Canada's Lone Watchmaking School Faces a Move After 80 Years in Trois-Rivières

The École nationale d’horlogerie, Canada’s only watchmaking school, occupies an entire quiet floor of an elementary school in Trois-Rivières, Quebec. Founded 80 years ago to retrain World War II veterans, it now trains people for careers in the trade. Two full-time teachers instruct 20 students — the school’s maximum — with another 11 on a waiting list. The curriculum runs from fundamentals to professional-level skills, and recruiters from names like Rolex, TAG Heuer, and Birks approach the school looking for graduates.

The students on hand illustrate watchmaking’s appeal as a second act. A former food-industry lab worker from France plans to join a high-end Montreal retailer; a 46-year-old ex-interior designer switched careers seeking work more aligned with his values, contrasting the throwaway culture of fashion with the durability of a watch (he wears an 87-year-old one). The work demands extreme precision — components thin enough that a breath of air disrupts them — and a meticulous universal cataloguing system for tiny parts stored in hundreds of labeled drawers.

The wrinkle: Quebec’s Education Ministry has told the school it must relocate, because the host elementary school needs the space the program monopolizes. The school will stay in Trois-Rivières, but no timeline has been set, and staff have no clear answer for how they will safely move the vast, painstakingly organized inventory of miniature parts.