Lemieux, Ontario

Lemieux, Ontario

Lemieux is a ghost town in the Canadian province of Ontario, which was located on the shore of the South Nation River in the Prescott and Russell County township of South Plantagenet. The community was abandoned over a two-year period from 1989 to 1991, after soil testing revealed that the town was built on unstable Leda clay, a type of subsoil which can liquefy under stress, and was consequently in danger of experiencing a landslide similar to the one that destroyed the town of Saint-Jean-Vianney, Quebec in 1971.

The decision to relocate the community's residents proved to be a wise one — on June 20, 1993, two years after the last remaining building at Lemieux was demolished, a landslide occurred at the former townsite.