Book Launch: Nine Bags of Gold
Join Argo Bookshop for the Montreal launch of Nine Bags of Gold: The Real-Life Hunt for the Lost Treasure of Acadie by Stéphane LeBlanc-Rainville! This event is free, but space is limited, so please RSVP.
Masks are not required, but will be provided for free at the door.
Please contact us at least a day in advance for elevator access to the store.
Please also note that the street in front of the store is under construction. The store is accessible on foot, but not by car, and parking in the vicinity is consequently limited.
ABOUT THE BOOK
In the late 1800s, an elderly man named Simpson travelled from Québec to Moncton, New Brunswick, with a French map from the mid-1700s. The chart, he claimed, pointed to a fortune—nine leather bags of gold—which had been buried in Acadie by mid-eighteenth-century French troops on the run.
Simpson partnered with local excavator Sherman Blakeny. Sponsored by Moncton’s wealthy elite, the two launched a massive search. Dozens of labourers plowed seven acres of land in Irishtown down to a depth of five feet.
What did they find? It’s a question author and skeptic Stéphane LeBlanc-Rainville has spent years researching.
Nine Bags of Gold brings this never-before-told saga of eighteenth-century intrigue to light, excavating age-old legends, furtive protagonists, deathbed confessions, mind-bending plot twists, questionable treasure maps, large-scale digs, and tantalizing cliffhangers.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stéphane LeBlanc-Rainville earned his PhD from McGill in 2000. He enjoyed a second career as a consulting neuroscientist—most recently for industry—after years in academia. Lately, he turned his focus on his Acadian and Maritimer roots. His first investigative historical non-fiction, Nine Bags of Gold, dives into an ambitious late-1800s treasure hunt near his native Moncton. Stéphane currently lives in the Montréal area with his wife, Farah, and his two children, Gabrielle and Olivier.