Baie-Comeau (; 2021 city population 20,687; CA population 26,643) is a

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

located approximately north-east of Quebec City in the Côte-Nord region of the province of Quebec, Canada. It is located on the shores of the Saint Lawrence River near the mouth of the Manicouagan River, and is the seat of Manicouagan Regional County Municipality. There are two urban area population centres within the city limits: Baie-Comeau proper, with a population of 9,100, and Hauterive, with a population of 11,147, as of the

2021 Canadian Census The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sl ...

. The city is named after the adjacent Comeau Bay, which is named in honour of Napoléon-Alexandre Comeau, a Québécois naturalist. Baie-Comeau is the birthplace of former Prime Minister of Canada

Brian Mulroney Martin Brian Mulroney ( ; born March 20, 1939) is a Canadian lawyer, businessman, and politician who served as the 18th prime minister of Canada from 1984 to 1993. Born in the eastern Quebec city of Baie-Comeau, Mulroney studied political sci ...

History

The oldest part of Baie-Comeau is the area known as ''Vieux-Poste'' (Old Post) near the mouth of the Amédée River where in 1889, the Saint-Eugène-de-Manicouagan Mission was founded by Eudists. In 1898, the first sawmill in the Côte-Nord region was built there by the brothers Damase and Henri Jalbert, but it closed in 1907 after their timber stock was swept into the St. Lawrence. In 1916, Route 138 was extended to Saint-Eugène-de-Manicouagan and in 1929, its post office opened with the English name of ( Gallicized in 1936). Baie-Comeau itself (the eastern part of the current town) was founded in 1936 when a paper mill was constructed by Colonel Robert R. McCormick, publisher of the '' Chicago Tribune''.

Arthur A. Schmon Arthur Albert Schmon (10 May 1895 – 18 March 1964) was an American-born executive who became a leading figure in the paper industry of Ontario and Quebec. He oversaw construction of the first power plant and paper mill in Baie-Comeau, Quebec. He ...

oversaw the project, which included a power station and housing. Experiencing remarkable growth, the Town of Baie-Comeau was incorporated the following year. The area continued to see economic development with the establishment of the hydro-electric power stations on the Manicouagan and Outardes Rivers beginning with the Chutes-aux-Outardes Station in 1952, an aluminum smelter in 1958, and grain warehouses (the largest in Canada) in 1959. In 1950, the village of Saint-Eugène-de-Manicouagan was incorporated as the Municipality of Hauterive. In June 1982, Hauterive was merged into Baie-Comeau, taking effect on January 1, 1983. Baie-Comeau is the seat of the judicial district of Baie-Comeau.

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultur ...

, Baie-Comeau had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021. Knowledge of official languages from 2016 (multiple answers were possible): * English: 4,415 * French: 20,840 * Other languages: 550

Economy

The region is a major forestry centre for the

pulp and paper industry The pulp and paper industry comprises companies that use wood as raw material and produce pulp, paper, paperboard and other cellulose-based products. Manufacturing process The pulp is fed to a paper machine where it is formed as a paper web an ...

, owned by Abitibi Consolidated as of October 2006. Alongside hydro-electricity and the paper industry, an aluminum plant has fed employment for decades. Cargill has a large elevator there that is used to transfer grain from Great Lakes boats to ocean-going ships.

Transportation

The town is along Route 138 about east of Forestville and about west of Sept-Îles. A

ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...

service of the

Société des traversiers du Québec The Société des traversiers du Québec (STQ) is a ferry company which has operated some intra-provincial ferry services in Quebec since 1971. It is a crown corporation owned by the Government of Quebec. STQ operates the following services: ...

and rail ferry service of the COGEMA Trains February 2009 p9 also links the town to Matane on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River. The town is the southern terminus of Route 389, which leads to the Daniel-Johnson Dam, the town of Fermont, and the Labrador region of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Baie-Comeau Airport, located in neighbouring Pointe-Lebel, has scheduled flights from Air Liaison and Pascan Aviation.

City council

The Baie-Comeau city council consists of the mayor of Baie-Comeau and eight elected city councillors, four from each of the two sectors of town. The most recent mayor of Baie-Comeau was

Yves Montigny Yves Montigny is a Canadian politician, who was elected to the National Assembly of Quebec in the 2022 Quebec general election. He represents the riding of René-Lévesque as a member of the Coalition Avenir Québec.Pierre-Paul Biron"La CAQ rafle ...

, who was elected to the National Assembly of Quebec in the

2022 Quebec general election The 2022 Quebec general election was held on October 3, 2022, to elect the members of the National Assembly of Quebec. Under the province's fixed election date law, passed in 2013, "the general election following the end of a Legislature shall b ...

; his successor has not yet been determined.

Education

Baie-Comeau is home to several

French-language French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Nor ...

public

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

s, two French-language public high schools and one

English-language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

public school that includes both the elementary and high school levels of education. The town is also home to one French-language CEGEP called the

Cégep de Baie-Comeau Cégep de Baie-Comeau is a CEGEP in Baie-Comeau, Quebec, Canada. Cégep de Baie-Comeau, a pre-university and technical college, is affiliated with ACCC, and CCAA. Mission The mission of Baie-Comeau Cégep is to provide students diversified, ...

. List of schools in Baie-Comeau:

Climate

Although at the same latitude as Vancouver or Paris, Baie-Comeau has a borderline humid continental climate ( Köppen ''Dfb''), just above the

subarctic climate The subarctic climate (also called subpolar climate, or boreal climate) is a climate with long, cold (often very cold) winters, and short, warm to cool summers. It is found on large landmasses, often away from the moderating effects of an ocean, ge ...

. The cold Labrador Current makes the

Gulf of St. Lawrence The Gulf of St. Lawrence () is the outlet of the North American Great Lakes via the St. Lawrence River into the Atlantic Ocean. The gulf is a semi-enclosed sea, covering an area of about and containing about of water, at an average depth of . ...

very cold and tends to cool the weather during summer much more than the marginal warming of the winters resulting from its maritime location. With the moist northeasterly winds coming in from the Icelandic Low, snowfall is very heavy, averaging around per year with a greatest average depth of around in March. The extreme snow depth was on January 10, 1969.

Sports

Para-Cyclists at the 2019 UCI Para-Cycling World Cup

The 1993 Quebec Winter Games were played in Baie-Comeau. Many different sports are played in Baie-Comeau:

Hockey

Baie-Comeau is home to the Baie-Comeau Drakkar, an ice hockey team playing in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League since 1997. The team plays in the

Centre Henry-Leonard The Centre Henry-Leonard is a 3,042 capacity (2,779 seated) multi-purpose arena in Baie-Comeau, Quebec, Canada. It is home to the Baie-Comeau Drakkar ice hockey team of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League ...

located in the eastern sector of the town.

Skiing

The is an alpine ski centre located a few kilometers north of the town where it offers twelve slopes.

Cross-country skiing Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing where skiers rely on their own locomotion to move across snow-covered terrain, rather than using ski lifts or other forms of assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreation ...

is also popular. Students often frequent Mont-Tibasse as part of their school programs.

Golf

An 18-hole golf course is available in the western sector of the town. It is a semi-private golf club and is open for most of the summer.

Swimming

The two major high schools of the city each offer an indoor

swimming pool A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, paddling pool, or simply pool, is a structure designed to hold water to enable Human swimming, swimming or other leisure activities. Pools can be built into the ground (in-ground pools) or built ...

and are open to the public year-round. Two outdoor swimming pools are also available to the public. These are open from the end of June until the middle of August each summer. Some beaches are also available in the summer. There are other beaches are along the shore of the St. Lawrence river such as the and the , among others.

Tennis

Several outdoor tennis courts are available to the public in the different parks across town. They are open for most of the summer.

Football

The Baie-Comeau Vikings represent the Polyvalente des Baies in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean League. The team won championships in the eastern Quebec circuit in 2003, 2004 and 2006, and were finalists in 2005.

References

Bibliography

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External links

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City of Baie-ComeauCommission scolaire de l'Estuaire

{{Authority control Cities and towns in Quebec Quebec populated places on the Saint Lawrence River Hudson's Bay Company trading posts Populated places established in 1936 1936 establishments in Quebec