Abraham level

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Abraham level

The Abraham Plain ( French Plaines d'Abraham , English Plains of Abraham ) is an important park in the Canadian city ​​of Québec . In 1759 it was the site of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham between French and British troops. The part that has been preserved to this day has been part of the Parc des Champs-de-Bataille since 1908 , which is managed by the National Battlefields Commission and is therefore an urban national park. The Abraham plain is a major tourist attraction and is used for numerous sporting and cultural events.

description

View in winter

The park is approximately 2.4 km long and up to 0.8 km wide, its area is 98 hectares . It extends on the plateau southwest of the Citadel of Québec along the steep slope to the Saint Lawrence River below . The plain is divided by valleys and small forests, and two of the three Martello towers that have been preserved are located here . Delimited by another piece of wood, the Parc du Bois-de-Coulonge and two cemeteries follow in the southwest . On the edge of the park is the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec , the art museum of the province of Québec.

history

French rule

The plain is probably named after the fisherman and river pilot Abraham Martin (1589–1664), who was also called "the Scot" (l'Écossais) . Martin moved to Québec with his wife in 1635 and received twelve acres of land between the lower town and the high plateau of the Colline de Québec from the Compagnie de la Nouvelle France . He received another twenty acres in 1645 from the naval doctor Adrien Du Chesne. Martin let his animals graze in the area between the Rivière Saint-Charles and today's Grande Allée. After his death the property was sold to the Ursulines . Abraham's name lived on. Notarial documents from the 17th and 18th centuries name the Côte d'Abraham , and a map from 1734 even shows the exact location of a street called Rue d'Abraham . Later, the minutes of François-Gaston de Lévis and Louis-Joseph de Montcalm report from the Heights of Abraham , the diaries of British soldiers in turn from the Heights of Abraham or the Plains of Abraham . This name originally meant the entire Colline de Québec, at the beginning of the 19th century the northern part of this high plateau. Due to the expansion of the suburbs, the area designated by it became smaller and at the same time shifted to the southern side, facing the St. Lawrence River.

View in 1784

In the early modern period , the Abraham Plain was a popular destination for naturalists. Louis Hébert , the first French colonist, was a pharmacist and therefore also interested in the local fauna and flora. He sent numerous plant samples to the botanist Jacques Philippe Cornut in Paris , who in 1635 published the work Canadensium Plantarum Historia on this basis . As a result, numerous members of the Académie des sciences dealt with the Abraham level. Particularly noteworthy are Michel Sarrazin and Jean François Gaultier , who were in constant contact with European researchers. In 1749 Gaultier and his Swedish guest Pehr Kalm found 40 new species on the Abraham plain alone. During the French rule, the high plateau was mainly used as pastureland , but also as a recreational area. Some wealthy residents had stately country houses built along the Grande Allée .

On September 13, 1759, during the Seven Years' War , the area was the site of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham . It stood at the end of the two and a half month siege of Québec , during which the French defended themselves against a British invading army. British troops under the command of James Wolfe climbed the slopes to the west and formed on the plain. After almost half an hour, the French troops under Louis-Joseph de Montcalm were defeated, whereupon the siege ring could be closed. Five days later the French garrison surrendered and the British took the city. Although the French won the battle of Sainte-Foy in the immediate vicinity on April 28, 1760 , they were unable to retake Québec and ultimately had to bow to superior forces.

British rule

One of the four Martello towers

Numerous public executions took place from the 18th to the 20th centuries, particularly at Buttes-à-Nepveu, an area which today roughly corresponds to the location of the Hotel Le Concorde . The most famous was that of Marie-Josephte Corriveau , which entered Québec's folklore . A prison was built in 1867, which served the penal system until 1970 and since 1991 has housed part of the collection of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec . The situation at the time on the outskirts meant that the Abraham plain became a magnet for prostitutes and tramps . In the middle of the 19th century there were numerous brothels that were visited by soldiers and sailors. Highwaymen hid in the surrounding woods. It was only through the increased police presence from the beginning of the 20th century that the Abraham plain began to gradually lose its bad reputation.

After the American War of Independence , the British feared a possible military attack from the United States , especially when incidents involving American ships became more frequent during the coalition wars while enforcing the blockade against France. For this reason, four Martello towers were built between 1808 and 1812 on the Abraham plain . However , they were not used during the British-American War from 1812 to 1814. Due to immigration, the population grew rapidly and the suburbs began to expand. The area in front of the city wall between Grande Allée and the steep face down to the St. Lawrence River was in great demand. However, since the army claimed most of this area for itself, especially with the Citadel of Québec completed in 1832, this prevented extensive parceling, at least in this area .

Historic site

Park administration building
View towards the government district

At the end of the 19th century, the residents of Québec wanted to convert the not yet built-up area of ​​the Abraham Plain into a park, following the example of many American and European cities. Public pressure resulted in the federal government buying the area from the Ursulines on September 20, 1901 after lengthy negotiations for $ 80,000 and leasing it to the city for a symbolic amount. For years it was undecided how the area should be designed. After plans to use the plain in 1909 as a venue for celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of the battle failed due to protests from nationalist circles, Mayor Jean-Georges Garneau suggested celebrating the 300th anniversary of the city's foundation in 1908 instead. At the suggestion of Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier , the federal government created the National Battlefield Commission on March 17, 1908. Their task was on the one hand to organize the festivities, on the other hand to protect and maintain the historically significant parts of the Abraham plain on a permanent basis.

As part of the celebrations, the Prince of Wales (later King George V ) opened the Parc des Champs-de-Bataille , which includes the Plains of Abraham and the Parc des Braves , on August 24, 1908 . In 1909 the landscape architect Frederick Todd was commissioned to design the park. His vision was to decorate what already existed and at the same time to bring out the beauty of nature in the historical landscape. The commission approved his plan with only minor modifications. The implementation took a long time: it was not until 1928 that all the required land was owned by the public sector, and Todd's plan was only fully implemented after five decades. A particular disruptive factor was the decision of the Canadian federal government in 1902 to set up a factory for the manufacture of Ross rifles on the Abraham plain . This had happened against the will of the city and was already in opposition to the park plans. Despite protests, the factory opened in 1903. Since the rifles did not prove themselves in World War I , the production facility was shut down from March 1917. It was finally demolished in September 1931 to make way for an underground water reservoir.

Although symbolically designed to bring Anglo-Canadians and French-Canadians closer together, the park is a reminder of the defeat of 1759 and the ensuing British conquest of Québec nationalists. A statue erected in 1913 in honor of General James Wolfe was overturned and destroyed on March 29, 1963 by members of the underground organization Front de liberation du Québec . At a protest rally on May 24, 1965, the base was also smeared with paint. A new statue has stood there since July 1965; the associated memorial plaques were bilingual for the first time (previously they were only in English). They point out that Wolfe died here, but, unlike in the past, refrain from mentioning his victory.

Sports

Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec

Since the second half of the 18th century, the townspeople used the Abraham plain to practice various sports. The first horse race , organized by the soldiers of the garrison, took place in 1767; this was also the first such event in all of Canada. The races were particularly popular in the 19th century and attracted several thousand spectators. In 1847, the responsible Quebec Turf Club relocated the racecourse to L'Ancienne-Lorette . While cricket was hardly widespread, lacrosse games were often played on the plains . In 1874 a 14-hole golf course was built between the citadel and the Martello towers , on which the first golf tournament in North America is said to have been held two years later. It was in operation until 1915.

Ice hockey was first played on the Abraham level in 1878, on an ice rink in front of the parliament building . The Quebec Hockey Club, founded in 1888, transformed into the Quebec Bulldogs professional team in 1908 and used a small stadium on the level. Here it won the Stanley Cup twice . In 1918 the stadium burned down and the team moved to Hamilton two years later . The Quebec Ski Club held ski jumping competitions on a wooden hill behind the Ross rifle factory from 1908 to 1913 . The first cross-country skiers were already making their mark through the park at the end of the 19th century , but there have only been official cross-country trails since the 1986/87 winter season . In 1996 the Commission opened a circuit for inline skating . In September 2010, the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec was held for the first time . The cycle race as part of the UCI WorldTour takes place on a circuit in and around the park.

Events

The Abraham level is often used for events and festivals with high numbers of visitors. This applies in particular to the celebration of the Fête nationale du Québec (every June 24th), the Québec Carnival (late January to mid-February) and the eleven-day Québec Summer Festival, which has been taking place since 1968 . The level was also the main venue for the celebrations for the city's 400th anniversary in 2008. The summer festival provides the framework for numerous open-air rock and pop music concerts with up to a quarter of a million spectators. Artists who have performed here include Paul McCartney , AC / DC , Scorpions , Van Halen , Elton John , Metallica , Bon Jovi , Johnny Hallyday , Celine Dion , Madonna and The Rolling Stones , among others .

literature

  • Jacques Mathieu, Eugen Kedl: Les plaines d'Abraham. Le culte de l'idéal . Septentrion, Sillery 1992, ISBN 2-921114-84-4 .
  • Pierre Anctil: L' internement de Juifs allemands sur les Plaines d'Abraham à l'été 1940 , in Les Juifs de Québec. Quatre cents ans d'histoire. Ed. Anctil, Simon Jacobs. Presses de l ' Université du Québec PUQ, Québec 2015, pp. 165–179

Web links

Commons : Abraham level  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Plaines d'Abraham: histoire d'un toponyme. In: Un lieu chargé d'histoires. National Battlefields Commission, June 17, 2013, accessed November 23, 2015 (French).
  2. ↑ Plaines d'Abraham: Laboratoire du Nouveau Monde. In: Un lieu chargé d'histoires. National Battlefields Commission, June 17, 2013, accessed November 23, 2015 (French).
  3. ^ Habitation et occupation des plaines d'Abraham. In: Un lieu chargé d'histoires. National Battlefields Commission, June 17, 2013, accessed November 23, 2015 (French).
  4. ^ Battle of the Plains of Abraham , article in The Canadian Encyclopedia
  5. ↑ Pavilion Charles-Baillairgé. In: Répertoire du patrimoine culturel du Québec. Ministère de culture et des communications du Québec, 2013, accessed on November 23, 2015 (French).
  6. ^ Prostitution et vagabondage. In: Un parc dans la ville. National Battlefields Commission, June 17, 2013, accessed November 23, 2015 (French).
  7. ^ Les tours Martello. In: Lieu historique national des Fortifications-de-Québec. Parks Canada, May 8, 2015, accessed November 23, 2015 (French).
  8. ↑ a b Un parc dans la ville. National Battlefields Commission, August 3, 2015, accessed November 23, 2015 (French).
  9. ^ Jean-Simon Gagné: De fierté nationale à fusil maudit. (No longer available online.) Le Soleil , June 21, 2014, archived from the original on November 23, 2015 ; Retrieved November 23, 2015 (French). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lapresse.ca
  10. ↑ a b c Un site rassembleur. National Battlefields Commission, August 3, 2015, accessed November 23, 2015 (French).

Coordinates: 46 ° 48 ′ 5.4 ″  N , 71 ° 13 ′ 3 ″  W.