Trois-Pistoles River | The River That Divides

Just before flowing into the St. Lawrence, the Trois-Pistoles River is nestled in the hollow of a rocky fault. But the gulf that divides supporters and detractors of a possible bridge to cross it is even deeper.

The A20 extension project over the waterway reached a crucial milestone early this summer, when Quebec officially began looking for engineers to design the structure. After decades of procrastination, the project is reaching an unprecedented milestone.

The debate continues to rage in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region, however, as to the advisability of such a project. On one side: residents who currently live with the noise of the 132. On the other: those whose lives will be turned upside down by the future highway.

Gaston Desjardins falls into the latter category. “I’m 74 years old and it makes me extremely anxious. It makes me feel anxious,” the man says, sitting on the steps of his house. He points to trees about twenty metres away. They now belong to the Ministry of Transport, which expropriated his neighbour. Next up in the neighbourhood: a 600-metre-long, 90-metre-high highway bridge.

Mr. Desjardins had returned to settle in Rivière-Trois-Pistoles, the small village of his childhood, after retirement. “I’m from here, I was born in the house next door. […] “It’s the place of our childhood and it’s the place to which we are strongly attached, emotionally too,” he said, predicting that cohabitation with a highway would be “unlivable.”

Saint-Simon-sur-132

“Unlivable” is exactly the word used by many residents of Saint-Simon to describe their life along the 132. The village is crossed by the provincial road.

Currently, the A20 ends just before the Trois-Pistoles River, where two cleared strips make it easy to see where it could continue. The highway disappears for about 53 kilometres and resurrects for a short stretch between Rimouski and Mont-Joli.

“It’s hell. It’s hard to bear,” explains Michel Thibault, shirt open and cigarette in mouth on his front balcony. The conversation is interrupted by the passage of heavy trucks a few meters away. The noise makes any attempt to make oneself understood useless. “It’s deafening! It’s not exaggerated, it’s deafening!”

Same feeling elsewhere in the village.

“There are 53 kilometers that remain unfinished. Let’s finish the job!” says Chantal Malacort, who has lived along the road for over 20 years with her partner, Clément Rousselle. “It’s untenable in terms of noise, pollution, and danger.”

“Things have changed a lot since COVID-19. When they blocked the regions, there was no one passing by except for trucks, we could hear the birds singing,” says Caroline Lamontagne. She is the one who distributes the small “We want the 20” signs that are omnipresent in Saint-Simon in the neighbourhood. Since then, the situation has only gotten worse in her opinion, particularly because of the growing popularity of the Gaspé as a tourist destination.

The “project blockers” are at the rendezvous

“The people who live on the edge of the 132, it’s normal that they are for it and that they put up little signs. I would probably do the same thing: they want to have a better quality of life and that’s understandable. But they will just move the problem, with the agricultural land that will be scrapped, the other houses that will have to be expropriated.”

Mikael Rioux, an environmental activist from Trois-Pistoles, knows the river of the same name well. He first became known in 2002 by hanging dozens of metres above the waterway to protest a private hydroelectric dam project. Since then, he has been involved in all the local fights. “They called us professional project blockers,” he says, a smile in his voice. “But I prefer to be a professional project blocker than an amateur developer.”

With his sidekick Sébastien Rioux (“at the beginning, Trois-Pistoles was just Rioux”), they lead a coalition opposed to the extension of the A20 in general and to the bridge over the Trois-Pistoles River in particular. In particular, they denounce the impact that the structure could have on the municipal drinking water intake, on the smelt spawning grounds of the river and on the tranquility of the area.

“We’ve reached a time when adding highways is less and less consensual,” says Mikael Rioux, assuring that he is hopeful of winning the fight. “I think time is on our side.”

The duo walks along a peaceful little riverside path. Young people are sitting on rocks. Some are swimming, others are drying off in the sun. “It’s a well-kept secret,” says Mikael Rioux.

He dives in, too, at the site where a large steel structure could soon carry a few thousand vehicles a day across the river. He moves his head to clear the water from his ears.

In a few years, he might prefer to keep his ears plugged.