The Museum

Between 1634 and 1666, 246 inhabitants of Perche left their native land to settle in New France, on the banks of the Saint-Lawrence River. Many of them came from the parish of Tourouvre. They were among the first inhabitants to build the houses and clear the immense lands that would soon become Quebec. Thousands of emigrants from all regions of France joined them. Thus developed the country that Jacques Cartier, on his second expedition in 1535, named Canada.

The Museum of French Emigration to Canada continues the work of the Perche Emigration Museum, a meeting point and place of Franco-Canadian genealogical research set up in 1987.

Created by the Communauté de Communes du Haut-Perche, with the help of the département of the Orne, the Basse-Normandie Region, the French State, the European Union and the Canadian Government, this Museum will help to perpetuate the memory of this founding era from Autumn 2006.