History
Following the accidental death of Dr. Camille Marcoux in 1973, his parents and friends set up a foundation with the aim of perpetuating his generosity to the population of the Lower North Shore.
An initial capital of $15,000 was put together. Subsequently, the founding members dispersed, making it difficult to operate the Foundation. However, its activities really took off in 1979 when a Board of Directors was formed, made up of Lower North Shore residents.
In January 1995, the Fondation Docteur Camille-Marcoux broadened its role to become the official foundation of the Lower North Shore facility. Thus, the Fondation Docteur Camille-Marcoux now has a social health role in addition to encouraging persistence in school through scholarships.
Since then, a number of scholarships between $300 and $750 each have been awarded to Lower North Shore students. The Foundation has also provided equipment to improve the services offered to Lower North Shore residents.
Who was Dr. Camille Marcoux?
Camille Marcoux was born on February 23rd, 1930 in Sholiaban, a small hamlet east of Tête-à-la-Baleine, where his father Abraham and his mother Marie-Anne Mauger lived. Around 1936, Camille's family left Sholiaban for Tête-à-la-Baleine so that their youngest children, like Camille, could attend the quite rudimentary "little school" of Tête-à-la-Baleine, then called "Le Ruisseau". From his early childhood, Camille defined himself with his very lively spirit, his keen intelligence and his taste for teasing.
In spite of a difficult economic context, the strangeness and especially the distance, Camille, barely nine years old, accepted the invitation from Mgr. Napoléon Labrie, eudist, to pursue his studies in Rimouski.
At the end of the summer of 1939, Camille embarked "like a young man" on the "Sable" a Clarke Steamship coastal boat that would bring him to the port in Rimouski fifteen days later. Camille already knew that he would not be returning home for Christmas or even for Easter and that his return with his family would only be next July.
At the end of his traditional studies, Camille, like many young people of this era, chose medicine. Camille carried out his studies in medicine at Université Laval in Québec. His academic years were demanding, and he often would have to "content himself" with only one meal a day. Fortunately, friends, visitors and benefactors brought him comfort, solidarity and generosity.
While continuing his studies in medicine, Camille did a training course at the Trois-Rivières Hospital and another 18-month training course at the St-Vincent-de-Paul Hospital in Sherbrooke, where he was initiated to surgery. Yet, Camille had other projects in addition to finishing his studies in medicine: a lovely match with a young lady from Sept-Îles, Claudette Perry, whom he met in 1953 during Christmas holidays. On June 30th, 1956 Mgr. Napoléon Labrie himself blessed their union.
In the spring of 1957, Camille finally obtained his diploma in medicine and in July, he embarked with his spouse, Claudette, on the North-Voyageur, on route for Blanc-Sablon, within the borders of Quebec, whereby, upon request from Mgr. Lionel Scheffer, he would be the only physician at the Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes Hospital.
Already with each stop-over, the man and the doctor were confronted with the immense tasks that awaited him: to serve the isolated populations strung along a coastline of more than 400 km, without any road network, little or no air service and deprived of modern electronic communications.
Thanks to his determined character, his adamant perseverance and his immeasurable devotion, Camille wholeheartedly gave of his body and soul to his work and to his people: Francophones, Anglophones and the Montagnais. Obviously, the patients of Tête-à-la-Baleine were often invited to the "table of Dr. Marcoux" before returning home.
Camille was first and foremost a doctor close to his people, as well as their confidant. Also, should circumstances, needs and emergencies so demand, he was their notary, their lawyer and their assiduous and tough representative with many ministries and government authorities.
In spite of his many tasks, being the only doctor at the "Blanc-Sablon Hospital", Camille was generously implicated with Father Gabriel Dionne and Dr. Donald G. Hodd in the creation of the Lower North Shore Economic Council; this organization which succeeded in giving a voice, a solidarity, and a cohesion to all of the isolated, forgotten and silent populations of the Lower North Shore.
On September 13th, 1973, about midday, the helicopter-ambulance returning to Blanc-Sablon crashed outside of Saint-Augustin, on the Dog-islands, resulting in the deaths of the four occupants: Dr. Camille Marcoux, his wife Claudette, the nurse, Diane Dupuis and the pilot, Steve Power. All the Lower North Shore was in mourning: they had lost their doctor, their confidant and especially a beloved son, one of their own who knew them and called each and every one of them by their "first name" or close friends by their nickname.
Even yet today, the Lower North Shore remembers Dr. Camille Marcoux with emotion, nostalgia and recognition, as well as his tireless devotion and his generous contribution to the socio-medical development of the Lower North Shore.
In December 1973, friends and collaborators wanted to carry on the memory and the work of Dr. Camille Marcoux on the Lower North Shore by creating the Fondation Docteur Camille-Marcoux. The Foundation's objectives aim on the one-hand, at promoting the education and schooling of the Lower North Shore youth and on the other hand, at supporting the development of the socio-medical services by annually defraying the cost of certain equipment.
In short, the Fondation Docteur Camille-Marcoux wants to humbly continue the work of Dr. Camille Marcoux: to help the population with its expertise and its means.
Your generosity and your solidarity will enable us to promote the objectives of the Foundation and also to especially honour the memory of Dr. Camille Marcoux.
Application form