Lac-Mégantic () is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

in the Eastern Townships 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 ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. It is located on Lac Mégantic, a freshwater lake after which the town was named. Situated in the former

Frontenac County Frontenac County is a county and census division of the Canadian province of Ontario. It is located in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario. The city of Kingston is in the Frontenac census division, but is separated from the County of Front ...

in the historic Eastern Townships, Lac-Mégantic is the seat of Le Granit Regional County Municipality and of the

judicial district A judicial district or legal district denotes the territorial area for which a legal court (usually a district court) has jurisdiction. By region Europe Austria In texts concerning Austria, "judicial district" (german: Gerichtsbezirk) refers ...

of Mégantic. Lac-Mégantic was a tourist destination and a producer of forestry products, furniture, Masonite doors, particleboard, and architectural granite before July 6, 2013, when the

Lac-Mégantic rail disaster The Lac-Mégantic rail disaster occurred in the town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, Canada, on July 6, 2013, at approximately 01:15 EDT, when an unattended 73-car Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA) freight train carrying Bakken Formation c ...

led to a massive fire and deadly explosion of

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...

tank car A tank car ( International Union of Railways (UIC): tank wagon) is a type of railroad car (UIC: railway car) or rolling stock designed to transport liquid and gaseous commodities. History Timeline The following major events occurred in ...

s that devastated the downtown and killed 47 people.

History

Prior to contact with Europeans, the region was inhabited by the

Abenaki The Abenaki ( Abenaki: ''Wαpánahki'') are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was pre ...

. Archaeological digs found that the

Amerindian The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the A ...

s had been in the region for over 12,000 years, making this the oldest known site of human occupation in Quebec. The name of Mégantic comes from the

word "namesokanjik" which translates to "place where the fish are held." The first known European to discover the region was a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

missionary A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

, Father Druillettes of the

Society of Jesus , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

, who arrived in 1646. He came to convert the Abenaki. The first colonists to settle in the region came two centuries later, around 1850, and were of French Canadian or Scottish origin. Originally called Megantic, the town was founded in 1884 after the Canadian Pacific Railway began construction of the final segment in its

transcontinental railway A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous railroad trackage, that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single ...

linking

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

with the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

port of Saint John,

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...

. This line opened in 1889, and was operated by

International Railway of Maine The International Railway of Maine was a historic railroad constructed by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) between Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, and Mattawamkeag, Maine, closing a key gap in the railway's transcontinental main line to the port of Sai ...

, a subsidiary of CPR. Mégantic was the meeting place of two railroads at that time: the Canadian Pacific Railway and the

Quebec Central Railway The Quebec Central Railway was a railway in the Canadian province of Quebec, that served the Eastern Townships region south of the St. Lawrence River. Its headquarters was in Sherbrooke. It was originally incorporated in 1869 as the Sherbrooke, ...

. The CPR line was more important because of its adaptation to large freight and passenger trains. Nearby Agnès, founded in 1895, was named after Susan Agnes Bernard, the widow of Prime Minister of Canada Sir

John A. Macdonald Sir John Alexander Macdonald (January 10 or 11, 1815 – June 6, 1891) was the first prime minister of Canada, serving from 1867 to 1873 and from 1878 to 1891. The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, he had a political career that sp ...

. It merged with Mégantic in 1907. Macdonald and his wife had visited the area in 1879. Mégantic was renamed Lac-Mégantic in 1958, after the adjacent Lake Mégantic, located on the municipality's southern boundary. Lac-Mégantic consisted of two Roman Catholic parishes, Sainte-Agnès and Notre-Dame-de-Fatima. An important figure of Lac-Mégantic was Joseph Édouard Eugène Choquette, a priest, who, in his spare time, was an amateur scientist. He was the catalyst for the creation of an electric lighting system which, on the eve of

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...

in 1898, illuminated the entire city; and a power company. Father Choquette was also an amateur photographer.

Donald Morrison case

The first mayor (1885-1888) of Mégantic was Malcolm MacAuley, who was linked to the Donald Morrison case. Morrison's family had immigrated from the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides of

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

and had settled locally in a largely Canadian Gaelic-speaking farming community. Donald Morrison moved out

west West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

to work as a cowboy on a ranch, sending money home to pay off the family debts. When he returned home, he found his family had lost their farm after they had signed a bad debt deal with Mayor MacAuley, the wealthiest resident in the town at the time. A barn belonging to the new owner was burned to the ground, and Donald Morrison was immediately charged with arson. A

bounty Bounty or bounties commonly refers to: * Bounty (reward), an amount of money or other reward offered by an organization for a specific task done with a person or thing Bounty or bounties may also refer to: Geography * Bounty, Saskatchewan, a g ...

of $25 was placed on Morrison, and an American bailiff was paid $2.50 a day to track him down. The bailiff was killed in a gunfight with Morrison on the town's main street. Morrison was chased through the woods for another ten months before being wounded, captured, and imprisoned. He died of tuberculosis five years later.

Lac-Mégantic derailment

At approximately 01:15 EDT, on July 6, 2013, an unattended 73-car

freight train Rail freight transport is the use of railroads and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers. A freight train, cargo train, or goods train is a group of freight cars (US) or goods wagons (International Union of Railways) haul ...

carrying crude oil ran away and derailed near the downtown area of Lac-Mégantic, causing multiple

s to catch fire and explode. Forty-seven people were killed or presumed killed in the explosion and ensuing blaze, making the derailment Canada's deadliest rail disaster since the St-Hilaire train disaster in 1864. More than 30 buildings in the town's centre were destroyed, including the town's library and archives. The police launched a criminal investigation, charging the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway and three workers with criminal negligence. Of the 39 downtown buildings still standing as of December 2014, thirty-six are to be demolished due to petroleum contamination of the underlying grounds.

Geography

Lac-Mégantic is located at the eastern part of the

Estrie Estrie () is an administrative region of Quebec that comprises the Eastern Townships. ''Estrie'', a French neologism, was coined as a derivative of ''est'', "east". Originally settled by anglophones, today it is about 90 per cent francophone. Angl ...

administrative region, in the Regional County Municipality of Le Granit, approximately from the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

border. The Chaudière River has its source in Lake Megantic and empties into the

St. Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connecting ...

, some further north, near Lévis (within the former city of Saint-Romuald). The Town of Lac-Mégantic is located from Mont Mégantic.

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, Lac-Mégantic 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. In 2021, the median age of Lac-Mégantic was 53.6 and 87% of the population were 15 years of age and over. Residents whose sole native language was French numbered 5,705 (98%), while those with only

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

as their first language were 60 (1%), 40 people (0.7%) had another language as their mother tongue and 20 people (0.3%) counted both French and English as their first language.

Government

Municipal

The mayor of Lac-Mégantic is Jean-Guy Cloutier, who was elected in a special election in 2015 to succeed retiring mayor Colette Roy-Laroche. Due to the rail disaster, the provincial government of Quebec had delayed the municipal election in Lac-Mégantic from its regular timing concurrent with the 2013 municipal elections; the next election will, however, be held normally in 2017. Roy-Laroche, a former schoolmaster, was nicknamed "the granite lady" (french: la dame de granit) for her handling of the derailment and its aftermath. The town council is made up of councillors representing six electoral districts.

Federal and provincial

Provincially, Lac-Mégantic is located in the provincial electoral district of Mégantic. It is represented by Ghislain Bolduc of the Quebec Liberal Party. Federally, Lac-Mégantic is part of the federal riding of

Mégantic—L'Érable Mégantic—L'Érable is a federal electoral district in Quebec, Canada, that has been represented in the House of Commons of Canada since 2004. The current MP is Conservative Luc Berthold. Geography Straddling the Quebec regions of Centre ...

. It is represented by

Luc Berthold Luc Berthold (born 1965 or 1966) is a Canadian politician who was elected to represent the riding of Mégantic—L'Érable in the House of Commons in the 2015 election. On February 6, 2022, Berthold was appointed Deputy Leader of the Conser ...

of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Economy

Although the railway has declined in recent decades, Lac-Mégantic remains an important centre of

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...

, logging,

lumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...

and pulp and paper.

Sonae Indústria Sonae Indústria is a manufacturer of engineered wood products, founded and headquartered in Maia, Portugal. Present in five countries within three continents, Sonae Indústria has a wide range of products, from simple board to complete construc ...

's local subsidiary, Tafisa Canada, operates a

particleboard Particle board, also known as chipboard or low-density fiberboard, is an engineered wood product manufactured from wood chips and a synthetic resin or other suitable binder, which is pressed and extruded. Particle board is often confused with or ...

factory in the town. Other major local employers include furniture manufacturer Bestar and forestry company Industries Manufacturières Mégantic, part of

Masonite International Masonite International Corporation is a designer, manufacturer and distributor of interior and exterior doors for the new construction and repair, renovation and remodeling sectors of the residential and non-residential building construction mark ...

. Granite from the region was incorporated into the

National September 11 Memorial The National September 11 Memorial & Museum (also known as the 9/11 Memorial & Museum) is a memorial and museum in New York City commemorating the September 11 attacks of 2001, which killed 2,977 people, and the 1993 World Trade Center bomb ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. Various other factories existed in the past, including a paper-printing plant; a sash-and-door factory; saw mills; and a butter, cheese, and cheese box factory. The region's economy in its early days was propelled by the

logging industry Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks or skeleton cars. Logging is the beginning of a supply chain ...

due to the vast swaths of old-growth forests. Many related industries operated in the region, including

(Nantais Mill), the furniture industry and the pulp and paper industry. Lake Mégantic was used for log floating, with a steamboat used to tow the logs to the

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...

. The first steamboat in the region, named the "Lena", was built by George Flint in 1881. At the time of the industrial revolution, rural and

working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...

es made up the majority of Mégantic's population. In 1907, the town had 2600 people and the daily wage for a labourer was around C$1 to C$1.50. The working class lived in the northern district of the city, while those in liberal

profession A profession is a field of work that has been successfully ''professionalized''. It can be defined as a disciplined group of individuals, '' professionals'', who adhere to ethical standards and who hold themselves out as, and are accepted by ...

s, as well as store clerks and employees of financial institutions lived in the central part of the city (downtown). The first bank branch in the town was the People's Bank of Halifax, which opened in December 1893. Its first manager was a Mr. Aitkens from Cookshire. The bank was acquired by Bank of Montreal in 1905 and a new building constructed that same year. The branch closed in 2001 and was sold to Banque Nationale; the 5193 Frontenac Street building later housed legal aid offices. Only a broken, charred shell remained after the 2013 Lac-Mégantic derailment burned much of the historic downtown but some legal records secured in the historic bank's vault survived the fire. The

Eastern Townships Bank Eastern Townships Bank was founded in 1859 by Colonel Benjamin Pomroy (1800–1875). It was the first financial institution in the south-east of Quebec, an area known as the Eastern Townships, and issued its own banknotes. Within a year after ...

, established in

Sherbrooke Sherbrooke ( ; ) is a city in southern Quebec, Canada. It is at the confluence of the Saint-François and Magog rivers in the heart of the Estrie administrative region. Sherbrooke is also the name of a territory equivalent to a regional cou ...

in 1859, opened a Mégantic office in 1904 and acquired its own building at Frontenac and Thibodeau in 1910. That bank was acquired by the

Canadian Bank of Commerce The Canadian Bank of Commerce was a Canadian bank which was founded in 1867, and had hundreds of branches throughout Canada. It merged in 1961 with the Imperial Bank of Canada to form the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. History In 1866 a ...

in 1912; the local branch with its distinctive architectural columns closed during the Great Depression in 1935.

Media

A weekly newspaper, ''L'Écho de Frontenac'', is published in the town and one radio station, CJIT-FM 106.7, operates from a local studio.

Tourism

The region has increased its reliance on tourism, a mainstay since the passenger rail era, attracting people from across

and the Northeastern United States. Lac-Mégantic profits from its proximity to two major provincial parks, Frontenac National Park on

Lac Saint-François Lake Saint Francis (french: lac Saint-François) is a lake which borders southeastern Ontario, southwestern Quebec and northern New York State. It is located on the Saint Lawrence River between Lake Ontario and Montreal, Quebec. The lake forms par ...

and Mont-Mégantic National Park near Notre-Dame-des-Bois. Mont-Mégantic Park is home of the ASTROlab astronomy museum and the

Mont Mégantic Observatory The Mont Mégantic Observatory (french: Observatoire du Mont-Mégantic; OMM) is an astronomical observatory owned and operated jointly by the Université de Montréal (UdeM), and the Université Laval (ULaval). Founded in 1978, the observatory ho ...

, a mountaintop observatory and

dark-sky preserve A dark-sky preserve (DSP) is an area, usually surrounding a park or observatory, that restricts artificial light pollution. The purpose of the dark-sky movement is generally to promote astronomy. However, astronomy is certainly not the only obje ...

. The Lac-Mégantic lakeshore is host to the Complexe Baie des Sables beachfront park, the annual Traversée internationale du lac Mégantic swim meet in August and the Grand tour du lac Mégantic cycle tour each June. The most popular activities for tourists are hunting and fishing.

Education

Lac Mégantic is home to a junior college, ''Centre d’études collégiales de Lac-Mégantic'', which is affiliated with the Cégep Beauce-Appalaches. The college offers both technical and pre-university training programs including an astrophysics program, which is the only one of its kind in Quebec. It also has a vocational training centre, the Centre de formation professionnelle Le Granit. The town has one secondary school, Polyvalente Montignac, and two elementary schools, École Notre-Dame-de-Fatima and École Sacré-Cœur. Lac-Mégantic is the birthplace of author Nelly Arcan; a new municipal library opened May 5, 2014 bears her name. The library's site (a former Canadelle undergarment factory at 4409, rue Dollard) was chosen in 2010 to accommodate expansion of a collection then over 45,000 volumes. As the original collection was destroyed by fire in 2013, a hundred thousand books were donated by local groups, universities, authors and publishers across Québec.

Infrastructure

Centre de santé et services sociaux du Granit

Lac Mégantic is crossed by Quebec Route 161 and Quebec Route 204. Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) built a

line linking

with the

port of Saint John,

. The division from Lac-Mégantic to

Mattawamkeag, Maine Mattawamkeag is a town in Penobscot County, Maine, United States, located where the Mattawamkeag River joins the Penobscot River. The population was 596 at the 2020 census. The village of Mattawamkeag is in the southwest part of the town. Rail ...

, was operated by CP subsidiary

and opened in 1889. The ''

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

'' passenger train was operated by CP and later

Via Rail Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via, is a Canadian Crown corporation that is mandated to operate intercity passenger rail service in Canada. It receives an annual subsidy from Transport Canada to offset the cost of operating ...

over this line, but was eliminated in December 1994. In 1988, CP consolidated its Lac-Mégantic-Saint John line into the

Canadian Atlantic Railway The Canadian Atlantic Railway (CAR) was a Canadian and U.S. railway that existed from 1988 to 1994. The CAR was created in September 1988 as a business unit of CP Rail (CPR) to serve the Maritime Provinces and state of Maine. Its creation wa ...

. In December 1994, the line was sold to

Canadian American Railroad The Canadian American Railroad was a railroad that operated between Brownville Junction, Maine and Lennoxville, Quebec. The railroad later expanded west to Farnham, Quebec and then St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec with running rights on Canadian ...

(part of

Iron Road Railways Iron Road Railways Incorporated (IRR) was a railroad holding company which owned several short line railroads in the U.S. state of Maine, as well as the Canadian provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. IRR was formed in 1994 and headq ...

). After that company's 2003 bankruptcy, the

Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway The Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway was a Class II freight railroad that operated in the U.S. states of Maine and Vermont and the Canadian province of Quebec between 2002 and 2014. It was headquartered in Hermon, Maine. Its Canadian subsid ...

provided freight service until the line in both directions was severed by the Lac-Mégantic derailment in 2013. MM&A claimed

bankruptcy protection Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

in August 2013; its assets were sold to

Fortress Investment Group Fortress Investment Group is an American investment management firm based in New York City. Fortress was founded as a private equity firm in 1998 by Wes Edens, Rob Kauffman, and Randal Nardone. When Fortress launched on the NYSE in February 200 ...

as the

Central Maine and Quebec Railway The Central Maine & Québec Railway was a Class II freight railroad operating in the U.S. states of Maine and Vermont and the Canadian province of Quebec with headquarters in Bangor, Maine. It was owned by Railroad Acquisition Holdings, LLC, ...

in 2014. In September 1895, the

completed a branch line from the CP main line at Lac-Mégantic north to Tring Junction, a point from which onward connections were available to Lévis. This line was abandoned in the 1980s and has been removed. The town was also home to the now-decommissioned Megantic Airport; an industrial park and large sawmill occupy the former airfield. A municipal sports centre, which opened in 2011, offers a wide range of sporting and educational activities, including a swimming pool and an

arena An arena is a large enclosed platform, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theatre, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators ...

. Lac-Mégantic is home to the Centre de santé et service sociaux (CSSS) du Granit, which is located on Laval Street. The facility serves the local community and contains a hospital centre for

acute care Acute care is a branch of secondary health care where a patient receives active but short-term treatment for a severe injury or episode of illness, an urgent medical condition, or during recovery from surgery.Alberta Health ServicesAcute care.Acce ...

with 35 beds, and a

long-term care Long-term care (LTC) is a variety of services which help meet both the medical and non-medical needs of people with a chronic illness or disability who cannot care for themselves for long periods. Long-term care is focused on individualized and ...

centre with 44 beds.

Sister cities

Dourdan Dourdan () is a commune in the Essonne department in Île-de-France. It is the capital of the historical region of Hurepoix. It is located in the metropolitan area of Paris. Geography Dourdan is located on the river Orge in the western Es ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

(1989) *

Farmington, Maine Farmington is a town in and the county seat of Franklin County, Maine, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population was 7,592. Farmington is home to the University of Maine at Farmington, Nordica Memorial Auditorium, the Nordica Homeste ...

(1991)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lac-Megantic Canadian Gaelic Cities and towns in Quebec Incorporated places in Estrie Le Granit Regional County Municipality Populated places established in 1884 1884 establishments in Canada