Le Dépanneur | Citizen sketcher

Do you know the Quebec word “Dépanneur”?

It comes from the verb cover which means ‘to repair’ or ‘to mend’, so a dépanneur is a handyman, and a dépanneuse is a tow truck. < Ahh, gender in French. Tradition huh!

Here it also means ‘corner store’. I’m not sure if they used to sell some hardware items too, but I think the meaning is more like “We’re here to lend a hand.”

This shop is out of business and the apartments above are empty; the windows are covered in plastic, but the hand-sawn wooden sign is still there, with its vintage Coca-Cola medallions. Places like this used to be all over the island, offering the basic groceries: a can of ravioli or a box of cereal, or more likely your six-pack of beer, a pack of cigarettes and assorted dirty magazines.

These days these shops are making way for cafes and the occasional vape shop. We used to joke that they were backed by the mafia so they would never go bankrupt. I don’t know if the mafia are trading? Or if they just went all out on road maintenance to launder their money.

So that’s the kind of little sketch I’m doing these days. About 5 inches high, if that? Just sitting in an alley, chatting with a buddy from USK and enjoying the last days of summer 🙂