Rivière-du-Loup

Rivière-du-Loup (French pronunciation: ​[ʁivjɛʁ dy lu]; 2011 population 19,447) is a small city on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec. The city is the seat for the Rivière-du-Loup Regional County Municipality and the judicial district of Kamouraska.[6]

For other uses, see Rivière-du-Loup (disambiguation).
Rivière-du-Loup
City
Rivière-du-Loup at sunset
Flag
Location within Rivière-du-Loup RCM
Rivière-du-Loup
Location in eastern Quebec
Coordinates: 47°50′N 69°32′W[1]
Country Canada
Province Quebec
RegionBas-Saint-Laurent
RCMRivière-du-Loup
Settled1850 as Fraserville
ConstitutedDecember 30, 1998
Government
 • MayorSylvie Vignet
 • Federal ridingMontmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup
 • Prov. ridingRivière-du-Loup–Témiscouata
Area
 • City138.40 km2 (53.44 sq mi)
 • Land84.23 km2 (32.52 sq mi)
 • Urban17.77 km2 (6.86 sq mi)
 • Metro472.91 km2 (182.59 sq mi)
Population
 (2011)[3]
 • City19,447
 • Density230.9/km2 (598/sq mi)
 • Urban17,086
 • Urban density961.3/km2 (2,490/sq mi)
 • Metro27,734
 • Metro density58.6/km2 (152/sq mi)
 • Pop 2006-2011
 4.6%
 • Dwellings
9,537
Time zoneUTC−5 (EST)
 • Summer (DST)UTC−4 (EDT)
Postal code(s)
G5R
Area code(s)418 and 581
Highways
A-20 (TCH)
A-85 (TCH)
Route 132
Route 191
Route 291
Websitevillerdl.ca

History

The city was named after the nearby river, whose name means Wolf's River in French. This name may have come from a native tribe known as "Les Loups" ("The Wolves") or from the many seals, known in French as loup-marin (sea wolves), once found at the river's mouth.

Rivière-du-Loup was established in 1673 as the seigneurie of Sieur Charles-Aubert de la Chesnaye. The community was incorporated as the village of Fraserville, in honour of early Scottish settler Alexander Fraser, in 1850, and became a city in 1910. The city reverted to its original name, Rivière-du-Loup, in 1919.

Between 1850 and 1919, the city saw large increases in its anglophone population. Most of them left the region by the 1950s. 1% of the population still speaks English as its first language.

In fall of 1950 Rivière-du-Loup was the site of a nuclear accident. A USAF B-50 was returning a nuclear bomb to the USA. The bomb was released due to engine troubles, and then was destroyed in a non-nuclear detonation before it hit the ground. The explosion scattered nearly 100 pounds (45 kg) of uranium (U-238).

Transportation
Rue LaFontaine is an important commercial street in Rivière-du-Loup.

Rivière-du-Loup is a traditional stopping point between Quebec City, the Maritimes and the Gaspé Peninsula. The Trans-Canada Highway turns south here, transferring from Autoroute 20 to Autoroute 85 and continuing southwards to Edmundston, New Brunswick.

There is a ferry that crosses the river (fleuve St Laurent) to Saint-Siméon on the north shore.

The city is also served by the Rivière-du-Loup Airport (IATA airport code YRI). The town can also be reached by Via Rail on the train named The Ocean, between Montreal and Halifax.

Media

Television

Rivière-du-Loup is an unusual television market, as each of its stations has two transmitters in the city. The city's hilly terrain causes residents of the lower, western portions of the city to experience frequent signal dropout. That makes it all but impossible for a television station to serve the entire area with a single transmitter. Accordingly, each station in the city has both a primary transmitter and a "nested" low-power rebroadcaster to serve viewers in the western part of the city who cannot receive the primary signal.

Also, the city is served by Canada's only triple-stick operation, in which all three of its licensed stations are owned by the same company, Télé Inter-Rives.

OTA virtual channel (PSIP) OTA actual channel Vidéotron Cable Call sign Network Notes
7.1 7 (VHF) 10 CKRT-DT Ici Radio-Canada Télé Maintains low-power rebroadcaster on VHF channel 13
9.1 9 (VHF) 4 CIMT-DT TVA Maintains low-power rebroadcaster on UHF channel 41
29.1 29 (UHF) 5 CFTF-DT V Maintains low-power rebroadcaster on VHF channel 11

Rivière-du-Loup is a mandatory market for digital television conversion; Télé Inter-Rives converted all of its transmitters to digital prior to the deadline of August 30, 2011.

Unlike most larger cities in Quebec, Rivière-du-Loup has no local Télé-Québec outlet, though Rimouski's CIVB-DT is available on the Vidéotron system in Rivière-du-Loup.

Radio
Panorama of Rivière-du-Loup's skyline

Notable people

Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister, had a summer home in Rivière-du-Loup.

People born there include:

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See also
  • List of cities in Quebec

References
  1. Reference number 351673 of the Commission de toponymie du Québec (in French)
  2. Geographic code 12072 in the official Répertoire des municipalités (in French)
  3. "(Code 2412072) Census Profile". 2011 census. Statistics Canada. 2012.
  4. "(Code 0712) Census Profile". 2011 census. Statistics Canada. 2012.
  5. "(Code 405) Census Profile". 2011 census. Statistics Canada. 2012.. The census agglomeration consists of Rivière-du-Loup, Cacouna, Notre-Dame-du-Portage, Saint-Antonin, Saint-Modeste. In the 2006 census, the census agglomeration had not included Cacouna.
  6. Territorial Division Act. Revised Statutes of Quebec D-11.
  7. "APRIL, Danielle (1949)". Dictionnaire historique de la sculpture québécoise au XXe siècle. Retrieved 14 December 2018.
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