Words Illustrated 1917, Part 1

My paternal grandfather - the main subject of this blog - purchased this visual dictionary to support his post-retirement recreational studies of his ancestral culture. 

After a century, this has become quite an interesting historical document. It names old artifacts - many of which are seen only in museums today. It also preserves some of the comments by the 'contemporary authorities' about the virtues of the language and culture.

While anyone can obtain a copy of a microfilm of a similar document on the internet. Only here can you be assured that the book has passed from father to son to grandson along an unbroken chain of pure laine-edness (documented back to 1635) and with the comfort in knowing that all the owners had been born in Quebec.

... (PS: All of us had English as our mother tongue.)

I have tried to resolve the details of the images as much as possible. Additional parts of this book will be posted here in the future.

I think this section is about proper equine nutrition?

Summer 1952, Lac Saguay

My father's album notations follow. [Mine will be in square brackets]

The road to Lac Saguay from the bus. The Provincial Transport Co eventually took over the route from the Victory Bus Co.

[This photo is uncaptioned. My grandfather's correspondence notes that new hydro-electricity operations on Lac Saguay for sawmill power and for electricity sale to utility companies were causing some residents to complain about variability in lake levels.]

A drive to Mont Laurier from Lac Saguay with the Brindamours - shown outside the Mont Laurier hospital, which had a good view of the town.

In car: Mrs May Brindamour and Margie Walker

Foreground: LC Gagnon, Mr Brindamour, Peter Brindamour, George Gagnon.

Mr Brindamour was a florist and at one time he worked at a shop a couple of blocks west from our Sherbrooke St apartment. The Brindamours and the Walkers were Lac Saguay summer visitors. Mrs Brindamour and Mrs Walker were sisters. The Walkers lived in St Paul l'Ermite, site of a WWII munitions plant.

Margie Walker, Peter Brindamour, Rosemary and George Gagnon.

[The view from the hospital hill]

Margie Walker and Rosemary's cat.

Mrs Grubb (Margaret Carss' mother), Margaret, Albert Carss, George Gagnon, Georgia, Eddie.

Mr Carss was a Sun Oil Co accountant, Mrs Carss had been a dental assistant in Philadelphia and had a dentist brother in Aruba. Georgia became a university teacher and Eddie is a veteran of the US Army. (5/89)

The Carss were good friends from Philadelphia who eventually put up a pre-cut summer house at the west end of the lake - here they were renting a Moquin chalet near George Gagnon's. [A neighbour of the Carss family in Philadelphia was anthropologist Margaret Mead: LCG]

Heather, Alice, Stanley, Laura [Rodger] make a summer visit to Lac Saguay.

[Two of my maternal grandmother's siblings - centre. Stanley and Laura's daughter is Heather.]

Foundation by M Richard, B Guindon and the Plouffes - Sep-Oct 1961

George B Gagnon's original cottage at Lac Saguay, circa 1950

Blue = Original text by LC Gagnon

The former Moquin cottage couldn't be modernized or winterized and was also too small.

G B Gagnon took several pictures of the construction. The first ten pages are in chronological order, going by GBG's numbers on the back of each picture.

The later pictures are in approximate order because GBG didn't get around to numbering them. He was busy getting his place ready for the coming winter 1962-1963.

Mr M Richard, Lac Saguay, September 1961

September 1961, Mr Richard north-west corner of new cabin. - slide by LC Gagnon

M Richard and B Guindon prepared the site Sept 19-23, 1961

Notice how thin the topsoil is, and how much glacial gravel permeates the subsoil. My grandfather did a lot of the physical work required (e.g. stone rolling) with Mr Richard and enjoyed working with him.

September 1961 - Stones from the excavation - slide by LC Gagnon

It must have been very difficult digging through the subsoil with this much rock content.
The edge of the original cabin's front porch is shown at the left margin.

*  *

It is unfortunate that more of these calendar pages were not preserved.
The cellar excavation by Messrs Richard and Guindon is documented.

October 10-25, 1961 - Foundation work by the Plouffes (Eugene signed receipts.)

With winter fast approaching, my grandfather seems anxious about getting started on the foundation. But, as we know .. with highly skilled workers, you sometimes have to wait.

The photo shows the edge of cottage with winter shutter in place.

The local men brought in the foundation stones (reddish-grey granite). They knew their trade.

East doorway at ground level into the basement

Showing east doorway into the cellar

Eugene Plouffe and his men

However, we are not yet done for the season ...
So that snow and ice don't ruin all the high-quality stonework, the calendar above anticipates a temporary roof for the winter .. coming in the next posting.

Lac Saguay - Some Background

Where George B Gagnon taught (he was eventually Principal of Central Park)

On the blank side of a Lachute topographical map showing some of the locations where my grandfather taught, my father wrote out a list of his teaching locations during his career. His bride was a teacher at St Andrew's East and they were married in 1925. My father was born in Shawinigan Falls and my aunt was born in Montreal.

Original George Gagnon property at Lac Saguay, cabin at left and his shore well at centre.

My grandfather's property eventually extended past the left margin of the photo. To the right were other Moquin summer cottage properties. Detail of the cabin from this photo follows:

George Gagnon original cabin

1951 Gagnon-Moquin deed

My grandfather drew up this deed of property to record his purchase and it was signed by Romeo Moquin. This was during the era of fountain pens (ink reservoir pens with nibs which mimicked the properties of quill pens) and the document was created on rag paper.

Correspondence Romeo Moquin to George Gagnon, 1954

Mailed with receipts for payment, this note and letterhead provide interesting information about the Moquin family's other enterprises. Romeo refers to Mr Carss (of Philadelphia). The Carss family originally rented a Moquin cottage near my grandfather's and later erected a pre-fabricated summer cottage on a nearby corner of Lac Saguay.

The original cabin in September 1961

The windows are boarded up for the winter, as my grandfather would spend the cold months in Montreal. The cabin had a traditional well near the shore (it would freeze in winter) and no electricity or telephone. You can just see the edge of the generous front porch - logs notched at the corners like a traditional log cabin. The mountain is visible over the top of the wood stove's chimney.

Wood stove, old cabin,  July 1960

Speaking of the wood stove ... can you imagine how much winter wood chopping it would take to heat a summer cabin in the Laurentians? This flash bulb photo was taken in July 1960.

L.C. and George B. Gagnon

Here are our building bloggers - my father and my grandfather. In the family tradition, they are studying a book. Both were graduates of Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. My grandfather also had an MA in Education from Columbia in New York.

L.C. and George B. Gagnon, mid-1950s

There was a lot of 'brushing out' work which needed to be done to get my grandfather's three little parcels of land in shape.

Here is a chipmunk on the front porch of the cabin - it usually competed with a red squirrel for peanuts there. And its name in French: ..

Le nom de « suisse » vient de la similitude du pelage avec la tenue à rayures des gardes suisses du Vatican.

You can see the shadow of the photographer at the corner of the feeder. This is close-range photo from an old point and shoot camera.

Lac Saguay, October 1962

... and this is the view from that front porch.

July 1949, Lac Saguay CPR station, Rosemary and George Gagnon

My aunt was eleven in this photo. Two years earlier my grandmother had died.


My father wrote:

They were at the station to see me on my way home to Westmount and to my job at Windsor Station which I kept until June 1951 when I went to Queen's Summer School and to Macdonald College in September.

Lac Saguay Canadian Pacific Railway station, July 1949

From the same photo: Notice the sleeve garters on the man closest to the camera with the shiny shoes. This is probably the CPR station agent and the sleeve garters are used to shorten his shirt sleeves enough so the cuffs don't drag in ink while he is writing - or in other railway dirt. The other two folks are probably normal travellers heading for Canada's metropolis (Montreal). Notice the kerosene platform light by the agent's head.

George Gagnon, property at Lac Saguay

Literally on the back of an envelope. In my grandfather's files is a handy summary of his property in formal terms for his quick reference or for use by his heirs.

David Gagnon and George Gagnon in original cabin, 1962

By way of introduction: Here I am after polishing off some cherry pie in October 1962. This is perhaps our last meal in the old cabin. The door is over my grandfather's left shoulder and my window looks out onto the front porch and lake.

Lac Saguay, Quebec 1949-1964

Lac Saguay in the 1950s

George Gagnon got to know Romeo Moquin through John Angell. Romeo had several tourist cabins and sold George the one with the above view. It was said to have been the home of Godmer. After buying the original area, George bought two more areas which provided shoreline as far as Highway 11 a few hundred feet to the south and included a small shed which could have been used to keep a horse. In 1961, George decided to build a house in order to become a year-round resident of Lac Saguay. While he had men to put in a solid foundation and a carpenter (likely Raoul Painchaud), he did many odd jobs on the structure.

.. this is how my late father begins his 1990 account. In an exercise book, he has arranged and described the detailed series of construction snapshots my grandfather (George Gagnon) took of his new home in the Laurentians. In addition, my father included other snapshots of people who lived there, or had summer cottages at Lac Saguay. My grandfather died suddenly a little over 50 years ago in early 1964 and the property was sold. I was six when he died and I've spent a fair amount of effort over the years trying to go 'back there'. 

But the point of this blog is to preserve what my grandfather did and what my father wrote about it years later.

To complete this first post, here is a map my father created to document the local geography and to remember some of the neighbours and features of 50 years ago. Note that long arrows refer to particular locating dots - for precision and neatness.

Aux alentours du Lac Saguay

Extra large version below: