Skip to main content

Settling in Kamouraska

Sepia photograph of a logging camp: five men posing in a snowy environment. Warm clothing, high boots. Four men with hats, one with a cap. Each holds a pulp hook. behind: large pile of logs on a sleigh. Background: snow-covered trees. Atmosphere of hard labour in the winter.

Life in a logging camp.

Black and white photograph of a wood yard: numerous neatly piled stacks of wooden planks. Background: factory, tall chimney, smoke, expanse of water, numerous floating logs. Scene framed by trees and distant hills.

Wood yard.

Since it was impossible for all of the children to settle on the same piece of land, Jean-Baptiste Voyer, a son of his family’s ancestor, was the first to settle in Kamouraska. He purchased land in 1789, at the age of 23. Thanks to his entrepreneurial spirit, he had doubled his land holdings four years later. Once he was well established, Voyer married Louise Dumais in 1795 in Rivière-Ouelle. Jean-Baptiste brought land and a horse to the marriage, while Louise contributed a cow, three sheep, and a lamb, among other things. With these assets, the family was able to survive and prosper.

Sepia photograph: tall metal fire tower, winter forest, bare trees. Top of the tower: small square cabin with windows, an observer can be seen climbing the structure. Snow-covered ground, a few conifers. Clear, uniform sky. Decorative border.

Indispensable fire towers.

Four generations later, in 1925, Edgar Voyer settled with his small family at Lac de l’Est, in Mont-Carmel. At the time, this was a prosperous logging village on the border with Maine. In addition to owning a small farm, Voyer broke with family tradition, working as a woodcutter in the mill yard and then becoming a fire ranger from 1926 to 1939. Even in those not-so-distant days, life was not always easy, and the lake, which was a source of food, could also be deadly.

On December 13, 1931, a couple visited Lac de l’Est with their 14-year-old daughter. As they ventured onto the lake, the ice gave way. Two of Edgar Voyer’s sons rushed to their aid. They saved the couple but were unable to rescue the young girl, who drowned. In 2013, the municipality of Mont-Carmel awarded a certificate to a member of the Voyer family in recognition of what they had done.

Sepia photograph: horse pulling a hay-filled cart in a field. A man sits on the hay, holding a handle. Another man works on the ground with a pitchfork. To the left, a third person standsnext to a pile of hay.

Harvesting hay.

To have a more stable life and be closer to the village, Edgar Voyer settled on land on Rang 6 in Mont-Carmel in 1938. However, until around 1960, he continued to return to the lake in the summer in order to plough his land, tend to his hay, and take care of his animals. When spring came, he would walk more than 30 km in order to move part of his herd from Rang 6 to Lac de l’Est and bring them back when the first snow fell.

Edgar was the first member of the family to settle on Rang 6. With his wife Alice Chénard, they raised seven children, including Camille, who put the family land to good use.

From the salt trade to local family entrepreneurship Returning to one’s roots