The Musée québécois de l'agriculture et de l'alimentation, formerly known as Musée François-Pilote, is a museum of
Québécois ethnology located
La Pocatière
La Pocatière is a town in the Kamouraska Regional County Municipality in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region of Quebec, Canada.
Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, La Pocatière had a population of living ...
, Quebec, Canada. The museum features a wide variety of collections and displays, and specializes in the history of agricultural education in the region.
The museum's namesake, l'Abbé François Pilote, founded the first permanent school of agriculture in Canada (and the second in North America, after
Michigan Agricultural College
Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It i ...
), and the museum showcases equipment used throughout the history of the school.
The fourth and top floor of the museum is dedicated to the history of agricultural education, as well as a display of birds preserved by the
ornithologist
Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...
Antoine Tanguay.
The third floor presents examples of rooms from Québécois homes in the early 1900s; there are three from a
bourgeois
The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...
household, and several from the home of a well-off farmer, using the real furniture from his estate, as well as an example of a rural schoolroom, country store,
optician
An optician, or ''dispensing optician'', is a technical practitioner who designs, fits and dispenses lenses for the correction of a person's vision. Opticians determine the specifications of various ophthalmic appliances that will give the nec ...
's office, and the offices of a parish priest,
notary
A notary is a person authorised to perform acts in legal affairs, in particular witnessing signatures on documents. The form that the notarial profession takes varies with local legal systems.
A notary, while a legal professional, is disti ...
, doctor and dentist. There is an exhibit on the work of l'Abbé Maurice Proulx, a pioneer in Québécois cinema and a former educator at the School of Agriculture.
The second floor presents the animals of the region, as well as a visiting exhibition which changes each year.
Finally, on the first floor is the history of
maple syrup
Maple syrup is a syrup made from the sap of maple trees. In cold climates, these trees store starch in their trunks and roots before winter; the starch is then converted to sugar that rises in the sap in late winter and early spring. Maple tree ...
production, a display of the tools of several crafts practiced in the region, an exhibit of modes of transportation, and examples of agricultural machinery.
References
External links
Musée québécois de l’agriculture et de l’alimentation– official site
{{Quebec-struct-stub
Museums in Bas-Saint-Laurent
History museums in Quebec
Natural history museums in Quebec
Agriculture museums in Canada
La Pocatière