Gaspé

GASPÉ TALES

Le Griffon cultural centre rises from the ruins for a second time

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Three months ago, watercolour artist Claude Côté was thrilled to be able to move his workshop and gallery into the Centre Culturel Le Griffon, a bustling community and cultural centre in the heart of L’Anse- au-Griffon, the tight-knit community in the Gaspé that he’d never really left.

More than 20 years ago, he was part of a core group of volunteers who raised $300,000 to help build the centre out of the remains of a decaying, condemned former cold storage hangar which they had saved from demolition. More recently, he and his neighbours came to the centre to eat at the village’s only year-round restaurant, see concerts, use the ATM, rent winter hiking equipment at the volunteer- run ski counter and explore the art gallery. Now he was spending his days there. “I was very happy to be back; I had a nice big space!”

“The hangar was built at the peak of the cod industry, in the 1940s, but by the ‘90s, it had become a bit of an eyesore,” recalled Gaspé Mayor Daniel Côté (no known relation to Claude Côté). After volunteers petitioned the government to stop the planned demolition and had the hangar restored, “a place of warmth and colour” took root in the village.

In the wee hours of the morning of Sept. 1, however, it all went up in smoke. A fire, apparently caused by a dropped cigarette butt on an outdoor balcony, spread to the outside walls and roof. By the time firefighters arrived, there was nothing left to do except try to save the adjacent shrimp processing plant. When Claude Côté arrived a few hours later, he quickly realized his work- shop and gallery were gone. “I didn’t have a single paintbrush left,” he told the QCT, still processing the shock nearly two weeks later.

A metal framework installed to shore up the crumbling cold storage hangar rose above the ruins. Only the sign, two doors and two large ammonia compressors salvaged from the hangar could be saved. “Twenty-five years of work, just gone,” said Mayor Côté, who also hurried to the scene that morning. “No one was physically hurt, but there were a lot of moral injuries.”

There were economic injuries as well. “In the beginning, there were a lot of volunteers, but then over the years, things were professionalized,” said Stéphane Morissette, director of the non-profit which oversees the cultural centre. Twenty of the town’s 500 or so inhabitants worked at the centre, either at the café or in the office. Thousands of dollars of skiing and snowshoeing equipment and works of art were destroyed. “To see all of that go up in smoke is very, very hard,” said Morissette, a Quebec City native who has lived in the Gaspé for more than 25 years.

“In a rural community, we need places to go in the village,” said Hélène Gaulin, a square dance caller who coproduced a documentary partially filmed in the centre. Gaulin lives in the nearby village of Cap-aux-Os but has gone to many concerts at Le Griffon. “We need to be able to live our lives here and not have to drive into town for every little thing. It’s kind of the new church steps – we don’t really have church as a gathering place anymore, but a cultural centre brings people together.”

Le Griffon is bringing Gaspesians together even as the ruins still smoulder. Performance venues in surrounding towns have offered to stage concerts that were supposed to take place at Le Griffon. A crowdfunding campaign for Claude Côté, started by family members, raised nearly $50,000, which will go toward replacing equipment and reimbursing people who had lent paintings to be put on display. “It’s an extraordinary life buoy,” the artist said. The city of Gaspé, of which L’Anse- au-Griffon is a part, has offered technical support for grant writing, planning and dealing with insurance. Morissette said rebuilding the centre as it was on the current site would be difficult if not impossible – not least because its location, a stone’s throw from the St. Lawrence, is now considered a floodplain. However, he and his colleagues “are already in mode Cultural Centre II,” launching a crowdfunding campaign of their own and recruiting a project manager.

“We’ve seen a lot of generosity, and that’s what pulls me up when I get discouraged,” Morissette said. “The next phase will take a lot of work, but a lot of people want to help. That’s what is giving us the strength to think of the future.”

To contribute to Le Griffon’s rebuilding effort, search for “Centre Culturel Le Griffon: Relance phase 1” on GoFundMe.