Benny Beattie

1960 to 1963 I lived in Geneva, Switzerland. I studied at the university, worked in many different jobs from a garage to a stock broker’s office. I did a lot of alpine skiing, and travelled widely in Europe. I also spent two summers working in Lager Wagna, a World War Two refugee camp in south eastern Austria. We were student volunteers living in an old WWI POW camp, building houses. The refugees were civilians of German ethnic origin taken from countries that the Russians were liberating in 1944 and 1945, and put in forced labor camps in different parts of Russia and Siberia. The survivors were released in 1958 and placed in refugee camps in Austria. I also traveled the Trans Siberian Railway in 1970. Also traveled in Canada, USA, Mexico, Costa Rica, Japan, Jordan, Syria, Israel as well as Europe.

I taught high school, mainly history and French for 32 years in a suburb of Montreal. I have done a lot of white-water canoe trips and sea-kayaking trips, including a week long kayak trip from Flamingo to Everglade City in Florida. I also work out at the YMCA, do yoga, play some chess, bridge and sing bass in a barbershop chorus and another occasional choir at Christmas

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I have written two previous books, Tadoussac, the Sands of Summer, 1st edition 1994 and 2nd edition 2002, and a shorter Visitor’s Guide to Tadoussac, published 1999.

I worked as a volunteer at the Montreal afternoon-evening a week for about 15 Servas Canada, an international peace travelers, and I run six day whale watching trips for Elderhostel in Tadoussac (where the Saguenay Fjord River, about 150 miles downstream from Quebec City.)