Saguenay is a city (
Canada 2006 Census population 143,692) in the
Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region of
Quebec,
Canada, on the
Saguenay River, about north of
Quebec City.
Saguenay is also the name of a
territory equivalent to a regional county municipality (TE) coextensive with the city of Saguenay, whose geographical code is 941.
Together with the
regional county municipality of
Le Fjord-du-Saguenay, it forms the
census division (CD) of
Le Saguenay-et-son-Fjord (94).
Description
The city was formed on February 18, 2002 by
amalgamating the cities of
Chicoutimi,
Jonquière,
La Baie and
Laterrière, along with the municipalities of Lac-Kénogami and Shipshaw and part of the township of Tremblay.
The city is divided into three boroughs:
- Chicoutimi (territories of Chicoutimi, Laterrière and Tremblay township);
- Jonquière (territories of Jonquière, Arvida, Kénogami, Lac-Kénogami, and Shipshaw);
The mayor of Saguenay is Jean Tremblay, mayor of Chicoutimi before the merger.
The term "the Saguenay" or (less commonly) "Saguenay Valley" is used for the whole Saguenay River region. See
Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean. The provincial riding of René-Lévesque on the Côte Nord was named Saguenay before 2003 elections.
Camrose, Alberta is the
sister city of Saguenay.
Geography
Saguenay is located in a
depression in the
Canadian shield with a somewhat more
temperate climate than the surrounding region, allowing agriculture and
human settlement to take place. The relatively small and concentrated Lac St-Jean area where the city is located can be described as an isolated "
oasis" in the middle of the vast remote wilderness of Northern Quebec. Few roads connect with the area from the south and east, and only one road connects from the northwest. No roads go north from the area into the wilderness; the last roads north end just a short distance from the city—still within the Lac St-Jean area. There are no human settlements due north of Saguenay all the way to the Canadian
Arctic islands, except for a few isolated
Cree and
Inuit villages. However, the remote, paved Route 167/113 heads northwest to the interior town of
Chibougamau, providing access to Western Quebec and subsequently,
Hudson Bay. No services are available for the 230 km (143 mi) to Chibougamau from the Lac St-Jean area.
Two notable
natural disasters have occurred within the current municipal boundaries of Saguenay: the
Saint-Jean-Vianney landslide of
May 4,
1971, and the
Saguenay Flood of 1996. A magnitude 5.9 earthquake on
November 25,
1988 also had its epicentre 35 km south of Chicoutimi.
Demographics
(Institut de la Statistique du Québec, 2006)- 99% of Saguenay's inhabitants claim French as their first language.
Statistics for the Census Metropolitan Area
The Saguenay
Census Metropolitan Area (CMA), which also includes the municipalities of Saint-Fulgence, Saint-Honoré, and Larouche, had a 2006 population of 151,643 and is the most homogenous CMA in all of Canada.
Aboriginal status: Indigenous peoples comprised 1.7% of the population.
Languages: French was
mother tongue to 98.1% of residents (counting both single and multiple responses) in 2006.
The next most common mother tongues were
English at 0.9%, followed by
Spanish at 0.3%,
Arabic at 0.2%, and
Chinese languages,
Portuguese,
Atikamekw (Abenaki),
German and
Niger-Congo languages at 0.1% each.
Religion: About 96% of the population identified as
Roman Catholic in 2001 while almost 3% said they had no religious affiliation.
Among smaller denominations the
Jehovah’s Witnesses and
Methodists were numbered at 0.2% each, while the
Baptists,
Anglicans,
Muslims,
United Church,
Mormons and
Pentecostals each accounted for about 0.1% of the population.
Visible minorities: About 0.2% of the population identified as Black, 0.2% as Chinese, and 0.1% as Latin American.
Immigration: The area is home to about seven hundred recent immigrants (i.e. those arriving between 2001 and 2006), who now comprise about 0.5% of the total population. Approximately 25% of these new immigrants have come from
Colombia, about 10% have come from both
China and from
France, and about 5% have come from the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
Internal migration: Between 2001 and 2006 there was a net outmigration of 4,745 people (equivalent to 3% of the total 2001 population) which included a net outmigration of 170 anglophones (equivalent to 15% of the 2001 anglophone population). Overall there was a net outmigration of 2,530 people to Montreal, 1,570 to Quebec, 545 to Gatineau, 285 to Sherbrooke, and 105 to Trois-Rivières.
Ethnocultural ancestries: Canadians were able to self-identify one or more ethnocultural ancestries in the
2001 census. It should be noted that respondents were able to identify more than one ethnocultural ancestry, and that percentages may therefore add up to more than 100%. The most common response was
Canadian / Canadien and since the term 'Canadian' is as much an expression of citizenship as of ethnicity, these figures should not be considered an exact record of the relative prevalence of different ethnocultural ancestries. 63.4% of respondents gave a single response of Canadian /
Canadien while a further 20.8% identified both Canadian /
Canadien and one or more other ethnocultural ancestries. About 9.9% of respondents gave a single response of
French / Français, while 1.7% gave a single response of
Québécois, 0.5% gave a single response of
Irish, 0.4% gave a single response of
North American Indian and 0.3% gave a single response of
Scottish.
Counting both single and multiple responses, the most commonly identified ethnocultural ancestries were:
(Percentages may total more than 100% due to rounding and multiple responses).Education
Apart from hosting two
Cégeps—one in Jonquière and one in Chicoutimi, the city also benefits from the presence of the
Université du Québec à Chicoutimi. Several other schools have campuses in Saguenay, including the
Université de Sherbrooke and the
École nationale d'administration publique. Saguenay is also home to a
music conservatory.
Economy
Saguenay's economy is mainly based on the primary transformation of
natural resources, including
paper (under
Abitibi-Consolidated) and
aluminum (under
Alcan). The city is also home to several
hydro-electric power plants, notably the 800 MW plant at Shipshaw. Recent years have been hard on Saguenay's economy. Citing difficult market conditions (possibly arising from the
United States-Canada softwood lumber dispute), Abitibi-Consolidated closed down several of its transformation plants in the area—including the Port-Alfred plant in La Baie, which was closed for good on
January 26,
2005 after a little over a year of inactivity.
Media
See also
