Allison Beresford Connell

June 3, 1931 – February 20, 2025

Dr. Allison Beresford Connell of 139 Connell Street, Woodstock, N.B. Canada was born to Allison Beresford Connell and Katharine Mabon Connell (Née Jarvis) in Sioux Lookout, Ont., June 3, 1931.

Sioux Lookout was then a small CNR Railway town in northwest Ontario. It is located on a clay enclave some 20 kms in length left by the retreating glaciers amongst the countless chains of lakes scattered across the Precambrian landscape of the Canadian Shield. Allison, as a boy, ran in smoked moose skin moccasins on snowshoes through crystal clear cold winters. He Infused the smells of the boreal forest, its sounds, its storms, great rocky outcrops, the colours and textures of blue-sky summers where the never-ending high northwest winds blow down Lac Seul. There, the snapping of canvas, distant rumble of rapids or breaking of waves stirred the dreams of his campsite slumbers throughout those early years.

The North claimed him like a jealous lover to whom he willingly submitted, such was her beauty. Again and again throughout his life he returned to her boreal bosom to once more drink her waters, breathe her air, paddle over her lakes or ramble on her rugged ridges. This would be the formation, basis, education and compass of Allison's future life and work.

At the age of 10, his father and mother moved the family, now complete with a younger sister and two much younger brothers, to Woodstock, N.B. where the family's roots reached back to the Loyalist incursion. As he had never seen sidewalks, he soon learned the ways of a bustling town with both CPR and CNR trains, two sawmills, a woollen mill, a wood working factory an Island Park and a creek lined with leaky canoes under the shade of willows and elms.

Allison learned to play the piano and love Frédéric Chopin under the guidance of Mrs. True a few doors away. He completed High School at the LP Fisher Memorial High School under a modified British curriculum in 1948. There he became attracted to Latin and went on to further his studies in languages and complete a Bachelor of Arts with a major in French Literature at Mount Allison University in 1952.

Encouraged to extend his studies he was accepted at the University of Paris. He pursued his doctorate on the works of translator and literary figure Valery Larbeau, subsequently deepening his engagement with French literature and its civilization. His second great love.

The highly urbane world of postwar France with its vibrant café life, bookshops, theatres, cinéma venues and art galleries, all riddled through with political activism comprised an intellectual life where everything and anything was discussed with candour and vigour. It drew Allison in like a moth to a lamp.

The multi-cultural cafés of Boulevard St. Michel were in constant ferment; Vietnamese, Malians, Senegalese, Mauritian students from the entire French Colonial world were all there searching for new political possibilities for their homelands. Allison, captivated, rapidly mastered the language in all its nuances and was introduced, through his fellow students and colleagues, to those special little restaurants, theatres, the history of the city, its pitfalls and quartiers with their ever so subtle cultural effervesences. Voila! a Francophile … and for the rest of his life he was caught in a tug of war between the love of our north and the many faces of French culture. This foundation would later stimulate his environmental activism in Canada.

In the spring of 1956, he obtained his Doctorate from the University of Paris and returned to instruct French at Mount Allison University for a year. The following semester he took a position as Assistant professor of French Literature at United College (later the University of Winnipeg) where he remained until 1964.

Offered a position as a Professor in the Department of Romance languages at the University of Alberta in Edmonton in the fall of 1964, he accepted. At U of A, he was able to spread his wings with the ample budgets the department commanded. He and his colleagues established if not the best French library in Canada, one of the best. Consequently, students from France began arriving in Edmonton to access this resource.

As he put down roots in Edmonton, he and historian Stuart McKinnon began exploring fur trading routes established by The North West Company. These excursions led them to the Churchill River system, Reindeer lake and its vicinity and north into Neultin Lake on the boundary of the Northwest Territories and Manitoba. Allison established friends and contacts at Pelican Narrows from where he flew out to an Island that he established as base camp for several summers. There he prepared his courses for the following semester. It was during these sojourns that he read and became influenced by social ecologists Arnie Ness, Aldo Leopold, Murray Bookchin, E. F. Schumacher and others in the nascent green movement. His reconnection to the north and his roots there were now sealed.

In Edmonton, living on the edge of a beautiful ravine which opened onto the North Saskatchewan River, he had an idea. He and many neighbouring citizens gathered and cobbled together a plan to bring the wild back to their urban North Saskatchewan shores, then lobbied the city government to have wood, ravine and shore preserved as a park. They were successful and to this day the extensive park along the River is much used by quail, ducks, geese and loved by the citizens of Edmonton. He became an early member of the Saskatchewan Environmental Society and supported their anti-uranium mining efforts. His engagement in the environmental movement was now a central part of his life.

In 1980, Allison resigned from the University of Alberta to return to Woodstock to assist his father at the family home. After so many years in the west where buildings of architectural interest are rare, he turned his eye on the visual wealth of eighteenth and nineteenth century buildings in Woodstock. He and several colleagues subsequently published an informative and thoroughly engaging book "A View of Woodstock - Historic Homes of the Nineteenth Century."

Since his youth, Allison carried on a lively correspondence with his Aunt Lucy Jarvis a co- founder of the University of New Brunswick Art Centre. Lucy, a lively animator of the arts, sensed in Allison an expansive young mind with sensitive, original reactions to landscape, music and poetry. She did her utmost to cultivate that relationship and kept the fires stoked with volleys of exchanges. So full of ideas those letters … they could be powerful, scathing and sublime across a few paragraphs. He reciprocated: the resulting dozens of letters formed the basis of a biography of Lucy's life. They were assembled as the core of Roslyn Rosenfeld's history of Lucy Jarvis's painting career "Even Stones Have Life," published in 2016.

Allison and others in Woodstock were instrumental in creating a trail around the Broadway side of the Meduxnekeag River which joined the old railway bed of the CNR and allowed for extended access up the river. He was an active member in the Sustainable Energy Group, The Green Party of N.B. and participated in The Society of Friends in both Woodstock and Houlton Maine.

Allison rallied in a final effort to publish, with the unfailing support of Keith Helmuth and Chapel Street Editions, his last academic work "The Translations of Valery Larbaud - A Model of Literary Exploration."

A gentle humanist Allison worked for a world in harmony with its labyrinthine ecosystems. He died quietly on February 20, 2025, at The Carleton Manor with the sounds of Frédéric Chopin in his ears.

He was predeceased by his parents, first cousins Edwin Connell of Woodstock, Elizabeth Leeming (née Connell) of Woodstock, Bardie (Barlow) Connell of Fredericton, and Jackie Connell of Dartmouth, N.S

He is survived by his sister Lucy Jarvis Dyer (née Connell) of Fredericton, brothers John Edward Connell (Marjorie), of Hobe Sound, Florida, USA, Mark Dibblee Connell of Markhamville, N.B. cousins Katie FitzRandolph of Fredericton, and William Jarvis (Karen) of Moncton, nieces Akoulina Katharine Connell of Ottawa (David Yazbeck), Rachel Renée Connell of Toronto, Sophie Arabella Jeanne Connell of Edmonton and nephews Christoper Glendon Connell (Shelley) of Indiana, U.S.A, Kenneth John Connell (Allison) of Washington, U.S.A and their many offspring.

The funeral will be held at St. Luke's Anglican Church (Main Street), Woodstock, March 15, 2025, at 2 p.m., reception to follow at the Church Hall. A Celebration of Life will be held at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Conservation Council of New Brunswick at https://www.conservationcouncil.ca/.

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