St-Gabriel de Rameau

Resilience:

An individual's ability to build and live satisfactorily despite traumatic circumstances.

Discovering archives... I took Georgette Bélanger-Rioux's photographs at Jeannot Rioux's request. In the darkroom, I plunged into the hinterland, we were in St-Gabriel de Rameau in 1960, a village closed by the government in 1970.

It was 2022, my first meeting with the former residents of St-Gabriel. It was the beginning of a series of encounters, each as incredible as the next. In 2023, I invited several of the residents to participate in a testimonial, a photographic account of the place.

“Saint-Gabriel des Rameaux was the smallest of the closed villages, with 100 families when it closed. It cost the government $30,000 to destroy the school, church and remaining houses. The outcome of the referendum is open to question. Faced with such an emotional issue, it's hard to believe that 100% of the population voted in favor of the closure.
Today, former residents and their descendants meet once a year at the cemetery, the only place left intact, frozen in time. These people return throughout the year to picnic, hunt or simply hike on land that once belonged to them and was once fields.

I imagine they come to caress memories, to remember that among the big spruce trees of today, at the time.

the church and the school were opposite each other, behind you had the presbytery... my house was over there, well the well is still there, the barn was there and sometimes we went through the detour at Philippon..." (extract from the book Résilience 1970)

.. the church and the school were opposite each other, behind you had the presbytery... my house was over

there, well the well is still there, the barn was there and sometimes we went through the detour at Philippon..." (extract from the book Résilience 1970)

on..." (extract from the book Résilience 1970)