Fraggle Rock [English]

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Shigawake Wharf was nicknamed after the 1980s TV series of the same name, in which characters lived in a series of caves. After an evening when drinks were flowing, Jeffrey Vautier and Johnny Dow (who were supposed to check Jeffrey’s father’s equipment) found themselves climbing up the riprap that served as a wharf at the time. They joked around, saying you needed to be as agile as a Fraggle to manage it. The next morning, Johnny Dow designed signs identifying the site also used for beach bonfires. With the new name becoming increasingly popular, the owner’s of the local corner store, created and sold postcards featuring Fraggle Rock.¹

This story is just one of the wharf’s long history. The wharf was washed away during a big storm in 1975² and replaced by a rock wharf built by Fisheries and Oceans Canada around 1981. The wharf had no place to unload, and was improved by the local fishers, who built “wooden ramps with ropes to pull their catches onto the wharf.”³The set-up, intended to be temporary, was actually used for about 15 years. It demonstrates the sense of solidarity and resourcefulness of the townsfolk.

The older generation knew this place as The Wharf and associated it with activities such as getting fish direct from the fishers, collecting red clay, bathing on the eastern end, harvesting seaweed to fertilize fields, and risky play, such as climbing icebergs!⁴

DÉCOUVRIR > tous les lieux-dits de cette ville

AUDIO

Interview with Jeffrey Vautier, May 13, 2025.

The night he and his friend Johnny Dow came up with the name.

The fishers’ alternative build.

Postcards sold at the convenience store.

[FRENCH] Interview with Joël Parisé, April 7, 2025.

“It comes from the show.”

Interview with Francis Vautier, April 11, 2025.

Beach bonfires.

Commercial fishing with an anchor.

It used to be south of the mill.

“Fishing mackerel off the wharf when I was 10-12-years-old.”

Interview with Lois Hayes, April 9, 2025.

It used to be called Wharf Lane.

Interview with Shelly Duguay and Freda Huntington, April 8, 2025.

“Shigawake is a very musical town.”

Interview with Gloria Hayes and Ethel Bradbury, April 12, 2025.

Bonfires, red clay, buying fish directly from the fishermen.

NOTES

¹ Jeffrey Vautier, story collected by the artist, May 13, 2025.

² Huguette Laprise, « Déçus par Québec, les pêcheurs de homard lorgnent vers le fédéral. » La Presse, July 22, 1975, D12, BAnQ. Document in BAnQ numérique accessed on February 20, 2026. numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2604806?docsearchtext=tempete%20shigawake.

³Marielle Thériault, story collected by Camillia Buenestado-Pilon, November 9, 2024.

⁴ Lois Hayes et Gloria Hayes, story collected by the artist, April 9 and May 12, 2025.

IMAGES

1. and 2. Marie-Claude De Souza, 2025.

3. Francis Vautier’s family archives.

4 to 9. Marie-Claude De Souza, 2025.