A few acres of snow  

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"A few acres of snow" (in the original French, "quelques arpents de neige", , with "vers le Canada") is one of several quotations from Voltaire, the 18th-century writer, which are representative of his sneering evaluation of Canada as lacking economic value and strategic importance to 18th-century France.

In Voltaire's time, Canada was a territory within New France which covered most of modern day southern Quebec. However, "Canada", was also commonly (if incorrectly) used as a generic term to cover all of New France, including the whole of the Louisiana territory, as well as modern day southern Ontario, Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Which meaning of "Canada" Voltaire intended is a matter of some dispute.

The exact phrase "quelques arpents de neige" first appears in 1758 in chapter 23 of Voltaire's book Candide, although the phrase "a few acres of ice" appeared in a letter he wrote in 1757. Voltaire wrote similar sarcastic remarks in other works.




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "A few acres of snow" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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