Pilons Leave Their Mark on the Land Canadian Geographic Place Names

by Jean-Luc Pilon

A search for the word "Pilon" in the geographic place names database of Natural Resources Canada yielded the results listed below. Quite obviously, our ancestors left their mark on this land. It would be intriguing to attempt to document the reasons which incited the attribution of these names to various parts of the country. However, that is a bit of research for some other time!

For now, we can offer the following observations:

• there are 39 parts of the Canadian landscape which bear the name "Pilon" and three others which did in the past
• of these 42 geographic place names, 2 are embayments, 3 are islands, 4 are capes, 10 are watercourses and 23 are lacs
• 1 place name is located in the new Canadian territory of Nunavut, 10 are located in Ontario and 31 are located in Québec

A future research project could try to document the legacy of Pilons on the urban landscape by documenting street names which recognize the life and vitality of Pilons in their communities in the past. I dare say that there would be more of these than there are geographic place names!