Murdochville is a town in

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 ...

, one of only a few inland communities on the

Gaspé Peninsula The Gaspé Peninsula, also known as Gaspesia (; ), is a peninsula along the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River that extends from the Matapedia Valley in Quebec, Canada, into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. It is separated from New Brunswick o ...

. Its population (as of 2016) is 651. Murdochville is located along

Quebec Route 198 Route 198 is a 132 km two-lane highway which cuts through the Appalachian Mountains in the Gaspé Peninsula, Quebec, Canada. It acts both as a shortcut to get to Gaspé without having to go through many small villages and steep climbs on Route 13 ...

in the geographic township of Holland, south of

L'Anse-Pleureuse Saint-Maxime-du-Mont-Louis is a municipality in Quebec, Canada. Located in the administrative region of Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine and the regional county municipality of La Haute-Gaspésie, the municipality comprises the communities of M ...

and west of Gaspé. It is above sea level and surrounded by high mountains.

History

In 1921,

copper ore Following is a list of minerals that serve as copper ores in the copper mining Copper extraction refers to the methods used to obtain copper from its ores. The conversion of copper consists of a series of physical and electrochemical proces ...

was discovered in the area by the Miller brothers: Alfred, Sydney, Frederick, Angus and Theophilus. However, it was not until 1950 that Noranda Mines actually began mining. The mining town was set up and named after James Y. Murdoch, owner of the mine and first president of Noranda. In 1953, the town was incorporated. The mining operation in the town was comparatively large, starting with mining the raw ore and finishing with an end product of pure copper anode. In the 1970s, the mining operation in Murdochville was large enough to support a population of 5,000 inhabitants. A number of large

union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

battles in Murdochville also helped lay the groundwork for ideas that still exist today. The 1957 Murdochville strike led to the adoption of several new laws protecting the rights of unionized workers in Quebec. In 1987, the mine was partially destroyed by an underground fire, and mining only resumed two years later. The mine closed in 1999, leaving the town to fight for survival. After several close calls, the small town has decided to fight back, in an effort to reverse the economic uncertainty that has befallen the town. This has included the creation of several large

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. ...

projects, along with the diversification of the local economy, with emphasis on tourism (such as skiing in the winter months).

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 ...

, Murdochville 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.

Climate

Murdochville has a warm-summer

humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...

(''

Dfb DFB may refer to: * Deerfield Beach, Florida, a city * Decafluorobutane, a fluorocarbon gas * Dem Franchize Boyz, former hip hop group, Atlanta, Georgia * Dfb, Köppen climate classification for Humid continental climate * Distributed-feedback las ...

''). Summers are relatively cool and short, whereas winters are long and at times very cold with massive amounts of snowfall. The brief summers are, however, mild enough to keep September (the fourth-warmest month) right above the isotherm for a humid continental climate.

References

External links

Town of Murdochville

{{authority control Incorporated places in Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine Cities and towns in Quebec Mining communities in Quebec Populated places established in 1950 1950 establishments in Quebec

History

Demographics

Climate

See also

References

External links