Fermont

Fermont  is a mining city near the Quebec-Labrador border.

We stayed a couple of days in Fermont waiting for the road to open up. Recent wildfires in Labrador have closed the road at the border with Quebec.

Fermont, which means “Iron Mountain” in French, was founded as a company town in the early 1970s to exploit rich iron ore deposits around the area.

Like many of the country side towns in Quebec, Fermont also welcome tourists on big rigs and have a municipality run overnight spot by the river.

The town is notable for the huge self-contained structure containing apartments, stores, schools, bars, a hotel, restaurants, a supermarket and swimming pool; the large building shelters a community of smaller apartment buildings and homes on its leeward side.

This building is popularly known as The Wall (Le Mur). The structure was designed to be a windscreen to the rest of the town. It permits residents (other than mine workers) to never leave the building during the long winter, which usually lasts about seven months. Roughly 70% of the population of Fermont lives inside this building.