Val-Brillant () is a municipality in eastern

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, at the base of the

Gaspé peninsula The Gaspé Peninsula, also known as Gaspesia (, ; ), is a peninsula along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River that extends from the Matapedia Valley in Quebec, Canada, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is separated from New Brunswick on it ...

. On the southern shores of the Lake Matapedia, Val-Brillant is part of the Matapédia Valley. 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 Mountains, Appalachian ...

); 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'', ''Mi'kmaw'' or ''Mi'gmaw''; ; , and formerly Micmac) are an Indigenous group of people of the Northeastern Woodlands, native to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces, primarily Nova Scotia, New Bru ...

territory, the area was granted as a seignory by

Louis de Buade de Frontenac Louis may refer to: People * Louis (given name), origin and several individuals with this name * Louis (surname) * Louis (singer), Serbian singer Other uses * Louis (coin), a French coin * HMS Louis, HMS ''Louis'', two ships of the Royal Navy Se ...

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 rides a harnessed horse that is pulling a horse-drawn vehicle such as a Coach (carriage), coach, rather than driving from behind as a coachman does. This method is used for pulling wheeled vehicles tha ...

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 Canada, Canadian railway that operated from 1872 to 1918, when it became part of Canadian National Railways. As the railway was also compl ...

. 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.

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%

Government

Municipal council

* Mayor: Jacques Pelletier * Councillors: Stevens Pelletier, Maxime Tremblay, Geneviève Leblanc, Johanne D'Amours, Richard Turgeon, Denis Couture List of former mayors: * Marc-André Turcotte (2001–2005) * Marc Bélanger (2005–2009) * Donald Malenfant (2009–2013) * Jacques Pelletier (2013–present)

References

External links