History Articles

While much has been made in the media about Montreal having its first English mayor in a hundred years .

As I entered the Fort Chambly, old ghosts of people seemed to appear. I see some putting cannonballs in cannons and then light the wick. The sound is awfully loud! A tour guide then tells me about the history of the Fort Chambly…

Fort Chambly was fist built in 1665. There were 4 forts. The first one was in wood. It was unfortunately too old so, they needed to replace it. They replaced it by another one in wood. It then accidentally burnt. Because the wood fort couldn’t protect itself from cannonballs and other explosives, they replaced the wood fort by a stone fort.

--September 3, 2015.

Did you know that maple syrup is the oldest agricultural product in Quebec? It all began with the Indigenous peoples who called it “Sweet Water.” When spring returned and the maple sap was running the Indigenous peoples offered the boiled thickened syrup as a sacrifice to the Great Spirit. “Sugaring off” was largely a woman’s function in Iroquois communities. The men cut notches into tree trunks and small wooden troughs were stuck into the bark.

The Redpath Museum, one of the oldest museums in Canada, was opened in 1882 to preserve and display the valuable collections of Sir William Dawson, a noted Canadian natural scientist.

“It is ironical that America, supposedly the cradle of democracy, is forced to send the first two Negroes in baseball to Canada in order for them to be accepted.”

-Chicago Defender editorial, April 13, 1946.

Without a doubt, one of the jewels of Westmount, and probably of Greater Montreal, is the Westmount Public Library.