Four French tourists were killed in snowmobile trails in the Lac-Beauport for the past 10 years

Photo Marc Vallières
A woman of French origin in their twenties, died Thursday morning in a snowmobile accident near Lac-Beauport, north of Québec city.

Dominique Lelièvre

Friday, 9 march 2018 17:06

UPDATE
Friday, 9 march 2018 17:12

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Inexperience was always part of the assumptions in the study, on Friday, the day after the death of a French tourist in a snowmobile accident in Lac-Beauport. This is also the cause retained by the coroner for the other two fatal accidents in the same paths.

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The coroner’s Office will investigate the circumstances of the death of Marion Rigaut, the French 25-year-old killed in a runway excursion by snowmobile on Thursday. The tourist had rented the contraption with a man also in his twenties at the pourvoirie du Lac-Beauport. The latter’s condition was still considered stable on Friday.

No guide accompanied, confirmed the police of Quebec.

This accident reminds us of the other two occurred in each of these paths in less than a decade. Christine Cao, a French tourist of 32 years, was also in visit to Quebec in February 2009 when she rented a snowmobile to the outfitter Lac-Beauport with a friend.

According to the coroner’s report in which The Journal has obtained a copy, the travelers received that day a “very short” training. Hiking, their vehicle was struck in a tree and they are both deceased.

“Preventable”

“The inexperience of the driver as well as the short period of adjustment to such machinery sports is snowmobiling appear to be factors contributory claims” to the collision of 2009, wrote the coroner, concluding that death “purely accidental and preventable”.

The story seems to be bred in march 2015. Philippe Vincke, a French 62-year-old dies after crashing into a tree with a snowmobile rented at Lac-Beauport. A guide was yet in the convoy which was travelling at low speed. The tourist “was driving a snowmobile for the first time,” noted the coroner, focusing on the thesis of the false manoeuvre.

Contacted by The Newspaper, the owner of the outfitter Lac-Beauport, Philip Bacon, is sorry of this series of accidents while defending the practices of his company. “If you look at the number of rentals, it is in as 0.00005 % of accidents”, he stressed.

Regarding the accident of 2015, he said, believing the discomfort of the victim to explain the drama, contradicting the coroner.

The pourvoirie du Lac-Beauport states conduct approximately 1500 rentals snowmobile good year, bad year.

Always accompanied

To the west of the Saguenay, the owner of the outfitting of the Cap at the Leste, Henri-Jean Vittecoq, confirms that snowmobiling is a popular activity of tourists in europe. To prevent any unfortunate event, a guide accompanies each of the groups, he said. “People who arrive in Europe like it, don’t let it leave like that, it is impossible,” he explained.

For his part, the president of the Fédération des clubs de motoneigistes du Québec (FCMQ) has estimated that the education of clients and landlords is the best way to prevent further accidents.

“Either the outfitters or the landlords in general, it is recommended that adequate training of the people who take the lease. (…) The most important issue is to pass on the message to the users to go according to their limit,” he said.

“The ideal solution” would be to provide a guide to each of the tourists who go on a trip, but it may be unappealing to some customers attached to their autonomy in the trails, he added.

The FCMQ wishes to address the issue and make recommendations to the government in order to modernize the Act respecting off-highway vehicles in 2020, supported by Mr. Gagnon.

At the scale of Québec, it is estimated that over 30 000 the number of tourists who come every year to experience the snowmobile.