Thursday Doors – August 25, 2016

Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing it, between Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time), by using the blue link-up button below. 

Église St-Lin-Laurentides, Québec – or When Life Gives You Lemons

Earlier this summer we went on a little doorscursion in the town of St-Lin-Laurentides, northeast of Montréal.

My original intention was to check out a National Historic Site that we’d driven past countless times, always meaning to stop “one day when we had more time.”

The site in question was the childhood/family home of this guy:

Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Canada’s first Francophone Prime Minister was also our longest consecutively-serving one, holding the highest office in the land for over 15 consecutive years from July 1896 until October of 1911.

He is admired by many historians for having been a great orator, in both official languages, as well as for his strong defense of personal rights and liberties, his constant push for greater autonomy from the British monarchy, and his ability to unify the English and French political factions within the country.

Few would argue that he earned his place on our five dollar bill.

Yes, it promised to be a fun visit and I was very much looking forward to being impressed by a wonderful big old Québecois style fieldstone farmhouse with lots of lovely doors.

Now cue the sound of screeching brakes….

Ahem:

Needless to say this modest little brick ‘shack’ with, sadly not a single interesting door, was NOT what I was expecting.

Gloss over the signs on display that recount his modest, humble family upbringing, hard work, perseverance, focus on education, eventual rise to greatness…blah, blah, blah.

Hey Yo! Whaddya mean there’s no fancy doors here?! 😦

Time to shift gears.

So when life gives you lemons, or at least underwhelming doors, you look upwards to find the nearest steeple. Because when you’re hunting for doors, places of worship will rarely let you down 😉

And wouldn’t you know it, not a three minute walk from the old Laurier home sits this beauty built between 1887 and 1890:

As if often the case with these places nowadays, the doors are only open to the public during ‘business hours’ on Sundays or for special events, so sadly we were unable to go inside.

I found this old image on the McCord Museum website that was taken not long after construction was completed in 1890 – it is amazing how little has changed in over 125 years.

Church, St. Lin, QC, about 1890
1885-1895, 19th century. Silver salts on paper mounted on card – Albumen Process 23.3 x 20 cm
Gift of Mr. Stanley G. Triggs
MP-0000.984.12 – © McCord Museum

The only addition being the statues of Jesus and Mary that were added not long after WWI.

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As always I thank you for looking 🙂