Cap Diamant ( English: Cape Diamond) is a

cape A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment of any length that hangs loosely and connects either at the neck or shoulders. They usually cover the back, shoulders, and arms. They come in a variety of styles and have been used th ...

on an edge of the

Promontory of Quebec In Quebec City, the term promontory of Quebec refers to the area on which is built the upper part of the borough of La Cité-Limoilou, including Old Quebec (where the promontory is referred to as Cap Diamant). This area covers the eastern hal ...

and on which

Quebec City Quebec City is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Census Metropolitan Area (including surrounding communities) had a populati ...

is located, formed by the confluence of a bend in the

St. Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (, ) is a large international river in the middle latitudes of North America connecting the Great Lakes to the North Atlantic Ocean. Its waters flow in a northeasterly direction from Lake Ontario to the Gulf of St. Lawren ...

to the south and east, and the much smaller Saint-Charles River to the north.

Jacques Cartier Jacques Cartier (; 31 December 14911 September 1557) was a French maritime explorer from Brittany. Jacques Cartier was the first Europeans, European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, wh ...

, the French explorer who found glittering stones in the high cliff, thought the stones contained

diamonds Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of electricity, and insol ...

. After he brought samples of these stones to France in 1542, experts concluded that these "diamonds" were actually

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

, hence the proverb "Faux comme un diamant du Canada" ("as fake (or as false) as a Canadian diamond"). In 1759, the troops of British General

James Wolfe Major-general James Wolfe (2 January 1727 – 13 September 1759) was a British Army officer known for his training reforms and, as a major general, remembered chiefly for his victory in 1759 over the French at the Battle of the Plains of ...

climbed Cap Diamant toward the

Plains of Abraham The Plains of Abraham () is a historic area within the Battlefields Park in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. It was established on 17 March 1908. The land is the site of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, which took place on 13 September 1759, ...

to conquer Quebec. In 1889 the Quebec rockslide fell from Cap Diamant.

Popular culture

A song entitled "Cap Diamant" was on Canadian singer-songwriter Coeur de Pirate's second CD, ''

Blonde Blond () or blonde (), also referred to as fair hair, is a human hair color characterized by low levels of eumelanin, the dark pigment. The resultant visible hue depends on various factors, but always has some yellowish color. The color can be ...

''. Cap-aux-Diamants lends its name to a cultural history journal, published in Quebec since 1985.

References

Commission de toponymie du Québec - Cap Diamant
Landforms of Quebec City Landforms of Capitale-Nationale Headlands of Quebec Saint Lawrence River {{Quebec-geo-stub