Bells ring out for Quebec City's 400th birthday
Agence France-Presse
First Posted 19:45:00 07/04/2008
Filed Under: Anniversaries
QUEBEC CITY -- Bells rang out across Canada Thursday to mark the founding of Quebec City, at the exact time that French explorer Samuel de Champlain is thought to have landed on these shores 400 years ago.
More than 600 parishes, municipalities and others across the country marked the anniversary with a ringing of bells at 11:00 a.m. (1500 GMT), when Champlain is believed to disembarked at the mouth of the Saint Lawrence seaway.
"The seeds sown here 400 years ago have flowered into a magnificent city, a confident and proud Quebec nation and a Canada that is strong and free," Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper told an official ceremony.
Harper heralded July 3, 1608, as a "historic date" marking Canada's beginnings when Champlain crossed the Atlantic Ocean and headed up the Saint Lawrence River to establish this city with 30 other men.
"Four hundred years ago an explorer came this way, and today, a nation salutes him," echoed Quebec premier Jean Charest.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon is also attending the ceremonies which included music, and a military parade, was revellers refused to let pouring rain spoil their day.
Rooted in the early days of the fur trade, and once the cradle of French civilization in North America that spanned from Acadia in easternmost Canada to Louisiana in the southern United States, Quebec City is now a bustling metropolis with a population of 700,000.
Its old quarter, perched atop a cliff that overlooks the point where the Saint Lawrence widens on its way to the open sea, remains the only fortified city north of Mexico and a UNESCO world heritage site.
Harper met with dignitaries at the Chateau Frontenac hotel in the shadow of a statue of Champlain.
Party-goers were to be served a gigantic cake, and treated to an evening open air concert with American rock band Van Halen on the Plains of Abraham, where French colonists lost to British troopers in 1759 in a key battle of the Seven Years' War.
Dockside, France's oldest tall sailing ship, the 112-year-old Belem, welcomed visitors, after retracing Champlain's voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.
Nearby, a multimedia film was to be projected at dusk on the port city's silos tracing the 400 years of migration to this land.
And a huge fireworks display said to be the largest ever in Canada was set to light up the night sky, wrapping up the day's events.
On the sidelines, federalists and Quebec separatists continued to bicker over whether to toast Canada's beginnings or the arrival of French-speaking people in North America, but they were drowned out by the crowd's cheers.
Historians note that Quebec City has always been at the center of friction between French- and English-speakers in Canada.
In 1908, Canada's governor general had wanted to spotlight Canada's British roots at the city's 300th anniversary, according to historian H.V. Nelles.
Fifty years later, then Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis promoted a nationalist tone to the anniversary celebrations.
This year, although organizers were urged to "compromise" and focus on the festivities "without focusing too much on the dimensions of the celebration," an Ipsos-Reid survey of Canadians, published Thursday, highlighted that there were still divisions on the meaning of the celebrations.
"We can't agree on what we're celebrating," said sociologist Denys Delage. "Are we celebrating Canada, Quebec province, Quebec City itself, or French people's legacy in North America?"
But despite their differences, they partied together.
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