The Iroquois plaza is our closest shopping centre. Though unprepossessing, it is quite handy, having a bank, grocery store, drug store, and a Mac’s where I can pick up the weekend paper. Still, who would have thought it had an illustrious history?
Iroquois is situated on the St. Lawrence River. To accommodate the St. Lawrence Seaway project of the 1950s, 10 villages were flooded and substantial sections of Iroquois and neighbouring Morrisburg were relocated. As part of the redevelopment, a new shopping plaza was built in Iroquois. At the time that the shopping plaza opened in 1957, it was considered the most modern in Eastern Ontario. When Queen Elizabeth II visited Canada in 1959 and viewed the Seaway project, a 10 minute stop at the Iroquois shopping plaza was included in her itinerary.
Here are a much younger Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.
Willow House Chronicles 
There’s something touching about royalty visiting a shopping plaza in an open car.
It does seem amazingly innocent, doesn’t it.
I actually attended this event. Lived in Iroquois at the time from 1955 to 1961.
My father was Royal Bank manager there. We lived on Ann Street in the new town and on King Street in the old town.
Any yes it was the age of innocence.
Steve B. Davis
Calgary, AB
http://stamperdad.wordpress.com
It’s very cool to have someone who was there drop by, Stamperdad. I enjoy my computer, and many other aspects of 21st century life, but the 50s and 60s weren’t without their own charm.
Now if I remember correctly the Queen’s motorcade went from the plaza through the town to the locks where she reboarded her yacht Britannia and continued up the St. Lawrence. I saw here real close up by standing on the side of one of the streets she passed along.
Steve
[…] of Iroquois as it was moved to make room for the flooding of the St. Lawrence Seaway project. (See A Shopping Plaza Fit for a Queen) After finishing the book, I set out to locate the property. It appears that plans to move the town […]
Hello,
I’m working on a research project about the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway and would be interested to know where these historical photos came from. Please drop me an e-mail!
Hi Forrest,
You can find the photos at the Galop Canal website, specifically
http://www.galopcanal.com/history.html
It was remiss of me not to include a link with the post. I wasn’t as experienced a blogger back then.
Good luck with your project. There is certainly plenty of information available on the cultural impact of the Seaway, the Lost Villages, etc.
Sheri Leckie
> Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 19:45:51 +0000 > To: sheridanleckie@hotmail.com >