In the early 1830s, Saint-Hilarion’s first settlers arriving from Les Éboulements met with extremely difficult conditions as they set out to clear the land. The municipality’s name is justifiably inspired from an austere monk who lived in the earliest days of Christendom.

Saint-Hilarion’s most celebrated son is without a doubt Ovilar Asselin (1874-1937) who among others, participated in the creation of Journal Le Devoir in 1910.

Perched atop the Charlevoix backcountry, Saint-Hilarion offers observers splendid panoramas of the Laurentian Mountain Range, with a spectacular arch-shaped mountain counterfort as a backdrop. The crescent-like ridge is the result of the impact of a 2-km wide meteorite that struck the region over 360 million years ago, that lends an undeniable cachet to this village located 10 kilometres from the Charlevoix impact crater.

The Charlevoix meteor crater, recognized by the Geological Survey of Canada in 1968 thanks to the work of geologist Jehan Rondot, measures 56 kilometres in diametre and ranks among the planet’s 13 largest craters.

In Saint-Hilarion as in several other Charlevoix municipalities, local soil is distinctive owing to high quantities of impactite rock - terrestrial rock that was modified by a meteor impact.