My grandfather took the white stone of its mine for milk, for honey, for gold. It wasn’t exactly his look. He had obtained, at most, the right to dig the earth with his teeth in the middle of the woods. In his hands, he held what is still easily obtained: a mining claim. In doing so, the government had authorized him to work day and night. Until burying yourself alive.
Finding yellow gold is a dream. His was a white dream. It was fake diamonds. Simple quartz. Even though he had continued to dig all his life, the vein he had spotted was too poor to make him rich.
From this hard, translucent stone comes the expression “as fake as Canadian diamonds.” Jacques Cartier believed himself blessed by God after getting his hands on quartz. This left us with the name of a place: Cape Diamant. This is where Quebec still looks out into the waters of the St. Lawrence, considering itself a jewel in the crown.
My grandfather talked about the mine. His face. He spoke about it with sunshine in his eyes. His own solar system had been set up around this open hole which had nevertheless collapsed on him before filling with water. He had lost his shirt, after having devoted his time, his blood, his children, his little money.
However, even once he got out of this hole of misfortune, he continued to dig it with his mouth, his tongue, his teeth. Speaking of this mine, he shoveled clouds as much as he could. He swallowed the air in long gulps before finally resolving, faced with the overwhelming facts, to spit out on the ground the gnawed bones of his old, frustrated dreams of a treasure seeker.
Silicon, which we manage to extract from quartz mines, is also the ore which interested an improbable trio of Chinese investors spotted last summer on the North Shore, in the small village of Baie-Johan-Beetz. This delegation’s talks with local authorities were brief. The duty told you about it in recent days.
Chinese people, attached to a powerful mining company, landed there. They knocked on the door of this municipality which has at most a hundred citizens. Kind, affable, they had brought some gifts. They basically said this: in exchange for our good behavior, could you be so kind as to show us the mine located next door, while explaining to us how we can buy it without delay and get everything we can out of it. be it to export it?
These Chinese, very polite, were still shown the door. Which will probably not discourage them from knocking on other doors, here or elsewhere.
In fact, these Chinese emissaries who went to the village of Baie-Johan-Beetz were doing a bit of the same thing as Johan Beetz himself…
Born in Belgium in 1874, this son of a rich aristocratic family wears a turned-up mustache which suits his prim appearance. He grew up in a castle. His father-in-law, a Briton, was the former aide-de-camp of the future King Edward VII.
Johan Beetz travels through Morocco, Algeria and, above all, the Congo. The Belgian Congo was a large piece of cake cut out of Africa to be eaten. This kingdom, personal possession of King Leopold II, is approximately eighty times the size of Belgium.
In Quebec, Beetz set foot in Piashti-Baie, an Innu territory located downstream from Havre-Saint-Pierre. The penniless locals call the place Piastre Baie. And Johan Beetz is going to make some piastres.
Beetz bought the assets of one of his compatriots there. On the banks of the river, he built his house. The locals call it “the castle”. After taking stock of local resources while being strong in his capital, Beetz decided to start breeding silver foxes. He’s going to skin them in series. The skins are sold at a high price. Fur, at that time in Canada, was gold and diamonds.
King Albert Ier is delighted to see one of his subjects prosper happily in this way. The two men know each other. They played together as children. The good king therefore crowned Beetz knight of the Order of Leopold II.
The Quebec state will come to buy from Beetz his imposing collection of stuffed animals. Then, his house will be “classified”. He, at a time when his children are attending good schools, will have happy days in Montreal and Quebec.
We are no longer in the time of Jacques Cartier, where the plundering of resources was draped in the fantastical stories of great epics. The frantic race for profit at all costs does not always take on the appearance of tyranny. You just need to know the laws and regulations, to know how to juggle them, to be able to get your foot in the door of almost any country and find yourself blessed there.
However, those who accumulate credit and wealth still hold out promises of fake diamonds to those they dominate. The simulacra of wealth, the parodies of the luxury of the rich, intended to cynically feed the appetites of those whose salaries are fixed, are always produced for the benefit of the new aristocracies of money. The Chinese, like others, have understood this well. So much so that, under the big tent of the universal exploitation of some by others, the former Bay of Piastre, renamed Baie-Johan-Beetz, could very well, one day, take the name of Baie-de-Beijing without anyone finding anything wrong with it.