The Maskinongé River is located north of the administrative region of Lanaudière and west of the administrative region of

Mauricie Mauricie () is a traditional and current administrative region of Quebec. La Mauricie National Park is contained within the region, making it a prime tourist location. The region has a land area of 35,860.05 km² (13,845.64 sq mi) and a popu ...

, in Quebec, in Canada. The river has a total length of 40 km. It takes its source in Maskinongé Lake, located in

Saint-Gabriel-de-Brandon Saint-Gabriel-de-Brandon is a municipality (Quebec), municipality in the D'Autray Regional County Municipality in the Lanaudière region of Quebec, Canada. History The first settlers, mostly Irish and Scottish Loyalists, came around 1825 to the ...

. It crosses the municipalities of Saint-Gabriel-de-Brandon, Saint-Gabriel, and Saint-Didace in the region of Lanaudière; then Saint-Justin,

Louiseville Louiseville is a town in the Mauricie region of the province of Quebec in Canada. It is located near the mouth of the 'Rivière-du-Loup', on the north shore of Lac Saint-Pierre. Louiseville is twinned with Soissons in France and Cerfontaine in ...

, and Maskinongé before pour into the north shore of

Lake Saint-Pierre Lake Saint Pierre (; abe, Nebesek) is a lake in Quebec, Canada, a widening of the Saint Lawrence River between Sorel-Tracy and Trois-Rivières. It is located downstream, and northeast, of Montreal; and upstream, and southwest, of Quebec City. Th ...

at the height of this municipality.

Toponymy

The name of the river comes from the muskellunge ("Esox masquinongy"), a species of pike from

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

. Its name comes from the Algonquin and means "deformed pike".

Geography

Course

The Maskinongé River begins its course at an altitude of 142 m in lake of the same name. It then flows south-east for a distance of 52 km and flows into the St. Lawrence River at Maskinongé altitude of 3 m. It has two major gradients: the Lauzon Falls where it drops from 30 m and the Saint-Ursula Falls where it drops from 70 m.

Geology

The upstream section of the Sainte-Ursule Falls is part of the Laurentides, a section of the

Canadian Shield The Canadian Shield (french: Bouclier canadien ), also called the Laurentian Plateau, is a geologic shield, a large area of exposed Precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks. It forms the North American Craton (or Laurentia), the anc ...

. The latter formed a billion years ago and was probably as high as the Himalayas. A slow erosion process has brought it back to its current level. The downstream section is part of the St. Lawrence Platform.

Population

The basin was inhabited by a unit of 14,000 people in 2006. The largest urban agglomeration in the basin is the town of Saint-Gabriel, which is located on the shore of the

Lac Maskinongé Lac is the resinous secretion of a number of species of lac insects, of which the most commonly cultivated is '' Kerria lacca''. Cultivation begins when a farmer gets a stick that contains eggs ready to hatch and ties it to the tree to be infe ...

Natural environment

We find 52 species of fish. The main sporting species are the Salvelinus fontinalis (Salvelinus fontinalis), Salvelinus namaycush (Salvelinus namaycush) (Salvelinus namaycush) and the muskellunge (fish) (''Esox masquinongy''). There are also the red knight (''Moxostoma macrolepidotum''),

Ambloplites rupestris The rock bass (''Ambloplites rupestris''), also known as the rock perch, goggle-eye, red eye, and black perch, is a freshwater fish native to east-central North America. This red eyed creature is a species of freshwater fish in the sunfish fa ...

, brown trout (''Salmo trutta''), Semotilus corporalis, Perca flavescens, the horned mule, 'Semotilus atromaculatus', black sucker (''Catostomus commersonii'') and brown bullhead (''Ameiurus nebulosus''). The basin is frequented by birds.

History

The Attikameks used the Maskinongé River as a route from

Matawinie Matawinie is a regional county municipality in the region of Lanaudière in southwestern Quebec, Canada. Its seat is Rawdon. The population according to the 2021 Canadian Census was 55,500. Subdivisions There are 27 subdivisions within the RCM ...

to Trois-Rivières. In 1700, French settlers began settling in Maskinongé. As for Lake Maskinongé, the first settlers settled there in 1818. The north of the basin was occupied from 1880 by the club Mastigouche, a private club of hunting and fishing. This was nationalized in the 1970s and integrated into the Mastigouche Wildlife Reserve and the Nymphs' Nest.