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 Chaudière-Appalaches (, ) is an administrative region in Quebec, Canada. It comprises most of what is historically known as the " Beauce" (; compare with the electoral district of Beauce). It is named for the Chaudière River and the Appalachia ...

. It corresponds approximately to the

regional county municipalities The term regional county municipality or RCM (, , MRC) is used in Quebec, Canada to refer to one of 87 county-like political entities. In some older English translations they were called county regional municipality. Regional county municipalit ...

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 A seigneur () or lord 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. The seigneur owned a seigneurie, seigneury, or lordship—a form of ...

'' granted earlier along the

Chaudière River The Chaudière River (; French for "Cauldron" or "Boiler"; Western Abenaki, Abenaki: Kik8ntekw) is a river with its source near the Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, Town of Lac-Mégantic, in southeast Quebec, Canada. From its source Lake Mégantic in the ...

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 Gilles Hocquart was born in 1694, in Sainte-Croix, Mortagne-au-Perche to Jean-Hyacinthe Hocquart. From September, 1729 to August, 1748, Hocquart served as Intendant of New France. Hocquart put his faith in the Canadian bourgeoisie as the main pla ...

, "Beauce" was chosen by ''seigneurs'' Joseph de Fleury de La Gorgendière, Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil and

Thomas-Jacques Taschereau Thomas-Jacques Taschereau (; August 26, 1680 – September 25, 1749) was the patriarch of the illustrious Taschereau family in New France (Canada). It is believed that he may have come from some level of nobility in France and his family descended ...

to develop the potential of colonization, as the name recalls the French

Beauce Beauce may refer to: * Beauce, France, a natural region in north-central France * Beaucé, a commune in the Ille-et-Vilaine department, Brittany, France * Beauce, Quebec Beauce (; ) is a historical and traditional region of Quebec, Canada, lo ...

, 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 ...

wetlands A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

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 maple ''Acer saccharum'', the sugar maple, is a species of flowering plant in the soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae. It is native to the hardwood forests of eastern Canada and the eastern United States. Sugar maple is best known for being the ...

s and

sugar shack "Sugar Shack" is a song written in 1962 by Keith McCormack. McCormack gave songwriting credit to his aunt, Beulah Faye Voss, after asking what are "those tight pants that girls wear" to which she replied "leotards". The song was recorded in 1963 ...

s 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 Charles Marius Barbeau, (March 5, 1883 – February 27, 1969), also known as C. Marius Barbeau, or more commonly simply Marius Barbeau, was a Canadians, Canadian ethnographer and folklorist who is today considered a founder of Canadian anthr ...

, ethnographer * Jesse Bélanger,

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; , ''LNH'') is a professional ice hockey league in North America composed of 32 teams25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Cana ...

hockey player * Gilles Bernier, Canadian politician *

Maxime Bernier Maxime Bernier (; born January 18, 1963) is a Canadian politician who is the founder and leader of the People's Party of Canada (PPC). Formerly a member of the Conservative Party of Canada, Conservative Party, Bernier left the caucus in 2018 t ...

, Canadian politician * Joseph Bolduc, Canadian politician *

Roch Carrier Roch Carrier (born 13 May 1937) is a French Canadian novelist and author of "contes" (a very brief form of the short story). He is among the best known Quebec writers in English Canada. Life He was born in Sainte-Justine, Quebec, and studied a ...

, author *

Thomas Chabot Thomas Chabot ( ; born January 30, 1997) is a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman and alternate captain for the Ottawa Senators of the National Hockey League (NHL). Chabot was drafted in the first round (18th overall) by the Senators in ...

hockey player * William Chapman, poet * Robert Cliche, Quebec politician * Marcel Dutil, businessman * Clermont Pépin, composer *

Édouard Lacroix Édouard Lacroix (January 6, 1889 – January 19, 1963) was a politician and business person in Quebec, Canada. Background He was born on January 6, 1889, in Sainte-Marie, Quebec. At the age of 12, he began working in United States lumber c ...

businessman and politician *

Maveric Lamoureux Maveric Lamoureux (born January 13, 2004) is a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman for the Tucson Roadrunners of the American Hockey League (AHL) while under contract to the Utah Mammoth of the National Hockey League (NHL). Lamoureux was ...

, junior hockey player * Laurent Noël, Catholic bishop *

Jacques Poulin Jacques Poulin (; born 23 September 1937 in Saint-Gédéon, Quebec) is a Canadian novelist with a quiet and intimate style of writing. Poulin studied psychology and arts at the Université Laval in Quebec City; he started his career as commercial ...

, novelist *

Marie-Philip Poulin Marie-Philip Poulin (born March 28, 1991) is a Canadian professional ice hockey centre (ice hockey), centre and Captain (ice hockey), captain for the Montreal Victoire of the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL). She is also the captain o ...

, hockey player *

George Pozer George Pozer is the anglicised name of Johann Georg Pfotzer (November 21, 1752 – June 16, 1848) who was a merchant, landowner and the fourth Seigneur of Aubert-Gallion. Biography Born in Willstätt, he emigrated to England in 1773 and later t ...

, businessman *

Fabien Roy Fabien Roy (; April 17, 1928 – October 31, 2023) was a Canadian politician who was active in Quebec in the 1970s. Roy was elected to the National Assembly of Quebec and the House of Commons of Canada, and advocated social credit theories o ...

, Canadian politician * Mathieu Roy,

hockey player * Alex Tanguay,

hockey player *

Elzéar-Alexandre Taschereau Elzéar-Alexandre Taschereau (; February 17, 1820 – April 12, 1898) was a Canadian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Quebec from 1871 until his death in 1898. The first Canadian cardinal, he was elevated to the ...

, clergyman *

Henri Elzéar Taschereau Henri is the French form of the masculine given name Henry, also in Estonian, Finnish, German and Luxembourgish. Bearers of the given name include: People French nobles * Henri I de Montmorency (1534–1614), Marshal and Constable of France * ...

, judge * Stéphane Veilleux,

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