Ла-Мегантик: История, трагедия и возрождение города.

Lac Mégantic was a tourist destination and a producer of forestry products, furniture, Masonite doors, particleboard, and architectural granite before July 6, 2013, when the Lac Mégantic rail disaster led to a massive fire and deadly explosion of petroleum tank cars that destroyed many downtown buildings and killed 47 people.

Prior to contact with Europeans, the region was inhabited by the Abenaki. Archaeological digs found that the Amerindians had been in the region for over 12,000 years, making this the oldest known site of human occupation in Quebec. The name of Mégantic comes from the Abenaki word "namesokanjik" which translates to "place where the fish are held." The first colonists to settle in the region came two centuries later, around 1850, and were of French Canadian or Scottish origin.

The first mayor (1885 1888) of Mégantic was Malcolm MacAuley, who was linked to the Donald Morrison case. Morrison's family had immigrated from the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland and had settled locally in a largely Canadian Gaelic speaking farming community. on July 6, 2013, an unattended 73 car freight train carrying crude oil ran away and derailed near the downtown area of Lac Mégantic, causing multiple tank cars to catch fire and explode. Forty seven people were killed or presumed killed in the explosion and ensuing blaze, making the derailment Canada's deadliest rail disaster since the St Hilaire train disaster in 1864. More than 30 buildings in the town's centre were destroyed, including the town's library and archives. The police launched a criminal investigation, charging the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway and three workers with criminal negligence. Of the 39 downtown buildings still standing as of December 2014, thirty six are to be demolished due to petroleum contamination of the underlying grounds.

Lac Mégantic is located at the eastern part of the Estrie administrative region, in the Regional County Municipality of Le Granit, approximately from the United States border. The Chaudière River has its source in Lake Megantic and empties into the St. Lawrence River, some further north, near Lévis (within the former city of Saint Romuald). The Town of Lac Mégantic is located from Mont Mégantic.

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Lac Mégantic had a population of 5747 living in 2938 of its 3143 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 5654. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021. In 2021, the median age of Lac Mégantic was 53.6 and 87% of the population were 15 years of age and over. Due to the rail disaster, the provincial government of Quebec had delayed the municipal election in Lac Mégantic from its regular timing concurrent with the 2013 municipal elections; the next election will, however, be held normally in 2017. Roy Laroche, a former schoolmaster, was nicknamed "the granite lady" for her handling of the derailment and its aftermath. The town council is made up of councillors representing six electoral districts. District Name 1. Agnès Jean Cloutier 2. Fatima Jasmin Brière 3. Centre Ville Pierre Mercier 4. Québec Central Jean Bilodeau 5. Vieux Nord Pierre Latulippe 6. Montignac Julie Morin

Provincially, Lac Mégantic is located in the provincial electoral district of Mégantic. It is represented by Ghislain Bolduc of the Quebec Liberal Party. Federally, Lac Mégantic is part of the federal riding of Mégantic—L'Érable. It is represented by Luc Berthold of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Although the railway has declined in recent decades, Lac Mégantic remains an important centre of agriculture, logging, lumber and pulp and paper. Sonae Indústria's local subsidiary, Tafisa Canada, operates a particleboard factory in the town. Other major local employers include furniture manufacturer Bestar and forestry company Industries Manufacturières Mégantic, part of Masonite International. Granite from the region was incorporated into the National September 11 Memorial in New York City. Various other factories existed in the past, including a paper printing plant; a sash and door factory; saw mills; and a butter, cheese, and cheese box factory. The region's economy in its early days was propelled by the logging industry due to the vast swaths of old growth forests. Many related industries operated in the region, including lumber (Nantais Mill), the furniture industry and the pulp and paper industry. Lake Mégantic was used for log floating, with a steamboat used to tow the logs to the sawmill. The first steamboat in the region, named the "Lena", was built by George Flint in 1881. At the time of the industrial revolution, rural and working classes made up the majority of Mégantic's population. In 1907, the town had 2600 people and the daily wage for a labourer was around C$1 to C$1.50. The working class lived in the northern district of the city, while those in liberal professions, as well as store clerks and employees of financial institutions lived in the central part of the city (downtown). The first bank branch in the town was the People's Bank of Halifax, which opened in December 1893. Its first manager was a Mr. Aitkens from Cookshire. The bank was acquired by Bank of Montreal in 1905 and a new building constructed that same year. The branch closed in 2001 and was sold to Banque Nationale; the 5193 Frontenac Street building later housed legal aid offices. Only a broken, charred shell remained after the 2013 Lac Mégantic derailment burned much of the historic downtown but some legal records secured in the historic bank's vault survived the fire. The Eastern Townships Bank, established in Sherbrooke in 1859, opened a Mégantic office in 1904 and acquired its own building at Frontenac and Thibodeau in 1910. That bank was acquired by the Canadian Bank of Commerce in 1912; the local branch with its distinctive architectural columns closed during the Great Depression in 1935.

A weekly newspaper, L'Écho de Frontenac, is published in the town and one radio station, CJIT FM 106.7, operates from a local studio.

The region has increased its reliance on tourism, a mainstay since the passenger rail era, attracting people from across Quebec and the Northeastern United States. Lac Mégantic profits from its proximity to two major provincial parks, Frontenac National Park on Lac Saint François and Mont Mégantic National Park near Notre Dame des Bois. Mont Mégantic Park is home of the ASTROlab astronomy museum and the Mont Mégantic Observatory, a mountaintop observatory and dark sky preserve. The Lac Mégantic lakeshore is host to the Complexe Baie des Sables beachfront park, the annual Traversée internationale du lac Mégantic swim meet in August and the Grand tour du lac Mégantic cycle tour each June. The most popular activities for tourists are hunting and fishing.

Lac Mégantic is home to a junior college, Centre d’études collégiales de Lac Mégantic, which is affiliated with the Cégep Beauce Appalaches. The college offers both technical and pre university training programs including an astrophysics program, which is the only one of its kind in Quebec. It also has a vocational training centre, the Centre de formation professionnelle Le Granit. The town, in the former Commission scolaire des Hauts Cantons (now Commission scolaire des Hauts Cantons), has one secondary school, Polyvalente Montignac, and two elementary schools, École Notre Dame de Fatima and École Sacré Cœur. The English language school board for the town is Eastern Townships School Board. Lac Mégantic is the birthplace of author Nelly Arcan; a new municipal library opened May 5, 2014 bears her name. The library's site (a former Canadelle undergarment factory at 4409, rue Dollard) was chosen in 2010 to accommodate expansion of a collection then over 45,000 volumes. As the original collection was destroyed by fire in 2013, a hundred thousand books were donated by local groups, universities, authors and publishers across Québec.

Lac Mégantic is crossed by Quebec Route 161 and Quebec Route 204. Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) built a transcontinental railway line linking Montreal with the Atlantic Ocean port of Saint John, New Brunswick. The division from Lac Mégantic to Mattawamkeag, Maine, was operated by CP subsidiary International Railway of Maine and opened in 1889. The Atlantic passenger train was operated by CP and later Via Rail over this line, but was eliminated in December 1994. In 1988, CP consolidated its Lac Mégantic Saint John line into the Canadian Atlantic Railway. In December 1994, the line was sold to Canadian American Railroad (part of Iron Road Railways). After that company's 2003 bankruptcy, the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway provided freight service until the line in both directions was severed by the Lac Mégantic derailment in 2013. MM&A claimed bankruptcy protection in August 2013; its assets were sold to Fortress Investment Group as the Central Maine and Quebec Railway in 2014. In September 1895, the Quebec Central Railway completed a 59.2 mile (95 km) branch line from the CP main line at Lac Mégantic north to Tring Junction, a point from which onward connections were available to Lévis. This line was abandoned in the 1980s and has been removed. The town was also home to the now decommissioned Megantic Airport; an industrial park and large sawmill occupy the former airfield. A municipal sports centre, which opened in 2011, offers a wide range of sporting and educational activities, including a swimming pool and an arena. Lac Mégantic is home to the Centre de santé et service sociaux (CSSS) du Granit, which is located on Laval Street. The facility serves the local community and contains a hospital centre for acute care with 35 beds, and a long term care centre with 44 beds.