Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.06.1967, Qupperneq 19

Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.06.1967, Qupperneq 19
LÖGBERG-HEIMSKRINGLA, FIMMTUDAGINN 1. JÚNÍ 1967 19 university, a natural development in this age of techno- logy. We were especially urged to examine the new atomatic reaetor or something of the sort, but I have not insight into such things, and sat down to wait while my companions climbed a winding stairway to view this wonder. At noon we were greeted in the reception hall of the university by the rector of the university, Mgr. Louis- Alber Vachon, and his wife. The rector addressed us in French, which few of us understood, but Madame in French, Italian and German. Neither spoke to us a word of English, though they must have known that only in English they could have made themselves under- stood to the whole group. An interpreter could have solved the problem too, if one is to believe the unbe- lievable— that this educator knows no English. Hon. Judge W. J. Lindal spoke for the guests on this occasion. He chose French, but might have spared him- self the arduous ordeal by taking refuge in the Icelandic language. But he ended his talk in English and it is to be hoped that our hosts understood him. After this social venture, we lunched well in the students’ dining room. Since it was Friday I chose fish in the Catholic tradition, it was fresh and delicious, a dish to be relished. From this venerable institution of learning, we drove speedily to the airport, where our good reliable Nordair waited. It soared upward and circled the city, giving me a birds-eye view of the Plains of Abraham, the scene of events that ended a chapter of Canadian history and started another. ARVIDA We now flew east to the valley of the Saguenay river, which has its source in Lake St. John and flows south into the St. Lawrence. This scenic and fertile valley was not settled until 1838. Yet now the valley and adjacent districts have a population of 300,000. This is attributable not only to the fertility of the soil, but also to the numfoer of industries developed by reason of the tremendous power resources inherent in its rivers and water falls. Here we were guests of the Aluminum Company of Canada or Alcan, as it is popularly called. The nearest airport to the company’s headquarters at Arvida, is at Bagotville, where we deplaned and boarded a waiting bus. We drove slowly to enjoy the landscape, a great tourist attraction. Near the village of Jonquire we noticed a unique building in the shape of an Indian tepee. This is a church, and we left the bus to examine it. inside and out. The white concrete structure resembles two giant half-cones, overlapping and joined with beautiful stained glass windows, made by a local artist. This 198-foot high church is finished on the inside with some soft, grayish white substance, which prevents echoing. Black, modernistic silhouettes of the apostles grace the sloping walls, and the altar is hewn from polished granite. We lingered here for only a few minutes, and it is beyond me to convey the unique beauty of this church. A member of our group knelt in the way of Roman Catholics and crossed himself, and I felt a spontaneous longing to bend my head in dedication before this in- spired work of art. Shortly before our arrival at Arvida, an official of the company brought us greetings in an Irish brogue and guided us to our destination. There we were received by four other officials, who divided us into groups, each ex- plaining aluminium production to his listeners. All wore white steel helmets as they led us through the factory which is no less than a 1% mile long, so we were driven part of the distance. I stayed with the Irishman’s group, for he was a fluent and amusing taiker. He informed us that the basic material Bauxite came from British Guiana (now Guyana) in South America. It is shipped by water all the way, travelling up the Saguenay river to Albert Harbour, just beyond Bagotville. From there it is sent by rail to Arvida. Hundreds of ships come yearly, and about 12,000 people are employed in the aluminum works. Only the raw material is handled here, and when it has been wrought into bars, sheets and other forms, it is shipped to the appropriate industries for manufacture into pots, pans, doors, windows and a variety of other products. When Queen Elizabeth II visited Quebec with her husband, they toured this aluminum factory, rated the largest in the world, and their hosts were impressed with Prince Philip’s understanding of the project. It surely outstripped our understanding by a long way. Our hosts entertained us at dinner sponsored by Alcan at a hotel in Chicoutimi. I asked the official at my table whether the majority of workmen were French Canadians. He said they were, but most of the engineers v/ere descended from other nationalities. Up to the pre- sent, he said, most French youths had chosen to be edu- cated for the priesthood, medicine or law rather than the practical sciences. Afler dinner we had the unexpected pleasure to at- tend an art show by two young local painters — Messrs. Villeneuve and Barbeau. The latter, if I remember cor- rectly, designed the stained glass windows in the church mentioned earlier. Both are renowned artists. A band of young boys attended our departure from the airport the following morning. In the uniforms of the Cadets of Chicoutimi, they marched smartly back and forth, blowing their horns and beating their drums, a refreshing and heartwarming farewell as we took off for Montreal. * We returned to a Montreal that basked in glittering sunshine on Saturday, Oct. 22, our last day in Quebec province. A waiting bus took us to Ile Ste. Helene in the St. Lawrence River. We came to a large military fort, and someone whispered in my ear that Montreal’s late mayor Houde had been housed there when he was removed from cireulation during World War II. This historic place has now been renewed and re- paired, and it is often used by the city to entertain offi- cial guests. I had noticed that the French take pains to preserve old buildings. As an example, the Quebec pro- vincial government feted us in the historic Maison Chevalier residence on Rue Champlain in Quebec city. Ir. the house is kept a large collection of mementoes and relics from the early days of settlement. My thoughts turned involuntarily to the apathy of Winnipegers, who suffered few qualms when our city council decreed destruction of our old city hall, and allowed its furnishings to be scattered hither and yon. That building may have been an architectural oddity, but it had a history, and I see no greater beauty in the boxy structures that replaced it. Ontario cannot be said to excel Manitoba when it comes to a sense of history, for they have torn down the home of Canada’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, and sold the lot on which it stood — pro- bably to be utilized as a parking lot. Yet lauding Sir John as the moving force toward confederation is the order of the day in this Centennial year. Bút here we were, at the old Fort Ste. Helene, to be entertained at luncheon by the city of Montreal. We descended a few steps to an elegant reception hall, where fires burned cheerily on two ancient hearths, for there was a chill in the air. Mellowed old pictures hung on the walls, polished copper vessels graced the mantels, and flowers centred the tables. We were received by representatives of the city council, who brought us greetings from Mayor Drapeau, who could not be pre- sent as elections for mayor and council were taking place the following day. This good feast and attendant addresses over, we were taken by cars to the Jacques Viger Hotel. THE SCANDINAVIAN PAVILION Tours such as this are slightly strenuous, because one must stay with the group all hours of the day, leaving little time for attention to private affairs. A few of our comrades had dropped from the league during the last days, and at 5 p.m. on our last day we were to meet at a cocktail party given by Montreal newsmen in Hotel Mount Royal. But a week previously, I had contacted Mr. and Mrs. Jcn Fridriksson, who reside in Montreal, and they had kindly offered to take me to the Scandinavian pavilion at Expo for a longer and more penetrating look. Jon is a member of the Scandinavian Expo committee in Montreal. Now I telephoned the Fridrikssons to inform them of my retum to the city, and they soon picked me up at the hotel. Jon had obtained special per- mission to show me the pavilion, for public traffic to the place had by this time been forbidden. The Scandinavian nations were first to erect their pavilion and make it weatherproof. Scandinavians in Montreal had already held gatherings there. It is a well located, handsome structure of clean, uncluttered lines, built on pillars, so that the lowest floor is elevated from the ground, leaving room between the pillars for statues and flower beds. The pavilion is entered by way of escalator, and a balcony on the first floor, with room for multitude of people, gives a wide and beautiful view of the islands and the St. Lawrence River. Inside, beyond the balcony are the information offices of the five Scandinavian nations; reception rooms for distinguished guests, and a dining room, where national dishes will be served; all furnishings will be from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The next floor houses the exhibits and does not in- clude a balcony. The space is divided into 400 square metres for each of four nations, with 115 square metres alotted to Iceland. Plans for the Icelandic display were not yet finalized, but I recently read an item concerning the matter in the daily newspaper, Timinn, and have taken the liberty of reprinting it elsewhere in this issue of Lögberg-Heimskringla. A charming couple, the Fridrikssons first returned me to the hotel, then would not part with me until they had seen me safely to the door of Auberge du Vieux St. Gabriel, another house of historic vintage and tradi- tion in the old section of Montreal, which has been re- modelled just enough to be suitable for entertaining. HON. JEAN MARCHAND Here our group were invited to dinner by the federal governments’s Department of Immigration and Man- power and the Society of French Journalists. This was the farewell party, well attended and sparkling with ltvely table conversation. The talk revolved mainly around co-existence of French Canadians with other groups, and a man sitting opposite me told me that his three sons spoke English, but the youngest had vowed not speak that language as he was a Separatist. I could only respond that this was tragic, as the boy could not make the most of his talents in other parts of the continent if he limited himself solely to the use of the French language. The president of the group of journalists, Mr. Louis Martin, chaired the program, but Hon. Jean Marchand, federal minister of Immigration and Manpower, gave the main address. He is a gifted man and fluent speaker, a leader among French Canadians in the federal Parlia- ment. Currently the French representation in the House forms a markedly distinguished group, including such men as Pelletier, Trudeau and Maurice Sauve. Before Marchand entered the last federal election campaign he was a member of the Bilingual and Bi- cultural Commission and travelled throughout the coun- try with the group, meeting large numbers of people of all ethnic origins. And he appeared to have attained a far broader vision of his nation than many others we had heard on this tour. He stressed the importance of communication between the ethnic groups comprising the Canadian nation if they are to reach a plane of understanding. He warned that one segment in Canada could explode national unity, and I felt that he was not singling out French Canadians for this admonition, but tliat he referred rather to other ethnic groups, suffi- ciently strong in number to gain advantages with their voting power, without regard to the welfare of the nation as a whole. He then turned to the government’s new policy concerning immigration, and frankly de- clared that in this age of scientific technology, Canada could not afford to accept newcomers solely in sym- pathy with the pleas of relatives who were citizens of the country. A prime requisite, he said, must be an immigrant’s qualification as a skilled workman. Hon Jean Marchand is not a Separatist, not just Quebecer. He is a Canadian. He appealed to mé as a man who could possibly evolve into a statesman of Sir Wil- fred Laurier’s stature, who retained leadership of the Liberal party for 32 years and was Canada’s prime minister for 15 years. This stimulating evening brings my travalogue to a close. After my return to Winnipeg I learned that Jean Drapeau was re-elected mayor of Montreal with an impressive majority, and that his supporters had also scored their own victories at the polls. This I regard as good news. REFLECTIONS ON THE TOUR OF QUEBEC PROVINCE I believe it unlikely that any of the 42 Western editors who travelled in Quebec October 16—23, 1966, were able to study the province or its people in depth, or form any well reasoned opinions about them. Few of us had more than the most superficial knowledge of the language of their daily speech and were therefore handicapped in conversation with most of them. In an attempt to make this travelogue more readable, I for one, have tried to relate my experiences on the tour to what I have read and heard through the years. In relation to continuous residence, French Canadian History goes farther back than any other into Canada’s past. As readers are well aware, the Icelander, Leifur Eiriksson, discovered the country at the turn of the tenth century. Thorfinnur karlsefni later attempted to establish a settlement on the East coast, but unfortu- nately did not did not succeed. John Cabot, a mariner of English and Italian parent- age, landed in an undetermined spot on the east coast in 1497, and staked a claim in the name of the British monarch. In the year 1534 Jacques Cartier, a mariner from St. Malo in France, sailed up the Gulf of St. Law- rence and placed a cross on the Gaspe Peninsula, at the same time declaring the land a possession of the King of France. He made three voyages to the country, and his explorations included the St. Lawrence River. — Samuel de Champlain, explorer and geographer to the king of France, established the first permanent settle- ment in Canada at Port Royal, Nova Scotia, in 1605, and in 1608 he founded a colony in Quebec. So the

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