Murdochville and the Mont Miller Lookout

Murdochville owes its existence to the discovery, in the early 1920s, of copper deposits in the vicinity of what would become, from the 1950s onward, a major mining centre exploited on a large scale by Noranda Mines, attracting a wave of settlers and workers who came to establish themselves in this previously largely uninhabited portion of interior Gaspésie. The permanent closure of the mine in 2002 could have sealed the inevitable decline of this isolated mining community, but Murdochville successfully negotiated a bold economic reconversion by capitalizing on the exceptional wind energy potential of its mountainous territory exposed to the dominant winds of the gulf, becoming a prime site for the installation of numerous industrial wind farms that now dot the surrounding landscape. The Mont Miller lookout, developed near the city, offers visitors an exceptional panoramic vantage point simultaneously embracing the peaks of the Chic-Chocs toward the interior of the land and the vastness of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence toward the coast, making this stop an appreciated rest point for travellers crossing the interior of the peninsula between the north shore and Baie-des-Chaleurs, far from the denser tourist bustle of the coastline.