Our history class took a trip to the Chateau Ramezay, the previous residence of one of Canada’s first governor’s in 1705, turned museum. But the trip to the Chateau began well before we set foot on the premises.
Our class boarded the Metro towards downtown Montreal. We took in the sight of the old grey stone buildings of old Montreal, sanded smooth by years of weathering and age. We saw an oddly structured Holiday Inn that embraced the atmosphere of its Chinatown location and proudly highlighted various hallmarks of Chinese architecture. We stopped and snapped photos of the majestic City Hall, from which we learned a French president delivered a speech of separation to the Montrealers, projecting himself from an austere balcony that hung under a massive clock.
Just across the street was the Chateau Ramezay, flying the old flag of the thirteen colonies from when the American colonies invaded Montreal during the American Revolution. The bright red shutters stood out in the white snow and welcomed visitors.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this unassuming museum, but there was a wealth of artifacts inside, from before Canada was colonized, all the way through to the time period of the first cars. We saw the early history of Canadian Amerindians, with their early snow shoes and miniature replicas of longhouses and men in canoes. We even encountered a relative of Chancey the Beaver’s, an allusion to how the rich beaver fur trade shaped so much of Canada’s early history.
There were grand rooms embellished with warm gold and wood furniture and elaborate dangling chandeliers. Along the walls, there were paintings of alliances, landscapes, and regal persons in fancy clothing and powdered wigs. There were even mannequins that modeled the clothing of the time period. The best part was that, in order to mimic the appropriate hairstyles, the mannequins’ sported hair that was fashioned from strips of paper. My personal favorite was a small statuette that depicted the young girl in the wind, armed and prepared to defend her city during the time of invasion.
There was definitely a lot to take in at the Chateau Ramezay and it was a trip to remember.
– Michelle Nguyen, Professional Writing major, Spring 2015