{"id":1,"date":"2021-04-19T15:01:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T21:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/surquhart\/?p=1"},"modified":"2026-01-21T14:17:56","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T21:17:56","slug":"1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/surquhart\/2021\/04\/19\/1\/","title":{"rendered":"Qui suis-je ?  &#8211; franglophone"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u0392orn in Toronto to Scottish parents (Glasgow and vicinity) who immigrated to Canada in the late 60\u2019s, I grew up in Brantford, ON \u2212 home of Wayne Gretzky and the city in which\u00a0 Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.\u00a0 (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gretzky.com\/\">http:\/\/www.gretzky.com\/)\u00a0<\/a><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>Several other notable personalities are also associated with this city situated an hour south of T.O.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>Native poetess Pauline Johnson (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca\/en\/article\/pauline-johnson\/\">http:\/\/www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca\/en\/article\/pauline-johnson\/)<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Jay Silverheels (Tonto from The Lone Ranger) <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jay_Silverheels\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jay_Silverheels<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Comedian Phil Hartman, https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0367005\/<\/li>\n<li>Lawren Harris &#8211; member of the\u00a0Group of Seven <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca\/en\/article\/lawren-stewart-harris\/\">http:\/\/www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca\/en\/article\/lawren-stewart-harris\/<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Given my heritage and where I grew up, my interest in French literature is often rather bewildering. I like to explain my situation by referring to the \u00ab Auld Alliance \u00bb and the fact that the Scots and the French have always gotten along throughout history in their fight against the English (not that I have anything against them, of course!). Urquhart, the namesake of the famous castle\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.urquhart-castle.co.uk\/\">http:\/\/www.urquhart-castle.co.uk\/<\/a> standing on the shore of\u00a0Loch Ness, is derived from Airchart whose earliest recorded ancestor was William\u00a0<em>de<\/em>\u00a0Urchard (je souligne), who reputedly fought alongside\u00a0William Wallace. Furthermore, I remind people that Sir Thomas Urquhart (1611-60) was a celebrated author and soldier who translated (badly&#8230; unfortunately) the works of the French satirist, Fran\u00e7ois Rabelais\u00a0(1494-1553).<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0In terms of my interest in Quebec, I tell people that Jacques Cartier planted his cross in Gasp\u00e9, claiming the region for France in 1534 on my birthday\u00a0\u2013 July 24th. A similar experience occurred on the same date some 400 years later in 1967 when Charles De Gaulle proclaimed his infamous &#8220;Vive le Qu\u00e9bec libre&#8221; from the balcony of Montreal&#8217;s H\u00f4tel de ville. If this tongue in cheek explanation is not enough, I site the fact that Michel Tremblay\u2019s\u00a0<em>Les Belles S\u0153urs<\/em>\u00a0(1968) was translated into Glaswegian\u00a0slang and became a hit in Scotland as\u00a0<em>The\u00a0Guid Sisters<\/em>\u00a0at Glasgow\u2019s Tron theatre as well as the comparisons made between Scotland\u2019s situation within the U.K. and Quebec\u2019s within Canada.<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0These &#8220;fabulous&#8221; explanations only reinforce the fact that I was continually encouraged while growing up to learn French and the importance of Canada\u2019s second official language.\u00a0 My love for France, and indirectly Quebec, was ignited during high school ski trips to &#8220;la Belle province&#8221; and then during a two-week trip to France and Italy when I was 15 years old. This trip lead me to become an \u00ab au pair \u00bb or<\/div>\n<div>\u00ab jeune homme \u00e0 la m\u00e8re \u00bb in Lyon several years later. In Lyon, I took French language courses at the Universit\u00e9 Lumi\u00e8re Lyon 2 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.univ-lyon2.fr\/\">https:\/\/www.univ-lyon2.fr\/<\/a> before heading to university back in Canada.<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Having fallen in love with Lyon and all things French (or almost&#8230;), I abandoned my studies in the sciences and enrolled in the French Teaching Specialization Program at the University of Waterloo <a href=\"https:\/\/uwaterloo.ca\/\">https:\/\/uwaterloo.ca\/<\/a> in conjunction with\u00a0Brock University\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/\">https:\/\/brocku.ca\/\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0where I did a B.Ed. During a third year abroad, I returned to France and studied in Nantes,\u00a0home of Jules Verne.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.univ-nantes.fr.\">http:\/\/www.univ-nantes.fr.\u00a0<\/a><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I subsequently went to the United States to do an M.A. at Penn State University <a href=\"http:\/\/www.psu.edu\">http:\/\/www.psu.edu\u00a0<\/a>where the study of French literature is very much alive and well. While in the U.S.A. my interest in Quebec was rekindled and I found myself more and more drawn towards this extraordinary region&#8217;s literature, which I had sampled in an undergraduate course. I decided it was time to come back to Canada and did my Ph.D. at Queen&#8217;s University in Kingston, ON.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.queensu.ca\/\">http:\/\/www.queensu.ca\/<\/a><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0This University&#8217;s Scottish heritage and geographic situation \u00ab\u00a0\u00e0 mi-chemin entre Toronto et Montr\u00e9al\u00a0\u00bb seemed to fit my personality and gave me the opportunity to study Quebec author, G\u00e9rard Bessette&#8217;s works in detail. Having been amused by\u00a0<em>Le Libraire<\/em> (1960) as an undergraduate at U of Waterloo, I knew that Bessette had taught at Queen&#8217;s. During my studies in Kingston, I obviously discovered other novels by this author and had the opportunity to meet Bessette in person before his passing in 2005. I subsequently became goods friends with his wife, Irene, and then, inventoried his personal library. I am currently the executor of his literary works.<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I see myself as a &#8220;Franglophone&#8221; (a proficient non-native French speaking anglophone) and can&#8217;t imagine not speaking French or not knowing anything about France, Quebec, or any of the other French-speaking areas that I have visited over the years. As with many other foreign language speakers, the French language and the cultures are all part of me to differing degrees and continue to enrich my life in all kinds of respects. This is the case for many people, of course,\u00a0 and it is always a great pleasure to speak with them about learning languages and embracing cultures we did not expect to encounter, let alone fall in love with.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 When I can, I enjoy working on my Spanish, having spent fairly lengthy amounts of time over the years in Spain, which is <em>un pa\u00eds que me encanta<\/em>.\u00a0 In terms of other languages, I also enjoy trying to remember all the German that I have forgotten after working for two months years ago in a b\u00e4ckerei in F\u00fcssen, home of the Neuschwanstein Castle. In 2016, I had the privilege of spending several months \u00a0teaching at Hokkai Gakuen in Sapporo,\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/hgu.jp\/en\/,\">http:\/\/hgu.jp\/en\/ <\/a>and then traveling around Japan. As such, I also have a soft spot for this country&#8217;s people, language, food, and culture. Just recently, I was able to complete the EBC (Everest Base Camp) trek with two passes (Cho-la &#038; Renjo) in Nepal where I also got to visit important sites in Kathmandu. I hope to return to this wonderful place in the future and enjoyed the 24 hour Dhal Bat power.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 On a more personal note, \u00a0I can get by on the bagpipes and am married with two children. My wife is also a franglophone and so we always seem to be talking about our next trip to a place we have never visited, be it near or far.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>steven.urquhart@uleth.ca<\/div>\n<div>403-329-2564\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u0392orn in Toronto to Scottish parents (Glasgow and vicinity) who immigrated to Canada in the late 60\u2019s, I grew up in Brantford, ON \u2212 home of Wayne Gretzky and the city in which\u00a0 Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.\u00a0 (http:\/\/www.gretzky.com\/)\u00a0 \u00a0 Several other notable personalities are also associated with this city situated an &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/surquhart\/2021\/04\/19\/1\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Qui suis-je ?  &#8211; franglophone<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":302,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/surquhart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/surquhart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/surquhart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/surquhart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/surquhart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/surquhart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":398,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/surquhart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/surquhart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/surquhart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/surquhart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/surquhart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}