Saint-Joseph-de-Lepage is a parish municipality in La Mitis Regional County Municipality in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region of Quebec, Canada. It is located 5 km south-east of Mont-Joli in the Matapédia River Valley. The village is 350 km north east of Québec city and 360 km west of Gaspé. The nearest towns are Mont-Joli, and Rimouski which lies 40 km to the south-east. Saint-Joseph-de-Lepage takes its name from the colonial lordship, the Seigneurie Lepage-et-Thibierge, which was the early governance of the area. Its 500 residents work largely in agriculture and forestry. The ecclesiastical parish of the same name is in the Archdiocese of Rimouski.

History

The territory occupied by the parish municipality of Saint-Joseph-de-Lepage was first granted to Gabriel Thivierge and Louis Lepage and became known as the seigneury of Lepage-et-Thivierge. Later, this seigneury became the Seignory of Rimouski, which for a long time belonged to the Lepage family. The parish of Saint-Joseph-de-Lepage was canonically erected on 21 April 1873. The municipality of Saint-Joseph-de-Lepage was officially created on 29 September 1873 by a detachment from Sainte-Flavie. The presbytery was built in 1873. The wooden church was built in 1875. The caisse populaire was founded on March 7, 1940.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Saint-Joseph-de-Lepage had a population of 590 living in 223 of its 260 total private dwellings, a change of NaN% from its 2016 population of 523. With a land area of 30.98 km2, it had a population density of in 2021. Private dwellings (occupied by usual residents): 223 Languages: