The Coacoachou River (french: Rivière Coacoachou) is a river in the

Côte-Nord Côte-Nord (, ; ; land area ) is the second-largest administrative region by land area in Quebec, Canada, after Nord-du-Québec. It covers much of the northern shore of the Saint Lawrence River estuary and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence past Tadous ...

region of Quebec, Canada.

Location

The river basin covers . It includes parts of the unorganized territory of Petit-Mécatina and the municipality of

Côte-Nord-du-Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent Côte-Nord-du-Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent is a municipality (Quebec), municipality in the regional county municipality of Le Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent Regional County Municipality, Le Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent in the Côte-Nord Quebec region, region of the ...

. The mouth of the river is in the municipality of

in Le Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent Regional County Municipality. The river flows from the long Lake Coacoachou via Lake Tshipitnauman into Salé Lake. Salé Lake is a widening of the Coacoachou River, which flows from north to south for about and empties into Coacoachou bay, an indentation in the Saint Lawrence coast about east of Natashquan The bay is the only harbor on this part of the coast for mid-sized ships, but the many shoals and rocks make the entrance difficult. However, according to the ''Dictionnaire des rivières et lacs de la province de Québec'' (1914),

Name

The

Innu The Innu / Ilnu ("man", "person") or Innut / Innuat / Ilnuatsh ("people"), formerly called Montagnais from the French colonial period ( French for "mountain people", English pronunciation: ), are the Indigenous inhabitants of territory in the ...

of the region used the river to access their hunting grounds, and called it ''Natistagoua'', or "Caribou River". In 1694

Louis Jolliet Louis Jolliet (September 21, 1645after May 1700) was a French-Canadian explorer known for his discoveries in North America. In 1673, Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit Catholic priest and missionary, were the first non-Natives to explore an ...

stopped in the "Natistagoua Harbor", and this name appears on a map from 1784. Thomas Wright uses "Natistagoet Harbour" on a 1790 map. The

Innu language Innu-aimun or Montagnais is an Algonquian language spoken by over 10,000 Innu in Labrador and Quebec in Eastern Canada. It is a member of the Cree–Montagnais–Naskapi dialect continuum and is spoken in various dialects depending on the commu ...

term ''koakoachu'' or ''coacoacho'' means "wolverine" or "savage devil", a greedy, cunning and carnivorous animal. The name Coacoachou appears in 1833 on a map by Bayfield to designate the bay.

Fishing

Initially the Innu people of the region used the rivers freely as highways and sources of fish. By 1845, suffering from famine, they began to lay claim to the rivers. The "salmon war"^{r/sup> of 1981–1983 mostly concerned four rivers, the Moisie, Natashquan, Coacoachou and Olomane.
Private ownership of most but not all rivers was removed as a result.

In 2017 all salmon, large and small, had to be released on the Malbaie (Gaspé Peninsula), Pigou
''Note: The surname Pigou forms part of the terms Pigou Club and Pigouvian tax, both derived from the name of the English economist Arthur Cecil Pigou.''

Pigou is an English surname of Huguenot derivation.

The Pigou family originated from Amiens ...
, Bouleau

Gilles Bouleau (born 25 May 1962) is a French journalist. As a journalist and reporter on TF1 and LCI for several years, he spent several years in other countries as a correspondent in London and Washington. Head of special operations since 201 ...
, Magpie

Magpies are birds of the Corvidae family. Like other members of their family, they are widely considered to be intelligent creatures. The Eurasian magpie, for instance, is thought to rank among the world's most intelligent creatures, and is one ...
, Coacoachou, Nétagamiou, Little Mécatina and Véco rivers.
Only young salmon could be retained on 51 rivers, and limited retention of large salmon was allowed on 19 rivers.

Notes

Sources

*
*
*
*
*
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coacoachou River
Rivers of Côte-Nord}