Mingan Archipelago National Park

Mingan Archipelago National Park
Monoliths in the Mingan Archipelago
Coordinates: 50 ° 15 ′ 17 "  N , 63 ° 34 ′ 36"  W.
Location:	Quebec , Canada
Next city:	Sept-Îles
Surface:	151 km²
Founding:	06/29/1984
Visitors:	34,307 (2016/2017)
Address:	official website

The Mingan Archipelago National Park ( French Réserve de parc national de l'Archipel-de-Mingan , English Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve ) is a marine Canadian national park in the east of the province of Quebec around the place Havre-Saint-Pierre , east of Sept-Îles and north of the island of Anticosti . Unlike most other Canadian national parks, it bears the addition of a reserve because of special rights of use for the local indigenous peoples . The protected area not only includes the islands, but also a narrow strip of the mainland. This includes Lac Patterson in the west, in the middle of Lac de la Grande Rivière or Lac des Plaines, where there are numerous other, smaller lakes.

The national park was founded in 1984 and has an area of ​​151 km², while it extends over a distance of 150 km on the north bank of the St. Lawrence River . The park includes the Mingan Archipelago , which consists of 40 islands. The research organization Mingan Island Cetacean Study, based in the village of Longue-Pointe-de-Mingan, has been studying the region's large marine mammals since 1979 . The station with an attached museum has been headed by the biologist Christian Ramp from Bremen since 2002.

There are two Innu communities in the region , namely Mingan-Ekuanitshit and Natashquan-Nutashkan, which together have around 1,100 inhabitants.

The islands

The largest of the 40 or so islands are: the Île aux Perroquets , the Île Nue de Mingan , the Grande Île , the Île Quarry , the Île Niapiskau , the Île du Fantôme , the Île du Havre , the Petite and the Grosse île au Marteau and the Île à la Chasse . In the west of the archipelago is the Île Nue de Mingan, which has a tundra-like landscape (barrens); Basque whalers also left numerous ovens there. As the fragile ecosystem would be endangered by hikers, they are prohibited from entering. Similar to this island, there are also monoliths and groups of monoliths on the Grande Île, such as the zoo in the north-west or the château in the north-east, but hikers are permitted on the path around the island (approx. 22 km). Monoliths can also be hiked on the Île Quarry, such as at Anse des Erosion in the southwest of the island. So-called board walks allow you to reach wetlands without getting your feet wet. On the Île Niapiskau is the monolith Bonne Femme (Good Woman, in the northwest). Parks Canada offers guided tours that explain the geology of the islands.

The Île du Fantôme got its name from a schooner of the same name, which wrecked off the north-west coast in 1862. Parks Canada offers guided tours of the island's flora and fauna there. The Île du Havre is located directly across from Havre-Saint-Pierre . A Hudson's Bay Company fox farm was located there in the 1930s. 15.3 km of hiking trails open up the island.

Both on the Île aux Perroquets , where a lighthouse was set up in 1888, and in 1915 on the Petite Île au Marteau , beacons were built to secure navigation. The latter is located southeast of the Great Île au Marteau , which is considered one of the most beautiful islands in the region. The easternmost island, still behind the Île Innu , is the Île à la Chasse , where the French naturalist and author Count Henry de Puyjalon spent the summer months with his wife and died there on August 17, 1905. It offers numerous wet meadows and relics of the last ice age.

Flora and fauna

The park is home to over 450 species of flora, 100 of which are either considered rare or very rare, or usually live in remote areas. The Mingan Thistle (Mingan thistle) otherwise only exists in arctic regions, the saxifrage is widespread.

More than 200 species of birds are known in the park area. Terns , gulls and kittiwakes (kittywake) occur here as well as the double-crested cormorant , which is one of the cormorants, razorbills (razorbill) and black guillemot , which is also one of the alkene. Particularly striking is the puffin . The islands are also an important wintering area for ducks, for example, with the eider being the most common here. Also you meet warblers , sparrows , sandpipers and the Great Yellowlegs on.

The gray seal , the harbor seal and the harp seal can be found in mammals ; Members of nine whale species are regularly sighted. These include minke or minke whales , which can often be seen near the coast; further out there are blue whales , porpoises , but also humpback whales and fin whales . On land there are beavers , new world otters , muskrat , various species of the squirrel , snowshoe hare , red fox and various types of weasel.

history

Lighthouse on the Île aux Perroquets, renovated in 1951, with three of the seven company buildings

In contrast to the Canadian Shield to the north, the limestone landscape of the Mingan Archipelago was exposed to strong lifting and lowering movements. 20,000 years ago an approximately 2.5 km thick ice sheet weighed on the area. After the ice had melted at the end of the last Ice Age, the area was around 85 m below sea level, which in turn had risen over 100 m. Around 5,000 BC The islands emerged from the sea and rose further. The limestone layers were now exposed to severe erosion. In the numerous grottos and caves that arose, fossils of more than 200 marine animals were found. The north side of the islands is marked by steep cliffs over a length of 45 km, which protrude more than 15 m from the sea.

The oldest human traces go back around 2,000 years. It was the Innu who first lived in the region. They fished, hunted seals and collected mollusks. In the 16th century, Basques in particular went whale hunting from the Ile Nue de Mingan. They left their ovens on the island for processing and preservation. They were followed by the Acadians , Francophone Canadians who caught seals until the 1880s. Her descendants now live in Havre Ste.-Pierre. Culturally different from them are the Gaspé fishermen who can also be found, who also speak French.

At that time the British Hudson's Bay Company controlled the islands. She banned settlements on the north coast and ran one of the largest fox farms in the country.

Museum of the whale research station "Mingan Island Cetacean Study" in Long-Point-de-Mingan

After two shipwrecks, the government had a lighthouse built on the Île aux Perroquets in 1888. The lighthouse keeper from 1888 to 1891 on the Île aux Perroquets, Count Henry de Puyjalon and Placide Vigneau, caretakers from 1892 to 1912, became very well known in the region. The last guard was J. Robert Kavanagh from 1948 to 1976. He was the father of Danielle Kavanagh, who now runs a service company for visitors to the Mingan Archipelago National Park in Long-Point-de-Mingan with her husband Marius Vibert.

In 1979 the French oceanographer Richard Sears founded the whale research organization Mingan Island Cetacean Study (MICS) with a permanent research station in Long-Point-de-Mingan, which carried out long-term studies on the occurrence of blue whales in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence for the first time . The station is connected to a very informative small museum about marine mammals, which is open to the general public for a visit.

Web links

• English and French pages from Parks Canada
• Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .

Remarks

1. ↑ Home - MICS. Retrieved July 22, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Team - MICS. Retrieved July 22, 2019 . 
3. ↑ Biography - PUYJALON, HENRY DE (Jean-Baptiste-Henri) - Volume XIII (1901-1910) - Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Retrieved July 22, 2019 . 
4. ↑ Biography - VIGNEAU, PLACIDE - Volume XV (1921-1930) - Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Retrieved July 22, 2019 . 
5. ↑ Île aux Perroquets Lighthouse. lighthousefriends.com, accessed July 30, 2019 . 
6. ^ Vibert Family - Longue-Pointe-de-Mingan. Retrieved July 30, 2019 . 
7. ^ Homepage of the Mingan Island Cetacean Study