Val-Brillant is a municipality in eastern

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, at the base of 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 ...

. On the southern shores of the

Lake Matapedia Lake Matapedia is a body of water in the Matapedia Valley, located in the unorganized territory of Lac-Matapédia, in Sayabec, in Val-Brillant, in La Matapédia Regional County Municipality, in administrative region of Bas-Saint-Laurent, in Quebec ...

, Val-Brillant is part of the

Matapédia Valley The Matapedia Valley (French: ''vallée de la Matapédia'') was formed by the Chic-Choc Mountains of eastern Québec. Its name is derived from the river that traverses the valley, as well as the lake that lies in its center. It is situated in ...

. The place was previously known by many other names: Lac-Matapédia; Brochu or Brouché, followed by Lac-à-Brochu until 1871 (after Pierre Brochu (1795-1871), the first settler in the valley in what is now

Sayabec Sayabec () is a municipality located in the La Matapédia Regional County Municipality (RCM) in Bas-Saint-Laurent, Quebec, Canada. It is located in the Matapédia Valley between the Chic-Choc Mountains of the Appalachian near Lake Matapédia. Th ...

); McGowe (after an engineer working on the railroad); Cedar Hall from 1876 to 1912 (referring to the large hangar built from pieces of cedar that served as a coal shed for the railway); and Saint-Pierre-du-Lac (in honour of Pierre Brillant (1852-1911), missionary in the Matapedia Valley from 1881 to 1889 and parish priest from 1889 to his death).

History

Originally

Mi'kmaq The Mi'kmaq (also ''Mi'gmaq'', ''Lnu'', ''Miꞌkmaw'' or ''Miꞌgmaw''; ; ) are a First Nations people of the Northeastern Woodlands, indigenous to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec as well as the northe ...

territory, the area was granted as a seignory by

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 nu ...

to Charles-Nicolas-Joseph D’Amours in 1694. D'Amours died in 1728 and none of his descendants claimed the rights to the seignory. So it remained a remote and undeveloped land until the 19th century. In 1830 construction began on the Kempt Road, a strategic military road between Quebec and the Maritimes, completed in 1833. An inn serving

postilion A postilion or postillion is a person who guides a horse-drawn coach or post chaise while mounted on the horse or one of a pair of horses. By contrast, a coachman controls the horses from the vehicle itself. Originally the English name for a ...

s and travellers along the road operated there from 1867 to 1876. European settlement began in 1872 during the construction of the

Intercolonial Railway The Intercolonial Railway of Canada , also referred to as the Intercolonial Railway (ICR), was a historic Canadian railway that operated from 1872 to 1918, when it became part of Canadian National Railways. As the railway was also completely ow ...

. Supervisor Engineer Peter Grant built for himself a house that also accommodated the railway employees for many years. In 1876, the railway was completed and on July 1 the first train passed through. In 1881, the post office opened, and two years later, the Mission of Saint-Pierre-du-Lac was established, named in honour of Pierre Brillant. In 1890, the Parish Municipality of Saint-Pierre-du-Lac was founded. By 1898, it had a population of 1600 people. In 1915, the main population centre separated from the parish municipality and was incorporated as the Village Municipality of Saint-Pierre-du-Lac, but renamed one year later to Val-Brillant. In 1986, the Village Municipality of Val-Brillant and the Parish Municipality of Saint-Pierre-du-Lac were rejoined in the current Municipality of Val-Brillant.

Municipal council

* Mayor: Donald Malenfant * Councillors: Serge Malenfant, Gérald Ouellet, Roch Couture, Yves Bilodeau, Jacques Gaulin, Geneviève Leblanc

Demographics

Mother tongue: * English as first language: 0% * French as first language: 99.4% * English and French as first language: 0% * Other as first language: 0.6%

References

External links

Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec
- Cedar Hall
Info Gaspésie
- Val-Brillant

{{authority control Municipalities in Quebec Incorporated places in Bas-Saint-Laurent Designated places in Quebec La Matapédia Regional County Municipality

History

Municipal council

Demographics

See also

References

External links