“Where was the Musi-Café?” “Did you know people among those who died?” “Where were you that night?” “After the tragedy of Lac-Mégantic, whose 10th anniversary is highlighted on Thursday, the Méganticois were strongly challenged by curious tourists. To avoid becoming a disaster tourism destination, the City has instead worked on remembrance tourism.
In the aftermath of the tragedy of July 6, 2013, downtown Mégantic is confined. Fences delimit the disaster area, but the media and curious tourists go there anyway. “Visitors arrived from Frontenac Street, they parked nearby and looked through the fences,” recalls the City’s communications manager, Karine Dubé, whom she met at the heritage station.
The tragedy attracted many people, remembers Paul Dostie, a resident of Lac-Mégantic. “There were too many cameras. It’s as if we were forced to live in the eyes of others. We had to be resilient, because we were filmed and told that we were resilient, ”explains the now retired man.
Anyone driving through megantic today sees the lake.
Ten years later, the municipality expects a marked return of tourists, but has found ways to protect its population. From the Memory Space to the interpretation panels, various installations have been designed over the years. After several public consultations, the City has notably decided to do its duty to remember by creating the outdoor commemoration trail La Marche du vent, but nothing that would incite voyeurism.
Memory tourism
Faced with the flood of questions from tourists after the tragedy, the City quickly decided to set up the Maison du temps, an information kiosk that answered questions about the train tragedy. For the population, it was possible to direct visitors there.
Once the dust settled, citizens and the municipality began a process of public consultation to ensure that tourists did not come just to contemplate the remains of the tragedy. From the outset, the wish was to get away from macabre tourism. “Macabre tourism is defined as the act of traveling to sites, attractions, exhibitions that are associated with death, with suffering,” explains Taïka Baillargeon, doctor in urban and tourism studies. In Lac-Mégantic, the idea was rather to talk about memory tourism, says Karine Dubé.
The nuance between the two forms of tourism is the ethics behind the practice. “There is a whole section [du tourisme macabre] which makes people in general very uncomfortable. It is linked to capitalization, to consumption, to the spectacularization of drama,” says Taïka Baillargeon. Visiting concentration camps or following the traces of drug trafficking in Colombia are examples of a type of tourism that has grown in popularity, but which can affect the local population. After the hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, “there were buses [touristiques] passing by and there were signs [indiquant] “Tourists, leave, we don’t want to see you”, says Mme Baillargeon.
In Lac-Mégantic, it was essential for the population not to become such attractions. “For us, remembrance tourism is really about going to different sites to understand what happened, so that people also understand how we recovered. Lac-Mégantic is not just a tragedy. Lac-Mégantic is much more than a tragedy,” recalls Karine Dubé.
Better to prevent
Citizens and managers of tourist facilities have been supported from the start by a psychosocial intervention team from the CIUSSS de l’Estrie. By initiating reflections on the commemorations, this local team has developed a psychosocial guide to be distributed in environments in contact with tourists. “The guide becomes a pretext to meet merchants, people from tourism, accommodation, retail trade, restaurateurs, bar owners,” explains Cindy Stewart, social work technician.
A visitor who is interested in our history is someone important.
How far are employees willing to go to answer tourists’ questions? How to prepare to welcome them? Where to redirect them for more information? These lines of thought were thought out upstream by the team. “The objective is to think about how we can respect each other in our choice or not to approach the subject while being able to answer the person who has a valid question”, adds Audrey Auclair, social worker. Especially since the workers are getting younger and younger. Some of them were going to enter primary school at the time of the tragedy and can hardly explain the events to tourists.
Respect the healing rate
Since his retirement, Paul Dostie has joined the ranks of the international collective Greeters, which brings together volunteers offering free guided tours to tourists. According to him, those who come do so for reasons other than the disaster. “They no longer come to see the tragedy, to see if there is a bone lying around. They come to see how we are rebuilding,” he says. Seated across from the train station, he boasts about the attractions of his region: the Mont-Mégantic Observatory, the rich culture and access to nature.
Mr. Dostie decided to look to the future. As he walks down the new main street, which has been relocated, he notices the viewpoints towards the lake that were thought up in the aftermath of the tragedy. “Someone who crosses Mégantic today sees the lake. He is forced to turn to the beautiful side of the world. We needed that. All we saw was tragedy. »
However, everyone’s recovery rate is not the same. “The old people’s home just across the street saw its downtown burn,” he notes. For these people, grieving for the city as they had known it is more difficult. “What you have to understand is that our citizens are not necessarily in the same place,” adds Karine Dubé, to communications from the City, recalling the importance of respecting each person’s journey.
To respect the local population, Taïka Baillargeon emphasizes the importance of following the land marked out for tourists. “Go for what is offered to you. Get informed, be aware of how the population takes things […] How she reacts to the image that is projected of her. »
In Lac-Mégantic, tourists will always be welcome, according to Mme Dubé, since they stood together in the most difficult times. “For us, a visitor who is interested in our history is someone important,” she concludes.