By akademiotoelektronik, 22/12/2022

Explore the Laurentians, from one era to another Journal Accès

The Laurentians are covered in forests, mountains, lakes and rivers. That's all well and good, but how do you get around this vast rugged territory, to go from one village to another? It depends what era you are in. Short history of our travels.

Colonization

The year is 1849. You have obtained a piece of land in the dense forests of the Laurentians. After a day's drive in a horse-drawn carriage on a dirt road, you arrive "at the end of the world": the young parish of Saint-Jérôme-de-la-Rivière-du-Nord. The carriage stops here. You continue on foot to a brand new wooden bridge that spans the river: the Morin bridge which will become the Shaw bridge. You pay your dues to cross, then walk to your lot, on uncleared trails, perhaps to Val-David, where the first pioneers arrived that same year.

Arrived, you will clear your land and build a small shack to spend the winter. Next spring, when you are better settled, you will go back down to Saint-Jérôme to bring back your wife and children. In a few years, you may be able to afford a horse to get around.

Industrialization

It's 1909. Your father's rocky land is just fertile enough to feed the family, nothing more. So you are moving to Saint-Jérôme to work in one of its growing factories.

The P’tit Train du Nord, which is coming to Mont-Laurier this year, allows you to get around the region. Above all, it allows manufacturers, such as the Rolland paper mill and Boston Rubber, to export their products.

As the Laurentians industrialize, you still go to work on foot, and you take a horse-drawn carriage to move from one village to another. In winter, however, the roads are not plowed.

Tourism

It's 1937. In your little inn, you welcome skiers who have come from Montreal that very morning by train and who will leave this evening. Others arrive from neighboring villages on their skis. They take the vast network of trails that connects all the villages of the region: a network traced by Herman-Smith Johannsen (Jackrabbit), the Gillespie brothers and others.

A few even came here by car! Since 1930, the government has started clearing Route 11 (the future 117) which is cleared as far as Sainte-Agathe this year.

The highway

It's 1963. To go skiing in the Laurentians, you take the brand new highway that goes to Saint-Sauveur: the first highway in Quebec! Well, you have to pay 25 cents per toll, but it's better than the traffic on Route 11, which had become unlivable.

Anyway, to get to the North, you have to take your car. The P’tit Train du Nord ceased service in 1960, and the Montfort train last year. The car, more flexible and faster than train timetables, made them too tough a competitor.

Today (or almost)

It's 2007. From Montreal, you arrive in Saint-Jérôme by the new (commuter!) train. You have brought your bike to cross the Laurentians thanks to the bike paths, laid out on the route of the old railways.

Exiting linear parks is risky, however. The car is king on the provincial roads that link the villages to each other. It leaves little room for cyclists, and even less for pedestrians. Also, the trails that once crisscrossed the region are now abandoned, for lack of hikers, or fragmented by urban development, which has accelerated in recent years.