur theatrical companies. Nine years later Quesnel formed the Théâtre de Société, a venture he was forced to defend against attacks from the Church and the Gazette. His Colas et Collinette; ou le Bailli dupé debuted in 1790 as the first operetta written in North America. Other theatrical works followed, but it is his poetry that most deserves notice.

Little attention is paid to Quesnel these days, yet his name lives on, spread throughout British Columbia's Caribou District. The Quesnel Highland, the Quesnel River, Quesnel Lake, Quesnel Indian Reserve and, of course, the City of Quesnel, owe their names to son Jules-Maurice, who in 1808 explored the area with Simon Fraser.

Charles G.D. Roberts' Dominion Day Collect

Admirable sentiments from Confederation Poet Charles G.D. Roberts. Written in the early months of 1885, it was first published in the July 1886 issue of New York's The Century magazine. The above was drawn from Roberts' collection In Divers Tones (Boston: Lothrop, 1886).

Related post:

Two Hurrahs for the New Dominion