Photo: Cassandra Kerwin

The 2020 Circuit Québécois de Canot à Glace racing season was well and truly launched last week, starting with a press conference held on a cold and windy Jan. 15 at the Auberge Saint-Antoine.

This year, nearly 400 ice canoers will participate in the seven races scheduled from Jan. 18 to March 7 at different points along the ice-covered St. Lawrence River.

The new year got off to a violent, tragic and profoundly frightening start with the shooting down of Ukrainian Flight 752 shortly after takeoff from Tehran, killing all 176 people aboard. Among those who died were 57 Canadians.

Photo: Archives of the Soeurs du Bon-Pasteur and encyclobec.ca

January 20, 1820 – The Quebec Gazette
Quebec Harmonic Society

Photo: Lise Lafond

The 45th edition of the Semaine de l’Agriculture, de l’Alimentation et de la Consommation (SAAC) took place at ExpoCité from Jan. 17 to 19. This very interesting weekend is an eagerly anticipated occasion where agriculture students from Université Laval share their passion with the public.

Photo: Ruby Pratka

In 2015, Germany found itself at the centre of a storm unprecedented in recent history, when tens of thousands of refugees from the Middle East, mostly from war-ravaged Syria, streamed into the country. Chancellor Angela Merkel famously told Germany and the world, “Wir schaffen das!” (We can do this!) For Merkel, integrating the refugees was a “national duty.”

The basketball teams of Quebec High School and St. Patrick’s High School got off to a busy start as the 2019-20 season resumed in the Québec-Chaudière-Appalaches region of the RSEQ (Réseau du Sport Étudiant du Québec). Sixteen games were played by the two schools, with more games to come in the next few weeks.

QHS hoops

Photo: Jeffery Hale Community Partners

Come and meet Jeffery Hale and his fellow cast members at an exciting fundraising evening on Jan. 29 featuring the launch of The Philanthropist: the Life and Legacy of Jeffery Hale, a media-enhanced historical booklet. It is an engaging, interactive written adaptation of the multimedia theatre presentation, The Philanthropist.

Photo: Rouge et Or

The Laval Rouge et Or men’s basketball team finally got their first victory of the season on Jan. 16, when they surprised the Bishop’s University Gaiters in Lennoxville, 87-81. The win ended a seven-game losing streak for the Rouge et Or. It was also the first victory for the team’s new head coach, Nathan Grant.

Photo: Peter Black

It was a rude awakening last weekend for those lulled into believing this year’s winter weather has been rather tame.

Trudeau walked into a cafeteria on Parliament Hill, only half full at noon with the House not yet in session. He had recently suffered a major setback in his political career, and some would say, in his storied life. He looked like a changed man. People looked up hesitantly from their lunches and greeted him with discreet nods, taking note of the most obvious change: Trudeau had grown a beard.

Photo: Wikipedia Commons - Public Domain

This road is named after the foulon (fulling mill) where wool was treated to produce a heavy homespun cloth.

Photo: Danielle Burns

Susa Bernard comes from an athletic background: her father was a professional hockey player and she was classically trained in ballet. Five years ago she discovered yoga and loves it for its versatility and ability to tone, stretch and provide mental focus. Bernard recently became a certified yoga instructor and held her first session in September 2019.

Photo: Cassandra Kerwin

It seems our town had been having a “mild” winter thus far, so the Quebec Winter Carnival, along with its mascot Bonhomme Carnaval, asked Mother Nature for snow and ice. And they got tons of both, thanks to the freezing rain and the blizzard that hit the province in a double whammy on Jan. 11 and 12.

Sister Louise Godin (Ursuline Community)
1917-2020

Sister Louise Godin, u.s.o. (Sister Marie-de-Grand-Pouvoir), daughter of the late Hector Godin and the late Amanda Girard, passed away on Jan. 6, 2020 at the Jardins d’Évangéline care home in Beauport, Quebec. She was 102 years of age, and spent 75 years in religious life. She was born in Trois-Rivières.

The high school basketball teams at Quebec High and St. Patrick’s High schools are back on the courts for the second half of the 2019-2020 season.

The St. Pat’s basketball teams played six games last week and the QHS Blazers were back in action against two teams.