Ile d'Orleans

Soon after Champlain founded Quebec, some habitants began clearing land on the island named Ile d’Orleans. Here, the fertile soil originally nourished an abundance of wild grapes. Today, the island is noted for its’ strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and other crops.

The earliest settlers built their log cabins here, believing they were safe from Iroquois attack. They were wrong! Despite Indian invasions, the number of Habitant families eventually grew, multiplied and prospered.

From the North end of the island, you can see Quebec. It is just a few miles across the river. On a good day, the Habitant could harvest some ripe vegetables or berries, sail across this watery expanse and sell his produce in the city. He could also buy some coffee, tobacco or other small luxury and sail home.

In time, five parishes served the islands’ religious and some of its’ administrative needs. This photo is of the parish church of St Jean. The current church was erected about 1747, a dozen years prior to the British Conquest. Here, my earliest known ancestor, Joseph DeMeulle, was buried in 1759.

Today, Ile d'Orleans is connected to the north shore of the St Lawrence river via a bridge near Montmorency Falls.

Streets of Quebec

This is a recent photo of a main street in Quebec. Today, cars, buses and trucks travel this narrow lane. . and in early morning and late at night a horse and carriage. The clop, clop, clop of the horses' iron shoes on the pavement makes one think about the distant past of Quebec city. Long ago, this road might have been a dirt path and then a cobblestone street. It not only served as a transportation artery through the neighborhood but also a convenient site for the residents of the houses to dump their household garbage and even their chamber pots! In the wintertime each snow covered the streets, burying the growing mess. During the Spring thaw the rains and melting snow flushed the street clean. . . .polluting streams and eventually the St Lawrence river. In the Summer and Fall, the streets and the river had to be dismal. During warm weather, water borne diseases took many lives because of the poor sanitation here and in every other city in North America and Europe.