Beauce (; ) is a
historical and traditional region of
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
located south of
Quebec City
Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the metropolitan area had a population of 839,311. It is t ...
. It corresponds approximately to the
regional county municipalities
The term regional county municipality or RCM (''french: municipalité régionale de comté, MRC'') is used in Quebec, Canada to refer to one of 87 county-like political entities. In some older English translations they were called county r ...
of
Beauce-Sartigan
Beauce-Sartigan is a regional county municipality in the Chaudière-Appalaches region of Quebec, Canada. The county seat is Saint-Georges.
The Chaudière River flows through it. It shares its eastern border with Maine, United States.
The ...
,
Beauce-Centre and
La Nouvelle-Beauce, and its major communities are
Saint-Georges,
Sainte-Marie,
Beauceville,
Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce and
Saint-Victor.
Name
The first record of the name goes back to 1739. "Nouvelle Beauce" (New Beauce) designated the ''
seigneuries'' granted earlier along the
Chaudière River and which would later become the current cities of Sainte-Marie, Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce, Beauceville, and Saint-Georges, as well as several other communities which would detach from these territories.
According to accounts from Governor
Charles de Beauharnois de la Boische and Intendant
Gilles Hocquart
Gilles Hocquart was born in 1694, in Sainte-Croix, Mortagne-au-Perche to Jean-Hyacinthe Hocquart. From September, 1729 to August, 1748, Hocquart served as Intendant of New France, history. Hocquart put his faith in the Canadian bourgeoisie as the ...
, "Beauce" was chosen by ''seigneurs''
Joseph de Fleury de La Gorgendière,
Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil and
Thomas-Jacques Taschereau Thomas-Jacques Taschereau (August 26, 1680 – September 25, 1749) was the patriarch of the illustrious Taschereau family in New France (Canada). It is believed that he may have come from some level of nobility in France and his family descended fro ...
to develop the potential of colonization, as the name recalls the French
Beauce, a region renowned for its wheat production. In 1829, the name represented a
county
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
extending to the
Canada–US border with
Maine
Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and ...
.
Later, Beauce would also be the name of administrative, municipal, electoral, school and judicial subdivisions, sometimes with different borders. Today, residents of neighbouring regional county municipalities consider themselves "Beaucerons" (masculine) or "Beauceronnes" (feminine) because of the former administrative links.
Historically, Beaucerons have also been known under the nickname of "Jarrets noirs" (black hocks). Travelling to Quebec City took up to one week, and because of the hilly roads and their conditions, they would often have to push their farm carts. They would get their legs dirty and arrive at the destination with their
hocks black.
Black hocks actually referred to the hocks of their horses being black when they got to Quebec City because of the abundance of peaty
bogs or
wetlands on the journey there. Horses legs would sink up to their hocks and become covered in the muck and therefore be blackened.
Economy
Exclusively agricultural for many years, Beauce's economy slowly diversified in the first half of the 20th century through forestry,
wood processing
Wood processing is an engineering discipline in the wood industry comprising the production of forest products, such as pulp and paper, construction materials, and tall oil. Paper engineering is a subfield of wood processing.
The major wood pro ...
, and the leather and textile industries. In 1951, the industrial production value became for the first time superior to agriculture, likely due to strong local entrepreneurship and cheap labour. Today's economy relies especially on
small and medium enterprises in the industries of furniture, food, clothing, printing and metalworking. It is known as Quebec's entrepreneurial heartland.
People linked to Beauce
*
Marius Barbeau
Charles Marius Barbeau, (March 5, 1883 – February 27, 1969), also known as C. Marius Barbeau, or more commonly simply Marius Barbeau, was a Canadian ethnographer and folklorist who is today considered a founder of Canadian anthropology. A ...
, ethnographer
*
Jesse Bélanger,
NHL
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
hockey player
*
Gilles Bernier, Canadian politician
*
Maxime Bernier
Maxime Bernier (born January 18, 1963) is a Canadian politician who is the founder and leader of the People's Party of Canada (PPC). Formerly a member of the Conservative Party, Bernier left the caucus in 2018 to form the PPC. He was the membe ...
, Canadian politician
*
Joseph Bolduc, Canadian politician
*
Roch Carrier, author
*
William Chapman, poet
*
Robert Cliche, Quebec politician
*
Marcel Dutil, businessman
*
Clermont Pépin
Clermont Pépin (May 15, 1926 – September 2, 2006) was a Canadian pianist, composer and teacher who lived in Quebec.
Early life and education
Jean Joseph Clermont Pépin was born in Saint-Georges, Quebec in 1926. Pépin studied with influe ...
, composer
*
Édouard Lacroix
Édouard Lacroix (January 6, 1889 – January 19, 1963) was a politician and business person in Quebec, Canada.
Background
He was born on January 6, 1889, in Sainte-Marie, Quebec. At the age of twelve he began working in United States lumb ...
businessman and politician
*
Laurent Noël, as of 2021, the oldest living Catholic bishop
*
Jacques Poulin
Jacques Poulin (born 23 September 1937 in Saint-Gédéon, Quebec) is a Canadian novelist with a quiet and intimate style of writing.
Poulin studied psychology and arts at the Université Laval in Quebec City; he started his career as commercial t ...
, novelist
*
Marie-Philip Poulin
Marie-Philip Poulin-Nadeau (born March 28, 1991) is a Canadian ice hockey forward, currently with the PWHPA and who serves as captain of the Canadian national team. A three-time Olympic and three-time World champion with the Canadian national ...
, hockey player
*
George Pozer, businessman
*
Fabien Roy
Fabien Roy (born April 17, 1928) is a former Canadian politician who was active in Quebec in the 1970s. Roy was elected to the National Assembly of Quebec and the House of Commons of Canada, and advocated social credit theories of monetary re ...
, Canadian politician
*
Mathieu Roy,
NHL
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
hockey player
*
Alex Tanguay
Alex Joseph Jean Tanguay (born November 21, 1979) is currently an assistant coach for the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League and is a Canadian former professional ice hockey winger who played for the Colorado Avalanche, Calgary F ...
,
NHL
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
hockey player
*
Elzéar-Alexandre Taschereau
Elzéar-Alexandre Taschereau (February 17, 1820 – April 12, 1898) was a Canadian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Quebec from 1871 until his death in 1898. The first Canadian cardinal, he was elevated to the Coll ...
, clergyman
*
Henri Elzéar Taschereau, judge
*
Stéphane Veilleux,
NHL
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
hockey player
See also
*
List of Quebec regions
Image:Regions administratives du Quebec.png, 350px, The seventeen administrative regions of Quebec.
poly 213 415 206 223 305 215 304 232 246 230 255 266 251 283 263 289 280 302 291 307 307 315 308 294 318 301 333 299 429 281 432 292 403 311 388 ...
*
Chaudière-Appalaches
*
Beauce-Centre Regional County Municipality
*
Beauce-Sartigan Regional County Municipality, Quebec
*
La Nouvelle-Beauce Regional County Municipality, Quebec
La Nouvelle-Beauce (''New Beauce'') is a regional county municipality in the Chaudière-Appalaches region in southeastern Quebec, Canada, south of the Saint Lawrence River. It is located south of Lévis, along the Chaudière River.
Establish ...
*
Tour de Beauce
Tour de Beauce is a men's elite professional road bicycle racing multi-day event held each June in the Beauce region of Quebec, Canada since 1986. It is the oldest stage-race in North America, and is a Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI)-rated 2. ...
Notes
{{Coord, 46, 07, N, 70, 40, W, display=title, region:CA-QC_source:CTQ
Beauce, Quebec
Historical regions in Canada