"A few acres of snow" (in the original French, "Quelques arpents de neige") is a quotation from Voltaire popularly understood to be a sneering evaluation of New France's — and, by extension, Canada's — lack of mercantile value and strategic importance to France. It is regularly quoted by Canadians and particularly Quebecers who want to prove that Canada is worth much more than Voltaire's dismissive perception. Poet Louis-Honoré Fréchette paid himself a revenge on Voltaire in his poem Sous la statue de Voltaire (Under the statue of Voltaire), published in La légende d'un Peuple 1887.

The Québécois have had a well-deserved revenge by punningly calling the French language edition of Trivial Pursuit "Quleques arpents de pieges" - a few acres of traps. One of the best selling board games of the 1980s, endlessly reinvented with new specialist editions, was invented in Montreal by anglo journalists.

The quotation in full, found in Candide, is: "Vous savez que ces deux nations sont en guerre pour quelques arpents de neige vers le Canada, et qu'elles dépensent pour cette belle guerre beaucoup plus que tout le Canada ne vaut" ("You know that these two nations are at war over a few acres of snow near Canada, and that they are spending on this little war more than all of Canada is worth").

However, in practice the phrase is misremembered or misunderstood by most who quote it. In a popular version, Voltaire is said to have written: "La Nouvelle-France: quelques arpents de neige qui ne valent pas les os d'un grenadier français" ("New France: a few acres of snow that aren't worth the bones of a French grenadier"). In another rendition, he is quoted as saying: "quelques arpents de neige, habités par des barbares, des ours et des castors" ("a few acres of snow, inhabited by barbarians, bears and beavers"). Neither of these phrases appear anywhere in Voltaire's body of work. Most commonly, however, the quote is simply taken out of context and it is plainly stated that Voltaire called Canada quelques arpents de neige.

The "few acres of snow" he was referring to is actually the region of Acadia, now split between the Canadian Maritimes and New England. Although this region is largely part of modern Canada, it was never referred to as Canada in Voltaire's day. New France included Canada, Acadia, Louisiana, and other territories. Thus, a few acres of snow near Canada could not refer to New France as a whole or even to Canada, but only to Acadia, the only other North American territory under dispute between England and France at the time.

Also, when Candide was written, New France included much of what is now the Midwestern United States, and most of the Mississippi River watershed all the way to Louisiana. Thus, Voltaire could not have dismissed New France as merely a few acres of snow, as the territory was too vast and too diverse in climate to fit that description. [1]

All this is not to suggest Voltaire had a particularly high opinion of Canada — the second part of the quote indicates that Voltaire thought the costs of the war were greater than Canada's total value. But his phrase "a few acres of snow" was not meant to refer to all of New France.

See also

• Soviet Canuckistan

Some examples of misquotation in the Canadian media

• Quartier Libre
• La Conquête par le Traité de Paris
• A Few Acres of Snow: The Saga of the French and Indian Wars by Robert Leckie
• Insults about Canada and Canadians (Note that in this version, the quote is reported accurately except for the near Canada qualifier.)
• The People of New France by Allan Greer

External links

• Candide, ou l'optimisme (The arpents de neige quote can be found in Chapter XXIII, approximately halfway down the page.)
• La légende d'un Peuple, Louis Fréchette (PDF in French)