Matagami (, ) is a small town in

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirte ...

, Canada. It is located north of Amos, on

Matagami Lake Lake Matagami is a lake in Jamésie, in Nord-du-Québec, in Quebec, in Canada. It is located just north-northeast of the town of Matagami. Geography Located in a marshy area of northern Quebec, the lake created by the meeting of the rivers A ...

, at the northern terminus of Route 109 and the start of the

James Bay Road The James Bay Road (french: Route de la Baie James), officially the Route Billy-Diamond Highway, is a remote wilderness highway winding its way through the Canadian Shield in northwestern Quebec and reaches into the James Bay region. It starts in ...

(French: ''Route de la Baie James''). It is enclaved within the local municipality of Eeyou Istchee James Bay Regional Government, but administratively independent of it. The town had a population of 1,526 as of the Canada 2011 Census.

History

Matagami was founded in 1963 with the development of

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the econom ...

in the area. Previously, it existed only as a very small

prospecting Prospecting is the first stage of the geological analysis (followed by exploration) of a territory. It is the search for minerals, fossils, precious metals, or mineral specimens. It is also known as fossicking. Traditionally prospecting rel ...

camp accessible only by

float plane A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, m ...

, but after a viable mineral deposit was found in the late 1950s a permanent settlement began to be established. In 1962, the Quebec Toponomy Commission attempted to name the new community Mazenod after Charles-Joseph-Eugène de Mazenod, the founder of the

Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) is a missionary religious congregation in the Catholic Church. It was founded on January 25, 1816, by Eugène de Mazenod, a French priest born in Aix-en-Provence in the south of France on August 1, ...

, but after a public outcry by local residents the community was named after Matagami Lake. The name Matagami means "the confluence of waters" in the

Cree language Cree (also known as Cree– Montagnais– Naskapi) is a dialect continuum of Algonquian languages spoken by approximately 117,000 people across Canada, from the Northwest Territories to Alberta to Labrador. If considered one language, it is th ...

. The first church service in Matagami was held on 17 April 1962.

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultu ...

, Matagami had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021. Population trend: * Population in 2011: 1526 (2006 to 2011 population change: −1.9%) * Population in 2006: 1555 * Population in 2001: 1939 ** 2001 to 2006 population change: −19.8% * Population in 1996: 2243 * Population in 1991: 2467 Mother tongue: * English as first language: 1% * French as first language: 98% * English and French as first language: 0% * Other as first language: 1%

Economy

The two primary employers in the city are

Xstrata Xstrata plc was an Anglo-Swiss multinational mining company headquartered in Zug, Switzerland and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It was a major producer of coal (and the world's largest exporter of thermal coal), copper, ...

and

Domtar Domtar Corporation is an American company that manufactures and markets wood fiber-based paper and pulp product. The company operates pulp and paper mills in Windsor, Quebec, Dryden, Ontario, Kamloops, British Columbia, Ashdown, Arkansas, Hawesv ...

. Domtar has been in Matagami since 1988 when the company bought out Bisson & Bisson. Xstrata entered Matagami in 2006 when it acquired Falconbridge Ltd. In 2008, Xstrata put Perseverance, a zinc-copper

volcanogenic massive sulfide ore deposit Volcanogenic massive sulfide ore deposits, also known as VMS ore deposits, are a type of metal sulfide ore deposit, mainly copper-zinc which are associated with and created by volcanic-associated hydrothermal events in submarine environments. ...

, into production. Perseverance has a mine life of 5.5 years.Xstrata Zinc Canada
Since 1957 ten deposits, including the world class Matagami Lake deposit (25.6 million tonnes grading 8.2% Zn, 0.56% Cu, 20.91 g/t Ag, 0.41 g/t Au), have been discovered and mined out for a total of "44.4 million tonnes with a similar average grade."Kaiser Bottom-Fish Online
/ref> Further exploration is continuing in the camp through a 50–50 joint venture agreement between Xstrata and Donner Metals.Exploration
In late 2008, Donner Metals Ltd. announced that Xstrata Zinc Canada was in the process of completing a scoping study at their jointly owned Bracemac-McLeod property.Bracemac-McLeod
It is the nearest city to the Lac Doré Vanadium Deposit. The community is also one of the distribution points for goods and services to the James Bay Hydroelectric Project. As well, Matagami has a small tourism industry due to the popularity of fishing and hunting in northern Quebec. Hotel Matagami and motel caribou include full-service bars.

Geography

Matagami is located in the geographic centre of Quebec quite far to the west and on similar parallels to

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749 ...

and

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. ...

further west in Canada – all of which have milder climates to a various degree. It is several parallels north of

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

and

Quebec City Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the metropolitan area had a population of 839,311. It is t ...

and in a sparsely populated area. In terms of other parts of the world, Matagami is on the same parallel as the hot Rhine shift around

Mannheim Mannheim (; Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (german: Universitätsstadt Mannheim), is the second-largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after the state capital of Stuttgart, and Germany's ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

, which is more than 10 °C warmer in terms of yearly mean temperature.

Services

Policing in Matagami is done by the Surete du Quebec.

Climate

In spite of being located below the 50th parallel, Matagami has a

subarctic climate The subarctic climate (also called subpolar climate, or boreal climate) is a climate with long, cold (often very cold) winters, and short, warm to cool summers. It is found on large landmasses, often away from the moderating effects of an ocean, g ...

( Dfc). The winter season is long and cold with a January daily mean of , but summer temperatures during the short season are quite warm for subarctic climates. On average around 133 days of the year do not have temperatures above freezing. The cold air is dominant with 224.4 days of the year averaging

air frost Freezing, available onlinlibrary.wmo.int/ref> or frost occurs when the air temperature falls below the freezing point of water (0 °C, 32 °F, 273 K). This is usually measured at the height of 1.2 metres above the ground surface ...

. Also a full 30.5 days of the year should fall to below . Around three days in summer are warm enough to reach , indicating a very continental climate.

Geography

Nearby lakes include Lake Olga.

Media

Matagami is served by a community radio station, CHEF-FM, as well as by a

rebroadcaster A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tra ...

Première Chaîne A première, also spelled premiere, is the debut (first public presentation) of a play, film, dance, or musical composition. A work will often have many premières: a world première (the first time it is shown anywhere in the world), its firs ...

CHLM-FM CHLM-FM is a Canadian radio station, broadcasting at 90.7 FM in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec. The station broadcasts the programming of the Ici Radio-Canada Première network. History In 1976, then-owner Radio-Nord Communications was granted a lice ...

Notable people

Marianne Limpert Marianne Louise Limpert (born October 10, 1972) is a Canadian former freestyle and medley swimmer who competed in the Summer Olympics for Canada in 1992, 1996 and 2000, and won the silver medal in the 200-metre individual medley in 1996 in A ...

, won the silver medal in the 200m Individual Medley at the 1996 Summer Olympics, born in Matagami * Lorne Stamler, former NHL Hockey Player, graduated from Galinee High School in Matagami, Quebec, in 1969

References

External links

Ville de MatagamiXstrata Zinc MatagamiDonner Metals Ltd.Domtar Matagami
{{authority control Cities and towns in Quebec Incorporated places in Nord-du-Québec Jamésie