Jour de Noël. Dehors une fine neige tombe. Elle est enfin arrivée. On l’espérait. Un Noël sans neige, ce n’est pas vraiment un Noël. Peu à peu, elle couvre le sol de sa blancheur. Dans un coin de la pièce, le sapin, qui vient d’être cueilli, semble trop grand pour la pièce. Et il est…
One Word: Memorable. If you haven’t heard of Christine Ferber, just google her name and you’ll quickly realize that she is a queen… the “French queen of jam making” or the “Jam Fairy” as her friends call her! She was even featured by the New York Times in this fascinating article “From Alsace, Sweet Love…
A misty morning in Normandy. Green pastures and Normandy black and white cows grazing. To my surprise, the GPS is taking me on a country road which is so narrow that I am not sure what happens if a car comes in the other direction! The landscape is simply magical and my only regret is…
This 90-year boat which used to fish for cod in Newfoundland waters is magnificent and it taught me how large and gorgeous those fishing boats were.
I recently the book “Cinq siècles de pêche à la morue – Terre-Neuvas & Islandais” (Five centuries of cod fishing) written by Nelson Cazeils (in French, sorry!). The book discusses the history of cod fishing in all its aspects.
In early July 1777 (July 5th to be precise), Continental Army’s General Arthur St. Clair decides to evacuate Ticonderoga, and British General John Burgoyne captures the fort, before advancing to Saratoga. This July 21-22, 2012, it was fun to attend the two-day battle re-enactment highlighting this climatic summer of 1777 as the Fort’s American garrison…
Written by Tom Grinslade, author of the book “Powder Horns – Documents of History” Note from Christine: I am very excited to publish the article Tom wrote after I reached out to him with the idea that it seems that most people who own a powder horn are looking for information about its original owner,…
Brittany and French America: the two things I am passionate about. Born and raised in France, a proud “Brittany girl” and have lived in Quebec and North-East USA which used to be part of New France, I started to get very interested in the early colonial history of this region a few years ago. This…
The enlarged images can be viewed in a slideshow by clicking the first image and then clicking the “next” button. Eliot contacted me and was hoping to learn more about this 1775 powder horn, inscribed with the name William Farwell. I thought I would share it with all, as it is a very interesting powder…
You cannot believe everything you read on the internet. If you’ve read that the word “verts monts” (green mountains) was first used by Samuel de Champlain in 1609, we believe it’s wrong. An excellent, well-referenced – but yet incomplete – article by Joseph-André Sénécal*, a University of Vermont professor, now retired, looked into the question….
