Category: Past Lectures

Sir Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière

followed by

Les droits des femmes dans le Bas-Canada

Guest Speakers: Jean-Pierre Raymond and Andrée Aubut

When:  Thursday, March 15, 2018, from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Where: Centennial Hall

            288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A4

Lecture in French with English PowerPoint slides, followed by a bilingual question period.

First, Jean-Pierre Raymond will talk about "Sir Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière", first leader of the Quebec Liberal Party 150 years ago and first Prime Minister of the Quebec Liberal Party in 1878-79. He is a descendant of the two engineers Michel Chartier de Lotbinière and Gaspard-Joseph Chaussegros de Léry. He is the father of two engineers who will be generals in the First World War and his four daughters married engineers one of which will be general. He is also the father of sustainable development in forestry.

Following this, Andrée Aubut will commemorate the 100th anniversary of women's right to vote in Canada with a presentation entitled "Women's Rights in Lower Canada", recalling that women have already had the right to vote in Lower Canada between 1791 and 1849. She will explain how women like Louise-Magdeleine Chaussegros de Léry, her daughter-in-law Mary-Charlotte Munro de Fowlis and her granddaughter Julie-Christine Chartier de Lotbinière benefited from the peculiarities of the French law known as Coutume de Paris enshrined in the Act of Quebec for the second version of the province of Quebec (1774). Julie-Christine is the mother of Henri-Gustave.

Both presentations will be in French and the Power Point in English, allowing for a bilingual presentation.

Jean-Pierre Raymond is a retired engineer, passionate about history who studies the first Canadian engineers.

Andrée Aubut is a retired teacher who is interested in the history of women in Nouvelle-France and under British regime and in particular the laws that applied to property rights.

The two personifies in period costumes historical figures like the couples Gaspard-Joseph Chaussegros de Léry and Marie-Renée Legardeur de Beauvais, Michel Chartier de Lotbinière and Louise-Magdeleine Chaussegros de Léry, Ralph-Henri Bruyère and Janet Dunbar and finally Henri-Gustave Joly and Margharetta-Josepha Gowen.

Category: Past Lectures

Murder Will Out – Two Centuries Later

Guest Speaker: John Kalbfleisch

When:  Thursday, April 19, 2018, 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.

Robert Watson was a member of the prominent Ogilvie flour-milling family. When a shotgun blast tore into his back in 1827, it not only horrified the bustling city of Montreal but also launched a mystery that endures to this day: who killed the unsuspecting Watson, and why? Mr. Kalbfleisch has long been fascinated by the crime, and his new novel, A Stain Upon the Land, wrestles with those two haunting questions.

Longtime Montreal Gazette journalist John Kalbfleisch began writing a regular column on the city’s history for the newspaper in 2000. His novel A Stain Upon the Land was published in June 2017. He is also the author of Le cadeau royal: Histoire de la ville de Mont-Royal / The Royal Gift: a History of Town of Mount Royal (2013) and This Island In Time: Remarkable Tales from Montreal’s Past (Véhicule Press, 2008), and is the co-author of Montreal’s Century: a Record of the News and People Who Shaped the City in the 20th Century (Trécarré, 1999).

Category: Past Lectures

At a loss for words:

language endangerment and literacy  development

in First Nations communities

Guest speaker: Lori Morris  MP3Audio

When: Thursday, November 15, 2012, from 19:30 to 21:00

Where: Centennial Hall,

              288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A7

Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period

Category: Past Lectures

Mediation - the Historical Treaty Making Process and Its Revival

Especially during the Oka Crisis

Guest speaker: Maître Martha Montour

When: Thursday, May 17, 2012, from 19:30 to 21:00

Where: Centennial Hall,

              288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A7

Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period

Lecture followed by Elizabeth Montour who will present her Conservation Work
 

Category: Past Lectures

Pierre LeSueur and Marguerite Messier travelling from Montréal to Louisiana in 1704 and 1705 for a new life, in a new colony

Guest Speaker: Marcel Lussier, Eng., M.Sc.

When:  Thursday, May 17, 2018, 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.

Pierre LeSueur, coureur des bois, explorer and trader, decided to migrate to Louisiana and to establish his family in the Biloxi area, a new French fort on the Golf of Mexico. He travelled by sea on a boat called the Pélican from France to the Caribbean’s. First stop in Saint-Domingue (Haiti), then in Cuba.

During that time, his wife Marguerite Messier and their five kids left Montréal by canoes heading to the Great Lakes, spending the winter at fort Michillimakinac. In springtime, she travelled south down the Mississippi River and arrived at fort Biloxi in June 1705.
The lecture will explain the path, the difficulties and the surprises met by both members of the LeSueur couple!

Our speaker, Marcel Lussier, Eng., M.Sc., has been sanitary engineer and environmental adviser for 22 years for Hydro-Québec (on the retired list in 2003).

Three years (2003-2005) as president of an Environmental Consulting Group of the International Joint Commission Canada-United States studying the water levels of Lake Ontario and of the St-Lawrence River.
Searcher (or inquirer) and lecture in historical or environmental conferences, such as FRONTENAC, LASALLE, D'IBERVILLE or CLIMATE CHANGES and WATER PROBLEMS.
Member of different Historical Societies and also Member of Parliament for Brossard-LaPrairie (2006-2008).

Category: Past Lectures

 The Prehistoric Mound Builders of the North American Eastern Woodlands:

Myth and Reality

Guest Speaker: Martin Byers PhD

When:   Thursday, October 20, 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.

The Spanish, French, and English who arrived and penetrated into North America from the 1500s on encountered great, indeed, monumental earthwork locales that for the most part had long been unoccupied. We now know that the earthwork tradition is very ancient in this region but that it particularly exploded during two periods. The first explosion occurred about 100 BC and continued to about 400 BC, contemporaneous with the Mediterranean Roman Empire, and the second occurred about 1000 AD and terminated about 1400 AD, paralleling the European Middle Ages. European scholars and archaeologists have proposed many theories about the societies and histories that were responsible for building and using these great earthworks. Many of them are currently rejected by most North American archaeologists and referred to collectively as the Mound Builder mythology.

This lecture examines examples of monumental earthworks of both periods and briefly explores the myths and realities that they embody and express.

Martin Byers was born in Fort William, now Thunderbay, Ontario in 1937 but grew up in Montreal. He graduated from McGill, BA and MA in history/anthropology, gained a PhD in anthropology/archaeology from New York State University at Albany (New York). He taught anthropology and humanities at Vanier College, Montreal, from 1970 to 1998. Martin Byers is a research associate in the Department of Anthropology at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He has authored numerous articles in scholarly journals and has published 3 books.

Category: Past Lectures

The Loyalists Refugees: The Story of the First Settlers in the Eastern Townships

Guest speaker: Michel Racicot

When: Thursday, April 17, 2014, from 19:30 to 21:00

Where: Centennial Hall

            288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A4

Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period.

Michel Racicot is genealogist and member of Sir John Johnson Centennial Branch UELAC (United Empire Loyalist Association of Canada), which is the Eastern Township branch.

Category: Past Lectures

 The Cree cultural traditions and the influence of the Scottish fur traders of the Hudson’s Bay Company

photo by Niels Jensen

Speaker: Louise Abbott

When : Thursday October 20, 2011, from 19:30 to 21:00

Where:  In the Media Room of the Beaconsfield Library,

303 Beaconsfield Boulevard, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A7

The trilingual book by Louise Abbott, “Eeyou Istchee – Land of the Cree - Terre des Cris” will be on sale that evening.

Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period.

Everyone welcome. Admission free.

Category: Past Lectures

They Were So Young. Montrealers Remember World War II 

Guest Speaker: Patricia Burns

When:     Thursday, April 16, 2015, from 19:30 to 21:00

Where:   Beaconsfield Library

           303 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A7

Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period.

Patricia Burns, author of this book published in 2002, will elaborate on

1. The reason for writing an oral history of WWII
2. Finding people to interview
3. The technique and process of oral history
4. A few stories.

Category: Past Lectures

Rise and Fall in the RCAF – The World War II Experiences of Robert McBride

Category: Past Lectures

The (Way of the) Indian Way School

Guest speaker: Philip Deering, from Kahnawake

When: Thursday, February 16, 2012, from 19:30 to 21:00

Where: Centennial Hall,

              288, boul. Beaconsfield, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A7

Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period

Everyone welcome. Admission free.

Description: Philip Deering will introduce the Way School, at Kahnawake, where he worked right after its creation.

Category: Past Lectures

Oral tradition in Nouvelle-France:

Innovative or Conservative? or Both?

Guest speaker: Philip Deering

When: Thursday, October 17, 2013, from 19:30 to 21:00

Where: Centennial Hall,

             288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A4

Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period

Philip Deering is back again this time to introduce us to certain myths on Nouvelle-France transmitted through oral history.

Category: Past Lectures

 West Island, 1667-2017

Guest Speaker: Pierre-F. McDuff

When:  Thursday, January 18, 2018, 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.

Pierre-F. McDuff has contributed to many important published biographical books including the just released book on the Mayors of Montreal edited by our board member Jacques G. Ruelland.

After a short introduction, we will look at the evolution of the parishes of Lachine, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, St-Laurent, Pointe-Claire, Ste-Geneviève and the Ile-Bizard. These parishes delineated the first municipalities on the island of Montreal, created between 1845 and 1855.

Category: Past Lectures

 “The Scots influence on the Province of Québec”

Lecturer: Ray Baillie, author of  “Scottish Imprint in Quebec”

Category: Past Lectures

The Montreal Region Forts from Nouvelle-France Era

Guest speaker: René Chartrand

When: Thursday, February 21, 2013, from 19:30 to 21:00

Where: Centennial Hall,

             288 Beaconsfield Blvd, Beaconsfield, H9W 4A4

PowerPoint Lecture in English followed by a bilingual question period

René Chartrand was born in Montreal and educated in Canada, the United States and the Bahamas. A senior curator with Parks Canada's National Historic Sites Branch for nearly three decades, he is now a free-lance writer and historical consultant. He has authored some 40 books and hundreds of articles published in England, France, the United States and Canada. He lives in Gatineau (Quebec).