CHAPTER II
QUEBEC AND THE PICTURESQUE MARITIME REGION
The Maritime region of Canada embraces only, strictly speaking, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick; although Quebec is sometimes thought of as being included in this historic portion of the Dominion, because of its geographical situation. The city of Quebec has always been a favourite point of pilgrimage, and when Mr. Howells, in his early youth, enshrined it in a half-romantic narrative, as the scene of _Their Wedding Journey_, its attractions were heightened by his facile and charming pen. The old French city dates back to 1608, and its history, for more than a century and a half, is really the history of Canada as well. All the maritime provinces of Canada take a prominent place in poetic legend and lore as well as in historical associations. When, in 1845, the poet Longfellow wrote his tender and touching, though historically misleading poem, Evangeline, the poem focussed the general attention on Acadia (the modern Nova Scotia and New Brunswick), and particular attention on the little village of Grand-Pré, which,
"... distant, secluded still,"
lying in the fruitful valley, invited many excursions {47} of those who delight in pilgrimages to poetic shrines. For
"Plant a poet's word but deep enough,"
and woodland or hill, mountain or shore, are thereby enchanted. The Maritime region, still vocal with the dreams and discoveries of adventurous spirits; where all pledge and prophecy still linger in the air; where impassioned endeavour, long-patient endurance, faith to break a pathway through to untrod regions with some Ulysses to inspire a faith that it is never too late to seek a newer world--how wonderful is the spell this province weaves around the wanderer!
The noble St. Lawrence is a river that fairly fulfils the purposes of a sea, with its kaleidoscopic shore lines, now bold and forbidding, now dreamy and undefined with their fleeting, ethereal beauty; and all the maritime land is pervaded by memories and associations of the brave Cabot who first sighted Nova Scotia on June 24, 1497, the date of the special festa of his native Italy--this festival of San Giovanni, when all Venice is on the Grand Canal in the fleets of gondolas; all Florence illuminated at night, a resplendent spectacle from her surrounding hills and her background of purple amethyst mountains; and when Rome, at night, disports herself in a thousand ways upon the Campagna Mystica. It was a fitting date for Cabot, the Venetian, to discover the new land. Voices unheard by others had called to him; hands, from starry {48} spaces, beckoned and led him on. What was there in the air but
"Winged persuasions and veiled destinies,"
and all the past that came thronging to meet all the future? Cabot, Venetian born, English by adoption, was followed by several other intrepid explorers, and not to insist too much upon chronological order, what a group of wonderful names are associated with all the province of Quebec! Cartier, Champlain, Frontenac; Sir Humphrey Gilbert of the Elizabethan period, whose brave expedition was engulfed by winds and waves and went down in the great deep off Campobello.
"Alas, the land-wind failed. And ice-cold grew the night, And never more on sea or shore, Should Sir Humphrey see the light."
But the high ideals these heroes brought did not go down nor become extinguished in the storm-tossed waters.
"Say not the struggle naught availeth!"
The struggle always avails, and leaves humanity better and farther on than the effort finds it. Then, too, came a band of holy women, the Ursuline nuns, and the sacred zeal of the novitiate lent its vital power. What is there not of spiritual nobility, of sublimest self-sacrifice, of thrilling ideals, of a truer life, associated with the early history of Canada? This is all a part of her spellbinding power; it has {49} left its significance on the air, its impress in wave and tree and flower; its exaltation in every heart.
Quebec city is now becoming an attractive winter haunt as well for those who love out-of-door sports in the snowy carnival and who find themselves so comfortably domiciled in the Château Frontenac. The esplanade of Dufferin Terrace commands delightful views across the St. Lawrence as far as the Isle d'Orleans. The Citadel, the Parliament Buildings, the Ursuline Convent, the Basilica, and the palace of the Cardinal; together with the libraries, Laval University, the drives to the old battle-grounds, and the excursion of twenty-one miles to the shrine of Saint Anne de Beaupré, provide the visitor with abundance of interest.
The Ursuline Convent covers seven acres of ground in almost the centre of the city of Quebec. It is the largest convent on the continent, and it dates back to the July of 1639, when Marie Guyart, and three other sisters of the Ursuline order, under the protection of the Archbishop of Toulouse, were led by Divine guidance to the new country of Canada and entered on their work. Marie Guyart, the foundress of the convent, was the daughter of a silk merchant of Tours, France, and her childhood is invested with legends similar to those that are associated with the name of Catherine of Sienna. She married one Joseph Martin, but at the age of twenty-three she was left a widow, and soon became a novitiate of the Ursulines, rising to be the {50} Mother Superior of her convent. At the age of forty, through the instrumentality of the Duchesse D'Aiguillion, a niece of Cardinal Richelieu, she came to "New France," and as recently as the August of 1911 this remarkable woman was canonised by the Sacred College of Rome and named as a saint under the title of Marie de l'Incarnation. For thirty-three years she pursued an exalted life in the convent of her founding, and died at the age of seventy-two, in the May of 1672.
A much-sought shrine is that of Saint Anne de Beaupré, easy access to which is gained by the electric railway, and in the summer it is a pleasant local sail down the St. Lawrence. The legend runs that a group of Breton mariners, in the early years of the seventeenth century, found themselves almost engulfed in the river in the sudden violence of a storm, and that they called upon _la bonne Saint Anne_ for deliverance; earnestly declaring that if she would save them they would erect to her a shrine at whatever point she should bring them to land, and that this shrine should be sanctuary forever. The good saint was merciful to their entreaties, and guided them safely to land. According to their promise they at once built a small wooden chapel, very near a spring whose waters are claimed to possess a miraculous power for healing. Since that remote time three larger churches on this site have successively replaced each other, the latest of which dates only to 1878. The primitive little chapel is {51} still preserved, even as at Assisi the Portiuncula of San Francisco is preserved near the magnificent church of Santa Maria degli Angeli.
That marvellous ministry of San Francisco (who is more familiarly known to us as Saint Francis of Assisi), which was initiated in the thirteenth century, love and sacrifice being the supreme ideals, is recalled to mind by many of the legendary incidents relating to Saint Anne de Beaupré. The mystic pilgrimage to Assisi, the "Seraphic City," is to some extent paralleled by the latter-day pilgrimages to the shrine of Saint Anne. "Any line of truth that leads us above materialism," said Arch-deacon Wilberforce of Westminster Abbey, whose passing on to the life more abundant at the date of this writing is but the larger inflorescence of his beautiful and consecrated life--"any line of truth that forces us to think and to remember that we are enwrapped by the supernatural, is helpful and stimulating. A human life lived only in the seen and felt, with no sense of the invisible, is a fatally impoverished life; a poor, blind, wingless life." Such is the deep, perpetual conviction of mankind. "The things that are seen are temporal; the things that are not seen are eternal." The mystic union of the soul with God is the one underlying and all-determining truth of life.
"Oh, beauty of holiness! Of self-forgetfulness, of lowliness."
The latest church erected here as the shrine of {52} Saint Anne was not completed until 1889, and it was then proclaimed a Basilica by Pio Nono. It is one of colossal space and splendour, a remarkable triumph of the Corinthian architecture, and between the two towers of the front a superb statue of Saint Anne rises above the façade. The interior is rich in paintings, sculpture, and mosaics, and on a column of onyx is another statue of the saint in whose name the church is built. It has also a Scala Santa, as has the vast Basilica of San Giovanni in Rome. Thousands of suppliants annually visit the shrine of Saint Anne. The church has a superb chasuble, the gift of Anne of Austria and Queen of France, the mother of Louis XIV. On either side of the entrance are huge piles of canes and crutches and other discarded appliances left as visible testimonials that the efficacy of prayer at this shrine enabled their possessors to dispense with adventitious aid.
A little book that is for sale by the Redemptorist Fathers, who occupy the monastery connected with this basilica, gives much curious information regarding Saint Anne. She is represented as being of the tribe of Judah and of the royal family of David. Her husband, Joachim, was of the same family, and of the same tribe, and the Blessed Virgin was their only child. This little record further narrates that the body of Saint Anne was originally buried in Bethlehem; but that it was brought to France by Lazarus, who, after being raised from the dead by the Saviour, became the first Bishop of Marseilles. {53} The body of Saint Anne was then committed in burial in the village of Apt, and when Charlemagne came to celebrate the Easter feast--so runs the story--a man who was blind, deaf, and dumb came to the ceremonies, and was instantly restored. The first words he uttered were: "This hollow contains the body of Saint Anne, Mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God." With the clue given in these words the hollow in the rocks was then opened and the body disclosed. This took place in the year 792, and from that remote date to the present time the church of Saint Anne at Apt has been a notable place of worship and of pilgrimage.
In the Basilica of Saint Anne de Beaupré there are some rich and massive reliquaries of gold, inlaid with jewels, in which the holy relics of the Saint are enclosed. All the gold and the jewels are votive offerings left by grateful pilgrims to this shrine who have been restored to health. It is said that there are literally bushels of watches, chains, bracelets, rings, and all manner of personal adornments that have been given in gratitude for blessings received. Large gifts of money are also among the never-ceasing stream of accumulating wealth. Twelve large chalices of gold, valued at ten thousand dollars each, have been constructed from the rings and personal articles left by the devotees. The church is fairly lined with the evidences of grateful appreciation and the tributes of enthusiasm. Each chapel {54} is a memorial gift of personal gratitude; the altar, organ, and the electric light plant are also personal gifts, and to these there is a rather curious story attached.
Over a long period of years the newspapers of the United States printed advertisements of a widely-known patent-medicine lady who brewed her concoctions, and either by means of their intrinsic worth, or by the credulity of her customers, accumulated a large fortune. It is said that this lady made a journey to the church of Saint Anne out of curiosity, alone, but was suddenly stricken with a severe illness; that she was cured by faith, and that, through the direct influence of Saint Anne, she then became a Catholic and was baptised in the Basilica. She at once abandoned her pursuit and expressed her desire to devote her fortune to good works, in honour of the Saint; and it was she who presented the altar, the organ, and the electric light plant as well as other rich and valuable gifts.
Around the shrine of Saint Anne de Beaupré has grown up a village of some two thousand people, with hotels that accommodate hundreds of guests. There are two convents, several schools, a hospital (providing for the accommodation of the poor who come to be healed), and the monastery already mentioned. The Sisters of the Rosary have also established an academy for young women; the Sisters of Saint Francis have built a convent for {55} their order, and the Redemptorist nuns have their own convent, while there is also a seminary for the education of priests that has about three hundred students.
The sermons of the Fathers who conduct the services in the Basilica are preached in both French and English. Sixteen priests hold continual devotions from four in the morning until nine at night. The number of annual visitors is estimated as being nearly two hundred thousand, representative of almost every nationality and language. An American publicist asked one of the Fathers whether every one who came was cured. "By no means," replied the priest; "although the miracles are many." When asked how he accounted for the failures the Father replied that he was not able to account for them; that a failure might be due to lack of faith, or to some other reason not disclosed to them. Faith is always to be reckoned with as a condition through which alone the Divine energy can flow.
In the vicinity of Saint Anne there is some beautiful scenery--Montmorency Falls, and other points of interest; Quebec, too, is almost as much frequented in winter as in summer, the bracing air being to many the very elixir of life.
Quebec Province has always kept a distinctive atmosphere of its own, due largely to the preponderance of the French-Canadian element and to climatic and topographical conditions. Advantages and {56} privileges are constantly increasing. Macdonald College, at Saint Anne de Bellevue, founded by Sir William Macdonald, admits women on equal terms with men, and beside the School of Agriculture, it has a training institution in Domestic Science and a school for training teachers. The Department of Domestic Science is free to all Canadian girls, and students from outside of Canada pay a small tuition fee and a modest fee of some three dollars and a half a week for board-residence. On this great college Sir William Macdonald's initial expenditure was five millions of dollars. Five hundred and sixty acres were secured for the farm, of which nearly four hundred are devoted to the live stock and grain department, while the remainder is divided between vegetable, poultry, and bee culture, with a liberal share allotted to horticulture.
It is to Quebec that the middle west of the United States must look for the early history of its own great explorers, missionaries, and pathfinders; for it was from here that Champlain, La Salle, Marquette, Joliet, and others fared forth on their pioneer journeys through the Mississippi basin. Champlain died in Quebec on the Christmas Day of 1635; but his burial-place is still undetermined. The Jesuit College in which Père Marquette was domiciled ante-dated Harvard by one year, having been founded in 1635. Here Marquette made his plans for tours along the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi, with the object of converting the Indians. This {57} Jesuit College bears the signal honour of being the first institution for higher education on the North American continent.
Something of the unique and exceptional character of the great Cardinal Richelieu, whose tomb in the Pantheon in Paris is an object of continual pilgrimage by the visitors in the French capital, seems to invest Quebec, the city of which he was the real founder. The convent and hospital of the Hotel Dieu were due to the solicitude and enterprise of his niece, the Duchesse d'Aiguillion, whose interest centred in the promulgation of religion and charities, and these institutions are still preserved as memorial monuments to her fervour. Quebec is pre-eminently a city of churches and the old French Cathedral dates back to 1647. The interior is enriched with several paintings of especial value, among them Van Dyck's "Crucifixion," which was painted in 1630, and which, in the Revolution of 1793, was purchased in Paris by the Abbé des Jardins of Quebec, and presented to the cathedral. In the sacristy are two large vaults filled with sacred relics. The vestments belonging to this cathedral are superb.
An interesting church is the Anglican Cathedral, standing in the centre of the city, to which the late King Edward VII. presented an exquisite Communion service.
For the celebration of the tercentenary of Quebec, Cy Warman, that genial poet (who has set so much {58} of Canada to music), wrote an ode in the dialect of the habitant, of which two stanzas run:
"How you kip yourself so young, Ol' Quebec? Dat's w'ats ax by all de tongue, Ol' Quebec; Many years ees pass away, Plaintee hair been turn to gray, You're more yo'gker ev'ry day, Ol' Quebec.
Som' brav' men hees fight for you, Ol' Quebec; Dat's w'en Canada she's new, Ol' Quebec; De brav' Wolfe, de great Montcalm, Bote was fight for you, Madame, Now we're mak' de grande salaam, Ol' Quebec."
The traveller with an impassioned devotion to what he fondly calls "the quaint" may be signally gratified in Quebec. In the business section there will be found one street only four feet in width, quite rivalling the famous _via d'Aura_ in Genoa, the "Street of jewellers," where one can stand in a shop on one side and almost reach his hand into the shop opposite.
The Legislative Buildings are as delightful as those in the other capitals of the Provinces of Canada; and on the brow of the high bluffs are a group of notable buildings of architectural beauty--the splendid Château Frontenac, with its view of thirty miles up and down the St. Lawrence valley; flanked by monasteries, churches, and public {59} structures. The citadel that crowns the height is extremely picturesque to visitors who have all the enjoyment, while the Canadian Government has the doubtful felicity of keeping in due repair this enormous fortification. It was begun two hundred and fifty years ago, and reconstructed in 1823, on plans approved by the Duke of Wellington, at a cost of twenty-five million.
It is not so well known that the Duke of Kent, the father of Queen Victoria, was in command of the garrison of Quebec for several years; that the old-fashioned building in which he lived was restored by his royal daughter, and that his grand-daughter, the Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lorne (later the Duchess of Argyle), when living at Rideau Hall, Ottawa, during the period of the Marquis of Lorne's Governor-Generalship of Canada, laid the foundation stone of this restoration. Moreover, the Princess herself, with that versatility of gifts which characterised Her Royal Highness, devised the architectural plans for the new structure. Nor must the ancient gates of the old wall of Quebec be ignored in any tribute to her picturesque attractions.
Laval University in Quebec is a resort of many students, on account of the numerous manuscripts of historical value deposited there, many of them containing graphic narratives of thrilling experiences undergone in the pioneer days of the Dominion.
To turn from Quebec to the Maritime Provinces {60} proper, they are not by any means all scenery, or historic and legendary atmosphere. Nova Scotia has large lumber interests, with fisheries, mineral wealth, and great iron and steel manufactures; and New Brunswick has ever been the home of the great timber and now of pulpwood so precious in these latter days. Prince Edward Island has a vast amount of red sandstone, and in the regions adjacent to the Bay of Fundy an enormous yield of hay is a feature of resource. The position of the Maritime Provinces is particularly noted by Mr. J. Castell Hopkins, in an extended account of these regions, and he speaks of the climatic peculiarities as one of the things with which the inhabitants must reckon. They have a great coast-line in proportion to their area. The extensive bays and harbours suggest future increase of ocean commerce and travel. "Prince Edward Island is in reality all seacoast," writes Mr. Hopkins, "for no matter how far into the interior one may get, an hour's drive in any given direction will almost invariably discover salt water. There are bays which deserve special mention, one, the beautiful Bay de Chaleur, between New Brunswick and the Gaspé Peninsula, without rock, reef, or shoal in its ninety miles of length and forty-five of breadth, is unique in its safety to navigators, while the Bay of Fundy, between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, with its mouth wide open to the south-west, has features which are peculiar only to this {61} bay. Lying funnel-shaped toward the great tidal movement from east to west it gathers from the incoming tide a great deal of water that does not belong to it, and then gradually compressing it between narrowing shores, piles it up in places sixty feet in height, and this gives rise to many peculiarities. This rush of tide twice a day has formed enormous areas of marsh land and the process is still going on. The great rise and fall of water in this bay has also a climatic effect in it that keeps the air continually moving, and in the regions about its head there is probably a cooler summer climate than can be found anywhere in the same latitude."
This peculiarity unfits the climate for fruit-raising, but is especially favourable for live stock. The production of hay is very large. The water supply is inexhaustible, and water-power is always at hand to grind grain or to transform trees into lumber. The spruce and fir are found here in great abundance. The Maritime Provinces have practically no mountains, although a few heights approaching two thousand feet may be seen. Of late years the people of this region have been urged to develop agriculture to a greater extent. It is already demonstrated that wheat, barley, oats, buckwheat, and corn can be cultivated with profit; potatoes and carrots also thrive. In New Brunswick, apples, pears, grapes, and cherries do well; and every one knows of the apple orchards of Nova Scotia. The dairy industry is one of the greatest sources of {62} revenue. Factories for the making of cheese and butter are numerous; and quite apart from the home market, the facilities for export to Europe and to the markets of the South are one special factor in the conditions for profit. Agricultural schools, a feature of the Dominion, have a particularly good representative at Truro, and the Federal Government has established experimental farms and stations throughout the Dominion, while the provincial authorities have also organised similar enterprises under their own jurisdiction. The Provincial Government of Ontario, in particular, has devoted large sums to the encouragement of agriculture, having three experimental farms, one of these being devoted to fruit.
The Central Experimental Farm of the Dominion Government is at Ottawa and there are branch farms at Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island; at Fredericton, New Brunswick; at Nappan and Kentville, Nova Scotia; at Saint Anne de la Pocatière, Cap Rouge, and Lenoxville in Quebec; at Brandon, Manitoba; at Indian Head, Rosthern, and Scott, Saskatchewan; at Lethbridge and Lacombe in Alberta; and also at Agassiz, Invermere, and Sidney in British Columbia. Sub-stations have also been established at Fort Vermilion in the Peace River District, at Grouard near Lesser Slave Lake, Grande Prairie, and Forts Resolution and Providence--all these being in northern Alberta. At the Central Experimental Farm (at Ottawa) {63} much attention has been paid to tests, as to the growing of oats, barley, varieties of grass, and turnips and mangels. Nor has the culture of ornamental shrubs and trees been neglected; and orchards of various kinds of fruit have been planted with watchful care. Potatoes, too, have received special attention as one of the most profitable products of this region.
The picturesque attractions of the Maritime Provinces, moreover, tend to make them each year a summer resort for increasing numbers of people from the United States and elsewhere. Mail routes are well extended; the postal service is good; and the improvements in navigation have included the erection of many lighthouses on the prominent headlands and in the harbours, so that the scenic panorama at night witnessed by those on or near the coast is often most fascinating, and the presence of these aids to navigation is full of practical reassurance to those who travel by water.
Halifax is important not only as the capital of Nova Scotia, but as the leading seaport of Canada on the Atlantic coast. It has a magnificent harbour whose even depth is a joy to the navigator; it is curiously free from extremes of temperature, the coldest day of one average year being but eight degrees below zero (in February), the warmest day falling in early September when the mercury registered eighty-seven degrees. The evenings are always cool. The city has its citadel, its rocky areas, {64} and beside its university (Dalhousie) there are colleges doing various special work, institutions for the defective classes, and several libraries, that of the Institute of Science and History being consolidated with the Library of Parliament. In the magnitude of its exports Halifax stands next to Montreal. In its imports it ranks third, Montreal and Toronto alone taking precedence of the Nova Scotian capital.
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