Tag Archives: Samuel de Champlain

The Champlain bridge

In case you missed it, last Thursday’s Gazette included a four-page insert called “Champlain’s Gazette”, which showed what a fictional newspaper might look like back then (mind you, it wouldn’t have had pictures or process colour, nor would the text have lined up perfectly, but you gotta take some creative license).

Editor-in-chief Andrew Phillips explains the history of the project in his blog. He also links to the associated website, as well as a page with teaching materials for educators who want to make this part of their classrooms.

Is poutine offensive?

The Canadian embassy in Washington is apologizing to Impératif français, among others, after it used a photoshopped picture of Samuel de Champlain holding a poutine on invites (now scrubbed of the poutine offensiveness) to Canada Day celebrations. IF reacted to the image with their usual measured response.

Perhaps I missed something in Political Correctness 101, but what’s so offensive about this again? Is it some stereotype that we eat poutine? Is it because the image of Champlain was sullied in some way?

Frankly, I think the fact that Canadian Press had to explain what poutine was is offensive to me.