We emigrated to Quebec from England when I was 4 months old and landed in Valcartier, a tiny French Canadian village just outside Quebec City. We only lived there a couple of years, and I have no conscious memories, but my babysitter was Quebecois so I got two mother tongues: English and French, though schooled in English only.
The next village was Portneuf, which was closer to Montreal and we lived there till I was 5. Again, I haven’t a lot of memories, but things stick in my mind, like the long toboggan run Dad made behind our house, and sliding down full speed ahead, laying flat on my belly, or swimming in the Cupezes dug out swimming hole, hanging out with Glen; and when we moved away – at age 5 – kissing him good-bye in a tent pitched in his back garden (my first kiss), my fifth birthday party and sitting proudly at the head of the table which Mother had decorated with crêpe paper streamers, and all my little friends seated round the table. Where are they now? I have no idea, though Mother often speaks about friends she made during the years we lived in Quebec and some have also retired to the west coast.
Heraldic cross — The heraldic cross is emblematic of the Christian motives and principles which governed the founders of the city.
National emblems — The field is quartered to contain four floral designs each of which represents the ethnic origin of the Montréal population in the 19th century.
This vector image was created with Inkscape. Flag of Montreal.svg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We left Quebec when I was 5 and I returned years later to live in Montreal for a year in 1989 and again from 1997-2002.
I suppose, although born in Yorkshire, England, Quebec is my first home. When I was there in the late 1990’s I met a PQ politician at a sports centre where I trained. When she heard I’d spent my first five years in Quebec, she said: “You are one of us then, vous êtes Québécois.”
Oui, mais je suis Canadienne! …and British.
How many nationalities do you have?
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Alison Amazed 
Where in Yorkshire were you born?? (says she nosily)
Why do you want to know?Are you working for the feds? 🙂 Bradford.
Nope. As above just nosy and born about ten miles away.
Ahh, Yorkshire lass! 🙂
I have only one nationality and it is fairly vanilla. That makes me sad sometimes.
So what is your vanilla nationality? Why do you think that’s sad`?
I’m a white kid from the suburbs in the U.S. with no real ethnic or cultural family traditions. I think it’s sad because it’s all so boring.
Oh but you do have cultural family traditions! They are WASP American – Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas, football and baseball! Think about the times when your family gathers together and what you do – those are your cultural traditions – if you had to live without them how would you feel?