Quebec, brief history
from the village of Val-Jalbert,
reconstituted in particular from the information panels of the site
If the forest wealth of Quebec was at the end of the 19th century exploited by large companies, entrepreneurs more modest, but daring and perceptive, however, managed to find their place.
Thus, Damase-Théophile Jalbert (1842-1904) bought at the end of the century 240 km² of forest concessions around Commissioners Lake, after marveling at the Ouiatchouan waterfall and the potential that could be drawn from it. Its experience is already extensive in the transport of timber and trade.
He first built a sawmill at Lac Bouchette, then turned, with the decline of sawing towards the transformation of wood into pulp.
In 1901, he founded the Compagnie du pulpe Ouiatchouan on the fall of the same name, of which he is the main shareholder. He built a factory at the foot of the waterfall which began operating in 1902.
His Company now holds the cutting rights to 400 km² of public forest.
In the forests of the plateau, throughout the winter, from mid-November to mid-March, from sunrise to sunset, loggers, often agricultural workers seeking additional income, fell black spruce trees of around 30 cm in diameter. The trunks are cut into pitounes 2.5 m long and towed by horses towards the river.
the famous Ouiatchouan waterfall
To supply the plant, it was necessary to build a dam 9m high, 13m thick and 33m long at the top of the fall, and a penstock with decreasing diameter (9 then 7m) to supply the turbines of the factory 81m lower (but the effective height is 72m).
forced driving
From 1901 to 1909, the Company built the first 9 houses on the esplanade in front of the factory and on rue St-Georges. Then in 1913 the first houses on the plateau.
Cozy and modern, these spacious twin houses for large families benefit from new insulation with sawdust and tar paper, as well as electricity and running water. The heating is by the wood stove and upstairs is the "lavatory" equipped with a toilet but without a bathtub or a sink.
Wages at the factory put the population of Val-Jalbert in better material comfort than that of the surrounding rural region. Shops and services are developing in the village: there is a butcher, a wheelwright, a blacksmith, a baker, a miller, a barber, a bank, a train station, a credit union, a post office, a telephone company, everything which allows Val-Jalbert to become an autonomous community. Home service is also organized for butter, milk, meat and bread. Every morning the train brings mail, parcels, goods ordered in department store catalogs and newspapers, that the post office distributes to everyone.
But besides the church and the post office, the social center of the village is the general store. Willie Fortin, the mayor at the time, keeps it on the ground floor of the hotel built in 1909, burned down and rebuilt in 1918; another general store is opened on the plateau. We sell everything there, and it's also where the men come to smoke, play cards, checkers, read the newspapers or "youth". Next door, the workers at the hotel's factory serve themselves, in the dining room reserved for them, high-calorie dishes whose menu is imposed, while in the other room, the patrons are served at the table and order at their choice.
A lay teacher has been practicing her profession since 1907, but gives way to the nuns of Chicoutimi, after the construction of the large convent-school with its 4 classrooms, its dormitory for the sisters and a chapel.
Then comes the fall of the market for unprocessed pulp (would the factory still exist today if, beyond pulp, it had manufactured paper?): The factory ceased its activity between May 1924 and December 1925, starts again "in a dazzling manner" in 1926, to definitively cease producing pulp in August 1927. The final stop is ordered in 1929 by the Quebec Pulp and Paper Corporation, and its 80 houses closed and boarded up.
But there are still 200 inhabitants in the dying village in 1930.
Then it is at the beginning of April that the loggers, so astounding in their agility that they believe themselves invulnerable, jumping from log to log, with the swelling of melt, 16 hours a day lead wood over streams, lakes, rivers, passing along the way, to the reservoir at the top of Maligne Falls. Then the logs slide towards the Ouiatchouan reservoir, then in a wooden slab of 130 m towards the factory.
Before his death in 1904, Damase Jalbert built with his sons a steamboat to tow the rafts of pitounes towards the exit of Commissioners Lake.
The business is flourishing.
Extract from the Lac St-Jean newspaper of April 30, 1903: " The Compagnie du pulpe du Ouiatchouan made so much pulp this winter that it no longer has any wood. The enormous strings of wood that we saw in the fall last have all been devoured by the insatiable millstones. Fortunately, the floating of the spring woods has begun, and new wood arrives to them every day. Even logs, arriving earlier than expected, went over the lock, jumped at the foot of the falls and got lost in the lake . "
In fact, the Company of Damase Jalbert holds the local power. But with his death in 1904 and lack of capital, the factory was close to bankruptcy. Taken over by American capital, it survived, until its takeover in 1909 by the Compagnie du pulpe de Chicoutimi .
Its general manager, JEA Dubuc, who already managed it, organized a competition in 1908 to encourage the initiative. and innovations in the pulp mill and trades, all of which can increase productivity. A prize of $ 25 in gold is presented at an annual banquet by Dubuc at his house in Chicoutimi.
homes and comfort
In 1913, we pay tribute to Damase by giving the name of Val-Jalbert to the village he erected.
In 1915, the village expanded, with 25 new houses in a new district, has its own parish, its pastor, its church with its presbytery built in 1911 and is administered autonomously, thanks to the powerful Company of which it depends. Destroyed by fire, the church and presbytery were immediately rebuilt in 1924.
The municipal council sets taxes, rules for the operation of businesses, manages public hygiene, local traffic, maintains municipal roads.
In the 1920s, the Compagnie du pulpe de Chicoutimi held the rights to 327 km² of forest and 63 km² of forest land.
the general store, on the ground floor of the hotel
And the men occupy their leisure time hunting, playing cards in the general store, playing irons, tennis, playing baseball and winter hockey, under the severe eye of Curé Tremblay who also watches over temperance. of his flock.
The Company's general superintendent, Joseph-Adolphe Lapointe, called "the boss", was mayor of Val-Jalbert from 1925 to 1929.
At the end of the prosperous period, there were 950 people in the village in 1926.
the convent-school
the abandoned factory before takeover and restoration