Update 7: De Retour / I'm Back

From a Whirlwind Tour of Research and Networking in Ontario and Quebec!

On Monday, I returned from a 17-day research trip to Canada. Though not without a few hiccups, it was, by and large, a success.

I conducted archival research, visited museums and historic sites, presented part of my research in the city of Berthierville, and met many wonderful people. Shout out to Signa Daum Shanks, Danielle Joyal, Michel Neveu, Richard Brown, Audrey Beausejour, and Rémi Roy for free rooms, free rides, free meals, and/or free tours! And a big thank you to Jon Tremblay and Bob Dietrick of the Little Canada Historical Society for the huge in-kind donation of their time and vehicle. Although they were heading to Canada partly for their own reasons, it felt like had my own personal drivers (at no expense!) for the first two-thirds of the trip.

Now, roll the highlight reel! Trip Highlights Research Results What's Next

Fundraising Update

Trip Highlights

Traveling parts of the famed voyageur highway

With my chauffeurs, Jon and Bob, we drove east through Sault Ste. Marie, then along the north shore of Lake Huron and the south shores of the Mattawa and Ottawa Rivers to Ottawa. This was once a key route used by Indigenous peoples, fur traders, and voyageurs to get from the St. Lawrence River to the interior of North America.

Benjamin Gervais canoed these waterways at least nine times. Genevieve Laurence did so once, as a thirteen-year-old girl.

To get a tiny taste of their experiences, I hiked a segment of the La Vase portages near modern North Bay, Ontario. Farther south, I fought my way through mosquitos and overgrown snowshoe paths to visit a huge boulder in the woods. Centuries ago, passing voyageurs etched a cross into the side facing the Ottawa River.

 Above: views from the upper and lower ends of the La Vase portages (slideshow)

The voyageur boulder near Deep River, Ontario

An evening with Quebecois rapper/author Biz and filmmaker Martin Frigon

Six or seven years ago, Jon and Bob showed Biz and Martin around the Twin Cities when they were on their own trip to Minnesota. Now the two artists welcomed us to Montreal with rooftop appetizers and a lovely dinner. We chatted enthusiastically about our various projects and the deep, complex history of French North America.

The beautiful archive in Montreal

It was a pleasure to do research at the BANQ archive in Montreal. The whole building is stunning, but especially the four-story reading room.

Presenting my research to a packed house in Berthierville

Genevieve Laurence was born in the parish of Ste-Geneviève-de-Berthier. When we reached out to the local historical society in Berthierville back in February, an amazing, tireless woman named Danielle Joyal sprang into action. She invited me to present my research about the family and connections between Berthier, Quebec, and Little Canada, Minnesota, to the public while we were in town.

The venue was a small, beautiful, old presbyterian church called Cuthbert Chapel. The presentation, which I gave in English but with slides in French, was a smashing success.

In conversation with attendees, we discovered that many Quebecers learn very little in school about the fur trade and voyageurs, the Red River Settlement and the history of Manitoba, and the vast population of French-Canadian and Métis descendants who today live across Western Canada and the United States. (So, not unlike Americans.) My presentation opened their eyes to this broader history as well as the dramatic tale of the Laurence family in particular.

People were also curious about the surname Laurence, since it is rare if not absent from the community today. Indeed, at least in Genevieve’s immediate family, they all left. Five of her siblings died in infancy, a sixth drowned somewhere in the west along with her father. Her mother and three of her brothers migrated to Manitoba, where they remained. Genevieve herself ended up in Minnesota, while her sister Julie spent most of her life in Europe. Zero family members stayed behind in Berthier.  

Danielle Joyal, left. A hired translator sits between Jon Tremblay and me.

Visiting fascinating (and relevant) museums

Benjamin’s childhood may have been disrupted by the opening of iron forges near his childhood home. His first paid labor was as a lumberjack and raftsman. At some point, he learned how to build and operate a flour mill. The prologue to my book includes a scene in a presbytery—the home of the parish priest and an important place in any rural village. Both Benjamin and Genevieve lived for a time in Pointe-a-Callière, a port-side neighborhood in Montreal.

To learn about these industries, places, and skills, I visited the following museums, all of which I would recommend if you’re interested in the lives of French-Canadians in the 18th and 19th centuries.

 Forges du Saint-Maurice National Historic Site, Trois-Rivières (slideshow)

Maison des Cageux du fleuve Saint-Laurent, Lanoraie (slideshow)

Moulin seigneurial de Pointe-du-Lac, Trois-Rivières (slideshow)

Vieux presbytère de Batiscan (slideshow)

Pointe-à-Callière Museum, Montreal (slideshow)

Visiting beautiful churches

The Catholic church was without a doubt the most important institution in the lives of the Gervais and Laurence families. I had the pleasure to tour three stunning churches. The two pictured below contained elements that existed in the period my protagonists prayed in them. (The church in Louiseville dates to 1917—practically yesterday for a Quebec church.)

This sculpture is one of the few objects retained from the original church.

This artwork is one of the few elements retained from the original church.

This altar, now in a side aisle, came from the original church.

The lighter tile on the ground represents the footprint of the original Notre Dame Church.

 Basilique Notre-Dame, Montreal (slideshow)

Most of the interior postdates Genevieve's time here. Except the painting above the altar.

Ste-Geneviève Church, Berthierville, where Genevieve Laurence was baptized in 1804 beneath this painting of Sainte Geneviève. (slideshow)

Research Results

I’m sure you’re thinking, John, it’s great you had such a fun vacation, but did you accomplish anything with your research?!

Yes!

Parchemin

The most important win from my trip was not finding a particular document. Rather, it was gaining access to an index of Quebec notarial records. Called the Parchemin Database, it is available only to people with a Quebec mailing address. Because I visited in person, I was given a temporary BANQ library card valid for six months.

The Parchemin index is infinitely better than the terrible index on Ancestry.com, which was clearly done by people who do not speak French or know common French-Canadian names. I’ve already found dozens of new acts I need to download and translate—records of land transactions, labor contracts, and business affairs pertaining to Benjamin and Genevieve, and their families, neighbors, and employers. To share one example, below is a newfound summary of a transaction in which Genevieve's parents, Jean-Baptiste Laurence and Angelique Desrosiers, sold a piece of land in 1790. I haven't pulled the original record yet, but note that the notary who wrote the contract was Barthélemy Faribault. Barthélemy was the father of Jean-Baptiste Faribault, another Berthier-born pioneer of Minnesota.

Court of King’s Bench

The next most significant find emerged from a different index. An archivist at BANQ-Montreal pointed me to an index of court cases before the Banc du Roi (King’s Bench) in Montreal. The index was posted online less than a year ago and was buried twelve clicks into the website, so I probably would not have found it without her help. (A list of this and other new BANQ indexes can be found here.)

My most important discovery in this collection was a case filed by Genevieve’s widowed mother Angelique early in 1818 against a group of Anglo traders and merchants in the city. Asking for a staggering £500 in damages, Angelique accused the men of trespass, breaking and entering, assault and battery on the plaintiff and her children [presumably Genevieve and Julie], and seizure of her property.

The accused men countered that they had entered and confiscated property legally, under the authority of an earlier writ which authorized the bailiff to confiscate a debt Angelique owed Warwick for renting two rooms on McGill Street. In addition, the case files repeatedly note that the plaintiff, Angelique, was using an alias around town—"Maria Bouché." (Angelique's maiden surname was Desrosiers dit Lafrenière, and her husband’s surname was, of course, Laurence.)

This dramatic case provides great insights into the situation of Genevieve’s family on the eve of their departure for the Red River, although it also raises more questions. Her mother was behind on rent. The new evidence that Angelique was using an alias increases the likelihood that she was working as a prostitute or perhaps running a brothel. Lord Selkirk’s invitation to become a settler at Red River, when it appeared a few weeks later, would have meant an escape from debt and, possibly, from a life of ill-repute. (I am happy to field other suggestions about why a widow would use an alias! But based on the situation her daughter Julie found herself in around this time, something related to prostitution is my leading hypothesis.)

Other court cases shed new light on Genevieve’s father, her aunts and uncles, and Benjamin’s business associate Jean-Dominique Bernard.

Court cases in boxes at the BANQ Archive in Trois-Rivières

Cover of Angelique Lafreniere v. William Warwick et al

This is a small snippet of a much longer case document from April 1818, which lays out the case between Angelique and William Warwick in its fullest. Since Angelique and the girls soon left for the Red River Colony, she abandoned the case and lost by default. However, the outstanding court fees would eventually entangle an in-law and another man in an extended legal battle that played out all the way to 1824. (At least, this is my preliminary understanding from skimming the records in the archive.) LAC, TL19, S4, SS1, case #134 (1818).

Impatience at the Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa

While I was able to get a hold of a drill book used to train militia in Lower Canada, I was unable to access letters from Benjamin’s commanding officers—my main target at the archive. (I am interested in these so I can do justice to his experience as an active-duty militiaman during the War of 1812.) In fact, visiting the LAC in Ottawa was something of a nightmare and the one part of the trip that marred the whole experience.

I visited on the first Monday of the trip. I have always found the LAC collections website a challenge to navigate. On site, when I reached a dead end, I was directed to a paper finding aid, which, as it turned out, was missing from the shelves. I therefore needed to make an appointment with an archivist, who sent me a spreadsheet version of the finding aid that he could only access from an internal (non-public) database. I could never have gotten this far from home. I used the finding aid to order the relevant boxes—about 20 in total.

Unfortunately, the archive is severely understaffed. The boxes would not be ready that day or even the next. Staff told me they do everything in their power to expedite orders for visitors from afar. One research assistant said my order would probably be in by Friday, or almost certainly by the following Monday.

So Jon and Bob and I reworked our trip. We canceled our scheduled visit to Quebec City so I could return to Ottawa the following Monday to look through the records I had ordered. But one week was not enough. In fact, to cover their asses, LAC admits it can take seven or even ten business days(!) for them to get a box from storage (which is off-site in Gatineau, Quebec, across the river) to the reading room in Ottawa.

As a researcher who does not live in the Ottawa metro, a two-week delay effectively makes conducting on-site research impossible. I could not afford to sit around for weeks waiting, paying for hotel rooms or a rental, for records to maybe one day be delivered. For an archive whose mission includes “facilitating access to Canadian heritage,” a two-week turnaround, in my opinion, borders on mission failure. It effectively makes documents inaccessible to anyone who doesn't live within an hour of Ottawa. And what if I were to find something in one box that leads me to a different collection? It might mean waiting a whole month just to see two related records.… In comparison, the U.S. National Archives delivers your first box within an hour if it’s on-site, and within three business days if it’s off-site. (Three days feels reasonable: order Monday, process Tuesday, deliver Wednesday.) The Minnesota Historical Society brings up boxes within an hour, usually sooner. BANQ at both Montreal and Trois-Rivières regularly pulled records for me in less than fifteen minutes.

The upshot is that I will now need to order copies of the letters from LAC copy services. That will create additional expenses for me. It will also require a lot of complicated correspondence with the copyist, since I don’t know what exactly is in each box! That’s the value of on-site research. In person, I could look at different records and evaluate for myself what is worth my time and what isn’t, what is relevant and what is not. Now I have to do it vicariously through another person who knows nothing about my project!

In any case, here’s a diagram of a drill Benjamin and his comrades practiced in 1814 to be in ship-shape as they guarded the southern approaches to Montreal against a potential American invasion.

Each platoon was divided into four or five sections, each with two subdivisions. This diagram depicts the various subdivisions, numbered 0 through 9, performing the first drill maneuver, to form up in the rear of the grenadiers. Each letter corresponded to a particular movement, usually with corresponding commands from the officers. For example, the commands for "B" were, "Left hand companies left face, quick march." LAC, RG8 I-A-2, Vol. 2.

Connecting Organizations and Opening Pathways for Future Research

My research has secondary benefits for scholarship at large. A good example emerged from this research trip.

The nice folks who run the Cageux museum in Lanoraie, the museum about the history of Canadian logging and raftsmen, were unaware that the Centre du Patrimoine in Winnipeg (part of the Archives of Manitoba) hosts a comprehensive collection of surviving labor contracts related to voyageurs. Naturally, as researchers interested in the early logging industry in eastern Ontario and Quebec, it never ocurred to them to look for related information in Manitoba or in fur-trade contracts. But it’s there.

Following Napoleon’s blockade of European ports and the subsequent embargo imposed by President Jefferson, Great Britain turned to Canada as the primary source of timber for its mighty navy. Montreal merchants, including owners of the big fur companies, jumped at this new and potentially lucrative opportunity. They already knew how to hire and organize groups of laborers to go work in the wilderness. They used their already-standardized labor contracts to hire lumberjacks and raftsmen. Thus, in the voyageur contracts database, one can find more than 650 surviving engagement contracts for individual laborers that document the very beginnings of the Canadian timber industry. One of them was Benjamin Gervais, which is how I stumbled onto the connection.

In this way, my research project is opening doors for further discovery. Did the first Canadian loggers profile the same as voyageurs? Did they come from the same parishes, were they the same ages, and so on? Or were they a different set of men? How many were former or future voyageurs like Benjamin? These are questions the folks at the Cageux museum now plan to investigate.

What’s Next?

Legacy Grant Application!

My next major task is helping the Little Canada Historical Society apply for a Legacy Grant. The pre-application is deadline is July 18.

We are counting on this grant to support writing the rest of the manuscript during calendar year 2026 and possibly into early 2027. LCHS will be the official applicant, but of course I am the only person in position to write up a report on research status, annotate a bibliography, explain why the project matters, and estimate how much time it will take to write each remaining chapter.

Canadian Days Festival – Grand Marshal

In early August, Little Canada celebrates its city festival, fittingly called Canadian Days. For most of the weekend, I will be in the Little Candada Historical Society booth in Spooner Park to greet visitors and answer questions about the project. In addition, yours truly has been invited to be the lead Grand Marshal of the Canadian Days Parade! Other Gervais family descendants will fill out the trolley.

Rendezvous Days at Grand Portage

The second weekend in August, I will attend my first ever rendezvous. Under the guidance of experienced reenactors from La Compagnie des Hivernants de la Rivière St-Pierre, I will be at Grand Portage during Rendezvous Days to help teach visitors about the fur-trade era. Of course, I have selfish reasons for going. I’ve never been one for dress-up, but reenactment is the closest I can come to experiencing the lived experiences of my protagonists as they paddled and camped their way through the northwest. Consider it experiential research.

Regular Ol’ Research

Once we submit the Legacy Grant application, most of my time will go back to mundane research tasks like transcribing and translating the new Canadian records I’ve acquired and scouring more records at the Minnesota Historical Society.

Fundraising Update—Judicious Spending

Many of you reading this have already donated. For that, I thank you again.

We are still running behind our fundraising goal for the year. Please tell your friends or anyone you think might be interested in supporting a groundbreaking work of history. For those who have donated or who might be considering it, I wanted to give you a sense of how far I've been able to stretch the money. So far this year, I've made successful research trips to Winnipeg and Eastern Canada as well as a trip to attend a conference and do a bit more research in St. Louis, Missouri. Thanks to smart planning and generous in-kind donations, check out these ridiculously low total costs: Location Date Length of Trip Total Cost Winnipeg March 8 days/7 nights $ 421.59

St. Louis April 6 days/5 nights $ 1,137.62 Ontario/Quebec June 17 days/18 nights $ 3,279.51

$ 4,838.72

And finally, thank you to my wife, parents, and in-laws for picking up extra childcare duties during all of these absences!