Director’s Notes - 2006 Quebecois Revels

French Canada in the early 19^th Century – a time and place that seem both distant and near. It is a land that is separated from our own only by an imaginary line drawn through the grain fields and pine forests of the north, and yet it is a culture which sings in a different language and peoples its stories with unfamiliar names.  It is a time that, although it lies across the divide of the millennium, echoes elements of our own.

 France, the homeland, had reached the limits of its imperial ambitions, yet the open-ended demand for pelts and lumber promised universal prosperity if only the supplies of beaver and woodlands would prove as inexhaustible as they seemed. Religion provided a core of solace, hope and guidance, yet its moral strictures felt confining to those adventurous spirits who would be voyageurs.

The Quebecois culture was a melting pot into which were stirred many traditions - French and English as well as Cree, Ojibway and Huron. Many years of intermarriage had produced the Metis, a large population which transformed French and Indigenous customs into a culture with its own unique way of dressing, speaking and celebrating. While the lingua franca was just that – French, the dominant financial players were the English and Scots of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Commerce relied on the English pound and sometimes even the Spanish real. It was a world in flux.

This is the world we visit in our 2006 Revels. Under the arc of the magical Flying Canoe, we celebrate the turning of the year with traditions ranging from the Christian  Nativity to the wildly animistic Loupe Garou . Of course the mystical Abbots Bromley procession and exuberant “Lord of the Dance” are in our world, too. 

So join us with toes tapping and voices raised as once again we Welcome Yule!