JOIE DE SURVIVRE

A visual celebration of the tuque and its
close-fitting friends

by TIPPY MCKEEN
photos by RACHEL GRANOFSKY

Whether trekking through the snow to a trading post to buy some spirits for you and your coureur de bois friends a few hundred years ago, or huffing it to the dep for something to get you through a 21st-century January night, the fact remains that living in Montreal during the winter is an extreme sport. You should wear a tuque. And really, nothing defines Quebecers more.

What about poutine? Uh, je ne pense pas. Linguists have found no occurrence of the word associated with any delicious snack before 1978, while the roots of “tuque” go back to the 16th century. Most etymologists link it to the Old Spanish “toca,” a soft, close-fitting cap of the era. There is some debate as to the exact origins of the word, as is there with the alternate spellings “toque” and the also common, though incorrect, “touque.” More pressing is that we lose between 20 to 70 per cent of our body heat through our heads.

The early voyageurs called their wool caps “tuques,” and it never went away. The tuque was a symbol of French-Canadian nationalism in the 18th century and was briefly revived as such in the ’70s. There’s a town north of Trois-Rivières called la Tuque, named after a neighbouring hill that looks like a tuque. Since all hills look like tuques, that conceivably could have been the name of Montreal. Anyway, we now have the band Atach Tatuq and the hair salon Funky Toque. Abroad, the cultural influence has been vast, from The Beachcombers’ Relic, to rappers, bums and crooks the world over.

Now, a jester, pillbox, beanie, Santa Claus, beret, tweed ivy, cuffley, eight-panel, wool Greek fisherman, Marquis boater, Victorian cloche, flowerpot, floppy, mod, kettle or Davy Crockett sportable racoon-style cap may not necessarily fall under the traditional definition of “tuque,” but again, semantics aren’t of concern when you’re trying to retain 20–70 per cent of your body heat. In celebration of the tuque and all its brothers and sisters, here’s how Montrealers are retaining this winter.