Past Event
Tessouat, Chief of the Kichsipperinin Algonquin-Anishinabe Nation
Larrimac Golf & Tennis Club, Chelsea, Quebec - November 22, 2023
Georges Lafontaine was born in Messines where he still lives on the land of his ancestors, Georges Lafontaine was first a journalist for the weekly newspaper La Gazette of Maniwaki before completing his experience in Hearst, Ontario. He returned to Maniwaki to participate in the launch of CHGA community radio in 1980, of which he was the first journalist. He returned to writing by joining the newspaper La Gatineau a couple of year later.
He left in 1985 to join the MRC de la Vallée-de-la-Gatineau as a research officer, then he made the leap into provincial politics in 1989 as political attaché to the Gatineau MP’s. A few years later, he returned to his first love and bought the newspaper where he got his start, La Gazette, and two years later created the CFOR radio station in Maniwaki.
He subsequently began writing fiction and the first novel he published, Des cendres sur la glace, won the Archambault Literary Award. This novel will be translated into English (Ashes on ice). He published three other novels including L'Orpheline, which was the winner of the literary prize from the newspaper Le Droit in 2010.
He joined the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation Tribal Council in 2009 as an information officer, a position he held until his retirement in 2022.
It was in this context that he became familiar with the Anishinabe people and that he got to know the character of Tessouat, the chief of the Kichissipirinnis, during the research carried out for the Tribal Council.
Images from the presentation
