Fermont

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Fermont is a French-speaking town in northeastern Quebec, Canada. It has a population of 2,471 (2006), and lies near the Quebec-Labrador border about 23 kilometres from Labrador City on Route 389, which connects to the Trans-Labrador Highway (Route 500). Fermont (French contraction of "Fer Mont", meaning "Iron Mountain") was founded as a company town in the early 1970s to exploit rich iron ore deposits from nearby Mont Wright. It is the seat of the Regional County Municipality of Caniapiscau.
The town is notable for the huge self-contained structure containing apartments, stores, schools, bars, a hotel, restaurants, a supermarket and swimming pool which shelters a community of smaller apartment buildings and homes on its leeward side. The structure was designed to permit residents (other than mine workers) to never leave the building during the long winter, which usually lasts about seven months. The town, designed by Maurice Desnoyers and Norbert Schoenauer, was inspired by similar projects in Sweden designed by Ralph Erskine, notably that of Svappavaara, a copper mining town in Sweden. The building measures 1.3 kilometres long and stands 50 metres high.