Guy-Émile Beauparlant was born in Montreal but the family moved early and often throughout Quebec to wherever his father found construction work.
Beauparlant left school when he was of working age, embarking on a lifetime of menial jobs. Some he enjoyed, such as climbing trees to hand pick unblemished apples, or working outdoors on a dairy farm. Others he liked less, like roofing the expansive airplane hangars at the St-Hubert airport, or making insulation derived from shredded newspapers — hot, dusty work that clogged his respiratory passages and burnt his eyes.
