Anticosti

Anticosti is a large but sparsely-populated island in Minganie in northeastern Quebec, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. While the island is over 160 km long, the only settlement of note on Anticosti is tiny Port-Menier (pop. 250) on the western coast. Much of the island is devoted to parkland or nature conservation.

Visitors to Anticosti come to fish for salmon on the Jupiter River or hunt white-tail deer. Anticosti Provincial Park straddles most of the island.

In 2018, it was submitted to UNESCO's tentative list, and became a natural in 2023.

Understand
Aboriginal peoples visited the island for fishing and hunting. Jacques Cartier 'discovered' it for Europeans in 1534, although it remained without any permanent population until Louis IV gave it to the Jolliet family in 1680, who retained it until 1753. Since then it was used for only for timber harvesting until it was sold to French chocolatier Henri Menier in the late 19th century. He built Port Menier and introduced a deer population, who without natural predators expanded exponentially. Today there are more than 100,000 deer on the island, for a density of approximately 14 deer/km².

Visitor information

 * Destination Anticosti

Talk
French is spoken by the inhabitants. English is not widely used, except in hunting and fishing tourism.

Get in
The closest access by boat or plane is typically from Havre-Saint-Pierre, Sept-Îles, or Baie-Comeau.

By plane
It is possible to charter aircraft; outfitters have packaged flights from Mont-Joli, Sept-Îles, Havre-Saint-Pierre and occasionally Québec or Montréal as part of hunting expeditions.

Get around
The island is 222 km (135 miles) in length and mostly parkland or wilderness. It is possible to bring vehicles on the ferry or rent them in Port Menier; guided package tours may also include transport.



See

 * A guided tour of Port Menier village is offered by the municipality to coincide with the arrival of the M/V Nordik Express.
 * There are six lighthouses on the island (Carleton Lighthouse is near Vauréal Falls; the cliffs offer a good vantage point for whalewatching) and shipwrecks (the Calou at Pointe-de-l’Ouest and the Wilcox near Pointe-Carleton are the most accessible).
 * There are six lighthouses on the island (Carleton Lighthouse is near Vauréal Falls; the cliffs offer a good vantage point for whalewatching) and shipwrecks (the Calou at Pointe-de-l’Ouest and the Wilcox near Pointe-Carleton are the most accessible).

Do
Hunting and fishing are just about the only activities; both require a provincial licence. There is trout and salmon in the area.



Buy
There is an artisans' boutique, a caisse populaire (Desjardins credit union, but with no ATM), a garage and a fuel station in Port Menier, the only village on the island.



Eat/drink
There are restaurants in Port Menier and at the Auberge Chicotte and Auberge McDonald inns. A picnic area is beside the "[https://www.destinationanticosti.ca Info Anticosti" house at 7, ch. des Forestiers, +1 418-535-0250).



Stay safe
Anticosti is off the beaten path. There is no hospital on the island and just one small clinic in Port Menier, so in some areas the nearest help of any kind is over 160 km (100 miles) away. The island has also been the site of hundreds of shipwrecks over the years.

Watch for wildlife when driving. Deer are plentiful even in the village and can do substantial damage in a collision, while hitting a moose can be deadly.

Connect
There is no mobile telephone infrastructure on the island. There are a few Telus and Bell (4G LTE/5G) base stations on the mainland in Havre-Saint-Pierre while Rogers has almost no coverage at all.

Go next

 * Havre-Saint-Pierre