A watchmaking school tucked inside an elementary school is not an obvious fit, but that is exactly where Canada’s only watchmaking school operates.
The École national d’horlogerie sits on the third floor of an elementary school in Trois-Rivières, Que., a city of about 140,000 people halfway between Montreal and Quebec City. The school is filled with cuckoo clocks, grandfather clocks, watches, mantel clocks and wall clocks, but the space is quiet.
Benoit Mercier, one of two full-time teachers at the school, said that matters. “It requires a lot of patience and peace of mind to work with so many tiny pieces,” Mercier said. “We’re lucky, we have the whole floor to ourselves.”
Mercier said the school was founded 80 years ago, after the Second World War, to help veterans learn a new skill and reintegrate into society. He said its purpose now is different.
“We try to teach watchmaking from the basics to be professional on the market,” he said.
The school has 20 full-time students enrolled, its maximum capacity, and 11 potential students on a waiting list.
Mercier said the focus is on jewelry making, and that students develop skills including high dexterity, attention to detail and patience. He said those skills can support a wide range of job opportunities.
The school has several classrooms for different tasks, including working with gases to create extremely hot flames and soldering metal parts.
In one larger room, student Emma Boudet had finished assembling a cuckoo clock. The 23-year-old said the work was frustrating because of the clock’s complexity and fragility.
“They look pretty on the wall,” she said with a chuckle, “but that is the last one I will do in all my life.”
Boudet, who is originally from France, said she left a job in a lab in the food industry to study at the school. She hopes to eventually work at a high-end jewelry and watch retailer in Montreal.
Mercier said companies including TAG Heuer, Rolex and Birks contact the school looking for future employees.
Louis-Philippe Grondin, a 46-year-old former interior designer, was working on an automatic wristwatch while music by Tchaikovsky played from a Bluetooth speaker on his desk. He said the work demands extreme care.
“There are things inside it that are paper thin, so every breeze of air is too much,” he said. “I try to work [with] the windows closed, and I try to hold my breath to do certain things.”
Grondin said he is three-quarters of the way through the program and is cleaning, oiling and reassembling a case of 10 watches for a final exam.
He said he changed careers because he wanted work that better matched his values.
“Sometimes the materials we used would be good for a lifetime, but in five to seven years, it would all be going into the trash can because it was out of fashion, and I wasn’t at ease with that,” he said.
Grondin said watchmaking is different. “It’s more meaningful, I think, to maintain something.”
He said he plans to work for himself after graduating, designing and creating his own jewelry and watches.
Behind a locked door in a windowless room, hundreds of small drawers hold tiny bottles filled with components.
“This is where we keep all of our pieces, all of our tools,” Mercier said.
Every bottle is marked with handwritten letters and numbers. Mercier said it is a universal system that students must learn so they can identify the calibre of each piece.
The school has also been told it will have to move. Mercier said it got notice a few months ago.
“The primary school needs more space, and the fact that we occupy an entire floor all by ourselves is kind of a problem,” he said.
Mercier said the school will stay in Trois-Rivières. Asked how the millions of carefully organized tiny pieces will be moved, he said: “I don’t know, I don’t think it’s going to be up to me.”
The timeline for the move is unclear, and discussions are focused on respecting needs so teaching can continue once the move is complete.
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