Pointe-des-Cascades (French pronunciation:[pwɛ̃tdekaskad]) is a village municipality in Vaudreuil-Soulanges Regional County Municipality in the Montérégie region of Quebec, Canada. It is located on a spit of land where the St. Lawrence River flows into Lake Saint-Louis. The river has here a significant drop, forming several cascades which give the village its name.[5] The islands of Île des Cascades and Île des Joybert are connected by a narrow causeway, but Île des Cascades and Pointe-des-Cascades are only connected artificially.
History
Starting in the mid-seventeenth century until 1700, many military expeditions arrived at this place in order to portage around the cascades on the Saint Lawrence River. The first reference to Pointe-des-Cascades appeared in a text of Louis-Armand de Lahontan in 1684 and on a map of Deshayes in 1695, when Pointe des Cascades was included in the Vaudreuil Lordship.[5]
In 1893, the post office opened under the English name Cascades Point (renamed in 1951 to Pointe-des-Cascades). A few years later construction began on the Soulanges Canal and when it was completed in 1899, the village became the eastern, downstream terminus of the canal.[5] In 1958, it closed when it was superseded by the new Beauharnois Canal. The paths along the canal are now used as a regional cycling route.[6]
In 1961, the Village Municipality of Pointe-des-Cascades was formed on the territory of the Parish Municipalities of Saint-Joseph-de-Soulanges (now Les Cèdres) and Saint-Michel-de-Vaudreuil (now part of Vaudreuil-Dorion).[5]
Demographics
Historical Census data - Pointe-des-Cascades, Quebec
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Pointe-des-Cascades had a population of 1,775 living in 743 of its 762 total private dwellings, a change of 19.9% from its 2016 population of 1,481. With a land area of 2.74 km2 (1.06 sq mi), it had a population density of 647.8/km2 (1,677.8/sq mi) in 2021.[8]
Canada census – Pointe-des-Cascades community profile
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