Michael Fish: a friend of Windsor Station and LaFontaine house $5 Ways of Memory Oral History meets neighbourhood activism in Montreal Conservation, controversy, commemoration Redpath, Overdale and the Sherbrooke Rand Martial Artists The Irish Swift Stick and the French Foil Ql'EHEC [Ikritaiik Nkwj Contexts VT Quebec ♦ Heritage Editor's Desk 3 Jackhammer logic Rod MacLeod Editor Rod MacLeod Editorial Assistant Timelines 4 Celia Ste Croix Anglophones in Quebec's collectivenarrative Shereen Rafea Production Shenanigans over the Redpath mansion Chris Curtis Martha Lodge Fairbairn House celebrates heritage week AnitaRutledge Publisher The Quebec Anglophone Ways of Memory Matthew Farfan Heritage Network and Shaun L Turriff 400-257 Queen Street Sherbrooke (Lennoxville) Upload archive Shereen Rafea Quebec JIM 1K7 Picket signs for preservation Celia Ste Croix Phone Off the wall Shereen Rafea 1-877-964-0409 Both slow burn Celia Ste Croix (819) 564-9595 Immigrant? MOI? Shaul L Turriff Fax From Shillelagh to Quebec Maxime Chouinard (819) 564-6872 Correspondence [email protected] Cut and Thrust 16 Website J.B. Girard was Canada's first fencing master Elena Cerrolaza www.qahn.org South Winds Blowing 21 Skyscrapers, pink Cadillacs and other American imports Sandra Stock President Kevin O'Donneu. Iron Giants and Brave Men 24 Executive Director Remembering the Rand of Marie-Eve Gingras Dvvani; WlLKIM Heritage Portal Coordinator Sherbrooke's industrial legacy Matthew Parfan Ofeice Manager Windsor Station 26 Kai hy Teasdale Sixty years of corporate credulity and greed Michael Fish Quintessentially Canadian - in Cornwall 29 Quebec Heritage \4agazineis produced fourtimes yearly by theQuebec Oldest Canadian canoe found in England Renee Giblin Anglophone Heritage Network (QAHN) with the support of The Department of Canadian Heritage ami Quebec's Reviews Minsiterc de la Culture et des Communications. QAHN is a non-profit Homage to Anglophonia 31 and non-partisan umbrella organization Writing in the Time of Nationalism Rod MacLeod whosemission is tohelpadvance knowledge ofthehistory andculture of by Linda Leith English-speaking society in Quebec. Canada Post Publication Mail Ancestors in the attic, bodies in the basement 32 Agreement Number405610004. Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny Sandra Stock ISSN 17707-2670 Memories of Marianna O'Gallagher 34 1^1 Canadian Patrimoine ••• Heritage canadien Quebec a a Cover image: Thanks to Heritage Montreal, the Guaranteed Milk Bottle is now a permanent part of the Montreal landscape. (Photo: Rod MacLeod) EDITOR'S DESK Jackhammer logic by Rod MacLeod Holy Trinity Church is first visit to Holy Trinity. Despite John's daughter-in-law and grandson gone now, but a few having read much about its history I were victims of an infamous double weeks back I took a walk had never actually gone to look at it, murder (or double suicide? The jury is down Viger Street at the even in its heyday. This is shameful, still very much out) in 1901. border of Old Montreal to check on yes, but also I think quite typical of Then The Suburban weighed in its state of demolition. It was a sad many of us, even avid heritage buffs. on February 2 with a page 2 article by and gruesome sight. Only a chunk There isn't time to get to know all the "Suburban Staff" purporting to give of it was left: the main facade with heritage sights, certainly not in a huge the "final word on 3455-57 Du Musee fragments of its flanking towers and place like Montreal. Too often we pay (Not Redpath Mansion)" and stating: a lone shelf of cantilevered ceiling, attentiononly when death is imminent "John Redpath nor any of his children plus other vestiges of smaller rooms - and even there, we are more likely ever lived here. There is NO mansion, and doorways. Gazing up into the just to follow the debates in the news. NO house and NO more than part of underside of its crumbing roof was We respond more on principle than one wall. What was there was demol vaguely obscene, like seeing the we do on a gut level, the way we ished with a valid permit in 1986." inner parts of a corpse. That even would if it were a building we used Well, ok. That made sense, given what this delicate relic of the church's and loved. Just as we take the heritage I knew of the Redpaths and the moun former glory was still standing was sights we love for granted (often until tainside. But learning that Suburban testament to its fundamentally solid it's too late), we also take for granted editor Michael Sochaczevski was also construction. As if to drive this point the heritage activists without whose one of the developers planning the home, a worker with a jackhammer efforts all kinds of things would condo on the Redpath site made me stood atop the scaffolding pinned disappear without our realizing it. realize that the plot was thickening. against the facade and drilled away at So much is just unsung heroism Things got quite bizarre when the tower, with no discernable effect. - but leaving it to the activists lets the a letter to The Gazette appeared Except that eventually it did the trick. rest of us off the hook. Apathy over (February 9) claiming that Dinu I found myself wondering what politics and poverty is dangerous in Bumbaru oi Heritage Montreal goes through such a fellow's mind a democracy, but even when it comes represented an age-old elite bent on as he stands there tearing cruelly at a to heritage matters we should strive strangling the life of the city, while noble piece of church. I imagine that, to be informed and clear. Who we Sochaczevski represented the little like loggers, he has little sympathy are, and how and where we live, are guy trying to make the place work. for the building-hugging set, or, if he crucial aspects of our lives, not to be Where does one begin with such a does, he rationalizes the act by saying delegated to authorities of any stripe. claim? 1won't even try here. it's just a job. Aware of the many great Heritage is not always black and Suffice it to say I realized I had crimes committed in history in the white, after all. I discovered this as I to see this fabled house-that-was- name of just doing one's job, Ido admit followed the other big preservation not-a-house for myself. It took a bit of that I am glad it is he and not 1doing story of this past winter: the Redpath searching along streets I've known for that rationalization. Besides, given the mansion. Again, I had never seen years - but there it was, at last: a noble- state to which a building like Holy the building in question, and was looking shell, lovely detail, crumbling Trinity had been reduced, and given puzzled. What were they talking walls and broken windows. A the unsuccessful arguments and ini about? Knowing as I do rather more wonderful home - once. It certainly tiatives to save it over the past months about the Redpath family than is doesn't have the heritage pizazz of and years, there wasn't much choice. probably healthy, I could not account a Van Home mansion, a Papineau At that stage, somebody has to pick up for this house. John Redpath did not house, or even an Overdale Avenue, the jackhammer and finish the job. I live there, as many contributing to the although that shouldn't matter, of mean, buildings don't just demolish debate were claiming (including the course. Could it be saved - that is to themselves, right? Heritage Montreal website), though say, restored? To me it didn't seem Right. the lots on which it was built did orig beyond hope. Should it be saved? 1 I was also struck, in hindsight, inally form part of his estate, which found myself thinking of the work by the motive for my visit. I wanted to he sold off at great profit in the 1840s entailed and was glad it wouldn't be see Holy Trinity before it was too late and 50s. There were many more sig me that had to do it. - like that visit to an elderly relative nificant Redpath family houses in the I'm also glad it isn't up to me to whom you know might not be around area that have not survived, including have to pick up a jackhammer and next summer. But this was also my the one on Sherbrooke Street where finish the job. Ql'EBRf 11 BKITAGE Nk Whole parts A new look at Quebec's English-speaking history by Matthew Farfan and Shaun L Turriff Whatplace should Anglophones have in at a scholarly level. We didn't wantjust Anglophones Quebec's collective narrative? Scholars talking to Anglophones, but also Francophones from various domains gathered at talking to Anglophones and Francophones talking Concordia University on February to Francophones about Anglophones." 11th to explore this interesting question. The event And it worked. "It was an exciting day of people was organized by Dr Paul Zanazanian, Postdoc exchanging ideas across the linguistic divide, toral Fellow at Laval University to use the cliche," Zanazanian as well as an instructor in explained. the Department of Education Ronald Rudin Speakers included Roxanne at Concordia University, dela Sabloniere, a psychologist and Dr Lorraine O'Donnell, from Universite de Montreal Coordinator-Researcher at the working on questions of collec Canadian Institute for Research Forgotten tive memory, and Louis-Georges on Linguistic Minorities at Harvey from Bishop's who looks Concordia University. They uebecers at the role of English speakers in wanted to bring together Q A History of English-Speaking Queb Quebec's early nineteenth-cen individuals and organizations tury political and intellectual life.