Process: Legault/Legnault

In a previous posting, I had noticed that the three different family placenames seemed to either bunch together or trace migration paths. For instance, in the Outaouais region, there are many Legault placenames that follow the Ottawa River: Legault Stream/Ruisseau Legault in the Lachute area ( LE-9 ), Legault Point/Pointe à Legault in the Hawkesbury area ( LE-6 ), and Legault Waterway/Cours d'eau Legault, Legault Peninsula/Presqu'Île des Legault and Legault Stream/Ruisseau Legault in the Thurso area ( LE-1 LE-8 LE-10 ).

In the Gaspé region, Angers River/Rivière Angers and Angers River South/Rivière Angers sud are found in the Sunny-Bank area ( A-11 A-13 ), while in the Matane region, A-11 continues and an Angers bridge is located in the St-Jean-Baptiste-Vianney area ( A-10 ).

Only one map, from the twenty odd topographical maps (1:50000) I researched, documents bodies of water from different bloodlines — 021M12 Lac St-Henri in the Baie-Saint-Paul region. Using a placename database, I had located two lakes in that area: Legault ( LE-4 ) and Lapalme ( LA-5 ). Yet, when I looked at the actual topographic map, Legault was mispelled as Legnault. Lac Lapalme, tiny in the vast network of waterways, was within 2000 metres from the Legault waypoint, a tear-shaped body of water.

  

I'm pleased to have found one map that has two lakes in close proximity because I have always likened interconnected waterways — which join and separate through time — to kinship and bloodlines. The location of these two lakes in a geographical manner, is akin to a genealogical manner of interpreting the map. It is a visual reminder of the close proximity of my two families, as my adoptive parents lived twenty minutes away from my birthmother when I was growing up. The probability of our paths crossing, perhaps unknowingly, was high because we lived in close vicinity. This fed my interest in synchronicity and the chance encounter à la Breton. The two lakes (Lapalme/Legault) also have further meaning for me as an adoptee who has reunited with my birthmother; it serves as an example that the two lakes/families can coexist in the same space — not so much "either/or", as much as "and/with".

I am interested in documenting the different kinds of maps and orderings that mark a place — whether it be official (Canadian Topo map), virtual (Google, Mapquest, Bikely), or ephemeral (sketches from memory, imagined maps). This Legault/Legnault map is obviously a personal map for me, and yet just one of the many possibilities that exist for the same place dependent on the person.

I am aware that I search for meaning in my fortuitous encounters during my travels, that each small discovery on a map is heightened by my own expectations. Mapping out a project which sometimes deals with the personal, I am unable to hide my own motives or desires. I can only state them and keep working, hoping that the particular still resonates for a wide audience through universal themes like family, memory, language, place and time.