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Lac-Mégantic () is a
town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...
in the
Estrie Estrie () is an List of Quebec regions, administrative region of Quebec that comprises the Eastern Townships. ''Estrie'', a French neologism, was coined as a derivative of ''est'', "east". Originally settled by anglophones, today it is about 90 pe ...
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 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 ...
. It is located on
Lac Mégantic Lac may refer to: Places Africa * Lac Region, a district in Chad * Lac Prefecture, a district in Chad America * Rivière du Lac, a tributary of the Montmorency River, in Capitale-Nationale, Quebec, Canada Europe * Laç, a city in Albania * Lac ...
, a freshwater lake after which the town was named. Situated in the former
Frontenac County Frontenac County is a county and census division of the Canadian province of Ontario. It is located in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario. The city of Kingston is in the Frontenac census division, but is separated from the County of Front ...
in the historic Eastern Townships, Lac-Mégantic is the seat of Le Granit Regional County Municipality and of the
judicial district A judicial district or legal district denotes the territorial area for which a legal court (usually a district court) has jurisdiction. By continent Europe Austria In texts concerning Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Aus ...
of Mégantic. Lac-Mégantic was a tourist destination and a producer of forestry products, furniture, Masonite doors, particleboard, and architectural granite before July 6, 2013, when the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster led to a massive fire and deadly explosion of
petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring un ...
tank car A tank car (International Union of Railways (UIC): tank wagon) or tanker is a type of railroad car (UIC: railway car) or rolling stock designed to transport liquid and gaseous commodity, commodities. History Timeline The following major event ...
s that destroyed many downtown buildings and killed 47 people.


History

Prior to contact with Europeans, the region was inhabited by the
Abenaki The Abenaki ( Abenaki: ''Wαpánahki'') are Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was pred ...
.
Archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
digs found that the
Amerindian In the Americas, Indigenous peoples comprise the two continents' pre-Columbian inhabitants, as well as the ethnic groups that identify with them in the 15th century, as well as the ethnic groups that identify with the pre-Columbian population of ...
s had been in the region for over 12,000 years, making this the oldest known site of human occupation in Quebec. The name of Mégantic comes from the
Abenaki The Abenaki ( Abenaki: ''Wαpánahki'') are Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was pred ...
word "namesokanjik" which translates to "place where the fish are held." The first known European to discover the region was a
Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...
, Father Druillettes of the
Society of Jesus The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...
, who arrived in 1646. He came to convert the Abenaki. The first colonists to settle in the region came two centuries later, around 1850, and were of
French Canadian French Canadians, referred to as Canadiens mainly before the nineteenth century, are an ethnic group descended from French people, French colonists first arriving in Canada (New France), France's colony of Canada in 1608. The vast majority of ...
or Scottish origin. Originally called Megantic, the town was founded in 1884 after the
Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway () , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Canadian Pacific Ka ...
began construction of the final segment in its transcontinental railway linking
Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...
with the
Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...
port of Saint John,
New Brunswick New Brunswick is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to ...
. This line opened in 1889, and was operated by International Railway of Maine, a subsidiary of CPR. Mégantic was the meeting place of two railroads at that time: the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Quebec Central Railway. The CPR line was more important because of its adaptation to large freight and passenger trains. Nearby Agnès, founded in 1895, was named after Susan Agnes Bernard, the widow of Prime Minister of Canada Sir John A. Macdonald. It merged with Mégantic in 1907. Macdonald and his wife had visited the area in 1879. Mégantic was renamed Lac-Mégantic in 1958, after the adjacent
Lake Mégantic Lake Mégantic (, ) is a large body of water in Québec, Canada, located in the Appalachian Mountains near the U.S. border. It is a source of the Chaudière River which drains into the St Lawrence River at Québec City. The lake has a surface area ...
, located on the municipality's southern boundary. Lac-Mégantic consisted of two Roman Catholic parishes, Sainte-Agnès and Notre-Dame-de-Fatima. An important figure of Lac-Mégantic was Joseph Édouard Eugène Choquette, a priest, who, in his spare time, was an amateur scientist. He was the catalyst for the creation of an electric lighting system which, on the eve of
Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a Religion, religious and Culture, cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by coun ...
in 1898, illuminated the entire city; and a power company. Father Choquette was also an amateur photographer.


Donald Morrison case

The first mayor (1885–1888) of Mégantic was Malcolm MacAuley, who was linked to the Donald Morrison case. Morrison's family had immigrated from the
Isle of Lewis The Isle of Lewis () or simply Lewis () is the northern part of Lewis and Harris, the largest island of the Western Isles or Outer Hebrides archipelago in Scotland. The two parts are frequently referred to as if they were separate islands. The t ...
, in the
Outer Hebrides The Outer Hebrides ( ) or Western Isles ( , or ), sometimes known as the Long Isle or Long Island (), is an Archipelago, island chain off the west coast of mainland Scotland. It is the longest archipelago in the British Isles. The islan ...
of
Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
and had settled locally in a largely
Canadian Gaelic Canadian Gaelic or Cape Breton Gaelic (, or ), often known in Canadian English simply as Gaelic, is a collective term for the dialects of Scottish Gaelic spoken in Atlantic Canada. Scottish Gaels were settled in Nova Scotia from 1773, with the ...
-speaking farming community. Donald Morrison moved out
west West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...
to work as a
cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...
on a ranch, sending money home to pay off the family debts. When he returned home, he found his family had lost their farm after they had signed a bad debt deal with Mayor MacAuley, the wealthiest resident in the town at the time. A barn belonging to the new owner was burned to the ground, and Donald Morrison was immediately charged with
arson Arson is the act of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, watercr ...
. A bounty of $25 was placed on Morrison, and an American
bailiff A bailiff is a manager, overseer or custodian – a legal officer to whom some degree of authority or jurisdiction is given. There are different kinds, and their offices and scope of duties vary. Another official sometimes referred to as a '' ...
was paid $2.50 a day to track him down. The bailiff was killed in a gunfight with Morrison on the town's main street. Morrison was chased through the woods for another ten months before being wounded, captured, and imprisoned. He died of tuberculosis five years later.


Lac-Mégantic derailment

At approximately 01:15 EDT, on July 6, 2013, an unattended 73-car
freight train A freight train, also called a goods train or cargo train, is a railway train that is used to carry cargo, as opposed to passengers. Freight trains are made up of one or more locomotives which provide propulsion, along with one or more railroad ...
carrying
crude oil Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring u ...
ran away and derailed near the downtown area of Lac-Mégantic, causing multiple
tank car A tank car (International Union of Railways (UIC): tank wagon) or tanker is a type of railroad car (UIC: railway car) or rolling stock designed to transport liquid and gaseous commodity, commodities. History Timeline The following major event ...
s to catch fire and explode. Forty-seven people were killed or presumed killed in the explosion and ensuing blaze, making the derailment Canada's deadliest rail disaster since the
St-Hilaire train disaster The Beloeil train disaster occurred on June 29, 1864, at the present-day town of Beloeil, Quebec. A passenger train fell through an open swing bridge into the Richelieu River after the crew failed to obey a stop signal. The widely accepted dea ...
in 1864. More than 30 buildings in the town's centre were destroyed, including the town's library and archives. The police launched a criminal investigation, charging the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway and three workers with criminal negligence. Of the 39 downtown buildings still standing as of December 2014, thirty-six are to be demolished due to petroleum contamination of the underlying grounds.


Geography

Lac-Mégantic is located at the eastern part of the
Estrie Estrie () is an List of Quebec regions, administrative region of Quebec that comprises the Eastern Townships. ''Estrie'', a French neologism, was coined as a derivative of ''est'', "east". Originally settled by anglophones, today it is about 90 pe ...
administrative region, in the Regional County Municipality of Le Granit, approximately from the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
border. 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 ...
has its source in Lake Megantic and empties into the
St. Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (, ) is a large international river in the middle latitudes of North America connecting the Great Lakes to the North Atlantic Ocean. Its waters flow in a northeasterly direction from Lake Ontario to the Gulf of St. Lawren ...
, some further north, near Lévis (within the former city of Saint-Romuald). The Town of Lac-Mégantic is located from Mont Mégantic.


Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by
Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in ...
, Lac-Mégantic 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. In 2021, the median age of Lac-Mégantic was 53.6 and 87% of the population were 15 years of age and over. Residents whose sole native language was French numbered 5,705 (98%), while those with only English as their first language were 60 (1%), 40 people (0.7%) had another language as their mother tongue and 20 people (0.3%) counted both French and English as their first language.


Government


Municipal

The mayor of Lac-Mégantic is Jean-Guy Cloutier, who was elected in a special election in 2015 to succeed retiring mayor Colette Roy-Laroche. Due to the rail disaster, the provincial government of Quebec had delayed the municipal election in Lac-Mégantic from its regular timing concurrent with the 2013 municipal elections; the next election will, however, be held normally in 2017. Roy-Laroche, a former schoolmaster, was nicknamed "the granite lady" () for her handling of the derailment and its aftermath. The town council is made up of councillors representing six electoral districts.


Federal and provincial

Provincially, Lac-Mégantic is located in the provincial electoral district of Mégantic. It is represented by Ghislain Bolduc of the
Quebec Liberal Party The Quebec Liberal Party (QLP; , PLQ) is a provincial political party in Quebec. It has been independent of the federal Liberal Party of Canada since 1955. The QLP has traditionally supported a form of Quebec federalist ideology with nuance ...
. Federally, Lac-Mégantic is part of the federal riding of Mégantic—L'Érable. It is represented by Luc Berthold of the
Conservative Party of Canada The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC; , ), sometimes referred to as the Tories, is a Government of Canada, federal List of political parties in Canada, political party in Canada. It was formed in 2003 by the merger of the two main Right-wing ...
.


Economy

Although the railway has declined in recent decades, Lac-Mégantic remains an important centre of
agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...
,
logging Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidder, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or trunk (botany), logs onto logging truck, truckslumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...
and
pulp and paper The pulp and paper industry comprises companies that use wood, specifically pulpwood, as raw material and produce pulp, paper, paperboard, and other cellulose-based products. Manufacturing process In the manufacturing process, pulp is introd ...
.
Sonae Indústria Sonae Indústria is a manufacturer of engineered wood products, founded and headquartered in Maia, Portugal. Present in five countries within three continents, Sonae Indústria has a wide range of products, from simple board to complete construct ...
's local subsidiary, Tafisa Canada, operates a
particleboard Particle board, also known as particleboard or chipboard, is an engineered wood product, belonging to the wood-based panels, manufactured from wood chips and a synthetic, mostly formaldehyde-based resin or other suitable binder, which is pressed ...
factory in the town. Other major local employers include furniture manufacturer Bestar and forestry company Industries Manufacturières Mégantic, part of Masonite International. Granite from the region was incorporated into the National September 11 Memorial in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
. Various other factories existed in the past, including a paper-printing plant; a sash-and-door factory; saw mills; and a butter, cheese, and cheese box factory. The region's economy in its early days was propelled by the logging industry due to the vast swaths of
old-growth forest An old-growth forest or primary forest is a forest that has developed over a long period of time without disturbance. Due to this, old-growth forests exhibit unique ecological features. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Natio ...
s. Many related industries operated in the region, including
lumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...
(Nantais Mill), the
furniture Furniture refers to objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., Stool (seat), stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (table (furniture), tables), storing items, working, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Furnitur ...
industry and the
pulp and paper industry The pulp and paper industry comprises companies that use wood, specifically pulpwood, as raw material and produce pulp, paper, paperboard, and other cellulose-based products. Manufacturing process In the manufacturing process, pulp is intr ...
. Lake Mégantic was used for log floating, with a
steamboat A steamboat is a boat that is marine propulsion, propelled primarily by marine steam engine, steam power, typically driving propellers or Paddle steamer, paddlewheels. The term ''steamboat'' is used to refer to small steam-powered vessels worki ...
used to tow the logs to the
sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...
. The first steamboat in the region, named the "Lena", was built by George Flint in 1881. At the time of the industrial revolution, rural and
working class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...
es made up the majority of Mégantic's population. In 1907, the town had 2600 people and the daily wage for a labourer was around C$1 to C$1.50. The working class lived in the northern district of the city, while those in liberal
profession A profession is a field of Work (human activity), work that has been successfully professionalized. It can be defined as a disciplined group of individuals, professionals, who adhere to ethical standards and who hold themselves out as, and are ...
s, as well as store clerks and employees of financial institutions lived in the central part of the city (downtown). The first bank branch in the town was the People's Bank of Halifax, which opened in December 1893. Its first manager was a Mr. Aitkens from Cookshire. The bank was acquired by
Bank of Montreal The Bank of Montreal (, ), abbreviated as BMO (pronounced ), is a Canadian multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company. The bank was founded in Montreal, Quebec, in 1817 as Montreal Bank, making it Canada ...
in 1905 and a new building constructed that same year. The branch closed in 2001 and was sold to Banque Nationale; the 5193 Frontenac Street building later housed legal aid offices. Only a broken, charred shell remained after the 2013 Lac-Mégantic derailment burned much of the historic downtown but some legal records secured in the historic bank's vault survived the fire. The Eastern Townships Bank, established in
Sherbrooke Sherbrooke ( , ) is a city in southern Quebec, Canada. It is at the confluence of the Saint-François River, Saint-François and Magog River, Magog rivers in the heart of the Estrie administrative region. Sherbrooke is also the name of a territ ...
in 1859, opened a Mégantic office in 1904 and acquired its own building at Frontenac and Thibodeau in 1910. That bank was acquired by the Canadian Bank of Commerce in 1912; the local branch with its distinctive architectural columns closed during the
Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
in 1935.


Media

A weekly newspaper, ''L'Écho de Frontenac'', is published in the town and one radio station, CJIT-FM 106.7, operates from a local studio.


Tourism

The region has increased its reliance on tourism, a mainstay since the
passenger rail A passenger train is a train used to transport people along a railroad line, as opposed to a freight train that carries goods. These trains may consist of unpowered passenger railroad cars (also known as coaches or carriages) push-pull train, ...
era, attracting people from across
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, ...
and the
Northeastern United States The Northeastern United States (also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast) is List of regions of the United States, census regions United States Census Bureau. Located on the East Coast of the United States, ...
. Lac-Mégantic profits from its proximity to two major provincial parks, Frontenac National Park on Lac Saint-François and Mont-Mégantic National Park near Notre-Dame-des-Bois. Mont-Mégantic Park is home of the ASTROlab astronomy museum and the Mont Mégantic Observatory, a mountaintop observatory and
dark-sky preserve A dark-sky preserve (DSP) is an area, usually surrounding a park or observatory, that restricts or reduces light pollution or maintains and protects naturally dark night skies. Different terms have been used to describe these areas as national or ...
. The Lac-Mégantic lakeshore is host to the Complexe Baie des Sables beachfront park, the annual Traversée internationale du lac Mégantic swim meet in August and the Grand tour du lac Mégantic cycle tour each June. The most popular activities for tourists are hunting and fishing.


Education

Lac Mégantic is home to a junior college, ''Centre d’études collégiales de Lac-Mégantic'', which is affiliated with the Cégep Beauce-Appalaches. The college offers both technical and pre-university training programs including an
astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline, James Keeler, said, astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the ...
program, which is the only one of its kind in Quebec. It also has a vocational training centre, the Centre de formation professionnelle Le Granit. The town, in the former Commission scolaire des Hauts-Cantons (now ), has one secondary school, Polyvalente Montignac, and two elementary schools, École Notre-Dame-de-Fatima and École Sacré-Cœur. The English language school board for the town is Eastern Townships School Board. Lac-Mégantic is the birthplace of author Nelly Arcan; a new municipal library opened May 5, 2014 bears her name. The library's site (a former Canadelle undergarment factory at 4409, rue Dollard) was chosen in 2010 to accommodate expansion of a collection then over 45,000 volumes. As the original collection was destroyed by fire in 2013, a hundred thousand books were donated by local groups, universities, authors and publishers across Québec.


Infrastructure

Lac Mégantic is crossed by Quebec Route 161 and Quebec Route 204.
Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway () , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Canadian Pacific Ka ...
(CP) built a transcontinental railway line linking
Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...
with the
Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...
port of Saint John,
New Brunswick New Brunswick is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to ...
. The division from Lac-Mégantic to
Mattawamkeag, Maine Mattawamkeag is a town in Penobscot County, Maine, United States, located where the Mattawamkeag River joins the Penobscot River. The population was 596 at the 2020 census. The village of Mattawamkeag is in the southwestern part of the town. ...
, was operated by CP subsidiary International Railway of Maine and opened in 1889. The ''
Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...
'' passenger train was operated by CP and later
Via Rail Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via (stylized as VIA Rail), is a Canadian Crown corporation that operates intercity passenger rail service in Canada. As of December 2023, Via Rail operates 406 trains per week across eight ...
over this line, but was eliminated in December 1994. In 1988, CP consolidated its Lac-Mégantic-Saint John line into the Canadian Atlantic Railway. In December 1994, the line was sold to Canadian American Railroad (part of Iron Road Railways). After that company's 2003 bankruptcy, the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway provided freight service until the line in both directions was severed by the Lac-Mégantic derailment in 2013. MM&A claimed ''
Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act The ''Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act'' (CCAA; ) is a statute of the Parliament of Canada that allows insolvent corporations owing their creditors in excess of $5 million to restructure their businesses and financial affairs. The CCAA with ...
'' bankruptcy protection in August 2013; its assets were sold to
Fortress Investment Group Fortress Investment Group, LLC is an American investment management firm based in New York City. It was founded as a private equity firm in 1998 by Wes Edens, Rob Kauffman, Pete Briger, Michael Novogratz, and Randal Nardone. Overview When ...
as the
Central Maine and Quebec Railway The Central Maine and Québec Railway was a Class II railroad, Class II freight railroad operating in the United States, U.S. states of Maine and Vermont and the Canada, Canadian province of Quebec with headquarters in Bangor, Maine. It was own ...
in 2014. In September 1895, the Quebec Central Railway completed a branch line from the CP main line at Lac-Mégantic north to Tring Junction, a point from which onward connections were available to Lévis. This line was abandoned in the 1980s and has been removed. The town was also home to the now-decommissioned Megantic Airport; an industrial park and large sawmill occupy the former airfield. A municipal sports centre, which opened in 2011, offers a wide range of sporting and educational activities, including a
swimming pool A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, paddling pool, or simply pool, is a structure designed to hold water to enable Human swimming, swimming and associated activities. Pools can be built into the ground (in-ground pools) or built abo ...
and an
arena An arena is a large enclosed venue, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theatre, Music, musical performances or Sport, sporting events. It comprises a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for specta ...
. Lac-Mégantic is home to the Centre de santé et service sociaux (CSSS) du Granit, which is located on Laval Street. The facility serves the local community and contains a hospital centre for
acute care Acute care is a branch of secondary health care where a patient receives active but short-term treatment for a severe injury or episode of illness, an urgent medical condition, or during recovery from surgery.Alberta Health ServicesAcute care.Acce ...
with 35 beds, and a
long-term care Long-term care (LTC) is a variety of services which help meet both the medical and non-medical needs of people with a chronic illness or disability who cannot care for themselves for long periods. Long-term care is focused on individualized and ...
centre with 44 beds.


Sister cities

*
Dourdan Dourdan () is a commune in the Essonne department in Île-de-France. It is the capital of the historical region of Hurepoix. It is located in the metropolitan area of Paris. Geography Dourdan is located on the river Orge in the western Es ...
,
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
(1989) * Farmington, Maine,
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
(1991)


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lac-Megantic Canadian Gaelic Cities and towns in Quebec Incorporated places in Estrie Le Granit Regional County Municipality Populated places established in 1884 1884 establishments in Quebec