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Quebec City: 400 Years of History
Climbing Wolfe's Cove
Broadcast Date: Sept. 13, 1959
By 1759, Quebec City was a town of 8,000 and the capital of France's North American empire. The Seven Years' War between France and England had crossed the ocean the year before, and the two nations were battling for control of Quebec. From their boats massed in the St. Lawrence, the English forces scaled the cliffs at L'Anse aux Foulons to face their French opponents in the pivotal Battle of the Plains of Abraham.
Two hundred years later, CBC Radio commemorated the pivotal battle in a 1959 special broadcast. In this clip, lifelong Quebecer Louis Chasse attempts to climb up the same route taken by the English under Major-General James Wolfe on Sept. 13, 1759. Though their numbers roughly equalled the French forces under Lieutenant-General the Marquis de Montcalm – 4,500 a side – the English won the battle and the continent. Both Wolfe and Montcalm, however, lost their lives in the battle.
Climbing Wolfe's Cove
• Historians note that despite the equal number of combatants, the two sides in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham were not equally matched. The British forces were mostly professionals, while the French were mainly militiamen called up from the local population.• After the battle, L'Anse aux Foulons became known as Wolfe's Cove. It still went by that name 180 years later, when the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth landed there for the 1939 Royal Tour.
Climbing Wolfe's Cove
Medium: Radio
Program: CBC Radio Special
Broadcast Date: Sept. 13, 1959
Guest(s): Louis Chassé
Host: J. Frank Willis
Duration: 3:09
Photo: Library and Archives Canada; PA-149190
Last updated:
July 13, 2009
Climbing Wolfe's Cove.
The CBC Digital Archives Website.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Last updated: July 13, 2009.
[Page consulted on Feb. 13, 2012.]