Qualla: 1663 Charlevoix Earthquake

1663 Charlevoix Earthquake: Introduction

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. Fear came to all, penalty to none. Father Charles Simon wrote those words after the ground stopped shaking on the evening of February 5, 1663, and they remain the most concise summary of one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded in eastern North America. At 5:30 p.m. local time, along the St. Lawrence River in what was then New France, the earth heaved with a force later estimated at magnitude 7.3 to 7.9 -- strong enough to register X (Extreme) on the Mercalli intensity scale. Mountains collapsed. Rivers reversed course. The St. Lawrence ran brown with sediment for a month. And somehow, in a colony of scattered settlements and a few thousand French souls living alongside Algonquin and Iroquois peoples, not a single person died. The Jesuit missionaries who recorded the event called it miraculous. The geology that caused it had been building for over a billion years.

Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

1663 Charlevoix Earthquake: Where Two Ancient Wounds Intersect

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eric Gaba (Sting - fr:Sting), CC BY-SA 3.0. The Charlevoix seismic zone lies northeast of Quebec City along the St. Lawrence River, and it is eastern Canada's most seismically active region -- five earthquakes of estimated magnitude 6 or greater have struck here since Europeans began keeping records. The reason is written ...

Image: Eric Gaba (Sting - fr:Sting) | CC BY-SA 3.0

1663 Charlevoix Earthquake: The Day the Rivers Changed Course

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. The destruction was not measured in collapsed buildings -- there were few stone structures in New France to collapse. It was measured in landscape. Massive landslides swept down the banks of the Saint Lawrence, the Saint-Maurice, and the Batiscan Rivers, dumping so much sediment ...

Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

1663 Charlevoix Earthquake: Witnesses in Black Robes

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. The earthquake struck during the early European settlement of North America, and its best chroniclers were Catholic missionaries stationed in the wilderness. The Jesuits, Ursulines, and Augustinians all left written accounts. Among them, Father Jerome Lalemant stood out for his m...

Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

1663 Charlevoix Earthquake: A Miracle, Then Back to Business

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. When the shaking finally subsided and the missionaries confirmed that no lives had been lost, they pivoted from terror to theology. The earthquake was not a disaster but a warning -- and a sign of God's protection over the faithful of New France. Churches filled. Wine and brandy ...

Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0