Lac-Mеgantic
The town of Lac-Megantic is a town in south-eastern Quebec, located on the shores of the Lake Megantic. The town of Lac-Megantic is the seat of Le Granit County of the Estrie (Eastern Townships) Region.
About 6,000 inhabitants live there. In Abenaki First Nation language Megantic means “the place where salmon trout lives”. Lac-Megantic was founded in 1884 as Megantic as a railway station for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Today, the railway services don’t exist anymore, but the community remains an important lumbering, farming and tourist centre. Local industries include a paper-printing plant, a sash-and-door factory, saw mills, butter, cheese, and cheese box factory, tourist facilities.
On nearby Mont Megantic (1105 metres) a nature and astronomy interpretation centre ASTROLab is located, as well as a conservation park and an astronomical Observatory, with its 1.6 m diameter telescope, shared by Montreal University and Laval University. The Chaudiere River starts in Lac Megantic.
This river used to be a traditional route of the Abenaki. The first European settlers were Englishmen who settled here in the mid-19th century. Today the town, a commercial and industrial crossroads and tourist site, is a service centre for the surrounding region and features an important Baie-des-Sables recreational complex.
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