After fiction, reality: a documentary series devoted to life in Fermont, a mining community in northern Quebec, which is also at the heart of detective fiction The fault, will be presented on Tuesday on Canal D. In ten episodes, Fermont intends to paint a portrait of the mining trades, but also of the tightly woven community life that has developed north of 52e parallel.
“There is something mysterious and intriguing about this city where people live and work in a hostile climate,” says director Louis Asselin. Hostile? The word is not too strong: at the time of this writing, the weather forecast indicated that the temperature felt in Fermont would be on average -40 ° in the coming days …
Who decides to settle so far north? What professions do we practice? How do you deal with the harsh winter “which lasts eight months”? How do you live in a mining town built partly in the shade of a “wall” intended to protect its population from the polar winds? Series Fermont, composed of 10 episodes of 30 minutes and broadcast on Canal D, will answer these questions.
“It’s a lot through mining trades that we discover the universe of Fermont, the city and the region”, specifies the director and co-writer of the show, who has been fascinated by this place since childhood.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
Louis Asselin, director and co-writer of the documentary series Fermont
It remains a series of observations, it is not a didactic series on the operation of an iron mine.
Louis Asselin, director and co-writer of the documentary series Fermont
In the first episode, we meet Katy Savoie in particular, passionate since she was little about engines and all the vehicles that “ run on fuel ”. She is a driver, but also a mechanic. She moved to Fermont for a reason: it’s where the biggest vehicles in the world are, 400-ton monsters whose wheels are taller than two men.
The other character we meet in the first episode is Samuel Bélanger-Desrosiers. The young man has been living in Fermont for three years and blasting at the Mont-Wright mine, operated by ArcelorMittal. “Living in Fermont means being far from major centers, but close to society,” he says. The people at Fermont are united together, mutual aid is there every day. ”
Of life in the “wall”
This facet of Fermont life is essential in the eyes of director Louis Asselin. “The characteristic of Fermont is that the town and the mine were built at the same time, with the aim that the workers would live there permanently,” he says. It’s designed so that those who want to can settle down, have a family, and raise their kids there. ”
PHOTO KARINE DUFOUR, PROVIDED BY BELL MEDIA
Mathieu Paradis, Katy Savoie and Samuel Bélanger-Desrosiers are some of the people through whom we discover life in Fermont.
About 2,500 people live in the mining town on the Labrador border. Louis Asselin believes that the isolation and the harsh winter conditions have helped to form a small tightly woven community with surprising dynamism. “For a community of this size, I’ve been in awe of how much is going on,” he says. There are a lot of young families in Fermont and there is a desire to create a living environment that goes beyond work. ”
The mine is the center of the region in terms of work, but the heart of Fermont life is found in the “wall”. This famous wall is in fact an imposing building 1.3 km long where services are gathered (grocery store, radio, childcare center, schools, etc.), which gives access to the swimming pool and to the arena, which has offices. and a lot of apartments.
This “screen wall”, a type of construction of which there are only three or four examples in the world, is the element that unites and fascinates. “The wall is an essential element of the reality of Fermont, agrees Louis Asselin, present in the daily life of the inhabitants of the community, and an impressive reminder of the uniqueness of the city. ”
Fermont, starting Tuesday, 7:30 p.m., at Canal D