Fire the historical canon! Strike a match, and light the gunpowder of ukulele time travel!
Well done. You have now fired the historical canon. But you must know, it is not an actual canon, with big wheels and a loud BANG. It is a musical historical canon, where different melodies fit on top of each other in a (hopefully) pleasing way, sang by a historical character, who happens to play the uke.
Enter the stage, Samuel de Champlain! The man who named stuff in Québec.
This explorer travelled through Québec about 70 year after its earlier French "discovery" and in 1603, named a beautiful and uncommon pierced rock "The Pierced Isle" ("l'Isle Percée") upon his finding. Listen to Samuel take the beach across from it as his stage, and sing his joy upon glimpsing this fine rock
Moi Samuel, j'ai trouvé cette isle, percé le secret des côtes au fil des aventures et des claques,
"I Samuel I have found this isle, pierced the secret of the coasts along my adventures and hardships,"
Thanks for the melody Samuel.
there is no accurate portrait of Samuel, so all you're getting is a bit of his handwriting.
Samuel de Champlain, born on the coast of France, would be the navigator and cartographer to name and map out a lot of the coast of Québec, including the banks of the river St Laurent. However, his claim to fame in Québec hearts is more linked with him being appointed Vice-Roy of New France (Nouvelle-France, a name he came up with, smart fellow).
Map made by Sam in 1612 which includes lots of drawings, which is nice. As you can see, at the time, the boats used to be really huge in comparison with the size of the land. Click to expand and use it instead of a GPS.
Acting as governor, he pushed many years for the establishment of a French colony from the pierced isle onward. At the end of his life in 1635 he finally started to see his dream materialise. A second birth of the French crown as its people settled across the ocean.
I have found the pierced Isle which shineth, finally my solace, my second birth
I'm not big on titles, but personally, if I were ever to get one, I really hope it's Vice-Roy of New-France. Sounds fantastic. And New-France (or Québec as it's now called) is really quite nice as you can see.
The Gaspésie coast in the morning light, on the way to the pierced rock of Percé
"le territoire des sauvages Mi-kmaqs, c'est la terre promise, Tabarnak!"
"the land of the savages Mi'kmaqs, it's the promised land, [untranslatable]!"
Of course we say that French explorers discovered Canada and Québec. But really, that's a bit of an odd one, because, there were already people there! That always annoyed me at school.
The local "savages", as depicted by Samuel de Champlain. It's the same map, but you noticed that. I zoomed in for your comfort.
These "savages" are the Mi'kmaqs, or the Mi'gmaq as they call themselves. And they were here slightly before my French countrymen. About 10,000 years, when humans crossed over from the other side of the continent, via Siberia. And so they already had their own names for places by 1603, including one for the stage of the canon: Sigsôg, litterally "steep rocks". Who doesn't like a nice obvious simple name?
On the banks of Sigsôg, a ukulele has a deserved little rest.
since you're here,
I hope you enjoyed this post and song,
If you did , you can show your support to Ukulele Road Trips on Patreon with just 1$/month and be a Patron of this unusual joyful adventure along coastlines and hardships.
The nice people at Cloud Music Ukuleles are making this canon-ing adventure #GoingNorth possible, have a click around if you're looking to buy a brand new ukulele
Fire your thoughts and canon-y comments in the section below!
Driving away from the canon's scene. If you look closely to the bit of land in the middle, you can notice a small arch under the isle on the left side, an arch that gives it's name to Samuel's "pierced isle"
