A panorama of the 171st Battalion (Quebec Rifles), Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), captured in Quebec City, QC during the First World War. / Un panorama photographique du 171ème Bataillon (Québec Rifles), Corps expéditionnaire canadien (CEC), pris à Québec, QC au cours de Première Guerre mondiale.
The 171st Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force was raised, outfitted, and lead by Sir William Price (lieutenant-colonel), a prominent and wealthy Anglophone living in the region at the time.
The Battalion was recruited primarily in the winter of 1915 by Sir William Price, and trained in Quebec City and Valcartier. On November 22, 1916 the unit left Quebec, QC and travelled to Halifax, NS, where two days later they sailed for England. Once overseas the Battalion was dismantled and the officers were reassigned to training schools, French speaking soldiers reassigned to the 150th Battalion, and the English-speaking to the 148th.
The panorama also provides rich contextual information. In the late 19th Century, Sir William Price's grandfather William Price was an important lumber merchant in Québec. Sir Wm. Price inherited the family business, "Price Brothers and Company" from his uncle John Price in 1899, and redirected the company from the failing timber exports to the more profitable business of pulp and paper. Sir Wm. Price restructured the business several times in the following eleven years, but remained in pulp and paper where he successfully managed to corner the newsprint market in America. The exported paper goods helped to revitalize and strengthen the Canadian and Quebec economies. This connection is significant, for the panorama features Price's Limoilou wood yard (modern day Boul. des Capucins with operations now owned by the Papiers White Birch paper company), the Saint-Lawrence River and Lévis as the backdrop, as well as the Charlevoix Mountains and the Ile d'Orléans in the distance.
