Johan Beetz

Who is Johan Beetz?

Johan Beetz was a Canadian naturalist of Belgian origin. He settled in a small coastal town in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, which was later renamed Baie-Johan-Beetz in his honour, along with the nearby bay, known as the baie Johan-Beetz.

He was born in Boortmeerbeek, Belgium, in the château d'Oudenhouven, to an aristocratic family. His father Johannes Beetz died when he was two years old and his mother Céline Verzyl remarried an English major named Walter Turner. He had a privileged childhood and the future King Albert was among his childhood acquaintances. In his youth, he participated in hunting in Morocco, Algeria and Congo, and took part in archeological digs. He studied medicine and biology.

However, his fiancée Marthe Versyl died of pneumonia. Apparently seeking a change in his life, he considered moving from Belgium to Africa, but then he happened to converse with a certain Monsieur Warner, who talked about the hunting and fishing in Pashti-Baie along the north shore of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence in Quebec, Canada, where Warner had a house. Beetz bought Warner's house on the spot, and moved there in May 1897. He married a local girl named Adéla Tanguay on September 27, 1898 and constructed a very large house, today known as the Maison Johan-Beetz and classified as a historical monument by the Quebec government. They eventually had 11 children. He hunted, fished, and trapped with the local villagers. He raised foxes for their fur. He was a naturalist and ornithologist, and made numerous studies and hand drawings. He invented a mummification process for preserving animal bodies; however the technique was lost when he died.