Alexis Lapointe

His family had trouble accepting his eccentricity; Alexis left home at the age of 18 and spent the rest of his life on the road.

He is said to have raced against several horses, against whom he supposedly always won, including the prize stallion of Seigneur Duggan de La Malbaie.

Probably the most famous anecdote concerning him tells that one day, he was on the quay of La Malbaie with his father who had to leave by boat to Bagotville at 11 o'clock.

Alexis le Trotteur was struck by a train and died while working on the construction site of the Isle-Maligne hydroelectric plant.

One of his co-workers on the site, cited by the historian Serge Gauthier, hinted as much: "I saw him ten years later in Matapédia, where he was only a construction worker like you or I.

In 1966 his remains were exhumed from the La Malbaie cemetery by a specialist in physical activity, Jean-Claude Larouche, in order to examine them; he confirmed that a sustained lifelong training had made him into a formidable athlete.

The Quebec folk music group Mes Aïeux wrote a song about him, entitled Train de vie (le Surcheval), which was released on their album En famille, drawing parallels between the life of Alexis le Trotteur and the frenetic pace of modern living.