Famed for fossils, a waterfall higher than Niagara, 125km of hiking trails and way more deer than human residents, Anticosti beckons the outdoor adventurer...
Ask anyone who’s been to Anticosti – or, as you’ll more likely hear it referred to in Quebec, L’Île-d’Anticosti – for they’re enduring memory of the island, and they’ll undoubtedly say deer. Despite having a history that spans over 447 million years, demonstrated in its impressive fossil-rich coastline and riverbeds that have just gained it a place in UNESCO’s World Heritage List, it’s the island’s more recent residents that prove (for non-geologists anyway) the most fascinating.
Once home to the Montagnais-Naskapi Innu, whose gave it the name Notiskuan meaning, ‘the place where bears are hunted’, over time it has been inhabited by the Mi’kmaq, French, British, incorporated into Newfoundland (on two occasions) and even eyed up by Nazi Germany as a strategic foot in North America – and that’s not even counting the pirates, cannibals and sorcerers who are whispered about in local lore. But it’s the era between 1895 and 1926 that has made the biggest impact on the island we see today – at least the one most visible to the untrained eye.
An abundance of deer live on Anticosti (Shutterstock)
Fossils can be found around the island (Phoebe Smith)
During this time, millionaire chocolatier Henri Menier purchased the island. His vision? To create the largest private hunting destination in the world – and in a way he succeeded (today hunting is said to bring in excess of $10 million a year), though not in the way you might expect. At that time the island was, as the Innu name suggests, home to a healthy population of black bear, along with a small number of other mammals, including red foxes, bats and otter. But within a couple of years he’d introduced a veritable menagerie of non-native critters – bison, elk, moose, caribou, silver fox, mink, grouse, frogs and… 220 Virginia white-tailed deer. The latter predictably tore through the island eating everything in sight – including key food for the native black bear and many other species. Which explains why this ‘bear island’ is now home to exactly zero ursine, but 160,000 deer (and counting – the hunt of around 10,000 deer a year makes little more than a dent in the burgeoning population that has no natural predators to control it) – which outnumber the 200 human residents by 800 to one.
On an exploration to this isle, which at 225km long and 56km wide and is 50 percent bigger than the actual province of Prince Edward Island, traffic jams are not the problem, but going slow is mandatory due to the abundance of ungulates that greet you seemingly at every turn, from the moment you leave the only settlement of Port Menier (home to a general store, museum – housed in the old jail, information centre and a liquor shop).
One road leads across the entire island east to west, with smaller roads branching off to attractions either side. Remains of Menier’s old chateau can be found to the west of the town, and in Baie-Sainte-Claire there’s remains of two old wooden houses overlooking the river, often circled by some of the resident bald eagles (the island is home to the largest concentration of them in Quebec).
Wilcox wreckage (Shutterstock)
The island is a picture of beauty (Shutterstock)
Further along the ‘Trans-Anticosti’ are the remains of a plane that crashed here in 1967 when it ran out of fuel and used the road as an emergency runway – all five onboard survived. Whereas on the beach lies the wreckage of the Wilcox, a supply ship that foundered in a storm in 1954 (again all survived, which is rare in an area that’s claimed more than 400 vessels and thousands of lives).
For more natural wonders, there’s many. From La Grotte-a-la-Patate, the third largest cave system in Quebec, which was stumbled upon by a hunting guide in 1986; to Chute-Vaureal boasting a 76m drop (Niagara is just 57m), reached by a hike to its base on which you’ll wander amid limestone shelves chocked full of trace fossils of marine organisms from 400 million years ago.
On a visit, it’s worth walking part of the Jupiter River – so clear it’s practically invisible and home to leaping salmon – then taking out the binoculars as you make your way along the coast to Chicotte-la-Mer where the resident seal colony can be viewed as well as groups of gannets and other sea birds. Finally, be sure to check out the fossil in the making – a full skeleton of a blue whale just lying on the grass above the waves.
Shoreline along Anticosti island (Shutterstock)
Location: Seemingly adrift in the Gulf of St Lawrence (at the point where the river of the same name lets out), between the Gaspe Peninsula and the Lower North Shore of Quebec, the island is reached either by seasonal ferry (MV Bella Desgagnés) or small plane from Havre-Saint-Pierre or Sept-Îles (takes around 30mins), both of which are a 2.5hour flight from Quebec City or 10 hour drive.
Getting around: Car hire is the best way, which on the island need to have special tyres to cope with the gravel and washboard roads, as well as bars to protect from potential collisions with the many deer.
Accommodation: Options ranges from campsites, to cabins and ‘auberges’ (inns). These are all booked through Sepaq (the agency of the Quebec government that manages parks and reserves across the province) which offers 5 night packages including return flights from Mont-Joli, vehicle rental, park fees, 3 meals a day, ebike and canoe rental.
Further info: For more about the island, maps and activities go to tourismeanticosti.ca
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