Citizenship at the Bytown Museum

I purposely decided to choose an artefact which, I felt, was not (necessarily) immediately obvious as an example of good citizenship.  I was quite taken with the story of the logger Jos Montferrand, who by all accounts was quite a character, travelling up and down the length of the Ottawa River quite literally leaving his mark - his boot prints on the ceiling! - to attest to his having been somewhere.  So, as you may have concluded - or you can see in the attached photo - I chose the caulk boots which were on display on the second floor of the Bytown Museum.



I immediately identified a minimum of four ways in which Jos Montferrand - and his boots - exemplify the qualities and characteristics of good citizenship.  These being that these early loggers:

• were engaged in an activity which required great skill and indeed teamwork;
• had to work together towards a common goal…  be it the felling of the tree or the getting it down river;
• had to be focused and engaged on the task at hand…  this is after all life or death (should their attention waver!);
• made a positive contribution to the community and the building of the new nation

For those who might think that I am forgetting much of the logging culture of the time (and perhaps even the present) I will admit that clearly there are many ways in which the general behaviour and demeanour - according to either the historical record and/or lore - of these same loggers is at odds with many aspects of “good citizenship.”  But drunken carousing, bar and street fights, and any other manner of “bad” behaviour notwithstanding, these loggers were looked up to by the working classes.  There was a deep and abiding respect for the work they did (of course that they did it for remuneration is yet another hole to poke in my line of reasoning).  I would argue though that good citizenship can be something that one can grow into.  So, given the appropriate opportunities, I have faith that anyone - even a hard living river logger - could be turned into a well rounded and jolly good citizen.

A little more research though finds that Montferrand was cut from a different cloth than many loggers.  Montferrand in particular was a hero to the French working classes.  He was also respected by the non-Francophone community, credited with sound judgment, good management skills and, perhaps most importantly, honesty.  Indeed, from an article in the Ottawa Citizen... In French-speaking Canada he became a strong man who helped the weak, resorting to violence as a last resort, preserving traditional values. Goyer and Hamelin call him “a symbol at a time when a national ideology based on faith and language was about to be formulated.”

For these reasons I celebrate the loggers who helped build this nation, and especially Jos Montferrand.

Enid Wray

P.S. I also found, in my searching, an interesting snippet about Jos Montferrand at the website for The British Hotel, in Gatineau, where you can sleep in "his" room.