Signing up enhances your TCE experience with the ability to save items to your personal reading list, and access the interactive map.
Create AccountAlasdair (Duart) MacLean. Composer, b Liverpool, NS, 8 Jan 1955; B MUS (Mount Allison) 1982, B MUS (Juilliard) 1985, M MUS (Juilliard) 1986, Diplome d'Honneur de composition (L'Ecole d'Art americaine, Fontainebleau, France) 1986, D MUS (Toronto) 1996.
Charlotte Edith Anderson Monture (often known simply as Edith Monture), Mohawk First World War veteran, registered nurse, (born 10 April 1890 on Six Nations reserve near Brantford, ON; died 3 April 1996 in Ohsweken, ON). Edith was the first Indigenous woman to become a registered nurse in Canada and to gain the right to vote in a Canadian federal election. She was also the first Indigenous woman from Canada to serve in the United States military. Edith broke barriers for Indigenous women in the armed forces and with regards to federal voting rights. A street (Edith Monture Avenue) and park (Edith Monture Park) are named after her in Brantford, Ontario.
Colette (Marie-Rose Élisabeth) Boky (b Giroux). Soprano, b Montreal 4 Jun 1935; premier prix voice (CMM) 1962. In 1953 Jean Deslauriers heard her at an amateur competition and advised her to study voice, which she did 1953-5 at the École Vincent-d'Indy, and later privately with Laurette Bailly.
Gordon Muriel Flowerdew, VC, farmer, rancher, soldier, (born 2 January 1885 in Billingford, Norfolk, England; died 31 March 1918 near Moreuil, France). During the First World War, Lieutenant Flowerdew led one of the last great cavalry charges in history and was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for bravery among troops of the British Empire.
Louise Forestier. Singer, songwriter, actress, b Shawinigan, Que, 10 Aug 1943.
André Lortie, tenor (born 11 May 1930 in Montreal, Quebec). André Lortie handled tragic roles as easily as comic parts. His performances of Beppe in I Pagliacci and Spoletta in Tosca established his reputation in Canada as a singer of character roles.
Luc Beauséjour has maintained an international performance career that has taken him to many countries including France, the United States, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Belgium, and Bermuda.
Black people have lived in Canada since the beginnings of transatlantic settlement. Although historically very few arrived directly from their ancestral homeland in Africa, the term "African Canadian" is used to identify all descendants of Africa regardless of their place of birth. “Black Canadian” is also used as a more general term. The earliest arrivals were enslaved people brought from New England or the West Indies. Between 1763 and 1900, most Black migrants to Canada were fleeing enslavement in the US. (See also Black Enslavement in Canada.)
See also Black History in Canada: 1900–1960 and Black History in Canada: 1960 to Present.
Between 1840 and 1930, nearly a million francophones from Canada emigrated to the United States. (See also Canada and United States.) Most emigrants came from Quebec. There were also Acadians from the Atlantic provinces. These emigrants lived throughout the Northern US, but most settled in New England. The largest cohort worked in the textile industry. The 1880s and 1890s were the crest of several waves of emigration that ended with the Great Depression. Also known as Franco-Americans, about two million French Canadian descendants live in New England today.
"So you see, they do a great deal for us, bring out potential qualities that may have been deeply hidden: tenderness, love and understanding"
Diane Tell (b Fortin). Singer, songwriter, guitarist, b Quebec City, to a Canadian father and US mother, 24 Dec 1957. Her childhood was spent between Paris, Montreal and Val-d'Or, Que. She studied violin and classical guitar at the CMM, and jazz guitar at Saint-Laurent College.
Edith Butler, singer-songwriter (b at Paquetville, near Caraquet, NB 27 July 1942). Through her stormy songs and her expressive warmth, Edith Butler helps spread Acadian culture. She has a master's degree in literature and in traditional ethnography from Laval University (1966-69).
Brébeuf, an accomplished linguist, supervised the preparation of a Huron grammar and dictionary. In 1640, following a devastating smallpox epidemic, the Huron attacked him and his companion and damaged their mission.
Donald Deschênes. Folklorist, b St-Octave-de-l'Avenir, Gaspésie, Que, 23 Jun 1952; BA (Laval) 1976, M MUS ethnomusicology (Laval) 1988. In addition to musicological research, he has performed folk music and his own compositions beginning in 1975.
Jules Bruyère. Baritone, b Murray Bay, near Quebec City, 18 Apr 1928. After studying voice 1946-7 with Louis Gravel in Quebec City he went to Montreal to work 1947-50 with Albert Cornellier. He also studied with Martial Singher in the summer of 1948 in Aspen, Col, and 1948-51 at the CMM.
Jan Cherniavsky. Pianist, b Uman, Ukraine, 25 Jun 1892, naturalized Canadian 1922, d Vancouver 8 Jan 1989.
Karen Marie Connelly, poet, novelist (b at Calgary, Alta 12 Mar 1969). Karen Connelly grew up in Calgary. In 1986, at the age of 17, she won a Rotary Scholarship that allowed her to spend a year living in a village in northern Thailand.
The Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools is a Catholic religious order founded by Jean-Baptiste de La Salle in France in 1680. In Canada, members are generally referred to as Christian Brothers or De La Salle Brothers. They are not to be confused with the Congregation of Christian Brothers who were founded by Edmund Rice in Ireland in 1802 and whose members in Canada were also called Christian Brothers or Irish Christian Brothers. The Brothers of the Christian Schools were a major force in Catholic education in Canada, especially in Quebec. They first arrived in Montreal in 1837, then experienced numeric growth, geographic expansion and a solid reputation over the next 125 years. The Brothers underwent a significant exodus and decline in vocations with the dramatic religious and social changes spawned by the Second Vatican Council and the Quiet Revolution.
