We have just moved to Montpellier, a village in the Petite-Nation, in the Outaouais, in the MRC de Papineau. Readers from the region know it well. For others, it is a place where the lakes far outnumber the traffic lights.
The path here began in Vancouver, which we left at the end of 2010. A few months in Thailand followed, then Bali, then Nusa Ceningan, a small island next to Nusa Lembongan, where we opened a dive centre in 2015. We spent the pandemic years in Montreal. This is therefore not our first move, but it is the one that has surprised us most.
What does an island village have in common with a Quebec village?
More than one might expect. A tropical island and a Quebec village are often seen as opposites, snow on one side and palm trees on the other, and the climate certainly differs.
The way a small place works, however, is very similar. Everyone knows who has just arrived. News travels faster through conversation than through any app. The weather decides what happens in a given week, whether it is a swell that cancels the boats or a storm that closes the road. Many services exist in a single instance: one hardware store, one trusted garage, one person who knows how to repair a particular piece of equipment. Newcomers learn these names quickly because they need them.
In both places, many local businesses operate through word of mouth and a phone number. Some have a Facebook page that was last updated under a previous government; others have no online presence at all. Most of them do well, because local residents already know them. The difficulty arises with people who are not yet local: cottagers, tourists, and families who have just bought a property and are looking for a plumber.
We spent years working alongside dive operators on an island where tourism was everything, and we saw what being findable online did for them. The same gap was one of the first things we noticed here. As newcomers, we are the ones looking for the plumber, so we encounter it every day.
Is rural internet good enough to work online?
In most cases, yes, provided the specific address is verified. Nothing described here works without a connection. We earn our living online, as does a growing share of the people moving to places like this one.
Rural Quebec struggled with internet access for years. In 2021, Ottawa and Quebec led a joint effort, Opération haute vitesse, to connect the homes that still lacked an adequate connection, with a target of September 2022, and the Outaouais was a large part of it. The program did not solve everything. There are still roads where the signal drops and a phone call requires a walk to the end of the driveway. The progress compared with ten years ago is nonetheless real. A village like Montpellier has gone from "you can't work from there" to "you can, if you check your address first."
For anyone considering a similar move, this is our main recommendation: before committing to a property, find out exactly what connection that specific house has, not what the area offers. Neighbours are a reliable source of information on this point.
We also recommend a backup. A mobile plan with enough data to get through a difficult afternoon costs less than one missed client call.
How is community built in a small place?
In person first, and online second. We have worked in social media and online community management since the Raincity days in Vancouver, and that experience confirms that, in a small place, the online presence is the second step.
The first step is to be present: at the dépanneur, at the municipal office with a question, at whatever is happening on a Saturday. People here want to meet someone before forming an opinion of them, which is entirely reasonable. The same is true on an island: a stranger who exists only on a screen does not earn trust.
The online presence becomes valuable afterwards. The village's municipal website is where residents learn the date of the bulk garbage pickup and what council decided. Local Facebook groups cover everything else. These channels work well only once people have met you; before that, you remain a name on a screen.
All of this, naturally, takes place in French.
What does a slower pace change in a work plan?
It sharpens priorities. In a city, there is always something to fill the gaps; here, the gaps remain. Evenings are long and quiet, even in June. We know the Quebec winter from Montreal, and here it will be darker and quieter still, with the sun setting around half past four. We will observe what that changes in a list of priorities.
The sorting has already begun. Not every idea carried for years holds up as well here, while those that do appear stronger than ever. With few distractions, the question of which projects truly matter becomes unavoidable.
The gap described above, good local businesses that people cannot find online, is one of the subjects that keeps returning in that sorting. We already spend much of our time on the web side of things. For many businesses in the area, some attention to local SEO, starting with an accurate Google listing, would accomplish more than any advertising they could buy.
What are our first impressions of the Petite-Nation?
It is still early. We have not yet spent a winter here, a remark that consistently draws smiles from residents.
Our first canoe trip in Algonquin took place about thirty years ago, with a paper map and a compass, and we spent the last two summers of the pandemic years canoe camping. Being close to this kind of country again makes sense to us in a way a city never quite did.
Montpellier is a village and works like one, and we already value that.