General Archives | The rivers of Prairies and Mille Iles: regional development

Mrs. Brault and her Dog

In the 19th century, the district known as Parc-Laval was largely rural. After the railway bridge between Bordeaux and Île Jésus was built in 1876, wealthy residents were […]

Interview with a Former Ice Cutter, Paul Vaillancourt

Mr. Vaillancourt: “We worked 10 hours a day, six days a week. We could do in one day—when there weren’t any problems, you know—we could cut over 3,000 […]

Everyone at Work

Winter was rough for many residents. Many of them applied to be day labourers for ice-cutting companies. This gave them some extra income to tide them over the […]

Ice-Cutting Tools

The men who performed this hard work had specialized tools. The Société d’histoire et de généalogie de l’Île Jésus has two examples. An ice saw with a single […]

Cutting Ice

One of the flagship ice-cutting companies in our region was Glacières Sainte-Rose. It was run by the Bastien and Ouimet families. One of these entrepreneurs was Joseph Ouimet, […]

Raftsmen on the River

More information about raftsmen can be found in popular histories than official documents. That’s not surprising, since their occupation existed before photography was even invented! This watercolour was […]