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Royal Visitors – Rolling Out the Red Carpet for Princes and Princesses

Black and white photograph of Princess Alice and Governor General, the Earl of Athlone. The couple, dressed in military garb, are greeted at the train station in Mont-Joli by city officials. The train cars can be seen in the background.

Photograph

His Excellency the Earl of Athlone and Her Highness Princess Alice photographed on their arrival in Mont-Joli, 1942, La Presse

Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec

 

Estevan Lodge welcomed royals of various ranks over the decades. George Stephen owed his baronetcy and peerage at least in part to the kindness he had shown to Prince Leopold when he fished with Stephen on the Matapedia River in 1880.

Prince Leopold’s daughter, Princess Alice, would become a favourite royal and the longest lived princess of royal blood (she died at age 97). She visited Metis as the guest of Elsie Reford in 1944 as the consort of the Earl of Athlone, then the Governor General of Canada.

The visit of a Governor General required a high degree of organization and etiquette. The preparation of the visit was orchestrated by the Governor General’s household. Rideau Hall spared no effort (or expense) in establishing the protocol for the Vice-regal tour, choreographing the movement of the official airplane from Quebec City to Mont-Joli, meeting the couple at the airport and arranging the special accommodations for the couple, their Aide-de-Camp and Lady in Waiting.