Beauce (; ) is a historical and traditional region of

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, Canada, located south of

Quebec City Quebec City is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Census Metropolitan Area (including surrounding communities) had a populati ...

. Most of it is part of the administrative region of Chaudière-Appalaches. It corresponds approximately to the regional county municipalities of Beauce-Sartigan, Beauce-Centre and La Nouvelle-Beauce, and its major communities are Saint-Georges, Sainte-Marie, Beauceville, Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce and Saint-Victor.

Name

The first record of the name goes back to 1739. "Nouvelle Beauce" (New Beauce) designated the '' seigneuries'' granted earlier along the Chaudière River and which would later become the current cities of Sainte-Marie, Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce, Beauceville, and Saint-Georges, as well as several other communities which would detach from these territories. According to accounts from Governor Charles de Beauharnois de la Boische and Intendant Gilles Hocquart, "Beauce" was chosen by ''seigneurs'' Joseph de Fleury de La Gorgendière, Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil and Thomas-Jacques Taschereau to develop the potential of colonization, as the name recalls the French Beauce, a region renowned for its wheat production. In 1829, the name represented a

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

extending to the Canada–US border with

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

. Later, Beauce would also be the name of administrative, municipal, electoral, school and judicial subdivisions, sometimes with different borders. Today, residents of neighbouring regional county municipalities consider themselves "Beaucerons" (masculine) or "Beauceronnes" (feminine) because of the former administrative links. Historically, Beaucerons have also been known under the nickname of "Jarrets noirs" (black hocks). Travelling to Quebec City took up to one week, and because of the hilly roads and their conditions, they would often have to push their farm carts. They would get their legs dirty and arrive at the destination with their hocks black. It may also have referred to the hocks of their horses being black when they got to Quebec City because of the abundance of peaty

bogs A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main Wetland#Types, types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagm ...

or wetlands on the journey there; the horses' legs would sink up to their hocks and become covered in the muck and therefore be blackened.

Economy

Beauce has over 50% of sugar maples and sugar shacks in

, which produces the most maple syrup in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

as well as the World.https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Evolution-of-maple-syrup-production-for-the-Beauce-region-of-Quebec-for-the-period_fig8_279852099 Exclusively agricultural for many years, Beauce's economy slowly diversified in the first half of the 20th century through forestry,

wood processing Wood processing is an engineering discipline in the wood industry comprising the production of forest products, such as pulp and paper, construction materials, and tall oil. Paper engineering is a subfield of wood processing. The major wo ...

, and the leather and textile industries. In 1951, the industrial production value became for the first time superior to agriculture, likely due to strong local entrepreneurship and cheap labour. Today's economy relies especially on

small and medium enterprises Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are businesses whose personnel and revenue numbers fall below certain limits. The abbreviation "SME" is used by many national agencies and international organizat ...

in the industries of furniture, food, clothing, printing and metalworking. It is known as Quebec's entrepreneurial heartland.

People linked to Beauce

* Marius Barbeau, ethnographer * Jesse Bélanger, NHL hockey player * Gilles Bernier, Canadian politician * Maxime Bernier, Canadian politician * Joseph Bolduc, Canadian politician * Roch Carrier, author * Thomas Chabot, NHL hockey player * William Chapman, poet * Robert Cliche, Quebec politician * Marcel Dutil, businessman * Clermont Pépin, composer * Édouard Lacroix businessman and politician * Maveric Lamoureux, junior hockey player * Laurent Noël, Catholic bishop * Jacques Poulin, novelist * Marie-Philip Poulin, hockey player * George Pozer, businessman * Fabien Roy, Canadian politician * Mathieu Roy, NHL hockey player * Alex Tanguay, NHL hockey player * Elzéar-Alexandre Taschereau, clergyman * Henri Elzéar Taschereau, judge * Stéphane Veilleux, NHL hockey player

Notes

{{Coord, 46, 07, N, 70, 40, W, display=title, region:CA-QC_source:CTQ Beauce, Quebec Historical regions in Canada

Name

Economy

People linked to Beauce

See also

Notes