Culture pour tous

LITERARY TOUR OF AHUNTSIC-CARTIERVILLE:
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Since February 2009, the citizens of the Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough can go on an online literary tour…— http://residence.bibliomontreal.com/circuit.html — Here, more than forty places are associated with texts by borough authors and citizens who responded to the call made by Carole David, a writer in residence at the Ahuntsic library, from September 2008 to February 2009.

In September 2008, the poet, novelist and short story writer Carole David took up residence in the Ahuntsic library as part of the pilot project Écrivain(e) en résidence set up by the Conseil des arts de Montréal (CAM) in collaboration with the Ahuntsic‑Cartierville borough and the Union des écrivaines et des écrivains québécois (UNEQ).

The Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough: stretches of shoreline
For those who do not know it, Ahuntsic-Cartierville is situated in the northern centre of the island of Montreal. To the east it is demarcated by the boulevard St‑Michel and to the west by highway 13. It has nearly fifteen kilometres of shoreline, six bridges and crossing points towards Laval, several nature parks, the Fleury, Sauvé, Henri‑Bourassa streets, the boulevard Gouin and the beautiful riverside houses, the former Côte-de-la-Misère, the Vieux-Bordeaux where the hockey player Maurice Richard was born, the Abord-à-Plouffe bridge, the Île aux Fesses, the legendary Belmont Park and its amusement rides, the old de la Visitation mill, two prisons, two old colleges…

Since Samuel de Champlain, several authors have evoked these places in their writings, notably Jacques Ferron, Élise Turcotte, Claude Jasmin and Lise Bissonnette, and this is the heritage that Carole David sought to emphasize during her residency. Originally from the neighbourhood, herself, she is interested in its history as much as in its many little stories—those of the people who built Ahuntsic, who grew up and live there—and this is why she proposed to create a literary tour that includes not only texts by seasoned authors but also stories and anecdotes proposed by ordinary people who live there.

Et si on racontait Ahuntsic-Cartierville (Let’s tell the story of Ahuntsic-Cartierville)
On the Internet one begins the tour by way of a map of the borough that has been divided into four districts: Bordeaux-Cartierville, Ahuntsic, Sault-au-Récollet and Saint-Sulpice. Close to forty places are twinned with texts and sometimes archival photographs provided by Cité Historia, an organization dedicated to the valorization of the Sault-au-Récollet historical site in Île-de-la-Visitation nature park. The narratives recount many stories, memories of neighbourhood life, of childhood and school. One recalls an outing to the cinema, the travelling carnival rides of the rue Fleury, some local curiosities... The City of Montreal contributed to the construction of the site through the services of one of its employees, Diane Chénier, “who put far more into the project than was asked of her,” Carole David noted, while also expressing her thanks to the library staff and its director Lucie Bernier.

The creation of this literary circuit is the tangible result of the residency. According to the program conditions the writer received a $15,000 grant for six months and had to make herself available for ten hours a week to exchange with the community and lead reading workshops. The writer was also given a personal workspace in the library so she could dedicate time to her own work.

Literary club and informal encounters
The community activities were first organized around highlighting texts by known authors who directly evoke the borough. The public was invited to a reading session during which Carole David presented books and authors, all the while encouraging citizens to submit their own stories to the contest set up for the occasion: Et si on racontait Ahuntsic‑Cartierville.

Actually all the users of the City of Montreal libraries were invited to write about a place in Ahuntsic‑Cartierville that they cherish in their memories, and the texts Carole David chose were to enrich the literary tour in progress.

As the months passed the relationship between the writer and the library users became more personal. After the initial formal encounters, people approached her to discuss, share this or that recollection, show a text in progress and, of course, talk about literature and local heritage. Through her regular presence at the library, the writer became a special resident with who to converse and exchange, but she also became a confidante who one could open up to.

This transmission and communication work is something she knows well. A professor at the Cégep du Vieux-Montréal since 1980, Carole David states that her work requires more and more mediation know-how to share culture, its places and achievements, with a public that is increasingly diversified and not originally from Montreal. However, at the library the public is older, at times fragile and sensitive, and the contact is direct and personal. There were a majority of male participants in the reading workshops, but more women participated in the contest. Of the almost fifty texts submitted, twenty two are part of the literary tour. For all activities included the age varied between 30 and 82, which is a good indicator of the diversity of the participants.

An ongoing story and a tour to be continued
Saturday the 14^th of February was the date of the her residency’s closing event at the Ahuntsic library. For this occasion, Carole David read an excerpt of her work in progress and presented the literary tour, which is an important contribution to the borough, particularly because of its potential for ongoing development. Two texts by citizens were also read in public, Denis Duquette’s text by Carol David and the second by its author, Laurence Vergniol. Moreover, to reward them for their efforts the Maison de l'éducation, a local bookstore, gave out participation prizes in the form of gift certificates.

The success of this first residency experience convinced the Conseil des arts de Montréal to support the work of other writers in 2009. The Plateau-Mont-Royal library will welcome Carole Tremblay for a youth project, and Martin Thibault at the Parc-Extension library with an intercultural project.