In memoriam

Mathieu and Andréa Paquet-Garceau

Two presences. Two names. A family memory that refuses erasure.

July 20, 1996 La Baie, Saguenay Saguenay flood
Childhood family memory from the Paquet-Garceau family

Two presences, not two numbers

Their place remains human.

This page is dedicated to Mathieu and Andréa, Jason’s brother and sister. It keeps their names, their faces, and their presence in a simple, dignified, and lasting form.

They are not only tied to a date, an event, or a report. They remain at the heart of the family story, in what existed before the tragedy, in what was lost, and in what continues to be transmitted.

July 20, 1996

The night that marked a family.

Mathieu and Andréa lost their lives when the family home was swept away in a landslide during the Saguenay flood.

This memory belongs to a family, but it also belongs to a collective history: a tragedy that shook Saguenay and Quebec.

Memory and truth

What memory refuses to erase.

To remember here is not only to name absence. It is also to keep visible what surrounded the tragedy: the places, public documents, testimonies, traces, and responsibilities referenced in the archives.

Memory erases nothing. It places human beings back at the centre.

Memorial cross dedicated to Mathieu and Andréa Paquet-Garceau

Visible presence

The cross keeps their names.

The cross placed at the site of the tragedy keeps a visible trace of Mathieu and Andréa Paquet-Garceau.

The plaque on the cross was graciously added through a donation from Madame Isabelle Harvey in 2025.

Public archives

Documents, articles, and markers.

BAnQ archive • July 26, 1996

Le Quotidien in the immediate week after the tragedy

A digitized issue of Le Quotidien preserved by BAnQ, useful for placing the disaster in its immediate press coverage.

Coroner report

Investigation report concerning the deaths of Mathieu and Andréa Paquet-Garceau

Coroner Gilles Perron’s report remains the central document for understanding the official analysis of the deaths.

Key article • July 11, 2016

A preventable deadly landslide

The Journal de Québec relays a widely cited conclusion from the coroner report about the application of municipal rules.

Geotechnical context

The McNicoll Street landslide, July 20, 1996

A technical document on the landslide, useful for placing the tragedy in its physical, territorial, and geotechnical context.

Recent testimony

Jason’s public speaking

Recent interviews connect the public facts, remembrance work, and the rereading of the tragedy through Jason’s own path.

30th anniversary edition

Between Chaos and Light

The inaugural issue of the J.A.M Journal extends this duty of remembrance around the 30th anniversary of the Saguenay flood, with Jason Paquet-Garceau’s book as a point of passage.