Culture & Heritage, Canada

QLF’s Culture and Heritage Program helps rural communities mobilize projects that use cultural heritage as a tool for community revitalization and economic diversification. These projects actively involve local residents in preserving their unique cultures, personal histories, stories, and traditional skills.

QLF supports the design, development, and installation of heritage exhibits for community museums and interpretation centers; the planning and development of several interpretive trails; and facilitates regional meetings to identify new partnerships and initiatives, particularly between the heritage tourism and youth leadership sectors. QLF staff have supported heritage-themed book projects, organized art and drawing workshops, facilitated mapping projects, and designed award-winning interactive websites.

Heritage Tourism

For communities scattered across the Quebec-Labrador coast, QLF’s culture and heritage initiatives have proven to be a useful catalyst for community revitalization and business development following the government moratorium on the region’s cod fishery.

Currently in northern Quebec, QLF is working in partnership with the Minister of Culture and Communications Quebec, Economic Development Canada, Tourism Quebec, Parks Canada, and local partners to plan and develop several interpretive trails for archeological and historical sites, dating back 9,000 years. QLF is also working with several museums and interpretation centers to develop new programming and build on the current services offered, while also leading a series of workshops, forums, training sessions, and educational tours to raise awareness about the value of local culture, heritage and history.

Conche, on the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, part of the French Shore, the hub for QLF’s Northern Gulf Culture and Heritage Program.

In southern Quebec, Montreal-based QLF staff and partners have recently completed book Image du Patrimoine
and web projects looking at the diverse heritage of Montreal, its architecture, churches, factories, market places, railway stations, public space, and gardens. François Guillet, Coordinator of Culture and Heritage and Montreal Office Manager, and QLF staff are currently writing a publication, The Shores of Montreal: An Historical Perspective of Culture and Conservation that looks at the history of the culture and conservation of Montreal’s shores. Heritage and sports projects are also underway, which seek to illustrate the heritage and history of the Montérégie and Eastern Townships of Quebec through traditional athletics and sporting events.

The Missiquoi Museum in Quebec’s Montérégie. In January and February 2015, the museum hosted an exhibition of drawings created by participants in a series of QLF Culture & Heritage workshops.