Twinned with a rock · Established 1971 · Population: Enough FREN

Geography

Where On Earth

In the Mauricie, in the pine country up the Saint-Maurice river, between Grandes-Piles and Lac-Édouard. La Tuque is your last real town going north. Shawinigan going south. In between, it's trees.

Map of the Mauricie showing the Saint-Maurice corridor between Shawinigan and La Tuque
CHIMOUBONGO
The Saint-Maurice corridor 1 : 250,000
Detail map of the forest west of Route 155 at the stated location
CHIMOUBONGO
The location itself 1 : 30,000
Latitude
47° 03′ 00″ N
Longitude
72° 58′ 48″ W
Elevation
≈ 244 m
Recognized by
Nobody

Base map © OpenStreetMap contributors, licensed ODbL. Tiles are baked into the site, so no request leaves your browser for a map server.

Don't look for the name on the map, it isn't there. The Commission de toponymie has never registered Chimoubongo and the town has never filed the paperwork. Suzanne says being surveyed is the first step toward being taxed.

Note: GPS units routinely disagree with each other inside town limits by up to four hundred metres. The town has decided this is the GPS units' problem.

Getting Here

Directions, Such As They Are

Start in Shawinigan. Everyone starts in Shawinigan. Take Route 155 north along the Saint-Maurice and settle in, because the pines close over the road around Grandes-Piles and they do not open again.

  1. Follow the 155 north past Grandes-Piles. Keep the river on your left. If it is on your right, you are going to La Tuque, which is a fine town, but it is not this one.
  2. Past Saint-Roch-de-Mékinac the radio will lose the Trois-Rivières station and pick up something in the middle. Do not change it. It only plays here.
  3. Watch for a hand-painted sign that says NOT FAR. It has said that since 1979 and it was not accurate then either. It is a promise, not a measurement.
  4. Nine kilometres on, there is a gravel road on the right with two boulders the same size. If they are different sizes, keep going, that is the Bilodeau turnoff and it ends at a swamp.
  5. Take the gravel road. Go slow. Roll the windows down even if it is cold. That is a suggestion from the road.
  6. You will pass a mailbox with no house. Wave at it. Everyone does. Nobody remembers starting this.
  7. The road forks. The left fork is beautiful, well-graded, and goes nowhere. Take the right fork, which looks worse in every measurable way.
  8. When you see the pump organ on the porch, you have arrived. Park anywhere. Somebody will come out, usually Suzanne. If it is a very tall old man in black with one eye painted, he already knows your first name.

If You Get Lost

Stop the car. Turn it off. Get out. Stand there for one full minute without looking at your phone. In fifty-five years this has worked every single time, and we have stopped trying to explain why.

The gravel road going into the pines

Past the NOT FAR sign. From here the pavement stops and the rest of the directions stop being much use.

Practical

Before You Come

Staying

There is no hotel. There are eleven spare rooms and four are usually free. Ask at Thursday Soup. Camping in the Standing Grove is allowed if you are quiet and pack everything out.

Bring

A jar. Boots you do not mind ruining. A coat, even in July. Cash, because the card machine reads cards when it feels like it.

Do Not Bring

Drones. A schedule. A firm departure date, because those tend to get amended and then you feel silly.

Signal

One bar, on the ridge, facing east, in clear weather. There is a landline at the post office and anyone may use it.

"We did not build a town for people like us. We built one for people who did not have one." — A.-R. Bougie, 2011
Thursday Soup, the long table behind the post office

Last Thursday. There is always soup. Nobody organizes it.