St. Peter's Church and the cemeteries

St. Peter's Church

The Anglican faithful of the southern coast of the Forillon Peninsula have been gathering every Sunday in Petit-Gaspé since the 1840s. Several founding families of Grande-Grave attended St. Peter's Church, including the Dolbels, Roberts, Bartletts and Gaveys.

Construction of St. Peter's Church began in 1864 and was completed in 1885. Admire its gable roof with upturned drip edges (inspired by Quebec domestic architecture), its bell tower topped by a cross with a weathervane, its large arched side windows as well as the semicircular transom window, and the oculus above the entrance gate.

St. Peter's Church adopted a unique late 19th-century Protestant church architectural style: the classical vernacular. (There are only a few examples in Quebec, such as Christ Church in Stoneham.) The exceptional craftsmanship of its wooden framework, whose layers of planks are reminiscent of the construction of a ship, bears witness to a traditional know-how influenced by marine carpentry.

Cemeteries

Forillon National Park has five heritage cemeteries:

• St. Matthew's Anglican cemetery in Penouille and St. Peter's in Petit-Gaspé,
• the Saint-Augustin and Grande-Greve United Church Catholic cemeteries in L'Anse-Saint-Georges,
• and the Methodist/Grande-Greve United Church cemetery in L'Anse-aux-Amérindiens.

These ancient cemeteries remain sacred sites.

They also have a high heritage value. The history of the settlement of Forillon is literally engraved in stone: the journey of the pioneer families, the diversity of origins and religious denominations, the linguistic and cultural blending, etc. The rituals that continue to be practised there, more than 50 years after the creation of the park, bear witness to the sense of belonging of the former residents of Forillon and their descendants.