Portage-du-Fort is a

village municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

in the

Pontiac Regional County Municipality Pontiac (french: municipalité régionale de comté de Pontiac) is a regional county municipality in the Outaouais region of Quebec, Canada. Campbell's Bay is the county seat. It should not be confused with the municipality of Pontiac, which is ...

in the southwest corner of the

Outaouais Outaouais (, ; also commonly called The Outaouais) is a region of western Quebec, Canada. It includes the city of Gatineau, the municipality of Val-des-Monts and the Papineau region. Geographically, it is located on the north side of the Ottaw ...

region of Quebec, Canada. The village lies across the

Ottawa River The Ottawa River (french: Rivière des Outaouais, Algonquin: ''Kichi-Sìbì/Kitchissippi'') is a river in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. It is named after the Algonquin word 'to trade', as it was the major trade route of Eastern ...

from Chenaux, Ontario and

Horton, Ontario Horton is a township in eastern Ontario, Canada, at the confluence of the Bonnechere River and the Ottawa River in Renfrew County. The Town of Renfrew was originally part of Horton Township. Communities The township comprises the communities ...

. At Portage-du-Fort there is a dam, the Chenaux Hydro-Electric Power Station, and bridge across the Ottawa River.

Toponymy

Portage-du-Fort is named after the

portage Portage or portaging (Canada: ; ) is the practice of carrying water craft or cargo over land, either around an obstacle in a river, or between two bodies of water. A path where items are regularly carried between bodies of water is also called a ...

trail which started here and would lead upstream around a set of falls on the Ottawa River. However, there are several hypotheses to explain the "Fort" portion. Among the most popular is the assumption that a fort was present here on the shore of the Ottawa River to keep provisions at the portage. It has been claimed that a fort called Dufort was flooded in the rapids at this location. However, some researchers argue that the fort in question has never existed and may be a reference to another fort at the mouth of the

Coulonge River The Coulonge River (; ) is a predominantly wilderness river in western Quebec, Canada. One of a dozen or so significant tributaries of the Ottawa River, it has a length of and a drainage area of , and runs in a general south-eastern direction fro ...

(after which modern

Fort-Coulonge Fort Coulonge is a village in the Pontiac Regional County Municipality in western Quebec, Canada, at the mouth of the Coulonge River. It is the francophone centre of the otherwise largely (57%) anglophone Pontiac MRC, with 79.6% listing French a ...

is named). Moreover, the word formerly did not always convey a military connotation and could be more or less synonymous with a village or hamlet, or even a post or warehouse which was fortified. One theory suggests that the name goes back to a custom of the

Algonquins The Algonquin people are an Indigenous people who now live in Eastern Canada. They speak the Algonquin language, which is part of the Algonquian language family. Culturally and linguistically, they are closely related to the Odawa, Potawatomi ...

who would paint their bodies here and it was originally named ''Portage du Fard'' (French for "make-up"), which changed into "Fort". Another possibility is that ''Fort'' (French also for "strong") makes reference to the strength needed to haul the heavy canoes and supplies over the arduous portage. But there is no certainty on any of these theories.

History

In 1611, a French scout named Nicolas de Vignau arrived at this site together with a group of Algonquins while on their way to

Allumette Island Julienne, , or french cut, is a culinary knife cut in which the food item is cut into long thin strips, similar to matchsticks. Common items to be julienned are carrots for , celery for , potatoes for julienne fries, or cucumbers for . Trimm ...

. From here they had to

around a series of 5 difficult waterfalls on the Ottawa River. The portage from Harbor Square to Bentley's Landing is one of the oldest trails in North America because the Native peoples inhabiting the valley have used it for thousands of years. In 1694, Louis d'Ailleboust, Sieur de Coulonge, established a fur trading post near the mouth of the

. Subsequently the long portage around the falls that led to Fort Coulonge became known as "le portage du fort". But the site was only periodically inhabited, based on travel periods, especially in spring and early summer. In the early 19th century

timber slide A timber slide is a device for moving timber past rapids and waterfalls. Their use in Canada was widespread in the 18th and 19th century timber trade. At this time, cut timber would be floated down rivers in large timber rafts from logging c ...

s were built around the falls, allowing loggers easy access to Pontiac County and Portage-du-Fort became the hub for all traffic connected with the lumber industry. The first real settlers came in 1844, the year when the village was surveyed. In 1847, the post office opened and Henry Osborne built a depot with storehouse to supply the lumber industry further inland. On September 19, 1855, Portage-du-Fort became the county seat with Patrick Fox as its first mayor and warden. A memorial of Lady Head`s visit to the Upper Ottawa, in a bark canoe, in 1856, stands at Portage-du-Fort, Quebec. She was the wife of

Sir Edmund Walker Head, 8th Baronet Sir Edmund Walker Head, 8th Baronet, KCB (16 February 1805 – 28 January 1868) was a 19th-century British politician and diplomat. Early life and scholarship Head was born at Wiarton Place, near Maidstone, Kent, the son of the Reverend Sir J ...

. Portage du Fort was home to the area's first newspaper, the ''Pontiac Pioneer'' and ''Portage du Fort Advertiser'', which was published by G.E. White from 1855 to 1865. From 1860 onward, Portage-du-Fort was an important centre of the Pontiac with its mills, its train station, and its terminus for steam boats carrying grain and wood. This prosperity led to the creation of the municipality in 1863 when it separated from the municipality of Litchfield Township. That same year Stanislas Drapeau wrote: However, a serious fire in 1914 almost destroyed the place entirely and curbed its development for many years. Further decline came when the

Canadian Northern Railway The Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) was a historic Canadian transcontinental railway. At its 1923 merger into the Canadian National Railway , the CNoR owned a main line between Quebec City and Vancouver via Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Edmonton. Man ...

bypassed the village. In 1950, the Chenaux hydroelectric power plant and dam were built.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population 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 ...

, Portage-du-Fort 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. Mother tongue (2016): * English as first language: 87.2% * French as first language: 10.6% * Other as first language: none

Local government

List of former mayors: * Gérald Manwell (2001–2009) * Lynne Cameron (2009–present)

References

External links

Elections Canada Results - 39th General Election (2006)

Director General of Quebec Elections

Official Transport Quebec Road Map
{{authority control Incorporated places in Outaouais Portages in Canada Villages in Quebec