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GIL-MONT - THE DOMAIN FORGET
St Irenée has two claims to fame - apart from the obvious one about its beauty.
Firstly it's the birthplace of Adolphe-Basile Routhier, a lawyer but whose major claim to fame is that he wrote the French words to the Canadian National Anthem O Canada in 1890.
Secondly it was the summer home of the industrialist Rodolphe Forget.
I had heard that Forget's property, "Gil-Mont", was a magnificent pile and has a really spectacular setting. Considering just how spectacular almost every setting seems to be around here, then I reckoned that it must be something really impressive. I had therefore added it to my list of places to visit.
As for Forget however, we'll be spending a great deal of time discussing him. And with good reason too, for if ever there was a central character on any stage anywhere in the world, it was he, right here at St Irenee.
Keen readers of this rubbish will know that we've been following a railway line on-and-off all the way from the city of Québec and I've been promising you that sooner or later I would tell you something of its history. Here at St Irenée, the summer home of Rodolphe Forget, I reckon that this might be the moment.
Railway mania in the 19th Century was not just confined to the UK or even to Europe. Canada had its fair share too. Canada, and particularly Québec, also had another issue at the same time, and that was the quest for an ice-free port along the St Lawrence - remember the other day when we were at the Tracel de Cap-Rouge and we talked about the fear that Charles Hays and his Grand Trunk Railway would siphon off all of western Canada's freight traffic through his Windsor-Detroit tunnel and onto his network of lines in the USA to the ice-free ports there.
It was therefore suggested that Baie St Catherine, at the mouth of the Saguenay River, might fit the bill - although if you were with me when I was there in 2001 you'll see why this idea was a non-starter - and so in 1881, the Quebec, Montmorency and Charlevoix Railway Company was incorporated with the aim of linking Baie St Catherine to the main railway network in Québec.
This news delighted the locals here in the Charlevoix. Their usual method of leaving St Irenee, if at all, and if they didn't want to travel under their own steam, was to take one of the two Canadian Steamship Line boats that plied up and down the river. If they wanted to travel by train they could leap aboard the Champlain - the icebreaker that travelled across the river between here and Rivière-Ouelle on the south bank of the river, a luxury from which they could profit four times during he summer and twice in winter.
By 1889 the railway had struggled into Sainte Anne de Beaupré and it quickly became the principal method of bringing pilgrims to that site, earning the nickname of "The Railway of Good Saint Anne". This was more profitable to the company than fighting the forces of nature and an almost-impossible terrain all the way to an unknown destination with uncertain prospects at the end of the line, and so it was content to sit at Saint Anne de Beaupré.
A short while later it extended a dozen kilometres or so further on to St Joachim, hard up against Cap Tourmente, changing its name to the less-ambitious Quebec Railway Light & Power. The line was electrified in 1904 and for over 50 years was something of an important commuter line. The railway extension into the Charlevoix and the harbour at Baie St Catherine were quickly forgotten.
The citizens of Charlevoix, however, they had not forgotten. They were not content with the company digging in along the Beaupré coast, and continued to press for the line to be built. It was onto the stage at this particular moment that Rodolphe Forget stepped.
Forget, or Sir Joseph David Rodolphe Forget to give him his full title, was a wealthy businessman with his finger in many industrial and commercial pies in Québec and Ontario. He had built a magnificent hotel, the Manoir Richelieu, at Pointe-au-Pic (now part of La Malbaie) in 1899 and his own immense villa, Gil-Mont, here at St Irenée in 1901.
With there being almost nothing in the way of road transport back in those days, he and his guests had no option but to arrive by the Canada Steamship Line vessels that plied up and down the river (and we saw the pier here at St Irenée a short while ago)
Shortly after this, Forget decided that despite all of his business interests he would like to stand for the Canadian House of Commons, and so he put his name forward as a candidate for the Charlevoix in the 1904 elections. Regardless of whatever his platform might have been, his electoral promise to the locals, that he would bring the railway to La Malbaie, did the trick.
Unlike many other politicians, he could walk the walk as well as talk the talk, and on 26th January 1905 he deposited his plans before the municipal authorities of St Irenee. Construction of the extension finally began in 1909 and by 1919 it had reached its destination, with the inauguration ceremony taking place on the 1st of July of that year. Not Baie St Catherine of course but a paper mill at Clermont, in which Forget had an interest, at the back of La Malbaie.
There's no doubt that the construction of the line was a major feat of engineering and to have built it in just 10 years, a World War intervening, is something quite astonishing. Not only are there two tunnels along the line but also 900 bridges and culverts - some wag having calculated that as representing one bridge or culvert every 550 feet.
Despite all of the effort, the line was never really profitable. It passed into the hands of the Canadian National Railway in 1951 and by 1959 all of the passenger service had gone, although freight services still continued over the line. Since then, there have been several attempts to relaunch a passenger service, most of which have ended in tears, but in the late summer of 2011 a company called Le Massif de Charlevoix decided to have a go, running tourist trains á la Orient Express, a couple of which we have already encountered on our travels, from the waterfall at Montmorency up to La Malbaie.
But no discussion of the railway line is complete without mentioning the enigma of Forget. Some call him a hero who brought the railway here, built the paper mill at Clermont, provided hundreds of jobs in the region and modernised the Charlevoix, dragging it kicking and screaming firmly into the 20th Century. Others say that his whole purpose in becoming a Member of the House of Commons was nothing more than to further his own interests, and yet more people point to how many of his enterprises established monopoly positions in many markets and how he used those monopolies to his own best advantage.
But there is one thing upon which almost everyone agrees, and that is that in fulfilling his election promise to bring the railway to La Malbaie, he all but exhausted his fortune, and there aren't many politicians who would be willing to go to those lengths. Furthermore, reading from the parish records, he made an enormous contribution, especially as far as the question of financial support goes, to the village.
So take your pick.
All of that aside, the best epitaph that could ever be given to him is the one that I saw in the Canadian Dictionary of National Biographies - Il mourut le 19 février 1919, á l'âge de 57 ans, en laissant derrière lui un héritage extraordinaire. crudely translated by Yours Truly as
"He died on the 19th of February 1919 at the age of 57, leaving behind him a most extraordinary heritage"
and I couldn't have put it better myself.
I haven't finished with our hero Rodolphe Forget quite yet. I mentioned that here at St Irenée in 1901 he built his impressive mansion, Gil-Mont, amongst the maple trees on a site overlooking the river.
On the occasions that I have driven through here I've seen a sign for "Le Domain Forget". I reckoned that "Le Domain Forget" could well be the site of Gil-Mont and in 2012, having seen two school buses loaded with schoolkids drive up the steep track just here, I decided to follow suit. If there's some kind of event going on up here, I could quite easily lose myself amongst the heaving masses and no-one would notice an extra body mixed in with all of that.
Heaving masses indeed, as you can clearly see. There's the Dodge down there on the car park, and there are the two school buses, and … errrr … that's about it.
Mind you, the view from up here (I'm actually right at the back of the property just now) would be quite spectacular on a good day - right across the St Lawrence to the southern shore. One article about the property that I have read however describes the south bank of the St Lawrence as a "thin blue smudge on a distant horizon". There's clearly plenty of business opportunity for anyone thinking of setting up as an optician here at St Irenee.
As for the sculpture or whatever it is just down there in the bushes, you will have to make up your own minds about that. I put it somewhere in the same class as the works of Richard Serra, whose works we have met before .
I read an old account of the life of Rodolphe Forget that said that En 1901, il fit construire á Saint-Irenee une somptueuse villa, Gil-Mont, où il recevait souvent des dignitaires. Cette résidence comptait 16 chambres, et une salle á manger où 25 personnes pouvaient s'asseoir á l'aise. Le domaine comprenait une ferme prospère, des serres et un pavillon contenant une piscine, une salle de billard et une allée de quilles.
Once more crudely translated by Yours Truly, we have
"In 1901 he had a magnificent mansion, Gil-Mont, built for himself at St Irenee and he was often visited by important personalities. This mansion had 16 bedrooms and a dining room where 25 people could sit in comfort. Also on the estate were a prosperous farm, greenhouses and a pavillion where there were a swimming pool, a billiard room and a bowling alley".
One of Forget's children was later to write Dans ce lieu paisible; bercé par le murmure
des vagues et vivifié par l'air salin et le parfum des conifères, nous passions des
étés inoubliables. Papa regagnait le plus souvent possible Gil-Mont qu'il se plaisait
á embellir.
yet again crudely translated by Yours Truly as
"In this pleasant place, rocked to sleep by the murmur of the waves and revitalised by the saline air and the odour of the conifers, we spent some unforgettable summers. Father came as often as possible to Gil-Mont and he took great pride in carrying out improvements on the property"
And with a build-up like that, I bet that you are dying to see it. But I have some rather bad news for you.
This is the site of Gil-Mont and anyone who has been following my travels around the eastern half of Canada will not need to be told what has happened.
Yes, the mansion has been destroyed by a fire - an event that prompted the municipal authorities on 7th October 1969 to buy a fire engine and to recruit volunteer firemen - another classic case of "shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted".
But before we continue our little discussion about the property, you can see exactly why it was that Forget built his mansion on that site. Just look at the view!
The land here was formerly agricultural land but Forget and his friend Adolphe-Basile Routhier, about whom we spoke a little earlier, clubbed together and in September 1900 they bought a few plots of land and each man had a house built here. Forget's, called Gil-Mont after his eldest son Gilles, was designed by the American architect, Edward Maxwell and was valued at $25,000 by the local council.
Forget continued to buy up plots of land as they became available, quickly amassing several hectares, and this is the basis of his domain.
It quickly became the social centre for the upper crust of Canadian society and the list of notable visitors is endless. Such people as the Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, the Duke of Kent and even the 65th Regiment of Infantry were notable summer visitors to Gil-Mont.
Forget died in 1919, in what have been described as "des circonstances assez mystérieuses" (although I've yet to find an explanation of this enigmatic remark) and in his will he left what has been described as "an important sum of money" to keep up the maintenance of the property so that his family could continue to spend their summers there in the comfort to which they had been accustomed. And that they did until 1945 when they sold the property to the Petites Franciscaines de Marie, whom we encountered a little earlier in Baie St Paul .
The Institute used Forget's Domain into a Home for "Young Girls", and I did notice the inverted commas as part of the original text. That made me raise an eyebrow or two, I can tell you, and all kinds of thoughts went through my mind.
However it appears that it was a school where young girls learnt the basics of home economics, although which young girls they might have been, why they had been sent here under the care of a religious body, and why the religious body itself should put the "Jeunes Filles" between inverted commas suggests all kinds of sub-plots. If you have anything to say about this, please . I have several ideas of my own - some of them charitable and others less so.
Anyway, conspiracy theories notwithstanding, in 1956 the Petites Franciscaines closed the school and used the buildings as an orphanage, and in 1959 they closed the orphanage and used the building as an annex to their hospital in Baie St Paul, treating mental health patients.
As for the other property up here, "Hauterive" or, as it was known by the locals Notre Château Blanc, the mansion of Sir Adolphe and Lady Routhier, at about the same time as the purchase of Gil-Mont, the Petites Franciscaines bought it "to preserve the privacy" of the other occupants of the domain - the "Jeunes Filles", one imagines.
They found the building to be in such a dreadful condition that it was impossible to restore it and it was immediately demolished.
Consequently, not only is the site of Gil-Mont totally vacant, so is the site of Notre Château Blanc. What we have here now today is a flat open plain rather than two splendid houses that 100 years ago were the toast of the Charlevoix, and that is rather sad.
In 1974 the domain, or, rather, what was left of it because as I mentioned earlier, Gil-Mont was destroyed by fire (like most places in Canada) in 1965, was bought by a group of local businessmen. However cashflow problems prompted the bank to repossess it.
It eventually passed into the hands of a dynamic group of music lovers led by Françoys Bernier, a well-known personality on the Canadian classical music scene, and today the "Domain Forget" plays a leading role in the promotion of classical music and of dance, not just in Canada but in the whole of North America.
We are told in some kind of historic document that I saw, that the domain was noted for "a superb staircase" leading from the property to the grounds of the domain, and this looks like it might well be it.
So while we are here at the Domaine Forget, we may as well go for a wander around the grounds and look at all of the things that there are to see. This seems like it might be a very good place to start our little voyage of discovery.
One thing that I did mention in my preamble is that there's a pavillion on the site "where there were a swimming pool, a billiard room and a bowling alley" aa well as a few other things such as un salon japonais qui ajoutait une touche d'exotisme - "a Japanese reception room that added a touch of the exotic" and was connected to the mansion by a tunnel.
This was turned into a cafeteria in 1996 but we are not going to waste our time looking for this because in what is quickly turning into a litany of orgiastic conflagration, in June 2005 that too went up in smoke.
In case you are wondering what this building might be, which I'm sure that you are, it is in fact the hen house. There were formerly cages on the sloping bit in front of the building in which the poultry could take the air, but they are long-gone.
The tower in the centre, that is where the fowl breeder used to live. There was however no indication of site of the nail upon which he hung his trousers while he was at work.
There was also a space in the building dedicated to the storage of vehicles, and at the far end were rooms used as lodgings for workers on the estate.
I did admit to having difficulties over this "fowl breeder" chap, not the least being that I have been quite often been called something that could be mistaken for "fowl breeder" by those who are auditorily-challenged.
The thing that puzzles me is why there should be a "fowl breeder" here in the first place. Fowl have been breeding quite happily - and successfully - for tens of thousands of years without anyone else, especially a human being, telling them how to do it.
I mentioned at the beginning of this opus that I had followed a couple of school buses up here, and when I arrived on the car park they were busily disgorging a large group of kids.
With their suitcases and overnight bags and so on they were clearly intending to stay for the night at least, and these modern buildings just here seemed to be the likely destination.
I had a bit of a surreptitious prowl around and from what I saw, it seemed to me that these buildings are definitely some kind of studio - type accommodation, which fits in with the idea of the current use of the site as a centre of music and dance.
I also mentioned that there were greenhouses here on the site. Not that that surprised me - you couldn't even grow a Combrailles courgette up here, I reckon, without some kind of artificial aid.
There are of course greenhouses and greenhouses, and on this kind of property you would expect the greenhouses to be something quite special.
Well, you would not be wrong. These are certainly that, and complete with furnace for heating the building during the winter. it wouldn't surprise me if they had a few really impressive crops out of this greenhouse and his friends over the past 100-odd years.
Over there is the Salle Anne-Marie, whoever Anne-Marie might be and next to it are what is known as the hangars. These are tucked away at the side of the domain to the west in a nice quiet corner.
There's a notice up there saying that the rooms are reserved during the day for practice by students of the violin courses during their stay. So if you would like to practise fiddling with a violin student during the day, then this would seem to be the place to be.
Gil-Mont was of course built right at the turn of the 20th century and the motor car had a long way to go before it supplanted the horse as the primary motive force of transport. In the earliest days of his occupancy, Forget owned what was termed in those days a break pulled by a team of four horses, and there would also have been horses and waggons used for the other business of the domain. There was accordingly a large stable block on the site and in keeping with everything else here, no particular expense was spared in its construction.
This stable was one of the places that I wanted to see and quite luckily it has managed, at least until now, to avoid being engulfed in a conflagration. It's quite an impressive pile, so much so that I would be happy to have a place like that as a home, never mind an outbuilding. I could be quite comfortable in a place like that.
As an aside, the break didn't last too long and Forget became the proud possessor of what was said to be "this monster", "a red convertible, the first motor car to be seen in the region". One of Forget's offspring, whose notes I have been quoting from every now and again, was quite right in saying that he didn't passe inaperçu - "pass by unnoticed" in the Charlevoix.
That was effectively that as far as Gil-Mont and Rodolphe Forget went. Unfortunately, and much as I had enjoyed my stay there, there was nothing much else to see. Or at least, that was what I thought at the time.
As I arrive back at the Dodge ready to set off back on my travels, in the famous words of Dee Brown I Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow
Grabbing hold of the long zoom lens (and doesn't Strawberry Moose
make a good lens holder?) I dashed to a suitable viewpoint as I was sure that there was a train a'coming down the track
And I wasn't wrong either. There clattering away in the distance upon the rails of Forget's masterpiece was Le Massif de Charlevoix 's locomotive 1821 and its associated power car pulling its load of Chicago "Metra" and Pennsylvania Railroad "Keystones" carriages.
And just looking at this shot here and the next one too, you can why Forget's team of engineers had such a struggle to build the line and why it cost Forget such a large part of his fortune.
This photo gives us a much better view, not only of the magnificent earthworks, but of the train as it rolls on further down the line on its way to La Malbaie.
We have of course locomotive 1821 and its associated power car pulling away up front and all of the carriages too, but bringing up the rear and pushing the train along is locomotive 1868.
I was really glad to have finally been able to see the entire train after my misadventures at Quebec and Baie St Paul . And to see the train, and take such a good photograph of it, from the site of Forget's house was really the icing on the cake as far as I am concerned.
I definitely had a good day here at the Domain Forget.
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