History of Shawinigan, Québec, Canada

Shawenegan, shà-wen-e-gān', or Saint Boniface, a post-village in St. Maurice co., Quebec, on the river St. Maurice, 23 miles N.W. of Three Rivers. It contains saw- and grist-mills. The Falls of the Shawenegan, 150 feet high, are in the vicinity. Pop. 250.

This company would become famous in Quebec until the nationalization of electric power in 1944. The Shawinigan Water and Power Company acquired land and built the first hydroelectric power station in 1898. Then, the Northen Aluminum plant, another industrial giant in the province, opened its doors there.

Towards the end of the 19th century, on the territory of the current city of Shawingan, there were several municipalities such as: Shawinigan Falls, Grand-Mère, Saint-Pierre-de-Shawinigan, Sainte-Flore, Saint-Boniface-de- Shawinigan, Baie-de-Shawinigan, Almaville, Turcotte (renamed Saint-Georgesen 1919), Saint-Bernard and Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel. The village of Shawinigan Falls was the largest and in 1903 it was incorporated as a town. The same year, the first power line connected Shawinigan Falls and Montreal.

Six years later, in 1910, the Shawinigan-2 hydroelectric power station was built.

Have you ever stopped to wonder why, at Christmas time, people put gaily decorated pine trees in their homes, bedeck their rooms and windows with mistletoe and holly, send greeting cards to friends, and finish off their feasting with good mince pie?

These and other Christmas customs that seem so natural and ageless to us, all had a beginning somewhere, and the origin of most of them are very interesting.

The practice of putting up evergreen trees, for example, was originally an ancient Roman custom and was once roundly denounced by Tertullian, an early Roman writer. In the Rome of the Caesars, the pagan citizens adorned their house with sprigs of evergreen at the time of the New Year festival. In Germany and Holland began the custom of decorating evergreen trees during summer festivals, and in ancient Alsace, the celebration of the New Year was marked by the erection of an evergreen tree in fountains and public squares. These trees were decorated and were kept in place the...