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The Chapel in the Village of Huberdeau

Black & white photograph of the façade of a small church. The clapboard building has three doors, three windows above the doors and a belfry. A boy stands on a boardwalk outside the church.

Photographer: Unknown
Date: Around 1901
Source: Société d’histoire de la Rivière-du-Nord, Fonds Emmanuel Fournier, P022,S02,P26

This church stands as testament to Curé Antoine Labelle’s involvement in promoting French-Canadian settlement of the Laurentians in the name of the Catholic faith. In 1878, Labelle planted a cross in the Township of Arundel, site of present-day Arundel and Huberdeau. In 1885, work began on a chapel, supervised by Curé Labelle and Curé Ouimet of Saint-Jovite. The funds required to build the chapel were provided by the Société de colonisation de Montréal. Labelle himself made a gift of the bell to the parish in 1887. It was one of 10 “colonization bells” given to the parishes of the Northern Townships. There is no longer any trace of the first bell of the Huberdeau chapel, it having been replaced by a new one in the late 1950s.