From Stadacona to the REM · Drawing 34 of 36
Québec City celebrates 400 years
2008
In 2008, Québec City turns 400: it is the anniversary of the Habitation built in 1608. All year long there are shows and street parties, and families come to sing and dance.
Look together
What is the musician doing on stage?
An idea to try
Draw a small anniversary celebration for a place important to your family. Your child chooses a memory to tell and an activity to share.
For the adult reading along
A little more to discover
In 2008, Québec City celebrated 400 years since its French founding, the Habitation of 1608. That anniversary does not mark the beginning of human or Indigenous presence there. The festivities included hundreds of activities. Among them, Robert Lepage’s Le Moulin à images projected the city’s history onto the grain silos of the Louise Basin. The official report records more than 600,000 spectators over its 79 performances in 2008: that is cumulative attendance, not necessarily that many different people.
The scene invents a small neighbourhood party with a musician and a family; it reproduces no official show. With your child, tell apart the old event and the party held long afterwards to remember it. An anniversary looks at the past from the present, and lets us ask which stories we choose to tell together.
Sources and context (4)
These links lead to other websites. Explore them with an adult. Source titles appear in their original language; some linked pages are in French.
- Ville de Québec - Les fêtes du 400e anniversaire
- Ville de Québec - Bilan officiel des célébrations du 400e, chapitre 6
- Répertoire du patrimoine culturel du Québec — Site de l'Habitation de Champlain
- Ville de Québec — Bilan du 400e anniversaire, chapitre 10
Source review: 2026-09-15. Illustrations simplify places and scenes; they are not historical documents.