Long lots (Rangs canadiens)

These land grants were known as seigneuries (long lots). In exchange for his land grant, each seigneur had to attract as many colonists as possible to settle on his land. To do so, he had to offer them various inducements, including access to a river or stream for purposes of travel and fishing, pasture for livestock, and other facilities. These requirements gave rise to the idea of dividing the long lots into rectangular strips that fronted on the river and could be worked by individual tenants. These strips were quite narrow—only 3 or 4 arpents (180 or 240 m) wide—but also quite deep--30 to 40 arpents (1.88 to 2.4 km). This system of land division maximized the number of properties with direct river access while keeping the colonists’ dwellings closer together—an important advantage in such insecure times.

At first, the long lots had houses on only one side of the road and were known as single lots. Later, houses were located on both sides of the road, facing each other; this double-lot arrangement was denser and more secure. The results of the long-lot system of land division are visible throughout the Québec landscape. It provided a combination of proximity and dispersion that was highly suited to the settlement of a new land. The French also “exported” their long-lot system from Québec: its traces can be seen along the Red River in Manitoba, around the city of Detroit, and even at the pre-Columbian Native American site at Cahokia Mounds, near St Louis. Interestingly, aerial photos of the Amazon River basin show that recent settlements follow the exact same pattern of land division as the long lots surveyed along the St Lawrence River nearly four centuries ago.

The Canadian long-lot system represented more than just a method of surveying and dividing land. At a time when travel was slow and difficult, the close ties among family members and neighbours farming strips in the same long lot made it a prime force for social cohesion before any villages even existed. Each long lot had its councillor, school trustee and political organizer (sometimes one “strongman” held all three positions). Within the long lot, social solidarity was very strong; people exchanged goods and services and worked together—for example, to bring in the harvest or meet obligations to provide labour to the seigneur—a whole interconnected way of life that has vanished with modern means of communication. The long-lot system left a lasting mark on rural Québec. Geographer Louis-Edmond Hamelin estimates that there were as many as 10,000 long lots in Québec. He also argues that the French term for long lot, Rang canadien, is neither traditionally nor geographically meaningful, and he proposes as a substitute Rang d'habitat, which is also the title of a book that he has published on this subject.