Sainte-Flavie is a
parish municipality
A parish is an administrative division used by several countries. To distinguish it from an ''ecclesiastical parish'', the term ''civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is ...
in the
La Mitis Regional County Municipality
La Mitis is a regional county municipality in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region in eastern Quebec, Canada on the Gaspé peninsula. It is named for the Mitis River (''The Mitis'') which has its source in the region (at Lac Inférieur) and flows thro ...
of
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, located on the south shore of the
Saint 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, connectin ...
, about northwest of
Mont-Joli
Mont-Joli () is a city in the La Mitis Regional County Municipality within the Bas-Saint-Laurent region of Quebec, Canada. It is the county seat. The city is located east of Rimouski near the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River.
History
In ...
. It is named after
Flavia, a
martyr
A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...
ed saint.
Sainte-Flavie is the westernmost point of
Route 132's loop around the
Gaspé Peninsula at which the road intersects with itself.
History
Formerly, the territory of the municipality covered a much larger area, extending deeper inland until was is the current municipality of
Sainte-Jeanne-d'Arc. In 1696,
Louis de Buade de Frontenac
Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac et de Palluau (; 22 May 162228 November 1698) was a French soldier, courtier, and Governor General of New France in North America from 1672 to 1682, and again from 1689 to his death in 1698. He established a num ...
, governor of
New France
New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spa ...
, ceded the territory as a
seigneury
''Seigneur'' is an originally feudal title in France before the Revolution, in New France and British North America until 1854, and in the Channel Islands to this day. A seigneur refers to the person or collective who owned a ''seigneurie'' (o ...
to Louis Lepage and Gabriel Thibierge. The territory was given the name of Lepage.
However, the
demographic development of the seigneury was long and progressive. Seigneur Lepage and Thibierge seemed to have little interest in clearing the land. They mostly contented themselves with hunting and fishing. The seigneury passed into the hands of the wealthy merchant
Joseph Drapeau
Joseph Drapeau (April 13, 1752 – November 3, 1810) was a seigneur, merchant and political figure in Lower Canada. He represented Northumberland in the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada from 1809 to 1810.
He was born in Pointe-Lévy, the ...
in 1790 and on his death, it was passed on to his wife, Marie-Geneviève Noël and his three daughters; Luce-Gertrude, Angélique-Flavie and Louise-Angèle.
Taking advantage of the impetus to create parishes from the
diocese of Quebec, the inhabitants of Lepage claimed their parish and ended up obtaining it in 1829. But that was only the beginning of the hard work needed to establish the community. The inhabitants had to travel for miles to attend Sunday mass and to grind their grain at the mill on the Loutres River in Lessard. Finally, in the summer of 1850, the first wooden church was built. Then in 1853, to the delight of the parish priest, the presbytery was built as we can see it today.
The Municipality of Sainte-Flavie was finally created in 1855. Sainte-Flavie was named in honor of the co-seigneuress Flavie Drapeau and in memory of
Flavia Domitilla, a Roman martyr of the 1st century. At three different moments, the municipality lost important section of its territory. First in 1869 for the creation of
Sainte-Angèle-de-Mérici, then in 1873 when
Saint-Joseph-de-Lepage split away and finally in 1880 when
Mont-Joli
Mont-Joli () is a city in the La Mitis Regional County Municipality within the Bas-Saint-Laurent region of Quebec, Canada. It is the county seat. The city is located east of Rimouski near the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River.
History
In ...
also split away from Sainte-Flavie to became its own village.
In 1890, the wooden church was sold to the parish of Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes in Mont-Joli. The inhabitants of Sainte-Flavie wanted a stone church and after having made the request to the bishop and after having drawn up the plans and specifications, the construction begun. However, the first celebration was to take place only 11 years after the start of the work, which ended in 1884. Finally, in 1948, a fire ravaged the religious building to the great misfortune of the population. Immediately, the construction of a third church, the one that currently exists, began.
In 1932, a wharf was built around which commercial and sport fishing coexisted for a time. Nowadays, the latter is used only for fun. Until recently, the inhabitants of Sainte-Flavie lived mainly from agriculture, fishing and forestry. Over time, the Flavian economy has focused mainly on the service industry and tourism.
In the 2010s, coastal erosion became an issue for the municipality3. Since the tide of December 6, 2010, some residences in coastal locations have been moved inland.
[https://unpointcinq.ca/habitat/erosion-cotiere-sainte-flavie/]
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, Sainte-Flavie 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.
See also
*
List of parish municipalities in Quebec
This is a list of municipalities that have the Quebec municipal type of parish municipality (''paroisse'', code=P), an administrative division defined by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, Regions and Land Occupancy.
The ''Commission de toponymi ...
References
External links
*
Parish municipalities in Quebec
Incorporated places in Bas-Saint-Laurent
{{BasSaintLaurent-geo-stub