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St. Lawrence Seaway:
from Procrastination to Realisation
Guest Speaker: Fred Parkinson
When: Thursday, November 16, 2017, from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Where: Centennial Hall
288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A4
Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period.
First talks between Canada and the United States were held in 1895 considering a water navigation system from Montreal to Lake Ontario. Commitment was lacking, however the discussions did lead to establishing the International Joint Commission (IJC) in 1909 to deal with questions on rivers shared by both countries. By 1949 the need for the waterway connection had become pressing, so serious negotiations were undertaken with the IJC playing an important part. Progress was hindered by vocal opposition from the railways and various other well established business and political interests, but in the end the economics of the mining, industrial and agricultural sectors out-weighed these negative arguments, so an agreement was in place, and construction of the Seaway began in 1954.
Building the two American locks and 5 Canadian locks as well as the powerhouse at Cornwall-Massena required major modifications in the river and along the shorelines. A total of 11 communities were inundated, with two being removed to locations above the final water level. Highways and railways were re-routed. The overall system was hailed as the largest navigation project ever undertaken in the world.
The Seaway was completed and operational in 1959, and in 190 days that year transited 25.1 million tonnes of cargo. Ship traffic grew steadily until 1979, when 80 million tonnes went through, but since has decreased so it now carries about 40 million tonnes per year. Lock and channel improvements have been gradually extending the navigation season, so that in 2006 ships had access for 283 days.
Annual economic benefits shared by many industries and agriculture in both countries resulting from reliable water transport to the Great Lakes provided by the Seaway have been estimated at more than $ 35 billion US.
Fred Parkinson, Retired Consulting Civil/Hydraulic Engineer, spent a 45-year career working in the fields of hydro-power development and river navigation. He was associated with a number of studies to improve the Seaway lock operations during ice conditions and participated in studies on physical hydraulic models to widen and deepen the navigation channel downstream from Montreal. At the same time, he was retained to develop new operating systems for several locks on the Rideau and Trent Canals and overseas for the Panama Canal.
Working in the hydro-power field, his first project in Québec was Carillon on the Ottawa River. Hydro-Québec was embarking on a major development programme, and Fred worked on hydraulic design studies for projects on the Manicouagan and Outardes Rivers in the Lower St. Lawrence Region and on the La Grande, Eastmain and Caniapiscau Rivers in the James/Hudson Bay Regions. He also did key design and development studies on major hydro-power schemes in British Columbia and Manitoba. This experience led to short term expert consultations overseas: Iraq, Pakistan, Nepal, Madagascar, Philippines, Viet Nam, Nigeria, Sudan, Bolivia, Belize, Venezuela and Columbia. His final consulting work was as an expert witness in court concerning the flooding along the Rivière des Ha Ha in the Saguenay Region in 1996.
Following retirement, he served for eighteen months on an International Joint Commission sub-committee to study and make recommendations on modifying Seaway operations to provide water level control of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River that was more acceptable to the many different stakeholders, in particular, environmental interests.
Last Minute special guest at the lecture:
Dr. Murray Clamen, retired Secretary of the Canadian Section of the International Joint Commission, will give a short slide presentation describing the operations of the I.J.C. and describe a few typical studies involving rivers and lakes along the bo
rder between Canada and the United States. Prior to becoming the Secretary, Dr. Clamen was the IJC lead technical advisor for over a decade on all issues related to trans-boundary water management in the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence River System.
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My Experiences of Expo 67
Guest Speaker: Gary W. Sims
When: Thursday, October 19, 2017, from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Where: Centennial Hall
288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A4
Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period.
Our guest speaker will talk about his experiences on Centennial Events and his experiences leading up to the opening and closing of Expo 67 and afterwards.
Gary W. Sims started collecting Centennial & Expo 67 items in 1964. He put on small exhibitions at neighbours and friends house on different countries. He volunteered at the Lachine Museum, and then in 1966 at the museum, put on an Exhibition on the Centennial and Expo 67 its crown jewel. Gary was appointed by the City of Lachine in 1967 as a Director of Lachine 67 which coordinated Centennial Events and the 300th anniversary of the founding of the City of Lachine. He wrote a weekly column on Centennial Events called Centennial Report in the Lachine Messenger. As a Director of Lachine 67 and writing the newspaper column, Expo 67 Incorporated gave Gary a special press pass that allowed him complete access to the site. During this time he met many heads of state and other celebrities. With this pass he was given V.I.P and press packages as he visited each pavilion on the Expo site as well as many other special items which he has preserved and saved over the last 50 years. Gary considers this time of his life the most exciting. The privileges he was given in 1967 were never taken for granted and will never be forgotten.
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The Rich World of Family History Research
Guest Speaker: Gary Schroder, President, Quebec Family History Society
When: Thursday, September 21, 2017, from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Where: Centennial Hall
288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A4
Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period.
Family History Research has become one of the fastest growing hobbies in the world. The purpose of this presentation will be to explore some of the major types of historical documents that are used in genealogical research in Canada, the US, the UK, and other parts of the world. These include civil registrations of birth, marriage, and death, church registers, census records, probate records, land records and even dog records. This evening we will see how to pursue your own family history, leap over 'brick walls', and track down elusive indigenous ancestors in Canada.
Gary Schroder is or has been
- President of QFHS, the Quebec Family History Society, since 1995.
- Chair of the 'Roots' International Conferences on Family History held at McGill University in 1997, 2002, 2007, 2011, and 2015.
- Teacher of family history courses at McGill University and Champlain College.
- Lecturer to genealogical and historical societies across North America.
- Speaker at the 2001 International Conference on Irish Family History held at Trinity College, Dublin.
- Member of the Special Advisory Board of Library and Archives Canada.
- Editor of numerous publications, e.g. Christ Church, Montreal Marriages 1766-1850.
- Frequent guest on Canadian Radio and Television answering a wide variety of genealogical questions and promoting the educational value of family history research.
- Research consultant on the American, British, and Canadian versions of the “Who Do You Think You Are” television series.
- Originator of the All Day Genealogical Seminars at the QFHS Library.
His primary research interests are Canadian, English, Irish, and British (Military) resources for genealogists.
His first known ancestor in Canada was his 3rd-great-grandfather Cornelius Flynn who arrived in Quebec City in 1805. Cornelius Flynn 1787-1861, native of Cork, Ireland, served in the Royal Navy for over twenty years and was wounded aboard the HMS Agamemnon during the Battle of Trafalgar.
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In 2017-2018, the Beaurepaire-Beaconsfield Historical Society will host various lectures on history.
Our lectures take place on the 3rd Thursday of the month, from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Everyone welcome.
Free for members; $2 for non-members
Become a member for $5 per year
Information: Contact us
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Fleury Mesplet (1734-1794) and the Birth of Freedom of Expression in Quebec (1776)
Guest Speaker: Jacques G. Ruelland Ph.D.
When: Thursday, May 18, 2017, from 19:30 to 21:00
Where: Centennial Hall
288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A4
Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period.
Born in Marseilles, educated in Lyon, the printer Fleury Mesplet (1734-1794) one day decides to flee the intolerance that reigns in France at that time to seek refuge in England. He meets Benjamin Franklin, who recruits him as a Francophone printer of the American Continental Congress, fighting against the English. He prints the Letters sent by the American Congressmen to the inhabitants of the Province of Quebec to incite them to join against their common enemy: the English. In order to reinforce this purpose, Franklin arrives in Montreal in 1776; Mesplet accompanies him: he shall be the instrument of the North American rebellion against the European oppressor. But the project fails; the American patriots are decimated by the English. However, Mesplet decides to remain in Montreal, despite a “preventive” imprisonment of almost a month. With the aid of a few friends as enlightened as he was by the philosophy of the Enlightenment (Valentin Jautard, Pierre du Calvet, etc.), he founds in 1778 the first journal of opinion in the country, the Gazette littéraire, and the first think tank, the Montreal Academy - which perhaps hides a French Masonic lodge. After another hard imprisonment of three years, Mesplet recovers his wife, his friends, his workshop, his values and his fights; he creates in 1785, on a new basis, a second newspaper, the Montreal Gazette, which survives him even today. Beyond the centuries, between the American War of Independence and the French Revolution, Mesplet’s story reminds us that the struggle for freedom of expression is still valid.
Born in Spa (Belgium) in 1948, Jacques G. Ruelland immigrated to Canada in 1969, holding a printer technician diploma from Liège (Belgium). He holds presently a BA and an MA in philosophy of science, a second MA in history, a third one in museology and a Ph.D. in history of science. He taught philosophy at the Collège Édouard-Montpetit (Longueuil) for 31 years (1979-2010), and he currently teaches history as an associate professor in the History Department of the University of Montreal. He also works currently as a museologist for the Musée des Maîtres et Artisans du Québec (Saint-Laurent), and the Museums (a set of five museums) of Mont-Saint-Hilaire. He signed some fifty books published in Canada, the United States, Europe, and Asia, and translated into various languages. He chaired la Société de philosophie de Montréal and la Société des écrivains canadiens; he was secretary of la Société historique de Montréal and la Société de philosophie du Québec. He won several awards for his works, including twice the Percy-W.-Foy Prize awarded by la Société historique de Montréal in 1987 and 1988, as well as the Special French Prize and a Special Mention at the awards ceremony of the Minister of Education of Quebec in 1995. In 1999, Dr. Ruelland was awarded the Gold Medal of Cultural Enlightenment in French Literature by La Renaissance française (a French association sponsored by the Government of France) for the multicultural character of his work, and was knighted in the Order of Academic Palms in 2003 by the Government of France for the quality of his teaching and writings. Web site: www.ruelland.ca
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1867-Confederation-2017;
Honouring its Empire Loyalist Foundations:
Sir Charles Tupper, Prime Minister – A History
Guest speaker: Adrian Willison
When: Thursday 20 April 2017 at 19h30 to 21h
Where: Annexe Herb-Linder (Bowling Green)
303 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A7
Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period.
A Loyalist conference for the 150th Anniversary Celebrations of Canadian Confederation, Sir Charles Tupper, a descendant of Loyalist settlers in Nova Scotia, was a very important Father of Confederation and a tireless worker for a united Canada.
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Is There More We Should Remember (on Remembrance Day)?
Guest Speaker: Desmond Morton
When: Thursday, March 16, 2017, from 19:30 to 21:00
Where: Centennial Hall
288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A4
Lecture in English.
150 years after Confederation, the myth of Two Solitudes engages and haunts us. What does the historical record teach us about this myth, e.g. regarding Quebec and Canada in the Great War?
Desmond Dillon Paul Morton OC CD FRSC (Calgary 1937- ) is a 
Canadian historian who specializes in the history of the Canadian military, as well as the history of Canadian political and industrial relations. He is the author of over thirty-five books on Canada, including the popular A Short History of Canada.
In 1996, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. He has been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada since 1985.
Son and grandson of militaries, he is a graduate of the Collège militaire royal de St-Jean, the Royal Military College of Canada, a Rhodes Scholar, the University of Oxford (where he received his PhD), and the London School of Economics. He spent ten years in the Canadian Army (1954–1964 retiring as a Captain).
Later on, he began his teaching career and was Principal of Erindale College, University of Toronto, from 1986 to 1994.
Morton is the Hiram Mills professor emeritus of History at McGill University, as well as the past director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, in Montreal, Quebec.
Morton once wrote: "For Canadians, Vimy Ridge was a nation building experience. For some, then and later, it symbolized the fact that the Great War was also Canada's war of independence".
Source: Article Desmond Morton (historian) from English Wikipedia Consulted on 2017-02-06
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REMEMBERING SCOTLAND’S CONTRIBUTION TO MONTREAL
ON THE OCCASION OF ITS 375th ANNIVERSARY
Guest Speaker: Rev. J.S.S. Armour, D.D.
When: Thursday, February 16, 2017, from 19.30 to 21:00
Where: Centennial Hall
288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A4
Lecture in English followed by question time also in English
Dr. Armour is minister emeritus of The Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul on Sherbrooke Street - offspring congregations of the original Scotch Kirk on St. Gabriel’s Street, founded in 1792. Just to step outside his former church (incidentally the regimental church of The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada) is to learn something of the Scottish contribution to the city of Montreal. To the west, Mackay Street named for Donald Mackay, an early fur trader; and Simpson Street, named for Sir George Simpson, governor of the Hudson Bay Company. The church is on Redpath Street, which once led to the home of sugar magnate John Redpath, whose son Peter gave to McGill the Redpath Museum and the Redpath Library. Amy Redpath lived across the street from the church in a gracious home with trees and green grass, now obliterated by the 
Port Royal. Amy gave the Roddick Gates at McGill, in memory of her husband, a Newfoundlan
d Scot from Harbour Grace. To the east of the church, there is Drummond Street, named for John Redpath’s wife, McTavish Street and Hutchison Street. And that’s only the streets! Think of the institutions – Trafalgar School for Girls, The Museum of Fine Arts, Ogilvy’s, the Montreal General, to say nothing of James McGill’s university, made famous by another Scot, Sir William Dawson - its buildings given by men whose names were McLellan, Macdonald, Strathcona and Mount Stephen. And behind the church is the Golden Square Mile, once home to the wealth of the Dominion, largely peopled by Scots. Historians speak of the Anglo Ascendency – Scoto might be more accurate, as you will hear.
J.S.S. Armour holds degrees from the Universities of Toronto, Edinburgh, Memorial and Union Theological Seminary, New York City, as well as an honorary doctorate from Presbyterian College, Montreal. He is the author of three books and edited histories of the Royal Montreal Curling Club; Presbyterian College, Montreal; and the Dissenting Church of Christ in St. John’s, Newfoundland. On retirement from St. Andrew and St. Paul in 2000, he wisely moved to Beaconsfield.
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Montréal's three beginnings, Hochelaga, Tiohtiagi, and Ville-Marie
Guest Speaker: Roy Wright
When: Thursday 19 january 2017, from 19h30 to 21h
Where: Centennial Hall
288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A4
Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period.
As we celebrate 375 years since the founding of a permanent European settlement at Montréal, we would do well to recall the two previous occasions when French explorers remarked its significance for eventual future settlement, realized in 1642.
In 1535 Jacques Cartier visited Hochelaga, then as now a centre rivalling the downriver Stadacona settlement at what is now Quebec City. He described it as a community of some 1500 inhabitants surrounded by a palisade, and during his short visit was taken by its chief to the top of nearby Mt. Royal.
In 1609 and 1611, Samuel de Champlain visited the sites of today's Kahnawake and Montréal (marking the latter with an A on his 1612 map). Here he had to portage around “Sault Saint-Louis”, the Lachine Rapids, noting their importance to the natives gathering to parlay and trade, the former diplomatic function commemorated in the Iroquoian name Tiohtiagi, and the latter commerce still a hallmark of Montréal's importance at the start of the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Finally in 1642, Paul de Chomedy de Maisonneuve, Jeanne Mance and about 50 French settlers started to build a community at the site marked 30 years earlier. The new fortified settlement was named Ville-Marie, in celebration of the religious vision of Sieur de Maisonneuve and Bishop Laval.
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400 years – History of the Richelieu
From Warpath to Playground
Guest Speaker: Derek Grout
When: Thursday, November 17, 2016, from 19:30 to 21:00
Where: Centennial Hall,
288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A4
Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period.
Derek Grout will give a sneak preview of his latest book.
Quebec's Richelieu River, although just over a hundred kilometers in length, has played a critical role in the turbulent history of New France and the development of Canada. Join historian and author Derek Grout for his illustrated presentation From Warpath to Playground, as he traces the river's evolution over the past four centuries.
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