Graduate Seminar in Brontë Disseminations

It is too late for me, at any rate, but perhaps it will be useful to those like myself who are desperately seeking study of the Brontës. The University of Dalhousie in Halifax, Nova Scotia are running a graduate seminar this year (2005-2006) called Brontë Disseminations. If only I did not have to stay here this last year... this would have suited me exactly! But it was not to be. Still, it looks like this university's English department has more Brontë study than anywhere else in Canada. Be sure that I will be applying there shortly!

There is so little on the Brontë front in Canada that I really must leave that there. However, I admit that it seems appropriate to me that it is Halifax that seems to be the hub of Brontë studies. I believe in coincidence. I will take the liberty of telling this digressive story because it illustrates the very real aspect of the coincidence quite nicely and in a vaguely Janian manner, coincidences being one of the major 'flaws' of the text, and this story being all about finding cousins in incredible circumstances.

Several years ago, I began some serious research into my family history. I traced one branch back to Nova Scotia, where they were settled by the British government in the 1750s. They arrived first in Halifax, then went on to found the city of Lunenburg nearby. They are by no means numerous or famous, just one of many old families. And so, I went to Nova Scotia in order to gain more information and to see some of the places connected with them. I had never set foot in the province before, and knew no one but my mother demanded that I find actual relatives and not only graves and names on paper.

No problem, right? One week, in a strange land? Of course I can find relatives. I ignored the imperative and went on with my studies. At the provincial archives, on the first visit, I met someone in the elevator. She later helped me figure out their catalogues. When she heard that the name I was researching was Boutilier she told me that a book was just published on local families, including mine and moreover that the book signing was the following day, and she gave me directions to someone's house.

So, we turned off the highway and up a long gravel road running into dense forest. We didn't get far before a couple leaped out of the forest and stopped our car. "Oh, we thought you were someone else" they said. It was the place, though. We walked over but no one came to the door. "Hello!" I shouted. A voice from the other end of the house told us to come in. I walked into the livingroom and saw an elderly woman sitting on a sofa, drinking tea- a guest for the book signing. She looked up and smiled at me. "Hello," I said. "I'm a Boutilier." "So am I." She said. She proved it in the course of our talk by referring to my great great great grandparents Serena Charlotte and William as 'Aunt 'Rena and uncle Billy'.

To make a longer story shorter, we travelled on to Lunenburg where I saw the church where my ancestors were married in 1760 (my friends tease me because it is called St.John's...). When I saw it, the most recent renovations were from the 1850s I believe. Within two months it was burned to the ground by arsonists.

In Halifax itself, there are two streets and a suburbed named after my family. And now, the university there is only one with a vibrant study of the Brontës! I suppose I should have known. ;)