Country Canada Time zone EST (UTC−5) Area code(s) 450 and 579 Area 39.2 km² Local time Tuesday 12:22 PM | Constituted 31 August 1974 Postal code(s) J0P 1S0 Highways Route 201
Route 340 Population 1,738 (2011) Province Québec | |
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Weather 3°C, Wind N at 6 km/h, 98% Humidity RCMs Montérégie, Vaudreuil-Soulanges Regional County Municipality | ||
Saint-Clet is a municipality located in the Vaudreuil-Soulanges Regional County Municipality within the Montérégie region of Quebec. The population as of the Canada 2011 Census was 1,738. Completely surrounded by agricultural land (mostly corn fields), the town is centered on the intersection of two main provincial highways. The north-south route 201 is known as rue Principale within the town limits, and the east-west route 340 is known as Boulevard de la Cité des Jeunes.
Contents
Map of Saint-Clet, QC, Canada
History
The parish of Saint-Clet was established in 1849 by its detachment from the parish of Saint-Ignace-du-Coteau-du-Lac at the request of residents who had to go all the way to Coteau-du-Lac to attend mass. The first resident pastor of Saint-Clet was appointed in 1851 and four years later in 1855, the municipality of the parish of Saint-Clet was created. There were some mergers and demergers of territory over the ensuing years until 1974, when the current municipality of Saint-Clet was created.
The Canadian composer and music educator, Achille Fortier, was born in Saint-Clet in 1864.
Events in the news
On 17 February 1954 a spectacular collision of two Canadian Pacific trains took place in Saint-Clet. It was a time when train travel was quite popular, and it was common for a train to travel in two separate sections. The impact occurred when the second section of the Toronto-Montreal train rear-ended the first section at the village station, where it had stopped because of a snowstorm. The accident caused one death and 73 injuries.
Another event occurred on 14 March 1985, when heavy rains caused flooding, resulting in the evacuation of many homes. Heavy flooding again affected the town on 8 April 2014, when light rains and abruptly mild temperatures resulted in the rapid melting of a large volume of snow in a short period of time. The elevated railbed passing east-west through the town forms an artificial berm, impeding the flow of meltwater runoff from north to south. With only a couple of culverts to let the runoff go under the railbed, they were quickly overwhelmed and many basements north of the tracks were flooded.