Cottage Country – Dr. Dawson and McGill College Avenue

The construction of a cottage in Metis by McGill Principal William Dawson in 1876 was of sufficient importance to make the newspapers. Dawson was a towering figure in Canadian science and his talks across the country were reported with interest. Dawson’s cottage, baptised ‘Birkenshaw’, would become his refuge and writing parlour for decades. In many of his scientific tomes and articles, Little Metis is identified as the place where they were penned.

With the opening of the Intercolonial Railway in 1876 and daily service to and from Montreal, Metis was much easier to get to than other health resorts like Tadoussac on the other shore. In the preamble to one article, Dawson hinted at the power of the place:

The author of this paper has had occasion for many years to spend a portion of the summer at one or other of the health-resorts on the Lower St. Lawrence, and has latterly preferred Little Metis, as one of the most pleasant in its atmosphere and surroundings. He has there naturally endeavoured to familiarize himself with the rocks and fossils accessible in walks or short drives and boating excursions and to devote some time and labour to any locality which seemed unusually promising.

Many of Dawson’s colleagues followed his lead, either building or renting cottages, transforming Metis into a distant campus for McGill University. The village’s shoreline artery, Beach Road, was even sometimes jokingly referred to as “McGill College Avenue”.