History
The Gore Church and Cemetery began in approximately 1859 on land donated by the W.C. Edwards Company of North Nation Mills, Quebec.
The people of the surrounding community formed a committee, electing a President, Secretary & Treasurer along with 5 or 6 additional Committee Members to manage the affairs of the Church and Cemetery. This volunteer committee structure continues to this day.
The Church was constructed in 1860 by the original parishiners. It was originally a log structure, built from trees cut on the property itself. The original structure was covered in shiplap, then again in siding at a later point, but the log frame remains.
The interior is finished in pine boards, also from trees cut on site and have been stained and varnished several times over the years.
The Church was originally Presbyterian but became part of the United Church of Canada with the amalgamation of the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregationalist communities in 1925. At that time there were weekly services as well as Sunday School sessions, and marriages and burials occurred throughout the year. In more recent times, Services were reduced to three times a year.
The first known internments in the Cemetery were that of two McDonald sisters, aged 15 and 18, who drowned at the Woodbury Chute in the St Sixte River as a result of a landslide. Since then, approximately 500 persons of different faiths have been interred in the Cemetery. The Cemetery is still active today with 5 to 10 burials in any given year.
More recently the Church and Cemetery received a donation of additional land adjacent to the East side of the property. This will provide ample room for the Cemetery to expand for many years to come.
In 2019, the "Festival Agro-Patrimonial de Papineau" conducted an interview with one of the long time committee members to learn more about the history of the Church and Cemetery. The interview was part of a series on the regional heritage of the district of Papineau,
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The Cemetery can be visited any day from early April when the snow melts through to late November before snow falls once again. It is located at 650 Montee du Gore just outside of Thurso, QC. You can get directions by using the map above.