Perhaps one of the oddest facts of geography is that there is a population of several million people who live in North America, who are wholly white Europeans in terms of ancestry (though of course are now joined by many people of other backgrounds, a large number of whom consider themselves to be a bonafide part of this group), yet who do not speak English but French.

I am talking here of course of the community of French Canadians who operate wholly are almost wholly, on a daily basis in the language of French, many of whom speak no or barely any English, yet who survive within the vast ocean of English that is North America above the Rio Grande.

While there are many native French speakers across the entire country of Canada, the largest concentration are to be found in the province of Québec, and the most densest region of this territory population-wise is an area within 100 miles of the northern border of New England, stretching from the Atlantic coast to just north of the border with New York State, where it meets the east end of the Great Lakes (roughly).

The population of Québec is 6 or 7 million, 90% of whom speak French as a native language, and the majority of whom rarely speak, or even hear, English on a day-to-day basis.

Montréal, however, is a large metropolis of over 3 million, 80% of whom are French-speakers, the remaining half to three-quarter million inhabitants speaking English, Chinese, Arabic, Italian, Portuguese, Greek and a whole collection of other languages as native languages. Montréal lies about 40 km north of Rochester, New York.

The second most well-known group of French Canadians live above the US border with Maine in New Brunswick (which is officially bilingual) and neighbouring "Maritime" provinces.

As in Québec, the accent with which the French of this region is spoken, "Acadian French," is very distinctive -- it is also dramatically different to the sound of Québec French itself.

In addition to this, there are French-Canadian communities across the entire country, native to the Prairies, for example, whose history is separate both from that of the "Québecois" and the "Acadians."

As any student of history knows, once explorers started mapping the Americas, the kingdoms of Europe were not slow to claim the New World for themselves.

Many places in the United States bear evidence of former French rule in their names (Louisiana being the most famous), and indeed both the US and Canada were ruled variously, and at different periods, by both the French and the English crowns.

Many of the wars fought between the English and French for world domination were fought on North American soil, and this is perhaps most famously true for the colony of New France, now called Québec.

The battle for Québec City was a decisive which set the English on course for domination of North America. The famous showdown between the English General Wolfe and his French counterpart Montcalm took place on the cliffs at the citadel of Québec, on an area called the Plains of Abraham.

The result of the French defeat was the development of the British Empire in the New World, and a situation where the French speaking colonists of New France became subjects of the English crown and, eventually, French-speaking inhabitants of the British colony known as Canada.

Of course much has changed since then.

In 1867 Canada became an independent nation and a hundred years later the Quebecker Pierre Trudeau (who came from an English part of Montréal) became prime minister and set the wheels in motion for Canada to become an officially bilingual country wherein all federal services must be provided in both languages, and all products sold on the market are labelled in both English and in French.

In the meantime, laws have been introduced in Québec itself specifically inteneded to promote French, and to ensure its survival in the face of the onslaught of Anglo-Canadian, American, British and world culture and commerce all effected in English.

This is why (and it remains controversial), if you visit Québec you are unlikely to see much English around you (if you do, it will be printed smaller than the French), and this goes even for road signs (so be warned!).

Despite tensions of this sort, which often go deep into important questions such as what sort of history is to be taught in school, who is even allowed(!) to opt out of having their child educated in French, and of course the famous question of separation from Canada, Québec remains a fabulous place to visit, and a first-rate place to live (with progressive policies such as very low tuition fees for residents, funded daycare programs, and a carbon tax).

It is also wonderfully multicultural (Montréal especially), with communities of Hasidic orthodox Jews, Ukrainians, a Little Italy, a Chinatown, and a large Haitian community.

All in all I cannot recommend Québec enough as a destination. I am not originally from here, and my native language is English and not French, but the years I have spent here have been very rewarding. The fact of having French around me simply makes life that much more interesting.