The Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network (QAHN) announced yesterday it received a $10,000 grant from the Chawkers Foundation, with the help of its community partner the Townshippers’ Foundation, to continue its educational programming and outreach activities and its popular “Heritage Talks” lecture series, launched in 2017-2018.
QAHN Executive Director Matthew Farfan said they were grateful for the Chawkers Foundation’s recognition of the work they are doing “to bring quality educational programming, particularly in terms of the heritage and history of Quebec’s English-speaking population, into Quebec’s regions.”
Mr. Farfan said that QAHN would be laying the groundwork for a second round of “Heritage Talks” in the coming weeks. Events will take place at heritage and cultural venues around Quebec and will be similar in format to the talks held this past winter and spring.
The 2017-2018 program varied widely in theme. For example, one Montreal lecture by historian André Cousineau focused on a tragic school fire that occurred in the city in 1907, claiming 17 lives, including a young teacher, Sarah Maxwell, who perished helping her pupils to safety and for whom a local park has been named.
A talk in Knowlton by Caitlin Bailey of the Canadian Centre for the Great War examined corporate profiteering during the First World War. In Stanbridge East, participants learned about the history and ecosystem of the Pike River in southern Quebec. A talk by Grant Myers explored the deadly outbreak of spotted fever that devastated local communities and families in southern Quebec in the nineteenth century.
Two lectures focused on Aboriginal heritage. In Wakefield, guest speaker Chief Roger Fleury led a discussion on archaeological findings from an Anishinabe (Algonquin) cultural site near the confluence of the Gatineau and Ottawa rivers. QAHN continued its exploration of Canada’s First Nations heritage in Ormstown, where Mohawk storyteller Darren Bonaparte enthralled more than 200 high school students.
The Chawkers Foundation was created in 1988 with a sole donation from Charles S. Alexander, a resident of Montreal and Quebec’s Eastern Townships.
