Rivière Péribonka

Rivière Péribonka
Data
location	Saguenay – Lac-Saint-Jean in Québec (Canada)
River system	Saint Lawrence River
Drain over	La Grande Décharge  → Rivière Saguenay  → Saint Lawrence River  → Atlantic Ocean
source	west of the Monts Otish 52 ° 16 ′ 17 "  N , 70 ° 48 ′ 38"  W
Source height	800  m
muzzle	near Péribonka in Lac Saint-Jean Coordinates: 48 ° 44 ′ 49 ″  N , 72 ° 6 ′ 13 ″  W 48 ° 44 ′ 49 ″  N , 72 ° 6 ′ 13 ″  W
Mouth height	98  m
Height difference	702 m
Bottom slope	1.3 ‰
length	547 km
Catchment area	26,936 km²
Drain	MQ	589 m³ / s
Drain	MQ	635 m³ / s
Left tributaries	Rivière Manouane
Right tributaries	Rivière Serpent , Rivière Alex , Petite rivière Péribonka
Communities	Péribonka

The Rivière Péribonka is a river in the Saguenay – Lac-Saint-Jean administrative region in the Canadian province of Québec .

It has a length of 547 km and drains an area of ​​26,936 km². It flows into Lac Saint-Jean in the Parc national de la Pointe-Taillon and is its largest tributary. The town of Péribonka is located on the north bank of Lac Saint-Jean at the mouth of the river.

The name is derived from the Innu word pelipaukau , which means something like “river digging through the sand” or “where there is wandering sand”.

geography

The Rivière Péribonka rises a short distance west of the Monts Otish in a swamp area, which is located on the granite and muskeg of the Canadian Shield . From there it flows south to Lamarche and on to the west to Lac Saint-Jean. Its catchment area covers about a third of the catchment area of ​​the Saguenay .

Tributaries

The main tributaries of the Rivière Péribonka are (in the upstream direction):

• Petite rivière Péribonka
• Rivière Alex
• Rivière Brulée
• Rivière Manouane
  • Rivière Manouaniche
  • Rivière Alma
  • Rivière Houlière
  • Rivière Petite-Manouane
    • Rivière Duhamel
    • Rivière Durfort
  • Rivière Grand Détour
  • Rivière Raccourci
  • Lac Manouane
    • Rivière des Montagnes Blanches
      • Rivière Falconio
• Rivière Serpent
  • Rivière Etienniche
• Rivière Brodeuse
• Lac Péribonka
  • Rivière à la Carpe
• Rivière Saint-Onge
• Rivière Cocoumenen
• Rivière Bonnard
  • Rivière Modeste
• Rivière Grande Loutre
  • Rivière Michel
  • Rivière Courtois
• Rivière Épervanche
• Rivière Péribonka Est

history

In the past, the Innu inhabited this region and used the river as a transport route by canoe. From the second half of the 17th century, the river was also used by Europeans as an access route to James Bay . The first mention of the river comes from April 16, 1679. In October of that year Louis Joliet toured the river and referred to it as Périboca . The spelling later changed to Periboaka , Periboac Finally, in 1825 , Pascal Taché gave the river the current name Péribonka .

While trappers and traders paid little attention to the river in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Rivière Péribonka gained importance in the 19th century, especially for the timber industry, so that in 1887 the first settlement was founded at its mouth.

In 1928 the Rivière Péribonka flooded its banks and several settlements. There was extensive development of the river in the 1940s when Alcan , a leading aluminum producer, began building hydropower plants here. Between 1941 and 1943 the Chute-des-Passes Dam was built at the southern end of Lac Péribonka , which developed into a huge reservoir. Two more dams were then built downstream: the Chute-du-Diable (1950–1952) and the Chute-à-la-Savane (1951–1953).

The classic Maria Chapdelaine by the French writer Louis Hémon is set on the banks of the Rivière Péribonka.

Use of hydropower

There are four hydropower plants on the Rivière Péribonka, three of which belong to the aluminum smelting of Rio Tinto Alcan and one to Hydro-Québec (HQ). In the downstream direction these are:

Surname	completion position	Power [MW]	Number of turbines	hydraul. Potential [m]	Height [m]	Crown length [m]	Storage volume [million m³]	operator
Chute-des-Passes	1941	854			48	361		Rio Tinto Alcan
Péribonka	2007-2008	405	3	67.6	80	700		HQ
Chute-du-Diable	1952	240			34	544	1200	Rio Tinto Alcan
Chute-à-la-Savane	1951-1953	231			39	1094	600	Rio Tinto Alcan

The fourth power plant, the Péribonka power plant, is located directly above the confluence with the Rivière Manouane and is operated by Hydro-Québec. It was completed on March 9, 2008 and has an output of 405 MW. The associated dam has a height of 80 m and a length of 700 m. He dams the river to a 32 km² reservoir.

Web links

Commons : Rivière Péribonka  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Quebec Studies on power and the Peribonka River

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Bureau Brille publiques sur l'environnement (PDF; 103 kB)
2. ↑ Comportement et performance en contexte de changements climatiques d'un système hydrique en milieu nordique exploité pour la production hydroélectrique  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Rivière Péribonka, Commission de toponymie du Québec
4. ↑ energie.alcan.com ( Memento of the original from July 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ^ Hydro-Québec - Hydroelectric Generating Stations
6. ^ Hydro-Québec - Aménagement hydroélectrique de la Péribonka. ( Memento of the original from June 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 26, 2010