The Battle of the Plains of Abraham took place on September 13, 1759. British soldiers under the command of General Wolfe climbed the steep cliff under Quebec City in darkness and surprised and defeated the Marquis de Montcalm’s French Army by firing a single deadly volley of musket fire. Within 30 minutes the battle was over and left control of Quebec City to the British, eventually allowing them to take control of all of Canada the following year.
We opt this morning to avoid the old town initially and its mix of tourists’ trinket shops, bars and cafes and walk through the local neighborhood area of Sant Roch where we are staying and it’s mixture of locals’ trinket shops, bars and cafes instead. We meander in and out of stores buying the odd gift, smirking at a collection of C90 tapes and rifling through old vinyl records looking for illusive Canadian Kate Bush records.
After a couple of kilometers we turn left and march up the Boulevard Langelier to reach the Boho shopping area of town. As we reach the brow of Avenue Cartier a cafe appears with outside seating. It’s a lovely sunny day and this cafe seems the perfect location to temporarily pitch camp.
I sit outside as Mark enters the cafe to negotiate the myriad of Covid requirements required to purchase a couple of coffees and a pastry. He’s a while inside, and I later discover that he’s at first sent from one counter to another, then passed over so the assistant can serve a local in the queue behind him and then rudely greeted by a French speaking lady who blatantly refuses to understand him in any language. He eventually places an order for take-out and starts to present his covid pass before being told: “bofe ov dem.” “Really? Outside?”, he replies, considering coming out to get my phone before announcing: “Forget it!” and leaving triumphantly.
We leave the cafe and troop onwards to the Plains of Abraham, now a very pretty park and nature reserve on the edge of the cliffs and citadel battlements overlooking the river. “This is where the British and French had their last battle” I say. “Not quite!” remarks Mark with a laugh!
We head down to the old town and a final visit to a few shops and lunch. We spot a lovely chess set in a shop window and eventually decipher it’s a very expensive hand painted version of Wolfe’s and Montcalm’s Plains of Abraham battle.
After nearly three weeks away we’re now automatically lifting our masks to our faces and applying sanitizer on entry to every premises, pulling out phones and ID and talking hosts through our UK covid certificates, “You can’t scan it, it’s from the UK, this is jab 2, here’s my name, and that’s my ID…” it’s become second nature but I think we are both now tiring of it and looking forward to getting back.
The real battle for us in Quebec City however has been one of language. I’m not great at languages but Mark is, his Spanish makes his ability to converse in Europe in any language, including French, reasonably good. But here it’s different.
This was highlighted last night when we played Drague Bingo in Quebec City’s gay bar. I recall my French lessons aged about 12 doing exactly the same sans the drague (though actually recalling my French teacher maybe that’s not quite true?!)
I sit nonplussed as Gabry-Elle, our host, blurts out what apparently are numbers. Mark comments that it’s ‘lazy french’. ‘Maintenant’, that lovely three syllable word for ‘now’, becomes a barely one syllable maint-unt. ‘Huit’ become ‘ut’, everything beginning with ‘vingt’ become an inaudible wretching noise. An American in the audience is also trying to decipher the words. Gabry-Elle reluctantly translates a few things into English. Suddenly the tension in the room seems to rise, speaking English in Quebec is definitely frowned upon.
Signs in Quebec cannot by law be bilingual as in the rest of Canada, they can only be in French. As we leave Quebec, a new wide ranging law to strengthen French as the sole language in the workplace, in courts and on all signage is being discussed in Parliament and looks likely to succeed. The Brits won the battle on the Plains of Abraham in 1759 but ultimately French has won La Guerre!
Liam, Quebec City, Quebec, 20 October 2021
