Like a tree that becomes bare as winter approaches, the village of Sainte-Apolline-de-Patton has seen its businesses fade, then fall one after the other. Since the disappearance of the convenience store in 2020, the small municipality nestled in the heart of the Appalachians has been a 30-minute round trip drive from the nearest pint of milk: a decline that is testing the conviction of Apollinois and Apollinoises with regard to the motto of their town: “Hope in the future”.
Chance should rarely lead to Sainte-Apolline-de-Patton. To reach this small village located on the borders of the MRC of Montmagny, you have to cross a portion of Route 216, clearly in the bad graces of the Ministry of Transport. Each bump that rocks the car on this tired path evokes the scars left by too many patching operations carried out on a patient who has had to wait a long time to have a new look.
Obviously, the billions spent by public authorities on asphalt repairs rarely trickle down to here.
“It’s terrible,” sighs Manon Bernard, owner of the only restaurant in the village, Le Répit, which aptly bears its name after crossing the repaired section. The state of the roadway does nothing to help local businesses — at least, what’s left of them.
Its establishment with around forty places offers one of the last places to socialize for miles around. The region, however, does not lack attraction: a glance through the restaurant window reveals the majesty of the valley which spreads out below, where a few tufts of forest emerge between fields and hills.
The beauty of the landscape poorly masks the commercial desert and the scent of decline that perfumes the surrounding area. Sainte-Apolline no longer has any retail businesses, apart from a modest thrift store and an artisan counter run by the valiant elders of the village.
The closest commercial artery is now in Montmagny, 50 km to the north. The crumbling of the commercial fabric in the village goes hand in hand with the desertion of its population. Between 2011 and 2021, Sainte-Apolline lost 18.7% of its population while the Chaudière-Appalaches region experienced growth of 5.5%. Today, just over 500 souls live in this majestic setting — almost as many as in 1911, when the village was… nine years old.
“We had six general stores”
The town, however, has already seen better days. There was a time when general stores and grocery stores were combined in the plural in Sainte-Apolline. In the past, the village had its hotel, its gas station, its bars, its two garages, its doctors, its full school and even its three annual theatrical evenings in the municipal hall.
At the dawn of the 1950s, at the height of the Duplessis regime and families where there were around ten children, some 1,300 parishioners received communion every Sunday in the church which still stands today with panache in the heart of Sainte-Apolline-de-Patton — despite heating to be redone and a few leaks in the roof.
The village exchanged news after mass, then the faithful in their Sunday best lined up at the doors of the once numerous shops. This golden age, now over, exists only in memory. In the premises of the artisan counter, among the looms, a few ladies from the village spin their anecdotes to trace the story of the past.
“At one point, we had six general stores,” remembers Suzanne Bernard, 75 years old. There were also gathering places: a dance hall, two bars, cinema every end of Sunday in the municipal hall… There was really a tightly knit social fabric. »
Today, the excitement of the past has given way to boredom. “When I arrived here, in 1998,” says Madeleine Dumais, 80 years old, “there was life, young people, there were activities. It all disappeared, gradually, little by little. Today, there is almost nothing left, it’s obvious. »
The village school will only accommodate 18 children at the start of the school year — 13 in the first cycle of primary school and only 5 in the second cycle. “There are no longer any of our youth,” laments Lorette Lachance, 76 years old. And all they have left is the ice rink…”
In the parish’s heyday, the car was still a rare sight in the region’s glens. “When we were young, at 16, we didn’t have a car,” remembers Thérèse Deschênes, president of the factory. Buying locally was not a trend, but a necessity, especially when winter and its snow decided to bury the roads until spring.
“It started to deteriorate with the advent of supermarkets,” emphasizes Suzanne Bernard. The stores took root in Saint-Paul-de-Montminy, where the high school was already located, and Sainte-Apolline slowly but surely began to gravitate into the orbit of its neighbor, little by little sacrificing its own power of attraction.
“When the shopping centers opened, people went to shop there by car and the grocery stores here were affected,” continues Suzanne. People said, “It doesn’t matter, it will come back,” but it never came back. Before, we had the choice of shopping here or elsewhere. We lost him — since there’s nothing left here, he must go away. »
“It becomes an irritant”
Manon Bernard, like the 505 souls who still reside in Sainte-Apolline, must travel nearly 50 km to reach the more extensive commercial offer in Montmagny. A restaurateur, she even travels once a month to Lévis to take advantage of deals at Costco about a hundred kilometers from her restaurant.
“There are a lot of people who are surprised to find nothing in the village,” she explains. Sometimes snowmobilers stop at her house to ask where they can find bread and gas. “I say it’s in Saint-Paul and I help them out. You know, it’s not easy to go back there in a Ski-doo…”
The municipality is aware that action is necessary to halt its decline. After a period of disagreement within the municipal council, Sainte-Apolline-de-Patton is taking steps to attract a new convenience store.
“The absence of a local business is becoming more and more of an irritant for our world and I have heard more and more about it since the end of the pandemic,” explains Mayor Bruno Gagné. There, we start to look at the sore. »
Ironically, in this village where even newspapers do not go, the housing crisis has managed to find its way. “There are no more houses and almost no land for sale currently in our territory,” continues the mayor. Since the pandemic, many people want to settle in the regions. The tranquility, the countryside, people want to find that again…”
Up to a certain point, however, adds the mayor. “Without businesses, it’s difficult to attract families. We are stable at the moment, but we cannot remain stable for too long. Otherwise, we are heading towards a big decline…”