By Rafe Calder
Percé is named for a rock. The Canadian Encyclopedia puts the town on the southeast coast of the Gaspé Peninsula and says plainly that the name comes from Percé Rock, which dominates the area. The regional tourism board calls the rock a limestone formation, and says it once had three arches.
A bay that fishermen used before there was a town
The Canadian Encyclopedia says Percé’s history is as old as New France’s, and that Jacques Cartier arrived there in 1534. European fishermen used the bay as a haven in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Missionaries have served the fishing port since 1673. In 1690 English troops destroyed the mission, and according to the same article no one lived there again until the Conquest. The arrival of the Loyalists made the place more active.
For most of that time the local economy ran on one thing. The encyclopedia says it depended almost exclusively on fishing until the end of the nineteenth century, and that the region then began to draw tourists. The article was written by Antonio Lechasseur, published online in 2009 and last edited in 2015, so treat any present-tense line in it as dated.
The island behind the rock
Île Bonaventure lies a few kilometres offshore and is a bird sanctuary, according to the encyclopedia, with dozens of seabird species flocking there in the thousands.
A town that became a resort
Tourism arrived late and stayed. The Canadian Encyclopedia says leading Québec and Canadian artists have made the town a centre of artistic activity.
In 1971 the town was incorporated. The neighbouring villages of Barachois, Bridgeville, Cap-d’Espoir and St-Pierre-de-la-Malbaie were amalgamated with it that year.
What to carry home
A pierced rock is hard to pack. What travels well from a place like this is whatever a maker there has really made, and that is where Sephari’s curation starts: with the place, then the maker. We do not list a Percé maker here because we have no sourced maker to name.
What we left out
Whale-watching schedules, boat departure details and trail conditions all change with the season, so they are not in this page. The tourism board’s headline claims eight whale species, but its own text names only five, so we dropped the number. Population figures, admission fees and opening times are also out.
Roam first. Shop later.