NUMBER 52 ■ SPRING 2017 ■ $2.00 ■ IMAGINATION FESTIVAL 2017 LINEUP ■ WHERE WILDFLOWERS GREW IN PRE-SPRAWL QUEBEC CITY ■ THE BEST IRISH BREAD & BUTTER PUDDING RECIPE The Morrin Centre is managed by the Literary & Historical Society of Quebec. Society Pages are published with the assistance of Canada Post. Quebec Heritage News Subscribe Now! Quebec’s English-language heritage magazine. Popular history – Profiles of remarkable people and events – Contemporary issues in heritage conservation – Book reviews – Insightful commentary – and much more. Individual: $30 for 1 year; $75 for 3 years; $120 for 5 years Institutional: $40 for 1 year; $100 for 3 years; $160 for 5 years To pay by cheque, please mail payment to: QAHN, 400-257 rue Queen, Sherbrooke QC J1M 1K7. or pay by Paypal to: [email protected]. For more information, call (819) 564-9595 Toll free: 1-877-964-0409. EDITOR Deborah van der Linde LAYOUT Patrick Donovan PROOFREADING NUMBER 52 ■ SPRING 2017 Louisa Blair ■ PUBLISHER CONTENTS Literary & Historical Society of Quebec 44 chaussée des Écossais Quebec, Quebec G1R 4H3 PHONE 418-694-9147 Letter from the President 1 Barry Holleman FAX 418-694-0754 From the Executive Director 1 Barry McCullough GENERAL INQUIRIES [email protected] WEBSITE Transactions www.morrin.org ■ Wildflowers of Quebec 2 Samuel Sturton LHSQ COUNCIL Library Pages [email protected] Barry Holleman, President Ladd Johnson, Vice-President Book Review: The Hidden Keys 4 Deborah van der Linde Gina Farnell, Treasurer Diana Cline, Secretary Donald Fyson, Honorary Librarian New Acquisitions 4 Deborah van der Linde Bruce Laurie, Member at Large Jacob Stone, Member at Large Events & Activities Peter Black Jack Bryden Katherine Burgess ImagiNation 2017 5 Arthur Plumpton Grant Regalbuto Past Events & Upcoming Events 9 Ibtissem Zahzam Hélène Thibault Sovita Chander, Ex-Officio Miscellanea David F. Blair, Ex-Officio Tomas Feininger, Ex-Officio Cameron J. MacMillan, Ex-Officio Volunteer Appreciation Night 10 Elizabeth Davies ■ Recipe: Bread & Butter Pudding 11 Alicia Lamontagne DIRECTOR Barry McCullough Music Review: Los Campesinos! 11 Barry McCullough Executive Director [email protected] FULL-TIME STAFF Gail Cameron Accounting & Financial Clerk [email protected] Rosemarie Fischer Administrative Assistant [email protected] Manon Fortin Interim Rentals Coordinator [email protected] Stefanie Johnston Guided Tours Coordinator [email protected] Alicia Lamontagne Interim Development and Communications Director [email protected] Deborah van der Linde Library Manager [email protected] ■ The mission of the Morrin Centre is to share and foster English-language culture in the Quebec City region. The Morrin Centre is administered by the Literary & Historical Society of Quebec. Front cover: Volunteers puzzling over clues at Volunteer Appreciation Night. From left to right: Diane Bird, Joanne Coleman Robertson, Wallace Robertson, Lorna Gailis, Pona Tran, and Robert Patenaude. SOCIETY PAGES LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT Members, friends and partners, mission. We are thankful for those contributions, which continue to fuel our growth and diversity in putting I am delighted to report that 2016 together our programming. Projects such as My Morrin was another record year for the and Visions of Community wouldn’t be possible without centre. In total, the building this support. We look forward to continuing to work welcomed in the order of 46,000 with these partners in 2017 and beyond, as we do even visitors for tours, library, events greater things with the programming across our three and rentals. For this, I would like pillars: heritage, arts and education. to congratulate the tireless dedication of staff and Council for making 2016 a year Volunteer appreciation night was held on February 8th of significant growth and achievement. and those in attendance were treated to dinner as well as a night of murder and mystery. This gives us the Our 193rd Annual General Meeting is coming up on opportunity to thank everyone who donates their time Wednesday, March 29. It is a great opportunity for to make the Morrin Centre run as smoothly as it does. members to be heard, to hear more about us, and to From library volunteers to Council members, event find out what we have in store for 2017. The AGM is volunteers, committee members and more, all of your followed by a wine and cheese reception and our always contributions are vital to our success and I would like popular magazine auction, which helps fund the to thank you for what you do. purchase of periodicals for the library. With best regards, Every year we receive significant contributions from the three levels of government, as well as from foundations Barry Holleman and corporations who are passionate about our President FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Members & Friends, histories through objects and stories. They also explored children and women’s history through the It looks like we’ve picked up in Literary and Historical Society’s precious “My Quebec 2017 right where we left off at the Collection” donated by Hilda Stephens. The end result, end of last year. This winter’s a digital display of what community means to the events calendar has been jam- participants, will be unveiled with a 5 à 7 launch on packed from January onward. The Thursday, March 30. I hope to see you there. My Morrin series has provided members with a calendar of And of course, coming up from April 5-9, the always engaging and dynamic events conceived by our own highly anticipated ImagiNation Writers’ Festival is members. We knew that we had creative members celebrating its 8th year. In 2017, the festival will bring with great ideas, but the results of the series have been our largest lineup yet of 19 authors from all across the beyond our expectations and the crowds coming out continent. Each year, the festival strives to feature for these events are just one indication of their high something for everyone and 2017 will be no exception. quality. I can’t wait for the next call for proposals, which From cooking to history to sports to fiction, we have a will happen before summer. wide array of genres covered. Be sure to check out the author profiles in the centerfold of this issue. The Visions of Community workshops, led by Louisa & Sarah Blair and Louis-Robert Bouchard, have been I hope to see you at one of our many upcoming events. inspiring and creative. A variety of English-speaking Quebecers originating in Germany, Hungary, Algeria and South Africa as well as Winnipeg, Montcalm and Barry McCullough Cap Rouge met at three workshops to explore their Executive Director PAGE 1 SPRING 2017 TRANSACTIONS WILDFLOWERS OF QUEBEC By Samuel Sturton With Spring around the corner, we could not resist reprinting or into the swamps, resplendent with the very this old paper. It was written by Samuel Sturton, the Literary luxuriance of beauty; or into cool shady woods, where and Historical Society of Quebec’s Librarian and an flowers of the brightest hues abound; there I feel I apothecary who had a store at 11/2 Rue Saint Jean. His could interest him, and infuse into him my own love of lecture, liberally scattered with poems, was originally read on nature: but of these pages I feel diffident. December 19, 1860, then published by the Literary and I have not aspired to write a Historical Society of Quebec paper which shall be read in the Transactions, Original for its literary merits. All Series, Vol. 4, Appendix (1861). that I wish is, that these pages, and especially the In revising for the press the accompanying Maps should following paper, which was help the student to find the read before the Literary and flowers for himself; and this Historical Society last end being answered, I am December, I think I can say content that the guide that I am solely actuated by should be dismissed. the desire to facilitate the study of the Botany of Many flowers are Quebec, and to remove out intentionally, and others of the path of others probably unintentionally, difficulties which I have myself omitted; and I shall feel encountered. obliged to all who can favor me with additions and I delight in flowers, especially corrections. in those which are natives of the locality where I dwell; and To the lovers of flowers when they are in bloom, who wish to make use of wherever I am, may be seen the assistance of these several vases filled with the pages, I would suggest, that most beautiful I can collect— “Distribution of Flowers For May,” detail from one of the they visit the spots pointed these never fail to excite in maps published with Samuel Sturton’s paper. out, search for the flowers others the admiration which I described, and then, further, feel; and the question is always asked, "where shall I find compare them with the descriptions in Gray's Flora. them?" It is this question which I attempt to answer. Even now, I can look forward to the time when the I can truly say, I would rather that the task of writing sound of the "Grelots" shall be heard no more, when the this guide had fallen into hands more capable of doing blows of the ice axe shall cease, when the ice bands of justice to the subject. I have always loved flowers for the earth shall be dissolved, and the earth again clothe their own sake, and have never, until now, entertained herself in her beautiful garments. And although in this the thought of writing upon them. I would gladly carry paper I pass by our stately and beautiful trees, and my readers away into the scenes of nature—into the confine myself to those more lowly members of the sunny meadows, where butter cups and daisies are still, Vegetable Kingdom, called "Wild-flowers," yet must I in the words of the poet, not omit the first flower that appears—the Willow, with its catkins decked with yellow pearls of gold, "Like treasures of silver and gold;" PAGE 2 SOCIETY PAGES TRANSACTIONS "The first gilt thing Deck'd with the earliest pearls of places where they are found resemble large garden beds spring." of Hepaticas.