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Its remoteness from Lac Saint-Jean (over 200 km (124 mi) south-east) and Abitibi-Témiscamingue (over 250 km (155 mi) south-west) areas causes to Chibougamau provide services for a few smaller communities surrounding it (Mistissini, Oujé-Bougoumou, and Chapais) and for the regional resource-based industries. Despite Chibougamau's remoteness, it is only about as far north as Winnipeg and is south of any part of the mainland of England.
Nearby is Lac Aux Dorés, which is fed by the Chibougamau River from the larger Chibougamau Lake after which the town was named. Chibougamau means "gathering place" in the Cree language. The neighbouring Cree village of Oujé-Bougoumou has the same name with a more traditional Cree spelling.
The area surrounding Lake Gilman is Obalski Park. Its many amenities include a beach, pier, picnic tables,and cabins. The many trails allow for hiking, cycling, cross-country skiing, or even snowmobiling through the park's boreal forest.
The area has long been part of the Cree territory. It was in the early 17th century that French explorers and traders, including Charles Albanel in 1671, came to the Lake Chibougamau area. However, no permanent European settlements were established at that time.
Only in the late 19th century would the area attract the interest of miningprospectors. When gold was discovered in 1903, there were periods of intense exploration. The difficulty of access[5] caused no lasting development to take place at the time. Not until 1949 was copper first exploited,[6] with the opening of a multi-metallic mine in the area, and a permanent community was established in 1952.[6] Chibougamau started out as a company town but soon afterward, in 1954, it was incorporated as a municipality. Many mines have exploited the area since. While still thought of as a mining town, Chibougamau is now also the centre of a large logging and sawmill[6] industry.
From 1962 to 1988, the Royal Canadian Air Force operated CFS Chibougamau, a radar station in Chibougamau that was part of the Pinetree Line. The complex has now been transformed into a golf complex and an office for a mining company.
Since December 2001, the mayor of Chibougamau has been also on the municipal council of Municipality of Baie-James.
The city is home to an annual "Folies frettes" festival ("Cold Follies") and a snowmobilerally.[6]
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Chibougamau had a population of 7,233 living in 3,190 of its 3,557 total private dwellings, a change of -3.6% from its 2016 population of 7,504. With a land area of 694.87 km2 (268.29 sq mi), it had a population density of 10.4/km2 (27.0/sq mi) in 2021.[8]
The median age is 40.8, as opposed to 41.6 for all of Canada. French was the mother tongue of 92.5% of residents in 2021. The next most common mother tongues were English at 3.0%, followed by Cree-Innu languages at 1.6%. 0.9% reported both English and French as their first language. Additionally there were 0.2% who reported both French and a non-official language as their mother tongue.
As of 2021, Indigenous peoples comprised 7.8% of the population and visible minorities contributed 3.9%. The largest visible minority groups in Chibougamau are Black (1.5%), Filipino (1.1%), and Arab (0.8%). The region is home to 555 recent immigrants (i.e. those arriving between 2016 and 2021).
In 2021, 67.7% of the population identified as Catholic, while 22.8% said they had no religious affiliation. Pentecostals were the largest religious minority, at 1.3% of the population, while Muslims were the largest non-Christian religious minority, making up 0.8% of the population.[1][3]
Counting both single and multiple responses, the most commonly identified ethnocultural ancestries were:
French-language schools in Chibougamau, past and present, are:
École Bon-Pasteur
École Vatican II
École Notre-Dame-du-Rosaire
École La Porte-du-Nord
École Vinette (closed 1994)
Centre de formation professionnelle de la Baie-James
Centre d'études collégiales Chibougamau
The English-language school is MacLean Memorial School.[10] formerly Chibougamau Protestant School. There also used to be a Catholic English-language school called Holy Family School.
Climate
Chibougamau has a subarctic climate (Köppen climate classificationDfc), despite being located just south of 50 degrees latitude. Winters are long, cold, and snowy with a January high of −13.5 °C (7.7 °F) and a low of −24.2 °C (−11.6 °F). Summers are warm though short with a July high of 22.2 °C (72.0 °F) and a low of 10.5 °C (50.9 °F). Overall precipitation is high for a subarctic climate with an average annual precipitation of 996 mm (39 in) and 313 cm (123 in) of snow per season. Precipitation is significant year-round, though February through April are drier.[11]
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