“Francophonie” in Alberta is not limited to its history: it is lived and experienced on a daily basis, and it is that aspect we wish to address in this article. Based both on Robert Stebbins’ sociological research published in The Franco-Calgarians (1994) and The French Enigma (2000), and on the life of Gérard Mousseron who has been a Calgary resident for 40 years, this article rides the thin line between fiction and History, biography and literature. Using personal, professional and cultural data, we identify Mousseron’s linguistic involvement and his relationships with the symbolic francophone community in Calgary. In The Franco-Calgarians, Stebbins stresses the centrality of leisure in the identity of Franco-Calgarians, a domain he perceives as more important than the traditional spheres of family or education. While we recognize that many things have changed in the francophone community since Stebbins’s study in 1994, we will see how his approach can still be useful in the case of Gérard Mousseron. We illustrate the value of his 40 years in Calgary in terms of both his personal existence and that of his community, and we identify what it can represent in the short, medium and long-term range.