Kamouraska

Kamouraska sits where the St. Lawrence is wide enough to feel like a sea, and it was a summer resort for Quebec City families from the early nineteenth century. Its houses show the Kamouraska roof, a steep pitch that flares outward at the eaves into a bell curve, sheltering the walls and giving a distinctive silhouette repeated along the street. Anne Hébert's 1970 novel Kamouraska, based on a real nineteenth-century murder case in the village, made the name known across the francophone world. Eel fishing with tidal weirs was a local trade, and the flats are exposed at low tide with the weir posts still standing.

History

The name comes from an Algonquin word meaning where rushes grow at the water's edge. French colonists settled the area in the late 17th century, it was made the Seigneury de Kamouraska in 1674, and eel fishing has a long tradition here, explained at an interpretive centre in the village (Wikipedia, Kamouraska, Quebec).

What's there

• The flared roofs - the Kamouraska bell-curve eave on the village houses.
• The eel weirs - fishing structures exposed on the flats at low tide.
• The sunsets - the wide river facing west from the shore.
• The Anne Hébert connection - the village of her 1970 novel.

When to go

June to September; the village is quiet and largely shut in winter. Low tide exposes the flats and weirs. Sunsets are the reason many people time an evening here.

Good to know

The village is very small and walked in half an hour. Most houses are private. Services are limited outside summer.

Nearby

Rivière-du-Loup lies northeast; Saint-Jean-Port-Joli is southwest.

Key facts