A view of the lower town of Québec from the fortification.

Built for the filming of the 1990 feature film Black Robe, this site recreates part of the seventeenth century settlement of Québec, habitant dwellings of the time and a Wendat village. The location on the south shore of the Saguenay River had the advantage of looking across at the apparently unblemished wilderness similar to the south bank of the St. Lawrence in Champlain's day.

A view of the palisaded upper town with the shelters of visiting Montagnais in the foreground.

The first shelter built by a habitant settler with its thatched roof would
become a barn when a more permanent home with a stone chimney was built.

Although their lives were not easy, the habitant probably enjoyed a
higher standard of living than he would have as a peasant in France.

This is the entrance to the Huron settlement.

Only eight of eighteen villages had palisades at the time of Champlain's arrival in the land of the Wendat. Settlements were moved every twelve to twenty years due to depletion of the soil and easily accessible fuel wood.

Longhouses are located within the palisades. Most
villages consisted of twenty to thirty such dwellings.

A variety of cultural artifacts ranging from masks to furs and
pottery are displayed on the sleeping platforms along a longhouse wall.

Each longhouse would accomodate eight to twenty-four families averaging five or six people each.

Outside of the pallisades there are burial platforms.

The feast of the dead was perhaps the most important of the Wendat festivals. It was held every ten to twelve years. During the festival every family disinterred the corpses of family members who had died since the previous festival and either cleaned their bones or rewrapped their bodies prior to reburying them in a common tribal grave. Feasting, archery contests and gift-giving would attenuate the grief experienced during this two week period.