Rivière-Éternité: persistent impacts of the landslide for businesses

The landslide that claimed the lives of two people in the Fjord-du-Saguenay national park on July 1, 2023 shook the small community of Rivière-Éternité. The closure of the park for five weeks, in the middle of high season, was also a hard blow for tourism businesses, which are still feeling the impacts of the significant financial losses suffered last summer.

Guillaume Brouillard was guiding a group in the via ferrata on the high walls of Éternité Bay, when torrential rains fell on the Fjord-du-Saguenay national park.

We got the alert from Environment Canada, then the Coast Guard, that there was a hail watch, he remembers. But for us, when we are on the wall, the alert, it is too late if we are already on it.

His group, which was a few hundred meters above the ground, was able to take shelter for dinner under a rock wall. But Guillaume Brouillard quickly realized that it was not a storm like those, even violent ones, that the Saguenay Fjord can experience.

“It’s not one storm, it’s three storms, back has back », he lets fall, recounting the thread of events.

Even in the shelter, the group begins to feel cold. Head guide for the company Parcours Aventures, which operates the via ferrata for the national park, he also contacted the two other guides who were surprised by the storm cells.

Communications are difficult, but the three groups manage to return safely to the via ferrata when the storm calms down.

Losses of $150,000 and a team to renew

However, it was the financial security of the company that suffered the repercussions of the landslide in the weeks and months that followed.

The national park of the Société des establishments de plein air du Québec was closed for five weeks, from the beginning of July, before reopening at the beginning of August.

We know that it’s at least $150,000 in direct income, which is not there, in the sense that during that time we had to keep the team on salary.

Even though the company tried to salvage the damage, it had to completely rebuild its team this year. And it is now dealing with a team reduced by half.

Guillaume is the only one who stayed, among the 12 guides from last year.

Right now, there are six of us. […] There are others arriving during the summer. We are not giving up on recruitment, but it still makes a difference. This means that we are not able to do all the outings we would likehe laments, even if he remains positive.

A few meters behind him, a new guide hired this year, Éléonore Minier, explains the safety instructions to a group who are about to embark on the via ferrata.

Parcours Aventures had to cut director positions last summer. But guides like Éléonore are a source of direct revenue for the company.

Fewer guides means less income, and all new guides need to be retrained.let go of Guillaume.

Difficult choices and postponed investments

On the park’s quay, located a few minutes’ walk from the starting point of the via ferrata, the observation is the same for Louis Tremblay Poirat, co-owner of Saguenay Aventures: last summer was difficult to get through.

The company offers sea kayak and inflatable boat excursions in the Saguenay Fjord National Park. On July 1, 2023, it was also at the heart of the events.

Louis Tremblay Poirat headed towards Baie Éternité with an inflatable boat from the company located in L’Anse-Saint-Jean, as soon as he learned that the road leading to the park was closed and that people who were there had been swept away in a mudslide.

When we arrived here, in the bay, it was quite a surprising sight. In fact, the water was really brown, loaded with earth. There were culverts, hiking culverts, trees floating too. The navigation was quite complex, we literally had to pack down debris to be able to move forward, then protect our boat.he says, in an interview in one of the company’s Zodiacs.

In the evening, Saguenay Aventures evacuated 140 people stuck in the park, with its three inflatable boats, two of which were already moored at the Baie Éternité wharf.

The following weeks left a hole in the company’s finances.

The company is very fragile. The rest of us were forced, for example, to lay off our administrative assistant at Saguenay Aventures. We have two guides, ultimately, who we laid off for the rest of the season.

Four other guides were able to work at this time with partner companies. Like Parcours Aventures, Saguenay Aventures had to cut its administrative expenses, for example by eliminating an administrative assistant position.

However, the team on the ground is complete this summer. The co-owner considers himself lucky that the majority of the team’s guides and captains are back this year.

Impacts on accommodation

The closure of the park for five weeks also had direct repercussions on the inns and lodges in Bas-Saguenay.

At the Auberge du dimanche, located just at the entrance to the Fjord-du-Saguenay National Park, the new owners were preparing to experience a busy first summer.

The two couples had just purchased and renovated in recent months the inn set up in the old presbytery located next to the church of Rivière-Éternité, in the heart of the municipality of some 400 souls.

: \”Water is coming in through the doors!\””,”text”:”But their plans were completely turned upside down on July 1st, 2023. I had two employees who were working here in the hostel, who called me saying: \”Water is coming in through the doors!\””}}”>But their plans were completely turned upside down on July 1, 2023. I had two employees who were working here in the hostel, who called me and said: “Water is coming in through the doors!”reports co-owner Stéphanie Fortin, who was not on site during the events.

Several tourists then wanted to change their plans. The park closure has created many, many cancellations. Losses are estimated at around $25,000.she believes.

This red entry in the inn’s accounting books has also complicated the recent purchase project of the Auberge des Battures, in La Baie, by business partners. It was ultimately Investissement Québec which guarantored the project, after a refusal from the financial institutions approached.

The impacts were also significant on the team, particularly on the two employees present on the day of the events.

I had two people with post-traumatic shock, and then it was too difficult for them to return to work.says Stéphanie Fortin. This summer, the hostel is operating with three employees, instead of four.

The events made him realize, like many other tourist businesses affected in Bas-Saguenay, the importance of the national park for the sector’s economy.

The economy of Bas-Saguenay revolves around the park. And we see that it was systematic. People called us and said: “The park is closed, I want to cancel. But we could still offer them accommodation.”

According to data provided by the MRC du Fjord-du-Saguenay, Rivière-Éternité has around ten tourist businesses or organizations.

Hoped investments

A request for financial assistance had been filed by ten tourism businesses in Bas-Saguenay with Quebec, in the wake of the events. The entrepreneurs say they have not received a clear response on this subject, a year later.

If Quebec does not directly support businesses, Louis Tremblay Poirat at least hopes that investments will be made to support the economic drivers of the Bas-Saguenay tourism industry, especially with the fire that recently destroyed the chalet at the Mont Édouard ski resort in L’Anse-Saint-Jean.

If the national park, Mont Édouard and the Petit-Saguenay vacation village have funds and envelopes to be able to develop their activities, extend them, improve them to attract more people, it will really be a huge help for all small businesses, and the entire social fabric.

Otherwise, the tourist community hopes to be able to count on the coming summer to pay off part of the debts accumulated last summer.