Buildings & Structures Archives | The Saint-Maurice: Creative Source of the Mauricie

Plant 2

The second Alcan plant in Shawinigan was built in 1941 to meet the high demand for aluminum during the Second World War. In 2014, the plant, which was […]

Shawinigan Chemicals Limited around 1950

Shawinigan Chemicals, resulting from the merger of several companies in 1927, was considered one of the largest complexes in America in the 1950s. The company had over 1,200 […]

Laurentide Pulp Company — A Top Performer

This photo, taken around 1990, shows the size of the mill’s facilities as well as its wood supply. Beginning its operations in 1888, the Laurentide plant was a […]

A Cathedral-Like Power Plant

The architecture of the Grand-Mère hydro-electric power plant was inspired by that of the Sainte-Cécile Cathedral in Albi, France. Both buildings have narrow windows that are crowned with […]

Hydro-Québec at its Roots

Shawinigan is one of the few cities in Canada to produce electricity continuously since 1901. The Shawinigan complex bears witness to the technological evolution of hydro-electricity production over […]

Timber Slide in Shawinigan

Built in the mid-19th century, this 183-metre-long timber slide allowed logs to bypass the Shawinigan Falls.

Beaumont – The Newest Addition to Shawinigan Water & Power

The Beaumont dam and hydro-electric power plant, located 20 kilometres north of La Tuque, were built in 1956 and commissioned two years later.

Quebec Streams Commission

The Liberal government, under the leadership of Lomer Gouin, who later gave his name to the dam, created the Québec Streams Commission in 1910, which played an auxiliary […]

The Gouin Reservoir — An Inland Sea

The Gouin Reservoir covers an area of 1,427 square kilometres. The dam played a major part in regulating the water level on the Saint-Maurice River.

The Art of the Sluice

The wood and earth dam raised the water level of this lake where spruce logs that were cut during the winter floated. The caretaker of this structure told […]