Amos-Harricana

In Amos-Harricana, the people are active and energetic. Maybe because the first settlers here weren’t afraid to take to their canoes to explore uncharted territory, braving storms and long portages with vessels filled to the brim with goods, furniture and even children. They traveled the length of the Harricana River, the second longest navigable waterway in Canada, stopping only when they reached the perfect destinations: La Motte, Saint-Marc-de-Figuery, Amos, Saint-Dominique-du-Rosaire. Not to mention the many other places, far from the river, where they ventured deep into the woods with their babies, their livestock, their worldly possessions: La Corne, Manneville, Landrienne, Saint-Nazaire, Trécesson and Barraute, to name just a few… Luckily, they could rely on the help of the Abitibiwinnis people, who had lived there for thousands of years before them. The Abitibiwinnis taught the settlers much about this magnificent territory, source of the freshest, purest water in the world. A territory of fine sand beaches, eskers, spring lakes, thick forests and rocks carved by glaciers.  

This energy must be encoded in our genes, or it’s in the air we breathe, because it’s honestly contagious, passed on to everyone who comes here to join us. And we’re welcoming more and more people every day. People from all over, who are teaching us new traditions, who are opening our eyes to other cultures and enriching our own.  

In Amos-Harricana, we like to work together to set up innovative, stimulating educational programs. But above all, there’s the feeling of everyone being in the same boat (or canoe!)—whether we were born here or just arrived—headed up the Harricana River like the Anicinabek people did, centuries before us, and like our grandparents did, barely a century ago. We’re all paddling in time, and we won’t stop until we’ve reached solid ground.