Thursday, September 26, 2019, Saguenay, Quebec, Canada
What was ultimately to become the center of the borough of Chicoutimi was first settled in 1676 as a French trading post in the fur trade. At that time, the Saguenay and the Chicoutimi rivers had been used for centuries by the Innu. The name Chicoutimi means the end of the deep water in the Montagnais. Chicoutimi trading post was in operation until 1782.
The city of Chicoutimi was officially incorporated as a municipality in 1845 by Peter McLeod, a Metis timber contractor, who had built a sawmill there in 1842. It was designated in 1855 as the seat of Chicoutimi County and in 1878 as the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Chicoutimi.
With the arrival of the Canadian National Railway in 1893, the local pulp and paper industries expanded, particularly in mechanical pulp production. The Chicoutimi Pulp Co. was founded in 1896 and backed by French-Canadian investors. By 1910 the Chicoutimi Pulp Mill became the biggest producer of mechanical pulp in Canada.
The economic decline of the Great Depression led the city's economy to shift administration and commerce and commercial. The Conservatoire de musique de Saguenay was founded in Chicoutimi in 1967, and the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi was founded in 1969. The city played host to the Quebec Summer Games in 1972.
In the municipal amalgamations of 1976, Chicoutimi annexed the neighboring towns of Chicoutimi-Nord and Rivière-du-Moulin. In a later round of amalgamations in 2002, the cities of Chicoutimi, Jonquière, La Baie, Lac-Kénogami, Laterrière, Shipshaw, and part of Tremblay merged to form the new city of Saguenay. Chicoutimi became a borough of Saguenay.
During the summer of 1996 a record rainfall in the region caused major flooding in the downtown, as well as outlying areas. The total cost of the disaster was recorded to be 1.5 billion Canadian dollars. It claimed seven lives and destroyed many bridges.
La Fabuleuse Live Stage Show
We enjoyed lively storytelling, dance, and song tracing the history of Saguenay during this Privileged Access excursion. Following the show, we had the unique opportunity to tour backstage. We rode to the show’s venue, then witnessed the events that have marked the region’s evolution since its founding by French explorer Jacques Cartier. More than 150 actors took to the stage in colorful costumes, accompanied by a host of animals and state-of-the-art audiovisual effects. The players enacted colonization along the banks of the St. Lawrence River, the Great Fire of 1870, the Flood of 1996, and other pivotal moments that have shaped Saguenay. This engaging production has welcomed more than one million French-speaking guests; today's version was created for an English-speaking audience. The stage is exceptionally large, there were six horses running, geese, people of all ages, too much to put it all down. Really awesome!
There is a seven+ minute video clip of the 75-minute performance we attended this afternoon. It can be found at fabuleuse.com. There will be a small box regarding translating; we had to click on it a second time to make it work. If you scroll down to a scene with the typical arrow pointing right to start an Internet video, click on it. The first time we watched it the titles were in French. We inadvertently started watching it a second time but this time the titles were in English. Enjoy!
Comments
Post a Comment