A JERSEY house and museum in Gaspé, Quebec, which will trace the history of the Island’s strong links with that area will be opened next summer.

A film about the Islanders who left Jersey to seek their fortune fishing for cod off the Canadian coast will also be released, and a book of stories about them is being put together. The events have been planned to coincide with next year’s 475th anniversary of the voyage of the French explorer Jacques Cartier, who was born in St Malo in 1491. He ‘discovered’ Canada in 1534. Of his 61 crewmen, six had Jersey surnames.

It is also hoped there will be some local events to mark the anniversary. The film, with the working title Across the Pond, is being made by local company Hall TV Ltd and follows the trail of the Le Page family to Canada. It also looks at the many surviving Jersey-built homes and the mass of Jersey-related memorabilia that still survives in the area including furniture, photographs, clothing, paintings and letters.

Pictured: Jerseymen Archie Vardon and Clifford Lucas carrying a hand barrow loaded with cod outside the Alexandre and Le Marquand shop at Point St Peter, Gaspé, in 1899