From the ashes of the Quebec City armoury fire to coin of honour
Melted copper from ruins turned into commemorative coins for Voltigeurs
Lt.-Col. Jonathan Chouinard was there the night the of the armoury fire on April 4, 2008, like so many other members of the Voltigeurs who heard the news and came to see it for themselves.
The Voltigeurs, based in Quebec City, are the oldest French-Canadian regiment. The armoury, the symbolic home to the reservists built in 1885, was in ruins.
"I was back in Quebec from Afghanistan, I was on a break. But like every Voltigeur, we all went to see what was going on," Chouinard said.
"We have always been in that building. That's why it struck us."
The roof collapsed that night, sending tonnes of copper into the rubble below. Eight years later, the armoury is in the process of being rebuilt, and the Voltigeurs have turned another page in the history of their unit.
From twisted metal to coin
Chouinard, the commanding officer of the Voltigeurs, said most armies have a coin they can give out, but the Voltigeurs didn't have one of their own.
With a shipping container full of twisted copper, he started to think of possibilities.
He connected with Charles-Olivier Roy, an artisan from Lévis who works on projects involving history and technology. Roy turned to a variety of people, including artisans in Quebec City and Sherbrooke who are experienced metal workers.
"We're not the Canadian mint, but I think we achieved something very interesting and the quality, it's there," Roy said.
Turning chunks of metal into coins involves several steps. First, the copper is scraped into chips. Then it is melted down and turned into ingots and laminated into a consistent thickness. The next step involves striking blanks, which looks like circles cut out of cookie dough.
Next the images were stamped onto the coins by a business in Sherbrooke. Roy said it took about a year and a half from the time he pitched the coin idea to having a final product.
"We wanted to show in every aspect to make sure that collectors and people in general would be interested in having a piece like that," Roy said.
He also wants to honour the legacy of the regiment, which will award a special version of the coin, known as a piedfort, to one soldier each year for the next half a century.
"You are using the best of the technology of today, but for a legacy for them for the next 50 years."
The images on the coin show the original copper roof. There are also three soldiers, representing a battle from each of the three centuries in which the Voltigeurs were active — a soldier from the North West Rebellion, a soldier from the Second World War and a solder from Afghanistan.
In the foreground is Lt.-Col.Charles-Michel de Salaberry, the man who founded the Canadian Voltigeurs, guiding the next soldier forward. It's based on the statue of Salaberry that stands outside of the Quebec National Assembly.
One deserving soldier each year to receive special coin
The first piedfort coin — twice as thick as the others — was awarded this past weekend after the Remembrance Day parade to Cpl. Pier-Luk Ferland.
A handful of other coins will be handed out during the year for merit. Members of the public can also purchase one for themselves.
With files from Radio-Canada