LEWISTON – People can now learn which dinosaurs lived in their corner of Quebec, how the ice age sculpted the land and how their towns were created.

Barry Rodrigue, a professor at Lewiston-Auburn College, has co-written an 1,100-page volume on three counties in the Canadian province of Quebec.

“The History of Beauce, Etchemin and Amiante” portrays a region located at the doorway between France and Canada.

The region is the first part of Canada reached by travelers who drive north on Route 201 through Jackman, Maine. It was also the last part of Quebec seen by generations of people who immigrated to Maine on the “Old Canada Road.”

Written entirely in French, the book caps a decade of research by historians at the Universite Laval. Rodrigue began working on the book while studying at the Quebec City school in 1994 and continued the research after he left in 2000.

Published around the start of 2004, the book is now earning critical acclaim.

The Canadian Historical Association has named the book a finalist for the Sir John A. MacDonald Prize, awarded annually to the book that makes the most significant contributions to Canadian history. Of the five finalists, it is the only French-language volume.

Rodrigue, who is listed with Serge Courville and Pierre C. Poulin as one of three editors, wrote four of the chapters himself, consulting with paleontologists and geologists for some of his writing.

He found that one of the dinosaurs that inhabited the area was a smaller, more agile version of the brontosaurus. The book also charts the development of modern towns such as St. Joseph and St. Georges.

Rodrigue and his colleagues spent years at the university’s historical geography laboratory, studying census data that began in 1831.

Unlike early American data, the Canadian census was detailed with the names of everyone in a family, their land holdings and even the livestock they owned.

“We spent three solid years inputting every man, woman and child in Quebec,” Rodrigue said.

The group also examined archived materials from accounting firms.

The findings break with stereotypes that have lasted for decades about Quebec, that businesses there only thrived with English influence.

They found that the region had a more diverse and thriving economy than was known. In the mid-19th century, English companies in Quebec were few and not particularly successful, he said.

Funded by the Quebec government, the book was created as a kind of standard reference to the region. The book likely be distributed among libraries across the province.

A copy is also being kept at L-A College’s Franco-American Heritage Collection, where Rodrigue is on the staff.

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