Anticosti Island
Anticosti Island is a large, but largely unpopulated island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.[2] It is currently part of the Province of Quebec, although, at times, it was part of Newfoundland. The island is slightly smaller than Puerto Rico and Jamaica, and larger than nearby Prince Edward Island.[1]
The shoals surrounding the Island have represented serious navigational dangers, and its coast is lined with lighthouses.
History
First Nations visits
There is no record of permanent settlement by First Nations peoples.[3] However it is believed that both the Micmac, to the south, and the Innu, to the north, were aware of the island, and would visit it, for hunting.
Discovery by John Cabot, 1535
Explorer John Cabot was the first to sight the island, in 1535, but he did not realize it was an island.[3]
Jolliet
The French King gave the explorer Louis Jolliet the seigneurship of the island in 1680 as a reward for discovering the Mississippi.[1][4] He made limited efforts to exploit his gift, directing the creation of a farm, and a fishery, but they were burnt, in 1690, when France and Great Britain went to war.[3]
1881 famine
The failure of the local fishery, in 1881, resulted in a local famine, that required aid from the Government of Quebec.[5]
Ownership by the Menier family
Henri Menier, a citizen of France, bought the Island, in 1895, for $125,000, with ambitious development plans.[6][1][2] Port Menier, a community of approximately 200 individuals, and the island's only remaining settlement, is named after him.
the New York Times reported Menier built new port facilities, lumber mills, canneries, a fleet of support vessels, and a railroad.[1] They also reported "The Quebec Government gave him cordial support in ejecting the undesirables who had squatted on the island..." Menier, they said, recruited "law-abiding and thrifty French Canadian families" as his new settlers. In its obituary of him, in 1913, the New York Times reported Menier's careful selection of settlers had meant there had been no crime, on the island, and thus no need for Police.
The island had relatively few species of mammals native to it.[2] Menier, in an attempt to turn the island into a destination for hunters, tried to introduce to it species hunters targetted.[1] His attempts to introduce some species, like American Bison were not successful. His introduction of whitetail deer, from the mainland, was so successful that, in 1941, the deer population was estimated at 100,000.[7] In 1958 one reporter described how deer were so plentiful hunters could confidently wait to shoot the largest bucks, and ignore does and less mature males.[8] In 2011 the deer population was estimated to be 166,000.[9]
Menier's brother Gaston inherited the Island, and sold it, in July 1926, for $6 million dollars, to the Wayagamac Pulp and Paper company.[10][11][12]
Logging operations, 1926-1938, and the German ownership bid
By 1938 Consolidated Paper owned the island.[13] They said they had shut down all logging operations in 1929, and had kept paying staff on the island for the past nine years. According to the New York Times, they claimed $1.5 million would be required "to rehabilitate equipment and install new machinery", before they would be able to recommence logging operations.
A consortium of German companies, backed by the German government, initiated purchase negotiations with Consolidated, in late 1937.[13] The proposed purchase triggered opposition, and the Quebec government barred the sale, and the export of forest products, from the island.[14]
Consolidated claimed it had never occurred to them that a sale to German companies, of an island near a key shipping lane, could put Canada's national security at risk.[13]
Purchase by the Government of Quebec
The Government of Quebec purchased the island in 1974.[15] Since then it has coordinated some efforts to further develop tourism to the still quite inaccessible island. Those tourism efforts have been largely aimed at sports hunters and sports fishers.
Geography
The island's tallest peak is approximately 1000 foot (304.8 m) tall.[2] The island's peaks are part of the Appalachian Mountain chain.[9]
Deer overpopulation
Of the species introduced by Menier the whitetailed deer proved the most problematic.[9] He had 120 deer introduced. Without predators the deer extirpated the island's Balsam Fir by the 1930s - when, prior to the deer introduction, it had been the most common species of trees. One of the few original species of mammal native to the island had been black bear. The black bear had relied heavily on native berries, and could not compete with the hungry deer population. The last bear was seen on the island in the 1970s. There are so many deer tourists are told that it is not safe to drink from the island's pristine looking streams, because those waters are likely polluted with deer feces.
According to Denis Duteau, a deer biologist, in 2011, visiting sports hunters culled approximately 10,000 deer, per year.[9] He asserted that this is about a third the number that die each winter, and not nearly enough to bring the deer population under control.
Petroleum reserves
The new, controversial, technique known as "fracking" opened up the possibility of exploiting natural gas and shale oil from sedimentary rocks under and around the island.[16] In 2015 Quebec Premier Pauline Marois signed deals with oil companies, like Petrolia Incorporated, to drill exploratory wells, and use fracking to measure how much oil and gas could be extracted.
The fracking would use water from the island's river and streams, add a proprietary and secret cocktail of chemicals, which would then be injected deep into the bedrock, at high pressure.[16] Petrolia promised to purify the effluent of their toxic chemicals, through an undisclosed process, before releasing it into the Gulf.
Fishing for Salmon in those streams is a key component of the current economy, and experts predicted stripping those rivers of large volumes of water fracking would require would have a strong negative impact on the Salmon fishery.[16]
When Marois's Parti Quebecois lost power new Premier Philippe Couillard claimed he was bound by the previous government's agreements.[16] But in 2017 he issued an order barring drilling on Anticosti, and agreed to pay $41 million to the petroleum companies with signed deals.[17]
rough work
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 M. Menier's Anticosti experiment, New York Times, 1913-09-10, p. 8. Retrieved on 2022-08-07.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Nelson Bryant. Outdoors: Still Life and Wildlife on Lush Anticosti, New York Times, 1989-11-27, p. C9. Retrieved on 2022-08-07. “Situated in the Gulf of St. Lawrence between Quebec's North Shore and the tip of the Gaspe Peninsula, Anticosti is 140 miles long and 35 miles wide, with a maximum altitude of about 1,000 feet.”
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Discover the mysterious story of: Anticosti Island, «jewel» of the St. Laurent Gulf. Safari Anticosti. Retrieved on 2022-08-07.
- ↑ Red Smith. Assault with a deadly flyrod, New York Times, 1967-07-30, p. 15. Retrieved on 2022-08-07.
- ↑ Famine on Anticosti Island, New York Times, 1881-10-06. Retrieved on 2022-08-07.
- ↑ ANTICOSTI SOLD TO FRENCHMEN: A Large and Valuable Island of the Quebec Province Syndicated, New York Times, 1895-04-25, p. 5. Retrieved on 2022-08-07.
- ↑ Raymond R. Camp. Wood, Field and Stream, New York Times, 1941-10-08, p. 33. Retrieved on 2022-08-07.
- ↑ John W. Randoph. Wood, Field and Stream: Horn of Plenty Is Found in Anticosti, but Hunter Wants to Play Hiawatha, New York Times, 1958-10-15, p. 54. Retrieved on 2022-08-07.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Leslie Anthony. The curse of Gamache: Is Quebec's Anticosti Island the weirdest place in Canada? Probably just ask the sorcerer, cannibals, ghosts, geologists, frogs and 166,000 deer, Pique Newsmagazine, 2011-09-21. Retrieved on 2022-08-07. “He succeeded, though biologists might counter that he actually turned Anticosti into the world's largest wildlife experiment - a lesson in the dos and don'ts of boreal ecology.”
- ↑ All of Anticosti sold; French Senator, It Is Said, Will Use Part of Proceeds to Aid Franc, New York Times, 1926-05-12, p. 10. Retrieved on 2022-08-07.
- ↑ Confirms Anticosti Pulp Deal, New York Times, 1926-07-20. Retrieved on 2022-08-07.
- ↑ Gaston Menier, 79, dies in Paris Home; Senator and 'Chocoiate King; Held Lease on Anticosti Island as Game Area, New York Times, 1934-11-06, p. Books 25. Retrieved on 2022-08-07.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 CANADA ENDS SURVEY OF ANTICOSTI ISLAND; Defense Value Studied as German Option to Buy Is Held Up, New York Times, 1938-08-16, p. 7. Retrieved on 2022-08-07.
- ↑ BARS PULPWOOD FOR REICH; Quebec Decision Spikes German Plan to Get Anticosti, New York Times, 1938-04-14. Retrieved on 2022-08-07.
- ↑ Winston Fraser. Door to a 'secret' island paradise in Quebec is finally opening, Chicago Tribune, 1987-09-06. Retrieved on 2022-08-07. “As owner of Anticosti Island, the Quebec government has opened this island paradise to the public. It purchased Anticosti in 1974, but did not make it generally accessible until eight years later. Until that time, only hunters and fisherman were granted permits to visit the island.”
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 Benjamin Shingler. How Anticosti became the centre of a debate over oil and gas exploration, CBC News, 2016-07-06. Retrieved on 2022-08-07. “Couillard has repeatedly said he's bound by an agreement signed by the previous Parti Québécois government to allow for testing in Anticosti, a rocky, 200-kilometre stretch of land known for its salmon fishing.”
- ↑ Quebec puts an end to plans to drill for oil on Anticosti Island: Couillard government, long opposed to agreement inked by PQ, officially bans exploration, CBC News, 2017-07-28. Retrieved on 2022-08-07. “Premier Philippe Couillard has issued a ministerial order banning drilling on the island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The government is also compensating three oil and gas companies a total of $41 million dollars for cancelling their permits.”