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Fact Sheet |
Once in French America
About the exhibition
The opening on June 11, 2004 of Once in French America marks the 400th anniversary of French settlement in Canada.
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Horse-drawn carriage, circa 1730 Wood, paint, iron, leather Île d'Orléans Parks Canada, Quebec Carriage owned by Jean Mauvide, physician and surgeon, merchant and Seignieur of Île d'Orléans. He married Marianne Genest in 1733 and built a residence known as the Manoir Mauvide-Genest where he lived until his death in 1782. The carriage remained in one of the manor's sheds until its recent acquisition by Parks Canada. |
In 1604, a small group of tradesmen from France established the first European settlement in North America on the island of Sainte-Croix. Although European explorers and fishermen had visited the continent a century earlier, no one had settled here.
These first French settlers and the ones who followed them were trailblazers. They did not arrive in an uninhabited land, and their earliest experiences included some peaceful, but also difficult encounters with Aboriginal peoples. For Europeans, North America was vast and extreme, yet the early French colonists saw that it held opportunity and they embraced it with spirit and determination. They learned skills from the Aboriginal peoples and confronted a new and alien frontier, gradually establishing settlements from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico and a territory which became known as New France.
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Ex-voto painting - A drowning at Lévis, 1754 Artist unknown Oil on wood, Québec region Musée de Sainte Anne, Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré (1994X269) An ex-voto painting is a visual representation of the fulfillment of a vow or an expression of gratitude for favours obtained from a saint. This work illustrates the drowning of two young women and the rescue, attributed to Sainte Anne, of three other people. |
Once in French America looks at the social, cultural and economic reality of New France in extraordinary detail. It provides fresh insight into the development of new societies in North America, as settlers arriving with their own traditions and lifestyles adapted to a new environment and laid the foundations for the country that would become Canada.
The exhibition features more than 500 objects from 40 institutions from France, the United States and Canada, including the Canadian Museum of Civilization.
Visitors will learn about how people lived in New France in a lively and thoughtful exhibition that is divided into three main themes:
- Daily Life: family, hygiene, clothing, food and travel
- Social Life: immigration, health, working in town and in the country, trade (fur and imported products), defence, justice and communications
- Spiritual Life: education, religion and the arts
