Chicoutimi ( shih-KOO-tim-ee, French: [ʃikutimi]) is the most populous borough (arrondissement) of the city of Saguenay in Quebec, Canada. It is situated at the confluence of the Saguenay and Chicoutimi rivers. During the 20th century, it became the main administrative and commercial centre of the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region. In 2002 it merged into the new city of Saguenay and forms the heart of the 5th-largest urban area of the province of Quebec. At the 2021 census, its population was 69,004.
Bell Homestead National Historic Site
Alexander Graham Bell made the world's first long-distance telephone call from his father's homestead in Tutela Heights, just minutes from West Brant. The Bell Homestead National Historic Site preserves the farmhouse and coach house where Bell conducted his early telephone experiments in the 1870s. Open seasonally for tours.
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What was ultimately to become the centre of the borough of Chicoutimi was first settled by French colonists in 1676 as a trading post in the fur trade. At that time, the Saguenay and the Chicoutimi rivers had been used as waterways by the Montagnais tribes for centuries. The name Chicoutimi derives from the . After the British seized Lower Canada, the Chicoutimi trading post continued to operate only until 1782, as the fur trade had moved further west of the Great Lakes. The city of Chicoutimi was officially incorporated in 1845 as a municipality by Peter McLeod, a Métis timber contractor who built a sawmill there in 1842. The town was designated in 1855 as the seat of Chicoutimi County and the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Chicoutimi in 1878. The arrival of the Canadian National Railway in 1893 stimulated the growth of Chicoutimi's pulp and paper industries, particularly mechanical pulp production. The railway also built Chicoutimi station, which served the city until 1988. The Chicoutimi Pulp Co. was founded in 1896 backed by French-Canadian investors. The Chicoutimi Pulp Mill became the biggest producer of mechanical pulp in Canada by 1910. Since the Great Depression, the city has become an administrative and commercial centre. New centres of education and culture were established: in 1967, the Conservatoire de musique de Saguenay; and in 1969, the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi. The city also played host to the Quebec Summer Games in 1972. In the municipal amalgamations of 1976, Chicoutimi annexed the neighbouring towns of Chicoutimi-Nord and Rivière-du-Moulin. In a much larger round of Municipal reorganization in Quebec in 2002, the cities of Chicoutimi, Jonquière, La Baie, Lac-Kénogami, Laterrière, Shipshaw and part of Tremblay merged to form the new city of Saguenay. Chicoutimi became a borough of Saguenay. During the summer of 1996, a record rainfall in the region caused major flooding in the downtown, as well as outlying areas. Dams were overrun, many bridges were destroyed throughout the region. The total cost of the disaster was recorded as 1.5 billion Canadian dollars. The flood also killed seven people. Chicoutimi is home to a large UPS facility serving the greater Quebec area. Chicoutimi's sister city is Camrose, Alberta.
Source: Wikipedia