Anticosti Island

UNESCO World Heritage Site Inscribed 2023 For The World'S Most Complete Fossil Record Of The First Mass Extinction; An Island Of About 7,900 Square Kilometres In The Gulf Of St Lawrence With Roughly 220,000 White Tailed Deer And Around 400 Recorded Shipwrecks · Port-Menier, Quebec

Anticosti is an island of nearly eight thousand square kilometres in the Gulf of St Lawrence with about two hundred and forty people on it, and in 2023 UNESCO inscribed it for something almost nobody visits it for: ITS LIMESTONE HOLDS THE MOST COMPLETE FOSSIL RECORD ANYWHERE OF THE FIRST MASS EXTINCTION, the Ordovician-Silurian event of about four hundred and forty-seven million years ago, when most life on earth died. The fossils are simply in the cliffs and riverbeds. Above them is the other Anticosti: a French chocolate magnate, Henri Menier, bought the whole island in 1895 and INTRODUCED TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY DEER, whose descendants now number around a hundred and sixty thousand and have eaten the forest understorey to the ground. VAUREAL FALLS drops seventy-six metres into a canyon. AROUND FOUR HUNDRED SHIPS HAVE WRECKED ON THE COAST. Access is by ferry or plane from the Cote-Nord, and there is one village.

Gulf of St Lawrence, Cote-Nord, Quebec, Port-Menier, Quebec, Canada

SEASONAL AND LOGISTICALLY DEMANDING. THE PRACTICAL SEASON IS ROUGHLY LATE JUNE TO EARLY OCTOBER. ACCESS IS BY AIR FROM SEPT-ILES OR MONT-JOLI, or by the RELAIS NORDIK COASTAL FERRY from Rimouski and Havre-Saint-Pierre, which runs on a weekly-ish schedule in season and is slow - CHECK THE SAILING SCHEDULE BEFORE PLANNING ANYTHING, because it governs the whole trip. PARC NATIONAL D'ANTICOSTI (SEPAQ) COVERS PART OF THE ISLAND with a daily access fee and reservable accommodation. THERE IS ESSENTIALLY ONE VILLAGE, PORT-MENIER, and one road network of gravel - A VEHICLE MUST BE BOOKED OR BROUGHT and rentals are very limited. AUTUMN IS DEER HUNTING SEASON and much of the island's accommodation is taken by hunting packages. Fuel, groceries and services are minimal. Confirm everything well in advance.

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