Storied Streams of History: A Documentary Navigation along the St. Lawrence River Myriam Tremblay-Sher A Thesis In the Department of Communication Studies Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Communication) at Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada October 2018 © Myriam Tremblay-Sher, 2018 CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES This is to certify that the thesis prepared By: Myriam Tremblay-Sher Entitled: Storied Streams of History: A Documentary Navigation along the St. Lawrence River and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Communication) complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality. Signed by the final examining committee: __________________________________________________Chair Dr. Catherine Russell __________________________________________________External Examiner Dr. Brenda Longfellow __________________________________________________External to Program Dr. Steven High __________________________________________________Examiner Dr. Matt Soar __________________________________________________Examiner Dr. Tamara Vukov __________________________________________________Thesis Supervisor Dr. Monika Kin Gagnon Approved by ____________________________________________________________ Dr. Jeremy Stolow, Graduate Program Director November 27, 2018 _______________________________________________________ Dr. André Roy, Dean, Faculty of Arts and Science ABSTRACT Storied Streams of History: A Documentary Navigation along the St. Lawrence River Myriam Tremblay-Sher, Ph.D. Concordia University, 2018 The St. Lawrence River forms one of the most important inland waterways on the planet. It also has had a determining impact on history and the peoples along its shores. The river carries memories, attachments, and legacies flowed over centuries. This research-creation―in the form of a written thesis and an accompanying multilinear web documentary―explores the significance of place in shaping relations to history as inspired by the St. Lawrence River. The thesis combines theorizations of place from socio-geographic and philosophic study, as elaborated principally by Doreen Massey and Edward S. Casey, with theoretical and practical advancements of interactive web documentary and of the essay film from film studies. It then builds on these theories of place as event―as an agent of shifting relations through time and space―and of documentary representation by applying them to the St. Lawrence River. In so doing, it elaborates the conceptual frames of place, boundary, and navigation. These frameworks are broadened in the filming, editing, and presentation of a documentary that features the voices and insights of an artist, an adventurer, an environmentalist, a writer, a teacher and an historian who have all encountered the river and have also been shaped by it. The thesis concludes that the theories of place developed by Massey, Casey, and others can creatively blend with storytelling by the river, deepening understandings of history and ways of engaging the place-event known as the St. Lawrence. iii Acknowledgements I wish to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Joseph- Armand Bombardier CGS Doctoral Scholarship, the Concordia University Graduate Fellowship, and the Faculty of Arts and Science Award for their generous financial support. This research-creation would not have been possible without the support of the Communication Studies department faculty. I am especially grateful to my supervisor, Monika Gagnon, for her guidance and perspective, compelling me to get out of my head, to critically inquire, and to see the bigger picture. On this journey of questioning, your outlook has been invaluable. I also wish to express my sincerest thanks to Liz Miller for inspiring us to pursue both research and creation with passion and care. I would like to thank my thesis committee, for their generous time and attention, orienting the contribution a Ph.D. student can hope to make. Dr. Brenda Longfellow, Dr. Steven High, Dr. Tamara Vukov, and Dr. Matt Soar, your insights and feedback were enlightening and have spawned new reflections on how to advance knowledge from research-creation. With deep gratitude, I thank the wonderful participants that made this project what it is: Mylène Paquette, Monique Durand, René Derouin, Martine Chatelain, Pearl Grubert, and Roger La Roche. Their spirit, wisdom, and generosity inspired this research-creation in countless ways and serve as a lasting reminder of the power of story. Finally, to my friends and family, I thank you dearly. Your undying encouragement, care, and curiosity have been beacons of light. To my father, your help and support have meant everything. Thank you for shining the way forward, even when it was hard to see. I am blessed to have been so well-surrounded on this journey, which has taught me more about life than anything else. Du fond de mon cœur, je vous remercie de votre soutien et de votre amour. iv Table of Contents List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ vi Preamble ......................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 2 Chapter 1 Literature and media review ....................................................................................................... 15 Theorizations of place .............................................................................................................. 16 Film studies .............................................................................................................................. 22 Chapter 2 Telling the river’s stories ............................................................................................................. 35 Orientation and compass .......................................................................................................... 35 Methodology ............................................................................................................................ 46 Chapter 3 Place: The river as event, as palimpsest, and the flow of senses .............................................. 56 Place as event, as agent of shifting relations ........................................................................... 57 The St. Lawrence River as palimpsest ..................................................................................... 63 Senses of place ......................................................................................................................... 70 Chapter 4 Boundary: Traversing the limits of the shoreline and of narrative ......................................... 77 The shoreline ........................................................................................................................... 78 Narrative frontiers .................................................................................................................... 85 Chapter 5 Navigation: Learning from the river .......................................................................................... 93 Navigation as place history ...................................................................................................... 94 Navigation as tour: Place history in movement ..................................................................... 103 Navigation as representation: Exploring multilinearity in documentary ............................... 114 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 120 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 126 Appendix A: Sample consent form (French) ........................................................................... 133 Appendix B: Sample consent form (English) ........................................................................... 135 v List of Figures Figure 1: Shot of the St. Lawrence Seaway taken from the Jacques-Cartier Bridge .................... 60 Figure 2: Shot of Mylène Paquette looking over to the geese “talking” ....................................... 82 Figure 3: Shot of the river in front of la Ronde, obstructed by fences and train tracks ................ 83 Figure 4: Screengrab of the documentary’s navigational screen .................................................. 88 Figure 5: Screen composition of meditation sequence ................................................................. 91 Figure 6: Pierre Duval, Le Canada faict par le Sr de Champlain, 1677 ....................................... 99 Figure 7: Gédéon de Catalogne et Jean-Baptiste Decouagne, Carte du Gouvernement de Québec […], 1709 ............................................................ 100 Figure 8: Airplane shot over Montreal area ................................................................................ 100 Figure 9: Shot of the river and cityscape taken from the boat tour ............................................. 104 Figure 10: Shot of fisherman and cruise ship taken from Pointe du Havre ...............................