History is wasted on the young...

On my 8th birthday my dad spent the day with a recruiter for the newly amalgamated Canadian Armed Forces. At the end of the day he had re-enlisted and a new chapter of our lives was about to begin.

Dad's first posting after re-enlisting was to the radar station at Mont Apica, Quebec. This little community was smack in the middle of Laurentides Provincial Park and was little more than a wide spot to the west of the highway. The townsite was small, as were most radar station townsites; a number of duplexes and 4 three-storey apartment blocks were arranged on the south side of the station with the school at the farthest north point and the church at the farthest south point of the housing area.

But before we experienced all of this, we had the privilege of spending a week in a hotel in Quebec City. Dad was already at work in Mont Apica so Mom and the three of us kids were checked into the Chateau Champlain (now called l'Hotel Manoir d'Auteuil) in Quebec's historic Lower Town. Quebec is one of the oldest communities in North America and the first settled by the French in the New World. There have been French-Canadians living there continuously since July 3, 1608. The old city is on the flats near the St Lawrence River and on the bluffs of Cap Diamant, or Upper Town. The city is filled with historic buildings and old battlefields, rich with the stories of Canada's beginnings and Mom was determined to expose her children to this abundance of culture. Too bad we were just kids.

Poor Mom, she really had her hands filled with us. I was 8, as I've already explained. Sharon was 6, to be 7 in November, and Bruce was 3, to be 4 also in November. And we were cooped up in a single hotel room in a very old, very well-preserved hotel. There was no TV or Internet for us to be amused by, there was just Mom. It was already mid-September and the weather was starting to cool off. After breakfast every morning mom would get us all dressed in warm clothes and we'd go sightseeing. We had very little money so most of our excursions were to places we could enter or view at no cost. I don't remember how many times we climbed l'Escalier Casse-Cou (Breakneck Stairs), which have been in that exact spot since the city was first established, but I remember thinking that I never wanted to see another step again! (There are actually 28 different staircases between Upper and Lower Town and the change in elevation is 350 feet. That's a LOT of stairs.) I wish I could remember some of the places we went and the things we saw on those walking tours, as it's likely the closest I will ever get to Europe. I do remember the very imposing Chateau Frontenac that towers from the highest point on Cap Diamant. It's a 618 room hotel and is thought to be the most photographed hotel in the world.

I have been married for more than 30 years to a man whose ancestors were among the founding familes of the city of Quebec. Our children are the 12th generation of their father's family to live in Canada; the Fortiers arrived in Quebec in 1664 to settle first at Beauport, then on l'Ile d'Orleans in the St Lawrence River across from the settlement at Quebec. Antoine Fortier developed the first commercial fishery in New France and was very successful. Through marriage they're related to Louis Hebert, the first farmer in New France (arrived 1616) and to Abraham Martin (arrived 1619), thought to be the original owner of les Plaines d'Abraham, site of the defining battle in the war for control of Canada. Abraham Martin was my children's 11th great-grandfather and Louis Hebert their 10th great-grandfather.

The time I spent sightseeing as an 8 year old would mean so much more to me now as a 51 year old amateur genealogist!