Canada's only watchmaking school ticking after 80 years in Trois-Rivières, Quebec
École national d'horlogerie trains 20 full-time students and has a waiting list of 11, with companies like TAG Heuer and Rolex actively recruiting graduates.
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Canada's only watchmaking school, the École national d'horlogerie in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, is marking 80 years of training craftspeople in one of the world's most demanding manual trades.
Located on the third floor of an elementary school in the city of 140,000 halfway between Montreal and Quebec City, the school was founded after World War II to help veterans reintegrate into society by learning a skilled trade. Today it operates at full capacity with 20 full-time students and a waiting list of 11 others hoping to enroll.
Teacher Benoit Mercier describes the work as requiring "a lot of patience and peace of mind" to handle the thousands of tiny components in a single timepiece. The curriculum spans jewelry making through advanced watchmaking, with students developing skills like extreme dexterity and attention to detail that open doors across multiple industries.
Major watch and jewelry companies including TAG Heuer, Rolex, and Birks actively recruit from the school's graduating classes. Student Emma Boudet, originally from France, left her food-industry lab job to study here and now aims for employment at a high-end Montreal retailer. Another student, 46-year-old Louis-Philippe Grondin, switched careers from interior design, drawn by watchmaking's permanence — he wears an 87-year-old watch on his wrist as a daily reminder that quality craft endures.
