Rivière-du-Loup

Rivière-du-Loup
—  City  —
Rivière-du-Loup at sunset
Flag
Rivière-du-Loup Location in Quebec, Canada
Coordinates: 47°50′N 69°32′W
Country	Canada
Province	Quebec
Region	Bas-Saint-Laurent
Settled	1850 as Fraserville
Incorporated	1919 as Rivière-du-Loup
Government
• Type	Ville
• Mayor	Michel Morin
Area
• Land	84.23 km2 (32.52 sq mi)
• Metro	409.56 km2 (158.13 sq mi)
Population (2011)
• City	19,447
• Density	230.9/km2 (598/sq mi)
• Metro	24,570
• Metro density	60.0/km2 (155/sq mi)
Time zone	Eastern (UTC-5)
• Summer (DST)	EDT (UTC-4)
Area code(s)	418
Website	Official city site

For the electoral district, see Rivière-du-Loup (electoral district)

Rivière-du-Loup (2011 population 19,447) is a small city on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec. The city is the seat for the Rivière-du-Loup Regional County Municipality and the judicial district of Kamouraska.

History

The city was named after the nearby river, whose name means Wolf's River in French. This name may have come from a native tribe known as "Les Loups" or from the many seals, known in French as loup-marin (sea wolves), once found at the river's mouth.

Rivière-du-Loup was originally established in 1673 as the seigneurie of Sieur Charles-Aubert de la Chesnaye. The community was incorporated as the village of Fraserville, in honour of early settler Alexandre Fraser, in 1850, and became a city in 1910. The city reverted to its original name, Rivière-du-Loup, in 1919.

The city is known for its spectacular sunsets.^{[citation needed]}

Transportation

Rivière-du-Loup is a traditional stopping point between Quebec City, the Maritimes and the Gaspé Peninsula. The Trans-Canada Highway turns south here, transferring from Autoroute 20 to Autoroute 85 and continuing southerly to Edmundston, New Brunswick.

There is a ferry which crosses the river (fleuve St Laurent) to Saint-Siméon on the north shore.

The city is also served by the Rivière-du-Loup Airport (IATA airport code YRI). The town can also be reached by VIA Rail.

Media

Rue LaFontaine is an important commercial street in Rivière-du-Loup.

Television

Rivière-du-Loup is an unusual television market, as each of its stations has two transmitters in the city. As a result of the region's hilly geography, it is virtually impossible for a television station to serve the entire area with a single transmitter, as parts of the broadcast area experience signal dropout. Accordingly, each station in the city has both a primary transmitter and a low-power rebroadcaster to serve viewers who cannot receive the primary signal.

Additionally, the city is served by Canada's only triple-stick operation, in which all three of its licensed stations are owned by the same company, Télé Inter-Rives.

• Channel 7 (13) - CKRT (Radio-Canada)
• Channel 9 (6) - CIMT (TVA)
• Channel 29 (11) - CFTF (V)

Rivière-du-Loup is a mandatory market for digital television conversion; Télé Inter-Rives have plans to convert all its transmitters to digital.

Unlike most cities in Quebec, Rivière-du-Loup has no local Télé-Québec outlet, nor a repeater of CBMT, Montreal's CBC Television station, though these channels are available on the Vidéotron system in Rivière-du-Loup.

Radio

• FM 89.5 - CJBR-FM-1, Première Chaîne
• FM 90.7 - CBRX-FM-3, Espace musique
• FM 103.1 - CFYX-FM-1, talk/classic rock (rebroadcasts CFYX Rimouski)
• FM 103.7 - CIEL-FM, AC
• FM 107.1 - CIBM-FM, CHR
• FM 107.9 - CIBM-FM-1 (local CIBM rebroadcaster)

A panorama of Rivière-du-Loup's skyline.

People

Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister, had a summer home in Rivière-du-Loup.

People born there include:

• Nicolas Dickner, writer
• Dr. John McLoughlin, known as "the father of Oregon"
• Allan Sirois, professional hockey player
• Alexandre-Antonin Taché, first Archbishop of Saint Boniface

External links

• Official city site