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 thirte ...
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 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
Beauceville is a city in, and the seat of, the Municipalité régionale de comté Beauce-Centre in Quebec, Canada. It is part of the Chaudière-Appalaches region and the population was 6,185 as of the Canada 2021 Census.
Beauceville's new const ...
,
Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce
Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce is a city in the Municipalité régionale de comté Beauce-Centre in Quebec, Canada. It is part of the Chaudière-Appalaches region and the population was 5,014 as of the Canada 2021 Census.
The new city constitution date ...
and
Saint-Victor.
Name
The first record of the name goes back to 1739. "Nouvelle Beauce" (New Beauce) designated the ''
seigneuries
''Seigneur'' is an originally feudal title in France before the Revolution, in New France and British North America until 1854, and in the Channel Islands to this day. A seigneur refers to the person or collective who owned a ''seigneurie'' (o ...
'' granted earlier along the
Chaudière River
The Chaudière River (French for "Cauldron" or "Boiler"; Abenaki: Kik8ntekw) is a river with its source near the Town of Lac-Mégantic, in southeast Quebec, Canada. From its source Lake Mégantic in the Estrie region, it runs northwards to flo ...
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, "Beauce" was chosen by ''seigneurs''
Joseph de Fleury de La Gorgendière
Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...
,
Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil
Pierre is a masculine given name. It is a French form of the name Peter. Pierre originally meant "rock" or "stone" in French (derived from the Greek word πέτρος (''petros'') meaning "stone, rock", via Latin "petra"). It is a translatio ...
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 f ...
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 nor ...
.
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
A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and muskeg; a ...
or
wetlands
A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The p ...
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
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are businesses whose personnel and revenue numbers fall below certain limits. The abbreviation "SME" is used by international organizations such as the World Bank ...
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
Joseph Jesse Dave Bélanger (born June 15, 1969) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey centre who played in the National Hockey League from 1991 to 2001.
Playing career
As a youth, he played in the 1981 and 1982 Quebec International Pee-We ...
,
NHL 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
Roch Carrier (born 13 May 1937) is a French Canadian novelist and author of "contes" (a very brief form of the short story). He is among the best known Quebec writers in English Canada.
Life
He was born in Sainte-Justine, Quebec, and studied at ...
, author
*
William Chapman, poet
*
Robert Cliche, Quebec politician
*
Marcel Dutil, businessman
*
Clermont Pépin, composer
*
Édouard Lacroix businessman and politician
*
Laurent Noël, as of 2021, the oldest living Catholic bishop
*
Jacques Poulin, 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
George Pozer is the anglicised name of Johann Georg Pfotzer (November 21, 1752 – June 16, 1848) who was a merchant, landowner and the fourth Seigneur of Aubert-Gallion.
Biography
Born in Willstätt, he emigrated to England in 1773 and lat ...
, 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 refo ...
, Canadian politician
*
Mathieu Roy,
NHL 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 ...
,
NHL hockey player
*
Elzéar-Alexandre Taschereau, clergyman
*
Henri Elzéar Taschereau, judge
*
Stéphane Veilleux,
NHL hockey player
See also
*
List of Quebec regions
*
Chaudière-Appalaches
Chaudière-Appalaches () is an administrative region in Quebec, Canada. It comprises most of what is historically known as the " Beauce" (french: La Beauce; compare with the electoral district of Beauce). It is named for the Chaudière River and ...
*
Beauce-Centre Regional County Municipality
Beauce-Centre is a regional county municipality in the Chaudière-Appalaches region of southeastern Quebec, Canada. It is located on the Chaudière River, between La Nouvelle-Beauce Regional County Municipality and Beauce-Sartigan Regional County ...
*
Beauce-Sartigan Regional County Municipality, Quebec
*
La Nouvelle-Beauce Regional County Municipality, Quebec
*
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