Fri. 2nd October ‘26
Old Quebec is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the only walled city north of Mexico. Claude tells us that this is the richest historic day of the entire trip and as we walk around the upper town this morning, it certainly feels it. From the Basilica-Cathedral (with its odd asymmetric spires), the city walls, La Citadelle fortress, the Plains of Abraham (the battlefield where the fate of New France was settled, now a park) even back to Dufferin Terrace, it is all steeped in history. So, rather than a ‘we went here and then we went there’ account, let me do a Janet and try to recount some history.
Québec (kébec in Algonquin) was founded in 1608 just a few years after the first settlements were established further up the St Lawrence River, and 34 years before the founding of Montreal. For its first half-century, the colony was run by trading companies, chronically under-resourced and badly outnumbered by the English colonies to the south. François de Laval (commemorated in the Basilica) arrived in 1659 as vicar apostolic and became the first Bishop of Québec in 1674, with a diocese that nominally stretched from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico.
In 1663 Louis XIV dissolved the trading company and made New France a royal province with a Sovereign Council. Troops arrived, and between 1663 and 1673 roughly 800 filles du roi were sent out to correct a wildly lopsided sex ratio. The population finally began to grow. There followed a long contest with Britain for ownership (of Québec and wider New France), but for 70 years French control of the St Lawrence and surrounding territories (and the walls and fortifications around the city) gave them the upper hand.
With Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, France traded European settlement for New World territory, and ceded Acadia (mainland Nova Scotia), Newfoundland and Hudson Bay. It also prompted the construction of the great fortress at Louisbourg (in Nova Scotia, which we should see in a couple of weeks’ time). The British deported the Acadians in 1755, and Louisbourg fell for the second and final time in 1758, opening the St Lawrence. Then in 1759, after a summer-long siege, the British landed men overnight in Québec and scaled the cliff path to the farmland above the city. Montcalm, the French commander, finding roughly 4,400 British regulars drawn up on what is now the Plains of Abraham at dawn, chose to attack immediately rather than wait for reinforcements. The battle lasted under half an hour with a decisive victory for the British though both commanders were mortally wounded.
The following spring, on 28 April 1760, the Chevalier de Lévis, Montcalm’s second-in-command, beat the British at Sainte-Foy, just west of the city, in a bloodier engagement than the Plains of Abraham, and laid siege to Québec. Everything then hinged on whose fleet appeared first when the ice cleared. The sails that came up the river in May were British. Lévis withdrew to Montreal, which capitulated on 8 September 1760. Refused the honours of war by Amherst, he burned his regimental colours on Île Sainte-Hélène rather than hand them over. Hence the Lévis Tower that we climbed yesterday (on the island in Montreal) – as well as the town of Lévis across the river from Québec which we are going to tonight.
The north-east of America had been settled by four (European) powers. New Sweden, founded on the Delaware in 1638, was swallowed by New Netherland in 1655; New Netherland was taken by England in 1664 and became New York; and New France was ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Paris in 1763, France retaining only Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon and its fishing rights. For thirteen years, everything from Hudson Bay to Georgia was British.
The Quebec Act of 1774 guaranteed French civil law and Catholic worship. This pacified the new subjects, but infuriating the southern colonies, who counted it among the Intolerable Acts. American forces invaded and attacked Québec on 31 December 1775; the assault failed and Montgomery was killed. The thirteen southern colonies declared independence in 1776 and secured it in 1783, becoming the United States. The northern colonies stayed, absorbed some 50,000 Loyalist refugees, were divided into Upper and Lower Canada in 1791, and confederated as the Dominion of Canada on 1 July 1867.
Even more so than Montreal, Québec feels French and only distantly related to the rest of Canada. Given that I grew up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, it shouldn’t be a surprise to me that cultural divides can linger over centuries and that integration is strongly resisted. Indeed, the Battle of the Boyne was in 1690, pretty much the same time as all of this was happening. It just continues to be a surprise as to how French this all feels – possibly even more French than France. Anyway, this is all the background to our morning walk, and the subsequent internet research is a reminder that all of this happened before Vancouver was founded in 1886.
All of that was Claude’s itinerary for the morning, and of course the slave-driver had an afternoon & sunset photography itinerary for us too. Well, we ignored most of it, but we couldn’t resist a ferry ride across the river to Lévis (yes, him again) for some photos of the city. This means heading down the wonderfully named Escalier Casse-Cou ("Breakneck Steps") into the lower town. If we thought it was busy up by the Chateau Frontenac, well it was just made down in the Quartier Petit-Champlain. This may be the oldest commercial street in North America and it might be pretty if the streets were empty. But everywhere was busy and, of course, we had left it late to get to the ferry. Just a quick stop for 1 photo of the Fresque des Québécois an enormous trompe-l’œil mural covering 400 years of history on a blank wall. Hmm, not as good as the murals in Québec.
It’s only a short ferry ride over to Lévis where we could see the sun setting behind La Citadelle and the Chateau. The sky is going to have to get a lot darker before we’re able to capture anything more than a silhouette of the city. Fortunately, there is a (closed) maritime history museum and a red staircase going up the steep hill to keep us entertained whilst we wait for the light to improve. After the sun has set, the lights of the Chateau and other buildings become more prominent, we are able to catch more of the detail from across the river. I’m a bit stuck between lenses in my camera and decide that my best bet is to shoot a set of images with the camera in portrait mode and stitch them together in a panorama. Happy with our work, we head to the nearby micro-brewery to contemplate a day where a lot of historical jigsaw pieces slotted in to place.
