Raoul Blanchard

He was admitted to the Ecole Normale Superieure in 1897, he became excited by geography, which was taught by Paul Vidal de La Blache.

[1][2][3] Blanchard was appointed an instructor at Harvard University, in Massachusetts, in 1917 and was named a full professor from 1928 to 1936, which gave him the opportunity to spend a few months a year in North America.

Given the Francophone roots in the Canadian province of Quebec and the facilities available there, Blanchard enjoyed researching the vast area, which had not been the subject of geographical study.

In 1930, he published Gaspé Peninsula in his journal, the first in a long series of articles about Canada, especially Quebec.

The institute offered courses that took place in Gaspé, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia according to the method that had been used in his 1929 study.

Blanchard was appointed the first director of the institute until illness struck, when one of his students, Pierre Dagenais, took over.

In 1964, a year before his death, his last book was published at Porte de Paris, in Quebec City.

He wrote about 290 works covering a wide range of subjects such as Flanders, the French Alps, the Middle East and North America (especially Quebec).