Robert Lewis Evans with Majorique Gagné, c. 1917.
Evans Collection, www.tidesoftadoussac.com.
The child in the photograph is Robert Lewis Evans (1911‒1988). He is launching a beautiful model of a Lower St. Lawrence yawl, built by Majorique Gagné.
Lewis Evans’ father employed Majorique to do maintenance work at the family’s summer home and to assist in hunting and fishing trips. As a child, Majorique had been a water-carrier at the summer residence of Lord Dufferin. His wife also worked for the holidayers, as a washerwoman.
Lewis Evans spent every summer of his life in Tadoussac. An English teacher, he loved to write and he turned out several adventure stories. He also eloquently described the history of the Tadoussac summer colony in Tides of Tadoussac: The Golden Age of a St. Lawrence River Resort (1982). His connection to the Rhodes family solidified in 1944 when he married a Rhodes descendant, Betty Morewood