Beach of the Hotel St. Lawrence Hall.
On the long beach of Cacouna, opposite the hotel St. Lawrence Hall, numerous changing huts accommodated the vacationing families. A small wooden path enabled people to walk down to the water’s edge easily. Around 1900, while some people bathed in the salt water, others left in a canoe, and the children played in the sand.
With the circulation of sailing ships and steamers in the second half of the 19th century, the rocky terrain of the cliff offered beautiful vistas of the St. Lawrence and also of the mountains of Charlevoix, the islands, and the mouth of the Saguenay River. This panorama attracted businessmen and politicians of Québec, Montréal and other places, who then had cottages or villas built with a path down to the beach. Along the shore, little huts enabled the summer vacationers to change into their bathing suits. Over the years, these changing huts gradually disappeared. From the 1950s, families of the region built summer cottages along the shoreline to take full advantage of the beach and landscape.
Photo source:
Bas-Saint-Laurent Museum, Rivière-du-Loup, Belle-Lavoie fund, NAC bl0176