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Saint-Léon-le-Grand, Quebec (Canada)

Maskinongé RCM

image by Olivier Touzeau, 5 November 2019

The municipality
The flag

See also:

The Municipality

The parish municipality of Saint-Léon-le-Grand (900 inhabitants, 75.9 km²)
Olivier Touzeau, 54 November 2019

Flag

White flag with coat-of-arms
(see: http://www.st-leon.com/municipalite/armoiries.html)
Olivier Touzeau, 5 November 2019

The arms of Saint-Léon were designed by Odette Lemieux, winner of a public contest.

The green and blue triangle on the shield's left part represent the cultivated land and water. The central stairs represent the ever raising progress; each step represents the perpetuation of traditions from generation to generation.
The blue triangle on the shield's right part represents the Saline springs, the watercourses, and freshwater.
The green triangle in the shield's center and base represents agriculture, cattle-breeding (represented by a farm), and sugar maple cultivation (represented by the two trees).

The small yellow triangle in chief represents the light and the sun required for the development of plants, animals and human beings. It also represents God's light. The cross represents the spiritual and cultural contribution of the church and of the religious communities.
The crossed chains represent human solidarity; the crossing human chain converge to the church, where people coming from the parish's four corners meet.

The shield is surmounted by the interlaced initials of Saint-Léon, surrounded by wheat spikes meaning culture, bread, and life.
http://www.st-leon.com/municipalite/armoiries.html
Municipal website

°The St. Leon mineral water was bottled and sold by successive companies. An ad published in the "Gazette", 3 September 1910, presents a "rare native water", deemed "curative and restorative in its action, keeping the human organs in a perfect, healthy conditions". Bottled at St. Leon Springs, the water was sold under the "Mirack" brand by the St. Leon Water Ltd. The ad claims that the "original St. Leon" was established in 1881.
The St. Leon mineral water was recommended in the "Quebec Daily Telegraph", 9 November 1885, by J.E. Bolduc, Priest and Proctor of the Archiepiscopal Palace; the good priest, which "suffered from dyspepsia and all the inconvenience arising therefrom for nearly twenty years", was healed "by taking nearly a pint of it every morning, an hour before breakfast".
According to another ad published in the "Quebec Daily Mercury", 5 October 1901, "pure St. Leon water" was "the true antidote to fevers", typhoid fever included. The ad conveniently mentions the discovery of the role of bad water in the transmission of fever by Leigh Cannon in Assam, some 15 years before.
The "Canadian Journal of Medicine and Surgery", 1908n, reports that "St Leon Sante Salts are produced by evaporating the natural St. Leon Sante Water". The process was targeted to travelers, who would transport much more easily salts than bottles.

The St. Leon Springs hotel and sanitarium was re-opened "under a new management" on 1 June 1889, as announced on 22 May 1889 in the "Quebec Daily Telegraph". Presented as no less than "one of the most delightful and agreeable summer resorts on the continent", the hotel, "more attractive than ever", was connected to the Saline Springs Cure, also owned by the St. Leon Mineral Water Co. At the time the hotel was directed by Captain James K. Gilman (1828-1907).
The springs' fame subsequently declined. In 1961, water was still bottled by Eau Minérale Naturelle St-Léon, owned by Léopold Desrosiers. Exploitation ceased after the destruction of the bottling factory by a blaze in December 1964. Located on a private property, the mineral source still gushes forth.

https://gillesdouaire.org/2011/11/26/eau-minerale-naturelle-saint-leon-co/
Histoire du Québec, 26 November 2011
Ivan Sache, 16 November 2019