Bécancour River

Coordinates: 46°22′20″N 72°26′47″W / 46.37222°N 72.44639°W / 46.37222; -72.44639
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Bécancour River
Native nameRivière Bécancour (French)
Location
CountryCanada
ProvinceQuebec
RegionChaudière-Appalaches,
Centre-du-Québec
Physical characteristics
SourceBécancour Lake
 • locationThetford Mines,
Chaudière-Appalaches,
Quebec, Canada
 • coordinates46°04′10″N 71°14′39″W / 46.06944°N 71.24417°W / 46.06944; -71.24417
 • elevation402 metres (1,319 ft)
Saint Lawrence River
Basin features
Tributaries 
 • left(upstream)
rivière au Pin, décharge d'un lac de marais, décharge de quelques lacs, ruisseau ?, ruisseau ?.
 • right(upstream) Ruisseaux: d'en Haut, Le Ruisseau, Zéphirin-Richard, du Chicot Noir, Désilets, Deshaies, Joseph-Larivière, Saint-Sylvestre, Gaudet, Cormier, Brûlé, Provencher, Noël, rivière du Moulin, Le Petit Ruisseau, ruisseau Bédard, Le Gros Ruisseau, Napoléon-Côté, Philippe-Blier, Tardif, Quatrième Rang, Gosselin-Moisan, Perdrix River, ruisseau Brochu, Morin, Palmer River, Gosselin, cours d'eau Bilodeau, ruisseau du Petit-Kinnears, ruisseau ?, Dubois River (via William Lake, ruisseau McLean, Bagot River, cours d'eau Faucher, ruisseau Salaberry, Nadeau, Marcoux, Madore, Gingras, Lessard, Labonté, cours d'eau Turcotte-Prévost, cours d'eau Raby.

The Bécancour River is a river flowing in the administrative region of Centre-du-Québec, in Quebec, Canada.

Geography

The Bécancour takes its source from the lake of the same name in the town of

Saint Lawrence River near the heart of the city of Bécancour.[1]

Course

The course of the Bécancour, which is 196 kilometres (122 mi), begins at 402 metres (1,319 ft) of altitude in the

estuary of Saint Lawrence
.

Major tributaries

Hydrology

Saint-Ferdinand

The

low water discharge is 25 m3/s.[3] As for the extreme values recorded, they range from 1 to 500 m3/s.[3] The city of Thetford Mines diverts part of the waters of the Saint-François basin for the benefit of Bécancour via its aqueduct, that is 19,000 cubic metres per day (7,800 cu ft/ks).[3] This input, however, has a negligible effect on the river flow and represents less than 0.05 m3/s at Maddington.[3]

The river receives input from 87 watercourses.

Blanche river at Saint-Wenceslas.[4]

The basin includes 62 lakes over one hectare (2.5 acres).[5] In addition to Bécancour Lake (83 hectares [210 acres]), the river crosses Stater pond (8 hectares [20 acres]) and lakes à la Truite (135 hectares [330 acres]), William Lake (492 hectares [1,220 acres], the largest in the basin) and Joseph (243 hectares [600 acres]).[5][4] As for wetlands, they cover 154 kilometres (95.69 mi), or 5.9% of the.[6] Of these, the bogs covers 118 kilometres (73.32 mi) and the swamps 26 kilometres (16.16 mi).[6]

Population

In 2008, the basin's population was estimated at 64354 inhabitants and had a density of 25 inhabitants per square kilometre (65/sq mi).[7] The territory of the basin is divided into 45 municipalities and one Indian reserve.[8] The largest municipality in the basin, Thetford Mines (26,190 inhabitants), has 41% of the population of this basin.[8] Two other towns over 5000 inhabitants are Princeville and Plessisville.[8]

Geology

Bécancour is part of two geological provinces, namely the

St. Lawrence Lowlands downstream.[9] The Appalachians are composed of sedimentary rocks and volcanic which have been deposited in a deep marine environment.[9] They were raised during the Taconic orogeny.[9] As for the St. Lawrence platform, it is composed of limestone, sandstone and mudrock undeformed;.[9]

Natural environment

The basin includes 378 plant species.

white birch while at the bottom of the slopes we find balsam fir and tamarack.[10]

We find 66 species of fish in the Bécancour basin.

lake trout, northern pike, muskellunge, brown bullhead, rock bass, pumpkinseed, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, perch and walleye.[11]

Toponymy

A map of Canada from 1812, showing the town of Bequencourt at the mouth of the Grand Puant River.

In the 17th century, the river was originally known by European sattlers as the "Stinking River". Around 1600, some Abenaki families established themselves on the Puante River.[12] The use continued during the first half of the 18th century. A map of the Province of Quebec from 1776 shows a "Gt. Puante River" and a "L. Puante River" north of it.[13] A map of Canada from 1812 shows the Grand Puant River with the town of Bequencourt at its mouth and a smaller Puant River farther north.

The

Thames).[14]

The present-day name of the river commemorates Pierre Robineau de Bécancour, 2e baron de Portneuf, lord of Bécancour (1654-1729).[14] This name appeared on the 1695 map of Jean Deshayes.[14] This name replaced the original names of Puante rivers (where the battle of the Puante River took place), and Saint-Michel.[14]

The toponym Rivière Bécancour was formalized on December 5, 1968, at the Commission de toponymie du Québec.[15]

History

It was around 1600 that the

Abenakis settled at the mouth of the Wôlinaktekw.[7] Most of the natives who settled there came from Namesokântsik (a place where there are many fish), now known as Mégantic, and from the Abenakis from the region of the river Kennebec which circulated by Lake Mégantic. After several trips, they settled permanently in Wôlinak in 1735.[7] The “Piste Bécancour” (Abenaki Becancour Trail), linked the Grand lac Saint François, via the Petit lac Saint-François (Ashberham), in the canton of Coleraine, to the basin of the Bécancour River to Wôlinak.[16] A village named "Wananoak" located near the sources of the river and a path leading to Lac Mégantic is inscribed on a Mitchell Map of 1755. The village is also described : Indian village of New France or Canada located near the shore and the source of the Puante river.[17] As for the French, they began to settle in the plain of Bécancour in 1676.[7] The Appalachian region was colonized by the British in the early 1800s.[7] They were replaced by the French Canadians and the Irish around the middle of the 19th century.[7]

However, the Appalachian region was transformed as early as 1876 with the discovery of asbestos.[7] It was in 1905 that Thetford Mines, the most important city in the basin, was founded.[7]

Image gallery

See also

References

  1. ^ "GROBEC - Géographie du bassin de la rivière Bécancour" (in French). Retrieved 28 August 2007.
  2. ^ a b Morin & Boulanger 2005, p. 2
  3. ^ a b c d e Morin & Boulanger 2005, p. 25
  4. ^ a b c Morin & Boulanger 2005, pp. 17–19
  5. ^ a b Morin & Boulanger 2005, p. 21
  6. ^ a b Morin & Boulanger 2005, pp. 22–25
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h Morin & Boulanger 2005, pp. 47–48
  8. ^ a b c Morin & Boulanger 2005, pp. 54–58
  9. ^ a b c d Morin & Boulanger 2005, pp. 5–7
  10. ^ a b c d e Morin & Boulanger 2005, p. 35
  11. ^ a b Morin & Boulanger 2005, pp. 40–42
  12. ^ Wôlinak, Quebec, canada-listing.com
  13. ^ "Gt. Puante River" and "L. Puante River" on the New Map Of The Province of Quebec (1776): Great Puante River, davidrumsey.com
  14. ^ a b c d e "Rivière Bécancour". Commission de Toponymie. Bank of place names in Quebec. Retrieved 2011-03-01.
  15. ^ Commission de toponymie du Québec - Rivière Bécancour
  16. ^ Gwen Barry, The Bécancour Trail: Abenaquis camps in the hinterland, Recherches Amérindiennes au Québec, vol. 33, no 2, 2003, p.94).
  17. ^ Diccionario geográfico-histórico de las Indias Occidentales ó América ... Toma V., by Antonio de Alcedo, p.331

Bibliography

External links

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