A Comforting Encounter with Roch Carrier

In 1954, my family moved across the river from Hull to Ottawa. We left behind a modest suburban home in Wrightville in favour of a far larger rural farm house near Hog’s Back. The property we rented was owned by the National Capital Commission. It was a hundred acres in size, came complete with a barn and other out-buildings, and boasted an apple orchard and fields planted with asparagus and rhubarb. It was wonderful. My two younger brothers and I were enrolled in the Catholic School Board’s Ecole St.Thomas d’Aquin on Bank Street We travelled to and fro twice a day on an Ottawa Transportation Commission bus. Space in the school was divided between Francophone and Anglophone students in roughly equal numbers. About half of the students lived, like ourselves, in Ottawa’s then rural south, many of them on dairy farms. The other students lived close by the school in Alta Vista in shiny new Campeaubuilt houses. While my mother and father were bilingual, my siblings and I did not know how to speak or read in English at the time of our move. That was about to change rapidly as we began to mingle with our peers in the neighbourhood and at school.

Every Saturday, my parents visited their parents in Hull. Often, before continuing on their way to Hull with my younger brothers Marc and Bruno. They would drop off my brother Philippe and me at Ottawa’s children’s library. This was not the Ottawa Public Library’s (OPL) main branch on Metcalfe Street. That was an imposing stone building with wide, steep stairs leading up to heavy doors topped by a breathtaking stained glass window at the entrance. The children’s library was far more humble, an older, two-story house on Laurier Avenue. It looked much like our farm house. Philippe and I felt very comfortable there. Our Saturday arrivals coincided with that of many other children, who gathered to have a librarian read a story to them. I vividly remember listening to my first story, a book entitled The Five Chinese Brothers, by Claire Hutchet-Bishop. The illustrations were in black and white and the story was all in English, of which I did not think I understood a single word! Still, both my brother and I caught the gist of the tale. After the reading, I was successful in borrowing the same book using my newly-issued library card.

The experience was quite a novelty for Philippe and me, as I do not believe that Hull had a public library at the time; at least one we had visited. This library in Ottawa was the first we had ever been in. We were able to borrow up to three books each. There were certainly few age appropriate French-language books available and, I expect, fewer still that might have been written by French-Canadian authors. So our selections leaned heavily towards English language books, of which there was a much larger selection, many with colourful, attractive covers. When we arrived home, my mother would translate the books into French for us, just as she read aloud her French translation, earlier on Saturday morning, of the text of the coloured comics section tucked into the fat weekend edition of the Ottawa Journal.

That children’s library downtown was later demolished, at which point we discovered the attractions of the OPL’S Sunnyside Branch on Saturday, and of its neighbour on Bank Street, the Mayfair Theatre. Here, a Saturday matinée offered up two feature films, a serial episode, previews, a cartoon and a news clip - all for 20 cents! It was great if your preferences included musicals and cowboys movies. Initially, my enjoyment of a Mayfair matinée was somewhat diminished by my minimal understanding of the English language and the fact that I had myopia. Over time, of course, my siblings and I learned to read, speak and understand English. More slowly perhaps, French-Canadian children’s books made their way into our school rooms and home environment.

Following a wonderful, happy career teaching classes of young children in French immersion programs, I set out to enjoy an equally fulfilling and busy retirement. One of my early volunteer jobs was as an usher at Nepean’s Centrepointe (now Meridian) Theatre. One afternoon, I volunteered as usher when the then-Librarian of Canada’s National Library, Roch Carrier, came to visit the theatre. M. Carrier is the author of the much-loved book The Hockey Sweater. Hundreds of children, mostly wearing the sweaters of NHL teams or of those they played on locally, came to listen as M. Carrier read his book. Many asked him to autograph their copies of the book brought with them from home. Following the reading, I had the good fortune of being able to chat with M.Carrier. I told him that I was a Francophone and mentioned, that growing up in our household, we had access to few, if any, French-Canadian children’s books. I told him that, in stark contrast, my husband and his siblings had read to them, or read themselves, several books by English-Canadian authors, such as Anne of Green Gables and Who Has Seen the Wind, complemented by other children’s books from Great Britain, the United States and elsewhere. I admitted that I was ashamed by the very limited access I had as a child to the enrichment of children’s literature in my first language, written by French Canadians. M. Carrier replied that he, too, had very few French-Canadian books in his household when growing up in Sainte Justine, Quebec. His family was then recovering from the Great Depression and books and libraries were neither a priority in his household nor in the province where he grew up. However, he said, he overcame this deficit as an adult.

Ever since our meeting, I take happiness and comfort from the thought that, despite having limited access as a youngster to French-Canadian children’s literature, M. Carrier was able to author one of the most beloved children’s books yet written by a Canadian Francophone, and went on from that accomplishment to be appointed Librarian of Canada’s National Library on Wellington Street, the person in charge of curating and caring for all of the books printed in Canada and housed in that building.