First French Settlers Of Canada

French hybridizer Lemoine invented 200 cultivars

The Japanese tree lilac (Syringa reticulata) grows 20 to 30 feet tall with a spread of 15 to 25 feet and forming an oval- to round-shaped small tree. This lilac has large panicles of fragrant white flowers. Good cultivars include Ivory Silk, Chantilly Lace, Regent and Summer Snow. A related species, Syringa pekinensis (Pekin lilac) is a smaller tree growing 15 to 20 feet tall. This lilac is often multi-stemmed and finer in texture than Japanese tree lilac. Flowers are creamy white on 3- to 6-six inch long panicles. These lilacs are late bloomers. Lilacs are adapted to USDA Zones 3 to 5 and the milder areas of Zone 2. Lilacs thrive in sunny sites with good air circulation. These plants need at least four to six hours of sunlight a day for best flower production. The ideal soil for growing lilacs is a loam that is not too rich and is neutral or alkaline. Space plants 10 to 15 feet apart for specimen displays and 5 to 8 feet apart for a hedge. After lilacs have bloomed, remove the spent flower heads, which will help the plant to produce more flowers for the next season's display. If you want to shape the plant, wait until after bloom to prune. Rejuvenation pruning also works well on established plants that are losing their shape. Remove one-third of the oldest, thickest canes at the base in late winter or early spring, knowing you are removing flower blooms. While flower numbers will be reduced, this pruning will eliminate much of the self-shading from overgrown foliage that result in a better looking shrub than tip pruning alone. This pruning will remove the canes most likely to be badly infested with scale and borers.

Kate & Anna McGarrigle: French-Canadian Folk Traditionalists ...

Kate and Anna McGarrigle have not achieved the level of popularity and record sales of contemporary performers such as Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, the Roches, Leonard Cohen, or Maria Muldaur, but they comprise one of the most musically and lyrically gifted sister folk duos originating in the early 1970s second- generation folk-pop movement. They went their own musical way, never slavishly imitating anyone for the sake of tagging onto a popular style. Because of their iconoclasm they are all the more adored by their devoted musical followers.

Kate and Anna were born in 1940s Montreal. An older sister, Jane, also sang professionally with them for a short period. They grew up in St. Saveur-des-Mont, in the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec, about forty-five miles north of Montreal. Their interest in music came from their father, Frank, and his side of the family. Frank’s father became the first movie theater exhibitor in New Brunswick around 1906, according to an article by Mike Regenstreif, Kate & Anna McGarrigle: On Their Own Terms (in the February-March 1997 issue of Sing Out!). Between screenings, the young Frank and his sister, Anna, would sing Stephen Foster tunes and turn-of-the-century parlor songs.

“Music was always there at home,” Kate told Regenstreif. “My father would sit at the piano at night and play those songs. At parties, somebody would get up and sing, and my father would accompany them and sing the harmony. There were lots of friends and uncles and each would get up and give their big song.”

Kate continued, in an interview with Richard Silverstein: “We were children of the middle class. My dad played funny ditties and drinking songs from the 1930s. We didn’t really have an Irish folk tradition even though we were half Irish. . .There was no Irish folk tradition because they were subsumed under the prevailing English Canadian culture. The French, on the other hand, were quite the opposite. As an oppressed people, it was quite important for them to remember their language, history, and music. No conqueror would take that away from them.”

The McGarrigle sisters’ mom, Gaby, was also musical. She once played violin in the Bell Telephone Orchestra. Gaby loved the old music hall songs that were popular in the era after she was born (1904). The daughters told Regenstreif the story of their mother accompanying her father to the burlesque shows at Montreal’s legendary Gayety Theatre during World War I: “Gaby’s dad was French Canadian and didn’t understand English that well and she used to go to translate for him. ” One morning during that period, she came to school quite late. “Gabrielle, why are you late?” demanded a nun. “I had to go to the Gayety with my father,” she replied, to the consternation of her classmates.

Report of the ... Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science

The history and geography of the Mississippi valley, to which is appended a condensed physical geography of the Atlantic United States, and the whole American continent

Catholic world

The settlers in Canada, Written for young people

Historical atlas of Canada