French on the Fraser, and a festival, too

COQUITLAM, B.C. — You have to look long and hard to get a French fix in British Columbia, but here in suburban Vancouver, along Brunette Avenue, in a historic neighborhood called Maillardville, French-Canadian culture stands strong.

Which is not to say that visitors who make the half-hour journey either from downtown Vancouver or the U.S.-Canada border will find themselves immersed in a setting of narrow lanes, sidewalk bistros and chic clothing stores, à la old Montreal. There isn't a single patisserie to be found here, either.

But with the largest native French-speaking community on Canada's West Coast — established a century ago during the nearby Fraser River's lumber-mill heyday — Maillardville does offer an interesting foray into a world where people often say "bon jour" rather than "hello" and kiss on the cheeks to greet acquaintances.

Most outsiders visit Maillardville (pronounced "may-ard-VIL"), if not for the nearby Ikea store, then for the annual Festival du Bois, a music, food and French-Canadian heritage celebration that draws more than 15,000 people. This year's festival takes place Saturday and Sunday. It's a colorful time to visit; a community awareness campaign encourages locals to "Flaunt Your Frenchness" for visitors in the days leading up to the event.

Tracing French influence

French flair in Maillardville

Where

The historically French-speaking Maillardville district is located in Coquitlam, B.C., about a half-hour drive from the U.S. border or downtown Vancouver. The least complicated route is to take Highway 1 (aka Trans-Canada Highway) from Vancouver east to Coquitlam and get off at Exit 40B. Follow Brunette Avenue east to Marmont Street.

Attractions

The Mackin Heritage Home and Toy Museum is on Carré Héritage Square, 1116 Brunette Ave., www.mackinhouse.citysoup.ca, 604-516-6151. It is open Tuesday-Saturday, 1-4 p.m. Admission is by donation.

Next door in another historic mansion is the cultural and educational center Place des Arts, www.placedesarts.ca, which hosts displays of art in its first-floor lobby. The center is open Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-10 p.m., Friday 9 a.m.-9 p.m., Saturday 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. and Sunday 1-4:30 p.m.

Drop in at the Société Maillardville-Uni's community center for brochures about the neighborhood and information about upcoming events, 1200 Cartier Ave., 604-936-0039, www.maillardville.com.

Restaurants

There are no real French cafes in Maillardville, but Elatté Café, 1001 Brunette Ave., is a good spot for coffee, made-to-order sandwiches and other light fare. It's open 8 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturday.

More information

The Web sites www.placedesarts.ca and www.mackinhouse.citysoup.ca have a downloadable walking-tour map of the neighborhood.

Some of the festival's musical acts, including "Galant, tu perds ton temps" (roughly, "Fella, you're wasting your time") evoke the folksy, self-deprecating spirit of the old world, in this case Québec, and to some extent Ontario. Many of today's Francophone residents here trace their families back to the Quebecois laborers recruited at the turn of the last century to man the massive Fraser Mills, reputed to be the largest lumber operation in the then-British Empire. A whole village sprang up above the shores of the river with churches, schools, shops, hotels, social halls and French street names.

The migrants were hardy souls. They worked 12-hour days seven days a week, ate staples like pea soup and meat pie and maintained a sense of pride in a larger Anglo society that didn't always appreciate their French roots.

I got a taste of days gone by, and of plans inspired by the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics to restore Maillardville to a bona-fide French Quarter with improved business and cultural offerings, when I met festival director Johanne Dumas for a tour of the neighborhood.

First, we stepped into the basement of the Société Maillardville-Uni's community center, located on Laval Square at Cartier Avenue, one of the few Quebec-style squares in British Columbia, she said. That's where Les Jammers, a musical group made up mostly of seniors who hold jam sessions Wednesday mornings, were wrapping up a jaunty folk tune that sounded similar to bluegrass, though French-Canadian and Irish songs make up most of their repertoire.

Much of the French-Canadian culture of the neighborhood is passed down these days by older residents, be they musicians or the nice ladies in the kitchen at Notre Dame de Lourdes parish, the 1937, wooden-spired church that dominates Laval Square. The elderly volunteer caterers were in the middle of a marathon pie-making spree, in preparation for the festival, when we visited. The head of this crew, Gilberte Knapp, opened two ovens to let the heady aroma of several baking meat pies (pork, beef, mashed potatoes and spices inside a homemade pie crust) waft through the kitchen. They'll make 300 to sell at the festival.

Then Knapp showed me one of the group's other French-Canadian specialties — sugar pies. Stupidly, I asked what was in the caramel-scented treat.

"Sugar, water, butter, cream!" Knapp said, humoring me. "We'll make just as many of these."

The festival will also feature ragout (meatballs in gravy), pea soup and the ever-popular poutine, which is French fries topped with cheese curds and sauce.

French and English

Back outside, Dumas, a Montreal native, pointed to one of 20 bilingual placards posted at historic sites in the district, which reminds visitors that Canada is a nation with two official languages, English and French. Here in Maillardville, about 13,000 people speak French. Some neighborhood locals speak English with a thick Gallic accent that seems oddly, though charmingly, out of place so far out west.

But the fact is, the French-Canadians who've made Maillardville home do feel a sense of place, a genuine connection, to this little outpost on the Fraser River, even if the mill, its rows of worker housing and original storefronts have been replaced by suburban sprawl.

That link to the past became immediately clear when Dumas and I met up with 86-year-old Jeannette Fréchette, who volunteers at the Mackin Heritage Home and Toy Museum, located in a 1909 mansion on pretty Carré Héritage Square.

The two swapped pleasantries in French before Fréchette admitted a bit of self-consciousness about her English-speaking skills. "My parents never spoke English at home," she told me, while describing her life "down East" in a town near Montreal before moving here 60 years ago to work. "They couldn't even help me with my homework."

"There were fewer people here then, but they were all French," she said. "Half worked at the Fraser Mills and half worked at Pacific Veneers."

Fréchette can tell a story about or describe the exact use of every object she showed me in this three-story maison, whose rooms have been tricked out with furniture, dishware and clothed mannequins to reflect merchant-class life in the sawmill's boom period. She pointed to an old bar of soap in the kitchen and quizzed me on it: "Now, at the end of the week, we'd have all these scraps of soap left over. I bet you don't know what we did with them, do you?"

I didn't know.

"On Saturday's we'd melt them into liquid and — shampoo for our hair!" she said.

Fréchette showed me century-old children's and women's dresses that were donated by her relatives, a 102-year-old wool blanket handmade by her grandmother and antique metal toys from the museum's amazing toy collection.

We stopped in a hallway and Fréchette pointed out a photo from 1950 showing district residents flanking a traveling statue of Our Lady of the Cape.

"That's me," she said, placing an index finger on a young woman in a middle row. "There's my mother and there's my father," she said, moving her finger across the image.

"Ma petite Jeannette," Dumas said adoringly. "To maintain a Francophone community on the other side of the Rockies like that, it's an accomplishment in itself."

"This is not a village" anymore, Dumas explained. "But we have maintained a village attitude."

Tyrone Beason: 206-464-2251 or tbeason@seattletimes.com