The Betsiamites River, also known as the Bersimis, is located halfway between the
Saguenay and
Outardes rivers, on the
north shore of the
Saint Lawrence River, downstream from
Quebec City. With the exception of an
Innu reserve at
Betsiamites, at the
mouth of the river, the area is scarcely populated. The word
Betsiamites or
Pessamit is from the
innu language and means "the assembly place of the
lampreys".
Bersimis was not used by either the
Innus, the
French or the
French Canadians, but was introduced by
British admiral Henry Wolsey Bayfield, in his hydrographic surveys of the Saint Lawrence River of 1837. The
Hudson's Bay Company used the name when opened a
trading post in 1855, as did the
post office in 1863. After 2 decades of efforts, residents and the
Quebec government convinced the
federal government to start using
Betsiamites in 1919. But administrative use of
Bersimis continued for decades and Hydro-Québec used it in the 1950s to name its facility in the area. Located in the Central Laurentians ecoregion of the
Boreal Shield Ecozone, the
hinterland is heavily forested and dominated by
softwood species:
black spruce (Picea mariana),
balsam fir (Abies balsamea) and
white spruce (Picea glauca). In 1937, the
Quebec government granted a forest concession to the Anglo Canadian Pulp & Paper Co. to supply its
Forestville mill, on the coast. The area is described as "a sportsman's paradise, where fish,
moose,
bear and a host of other
game creatures abound". == Background ==