Last July, in the middle of the summer holidays, the Museum made a completely unexpected acquisition !

The story begins with an email sent in May to curator-archivist Steve Dubreuil from a certain Louis Provencher of Reno, Nevada. Provencher mentioned his interest in offering the museum “items” that had belonged to his grandfather, a former coureur des bois on the North Shore…

Provencher… coureur des bois… North Shore… It was Paul Provencher, of course! His grandson Louis has been living in the United States for many years. He is the scientific director for the state of Nevada of the world-renowned environmental organization The Nature Conservancy.

Paul Provencher, born in 1902 and deceased in 1982, obtained his degree in forestry engineering from Laval University in 1925. His first visit to the North Shore dates back to 1926, when he worked for Wayagamack Pulp and Paper Co. in Anticosti. In 1929, he was hired by Quebec North Shore Paper in Baie-Comeau to conduct forest inventories of the Manicouagan, Toulnustouc, Franquelin, and Rochers river basins. He later became director of forestry operations for the same company.

Almost his entire career took place on the North Shore. He was guided and accompanied by the Innu people, who taught him their forest survival techniques, perfectly adapted to the harsh conditions of the boreal forest. Alongside his profession, he was passionate about hunting and fishing, and his artistic sensibility found expression in photography, painting, and amateur filmmaking.

The appointment to transfer the items with Louis was made without hesitation! It took place in mid-July, in the countryside east of the village of Les Éboulements. The donor owns an ancestral home there, where he stays every summer and which he cherishes and maintains with passion!

This is how Mr. Dubreuil was able to bring back to Sept-Îles a box of various documents associated with Paul’s writing of the book Mes observations sur les insectes (Les Éditions de l’Homme, 1977), five watercolors depicting the Innu people and various landscapes of our region, but also and above all a prospector-style tent that he used on his exploration trips into the northern coastal hinterland!

These precious items are now part of our Paul Provencher collection, which includes more than 185 objects and 70 works reflecting his work in the forests of the North Shore. To better understand his attachment to this region and its Indigenous inhabitants, he wrote the following in his biography Provencher: le dernier des coureurs de bois (Les Éditions de l’Homme, 1974):

“In 1925, I had traveled all over the Saint-Maurice and its tributaries as a forestry engineer; and when, in 1929, I was tasked with conducting forest inventories in the Manicouagan, Toulnoustook, Franquelin, and Rochers river basins in Shelterbay, my dream began to come true. I was going to at least come into contact with the true coureurs des bois of my time, the Montagnais Indians. The advantage I had of living with them and in the intimacy of their homes, of following them as guides and directing them as employees, allowed me to observe them in their every gesture and to understand them.”