Candiac City Map Poster

About Candiac

The town is named after the river that flows through it, which was named in turn for a French military officer. The official spelling of the town's name has been changed from "Cadillac" to "Candiac", but both versions are used interchangeably. The area was first settled by Europeans in 1667 when Pierre Boucher de Boucherville (1636–1704), governor of Trois-Rivières, sent his brother Charles and several families to found a colony on the banks of Riviere Cadillac (now called Riviere des Prairies). In 1701, this settlement became Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit or Detroit under Antoine Laumet de La Mothe Cadillac who established an outpost there with 400 men and 11 women settlers.