Amos is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

in northwestern

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, on the

Harricana River The Harricana River (french: Rivière Harricana) (also known as Harricanaw River) is a river in western Quebec and northeastern Ontario, Canada. It is long, has a drainage area of , and has a mean discharge of . While 80% of its drainage area is ...

. It is the seat of Abitibi Regional County Municipality. Amos is the main town on the Harricana River, and the smallest of the three primary towns — after Rouyn-Noranda and Val-d'Or — in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region of Quebec. Its main resources are spring water, gold and

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...

products, including

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distrib ...

. In 2012, Quebec Lithium Corp. re-opened Canada's first

lithium Lithium (from el, λίθος, lithos, lit=stone) is a chemical element with the symbol Li and atomic number 3. It is a soft, silvery-white alkali metal. Under standard conditions, it is the least dense metal and the least dense solid ...

mine, which had operated as an underground mine from 1955–65. They are planning to carve an open pit mine over pegmatite dikes. (The pegmatite is about 1% lithium carbonate.) The mine is about north of Val-d'Or, southeast of Amos, and km west of Barraute. It is in the northeast corner of La Corne Township. Access to the mine is via paved road from Val d'Or. The smaller communities of Lac-Gauvin and Saint-Maurice-de-Dalquier are also within the municipal boundaries of Amos.

History

Rupert's Land Rupert's Land (french: Terre de Rupert), or Prince Rupert's Land (french: Terre du Prince Rupert, link=no), was a territory in British North America which comprised the Hudson Bay drainage basin; this was further extended from Rupert's Land t ...

, in which Abitibi was located, was owned by the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business di ...

and was bought by Canada in 1869. Abitibi itself was then annexed to the province in Quebec on June 13, 1898, by an act of the federal Parliament. Amos was the starting point for the colonization of the region of Abitibi that began in 1910. The municipality was established in 1914 while the city itself was chartered in 1925. The name of the city came from the maiden name of the wife of Sir Lomer Gouin, then premier of Quebec. A related municipality was created in 1917 under the name 'Municipalité de la partie ouest des cantons unis de Figuery et Dalquier' (Municipality of the western part of the united townships of Figuery and Dalquier) which changed its name to Amos-Ouest in 1949. In 1974 the municipality fused with the city of Amos proper. Another related municipality was created in 1918 under the name 'Municipalité de la partie est des cantons Figuery et Dalquier' (Municipality of the eastern part of the united townships of Figuery and Dalquier), which also changed its name later 1950 to Amos-Est. The municipality was finally integrated into the city of Amos itself in 1987.

Government

The current mayor of the city is Sébastien D'Astous, who took office on February 20, 2015, after winning a

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

following the death in office of former Mayor Ulrick Chérubin in September 2014. In the by-election D'Astous, formerly a city councillor, defeated Donald Blanchet, who had served as interim mayor between Chérubin's death and the by-election. In the National Assembly of Quebec, Amos is within the electoral district of Abitibi-Ouest, represented by Coalition Avenir Québec MNA Suzanne Blais. In the House of Commons of Canada, the city is in the

Abitibi—Témiscamingue Abitibi—Témiscamingue is a federal electoral district in Quebec, Canada, that has been represented in the House of Commons of Canada since 2004. The area was also represented by the electoral district of Témiscamingue from 1968 until 2004. ...

district, represented by Bloc Québécois MP Sébastien Lemire. Amos is the seat of the judicial district of Abitibi.

Mayors

* Hector Authier, 1914-1918 *

David Gourd David Gourd (10 February 1885 – 29 December 1981) was a Liberal party member of the House of Commons of Canada. He was born in Saint-Victor d'Alfred, Ontario, and became a financier and merchant by career. Early in his career, he move ...

, 1918-1921"David Gourd, M.P., Long Leader in Amos and Abitibi District". ''Val-d'Or Star'', July 8, 1949. *Joseph Grenier, 1921-1923 *J.O. Germain, 1923-1928 *T.A. Lalonde, 1928-1929 *J.É. Montambault, 1929-1931 *Julien Beaudry, 1931-1934 *G.A. Brunet, 1934-1939 *Fridolin Simard, 1939-1943 *G.A. Brunet, 1943-1947 *Fridolin Simard, 1947-1957 *G.A. Brunet, 1957-1965 *Gérard Magny, 1965-1971 * Jean-Hugues Boutin, 1971-1974 *Laurier St-Laurent, 1974-1982 *Marcel Lesyk, 1982-1987 *Jean-Paul Veilleux, 1987-1990 *André Brunet, 1990-1998 *Murielle Angers-Turpin, 1998-2002 * Ulrick Chérubin, 2002-2014 *Donald Blanchet, 2014-2015 *Sébastien D'Astous, 2015–present

Media

Transportation

Passenger trains no longer serve Amos, but the town once had a Canadian National Railway station. Amos is served by Quebec highways 109, 111 and 395 and Amos/Magny Airport.

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, Amos 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.

Climate

Amos has a

humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...

''Dfb''), just above a subarctic climate (''Dfc''), with warm summers, frigid winters and heavy precipitation for most of the year.

References

External links

Ville d'Amos
* {{Authority control Cities and towns in Quebec