Bike WA to VT, Write History: Rivière du Nord, Quebec

Rivière du Nord

2,766 miles

Oct 6 – I’m crossing the Rivière du Nord (North River) on a boring flat highway through flat farmland, at a calm place in the river. The river got its name simply because it flows into the north side of the Ottawa River.

The Rivière du Nord features exciting waterfalls and rapids, so it attracts kayakers and sightseers, but that is farther upstream and farther north, in St. Jerome at the Parc Régional de la Rivière du Nord.

Just past this bridge I find a road called Chemin de l’Île aux Chats. The Road to the Island of the Cats! Surely this is worth investigating!

South of here, visible only by map, the Rivière du Nord flows around an island called the Island of the Cats. How on earth is there an island in rural Quebec that became inhabited primarily by cats?

Chats Falls,
by Philip John Bainbrigge

It turns out that a few places in Quebec are named for cats!

Chats Falls (Anglicized from French “Chute des Chats”) was a series of waterfalls on the Ottawa River near Quyon.

Another Île aux Chats is located closer to Montreal on the Prairies River.

Erie warrior, 19th century

One theory for the derivation of this intriguing name is that people of an Erie tribe were living in the vicinity, who were often mentioned in historical writings of the Jesuit missionaries, and the word "Erie" in the local Iroquois language means cougar.

Another legend explains that early explorers found many raccoons on these islands, which were then called wild cats (“chats sauvages”).

The rapids at Chats Falls are now covered by hydroelectric power dams. The reservoir is named Lac des Chats (“Lake of Cats”), but translated as Chats Lake.

Île aux Chats near Montreal is now a nature preserve owned by the city.

This Île aux Chats on the Rivière du Nord is a residential island among farm fields. It appears to be a bedroom community for Montreal exurban commuters or for workers at the hydroelectric power dam on the Ottawa River at Carillon.