La Meute Culturelle

Tiny (Ontario)

Le Club de l’âge d’or de Lafontaine (Senior Citizen Club) got the idea to open a museum to showcase the community’s cultural heritage and legacy as well as to preserve their distinctive francophone culture in a minority setting. At the same time, the idea of hosting a summer music festival came from the need to raise funds for the creation of this museum.

The Festival du Loup was presented for the first time in 2002 and a temporary Living History Exhibit was created as an integral part of the festival. Since its inception, over twenty of Lafontaine’s pioneering families have been showcased in various editions of the Musée vivant de Lafontaine. By putting the spotlight on these families, through displays, photo exhibits, oral histories and other presentations, visitors discover the reasons that led the builders to settle at Lafontaine, as well as learn about the daily life of these families at different times in history.

These stories also allow them to trace the evolution of the community in various fields, including religion, education, technology, trades, agriculture and wood industry, the fishing and the fur trade. The project has come to play an important role in offering locals and visitors an opportunity to reconnect with their roots.