Saint-Donat (Matawinie)
| Saint Donat | |||
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| Location in Quebec | |||
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| State : |
 Canada
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| Province : | Quebec | ||
| Administrative region : | Lanaudière | ||
| Coordinates : | 46 ° 19 ′ N , 74 ° 13 ′ W | ||
| Area : | 361.42 km² | ||
| Residents : | 3888 (as of 2016) | ||
| Population density : | 10.8 inhabitants / km² | ||
| Time zone : | Eastern Time ( UTC − 5 ) | ||
| Mayor : | Richard Bénard | ||
Saint-Donat , also Saint-Donat-de-Montcalm , is a community on the lower Saint Lawrence River in the Canadian province of Québec , which had 4,374 inhabitants in 2006, 4130 five years later, and only 3,888 in 2016. It is located in the Municipalité régionale de comté Matawinie in the Lanaudière region and now lives mainly from tourism, especially skiers. Its name goes back to Bishop Donatus of Besançon († before 660).
history
At the end of the last ice age, numerous lakes were created. Long before the European settlement, Algonk troops lived here from collecting, fishing and hunting. At Saint-Donat, axes and projectile points were found that are several thousand years old. Abenaki were added after the 17th century . There are no First Nations around Saint-Donat today . Some place names remained from them, such as Ouareau (where the wind comes from) or Pimbina (nipimina).
As early as the 1860s, plans were made to colonize the Mantawa Valley, as they were looking for land for farmers across Canada. The first official preliminary investigation took place in 1866. For this purpose, a path was to be built from Sainte-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson into the river valley. The path, which was named Chemin Provost after the builder , reached Lac Archambault in 1869 . In 1872 Régis Coutu settled on the site of the later town, which was officially founded in 1874. A little later, a chapel was built in the small town that had a flour mill and a sawmill. Shortly afterwards, the Chemin Coutu connected Saint-Théodore-de-Chertsey with Saint-Donat, which in 1881 already had 343 inhabitants. However, the originally planned agriculture was quickly abandoned because the soil and climate were not suitable for this.
The first generations of settlers lived, like the neighboring Innu , from hunting and fishing, from 1869 logging was added, which the Assomption Lumber Co. first operated. Up to five sawmills were also built. In 1924 the place was supplied with electricity for the first time. Fernando Coutu built a small power station on the lake and sold the energy generated to the local residents. In 1946 he ceded this task to the newly founded Coopérative d'électricité de Saint-Donat . Joseph Thibault founded a telephone company that was acquired by Bell Canada in 1961 .
In 1908, the timber construction technician G. Piché recognized the tourist potential of the place at an altitude of 423 m. Seminarians and priests used it for recreation as early as the First World War. In 1917 Lionel Groulx bought a house on Lac Archambault. Several hotels were built between 1920 and 1930, and in 1939 the Jasper in Quebec was built specifically for skiing, but in 1959 it fell victim to a fire.
After the wood industry collapsed in the 1960s, tourism took on the leading economic role. The place increasingly became the entrance gate for the Parc national du Mont-Tremblant . The Société historique de Saint-Donat deals primarily with the history of the place.
literature
- Jacques Roussan, Claude Lambert: Saint-Donat et sa région en peinture , Roussan éditeur, 1992.