Fermont, Quebec
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Fermont is a French-speaking town in northeastern Quebec, Canada. It has a population of 2,918 (2001), and lies near the Quebec-Labrador border about 23 kilometres from Labrador City on Quebec route 389, which connects to the Trans-Labrador Highway (N&L Highway 500). Fermont (French contraction of "Fer Mont", meaning "Iron Mountain") was founded as a company town in the early 1970s to exploit rich iron ore deposits from nearby Mont Wright. It is the seat of the Regional County Municipality of Caniapiscau.
The town is notable for the huge self-contained structure containing apartments, stores, schools, bars, a hotel, restaurants, a supermarket and swimming pool which shelters a community of smaller apartment buildings and homes on its leeward side. The structure was designed to permit residents (other than mine workers) to never leave the building during the long winter, which usually lasts about seven months. The town, designed by Maurice Desnoyers and Norbert Schoenauer, was inspired by similar projects in Sweden designed by Ralph Erskine, notably that of Svappavaara, a copper mining town in Sweden. The building measures 1.3 kilometres long and stands 50 metres high. [1]
The local economy is entirely dependent on the mine owned by Québec Cartier Mining Company [2]. Average earnings for full time workers was $63,982 in 2001, compared to $39,217 in Quebec as a whole. [3] The mine product is converted to pellets and shipped to southern Quebec on the Cartier Railway. In 2006 the mine was affected by a labour dispute which lasted from early April to early June. It was amicably resolved with a six-year contract renewal.[4]
[edit] Notes
- ^ The Windscreen (from Caniapiscau). Retrieved on June 24, 2006.
- ^ Socio-economic profile CÔTE-NORD. Retrieved on June 24, 2006.
- ^ Statistics Canada Community Profile. Retrieved on June 24, 2006.
- ^ Cartier Mining press release. Retrieved on June 24, 2006.
