Little Big Things

I didn't expect this when I first started to revive this blog after a years-long hiatus, but this Québec-themed installment of "Beauty in Stillness" is shaping up to be quite a different beast from the earlier version I did about Seoul. Maybe it's because I'm Canadian; maybe it's because, due to circumstances entirely beyond my control, real life has been bringing big issues that I might not otherwise have touched upon into sharp relief ; but the point is that no, this is not just a travelogue anymore. Last time, when my focus was on Vieux-Québec , I decided to take the Little Big Things concept to discuss how the historic sites there could both promote and challenge the concept of "great man history". This time, in Montréal, I want to focus on a different question: what to make of the history of Canada's fur trade? See, where Québec City was the political and military centre for a good chunk of Canada's early colonial history, Montréal was