Pointe-au-Père is a district (''secteur'') of the city of

Rimouski Rimouski ( ) is a city in Quebec, Canada. Rimouski is located in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region, at the mouth of the Rimouski River. It has a population of 48,935 (as of 2021). Rimouski is the site of Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR), the C ...

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 ...

, which is located in the central part of the

Bas-Saint-Laurent The Bas-Saint-Laurent (Lower Saint-Lawrence), is an administrative region of Quebec located along the south shore of the lower Saint Lawrence River in Quebec. The river widens at this place, later becoming a bay that discharges into the Atlanti ...

region in eastern

at the mouth of 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 ...

. Its population was 4,240 in 2002, the year it merged with Rimouski. It is named after Father

Henri Nouvel Henri Nouvel (1621 or 1624 in Pezenas, Herault (France) – between October 1701 and October 1702 at the St. Francis Xavier Mission near Baie des Puants) was a Jesuit priest who spent forty years as a missionary to Native American communities ...

, who celebrated the first mass there in 1663. Pointe-au-Père lighthouse along with the

Site historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Père The ''Site historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Père'' is a maritime museum located in Rimouski, Quebec, Canada, that displays 200 years of maritime history, and includes the first submarine open since 2009 to the public in Canada, . The second ...

museum are major regional tourist attractions. Murderer

Dr Crippen Hawley Harvey Crippen (September 11, 1862 – November 23, 1910), usually known as Dr. Crippen, was an American homeopath, ear and eye specialist and medicine dispenser. He was hanged in Pentonville Prison in London for the murder of his wife Co ...

was arrested when the steam ship , on which he was trying to escape with his mistress, who was disguised as his son, reached Pointe-au-Père. On May 29, 1914, the RMS ''Empress of Ireland'' sank in the Saint Lawrence River near this village, with a loss of 1,012 lives. Pointe-au-Père tide station serves as the reference point for measuring mean sea level for the

North American Vertical Datum of 1988 The North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD 88) is the vertical datum for orthometric heights established for vertical control surveying in the United States of America based upon the General Adjustment of the North American Datum of 1988. ...

, which is the reference point for determining altitude in North America.

Notes

External links

Site historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Père

Ville de Rimouski
Former municipalities in Quebec Communities in Bas-Saint-Laurent Rimouski 1663 establishments in the French colonial empire Populated places disestablished in 2002 {{BasSaintLaurent-geo-stub