Chapelle des Cuthbert

The first Protestant church in Quebec, it was erected in 1786 by Lord James Cuthbert. Using the skills of local craftsmen, the extremely simple fieldstone building is barely distinguishable from the houses of the time.



Cuthbert's chapel had a steeple and, strangely enough, the earliest illustration shows it with a cross, a symbol of Presbyterian idolatry. Could he or one of his sons have had it posed?



Against a Scottish backdrop, on a plain watered by the St. Lawrence River, two peoples met, jostled on both sides by political upheaval. The Chapel stands today in the landscape as a symbolic witness of this encounter.