Etchemin River
The Etchemin River is a river in the Chaudière-Appalaches region of eastern Quebec.
It gave its name to Les Etchemins Regional County Municipality. The river itself was named for the Abenaki native people of the area who the French called "les Etchemins". The source of the river is not Etchemin Lake but rather a little east of the lake, in Saint-Luc-de-Bellechasse.
The Etchemin River, which had become been the victim of pollution for decades, became the topic of conversation in 1993, when a few residents of Saint-Léon-de-Standon began to work on a project to revive the Atlantic salmon in the river. The project was scoffed at in the beginning; damming, logging along the Etchemin's shore, agricultural runoff and dumping had polluted the river so much that the last Atlantic salmon had been last seen there some two centuries ago. Although the odds were against them, the locals from different riverbank communities began work on the river. They formed the Comité de restauration de la rivière Etchemin. Work then began on planting over 15,000 trees on the riverbanks, making salmon-friendly rapids and shelters for spawning. In 2002, the first adult Atlantic salmon was spotted in the river.
