Angel of Cap-Pelé Monument

The Angel of Cap-Pelé Monument is designated a Local Historic Place for its location, its architecture, its spiritual role in the community, and its association with World War II.

The heritage value of the Angel of Cap-Pelé Monument is associated primarily with the fact that it is one of the few monuments located on a public highway in Canada. In 1935, Donat Robichaud, the parish priest, obtained a permit from the then highway engineer authorizing him to place the angel monument on its current site.

The angel statue, which is made of concrete, is the work of an unknown artist from Quebec. It is representative of the religious art of the Roman Catholic faith in the early 20th century. Early in the summer of 1935, brothers Willie and Fred Dupuis, two well-known stonecutters from Shediac, began work on the pedestal. The stone for the pedestal came from the Beaumont quarry, in Westmorland County.

Originally, Father Donat Robichaud and the parishioners wanted to openly express their faith through the monument and thus place the region’s two core industries – fishing and agriculture – under the protection of divine forces. Thereafter, oral tradition maintains that the angel protected all of the soldiers from Cap-Pelé parish who fought in World War II. As Father Donat Robichaud had predicted, no local soldiers died on the battlefields despite the fact that a large number of men served and some were seriously injured. In addition, the monument is perpetuated in the collective memory and in the local parlance as a geographical point of reference.