The Ouapitagone Archipelago (french: Archipel de Ouapitagone) is a small group of rocky islands in the province of Quebec, Canada.
They are off 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 ...
(North Shore) of the
Gulf of Saint Lawrence.
Location
The islands are in 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 ...
in Le Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent Regional County Municipality.
The group of islands and rocks protect Ouapitagone Harbour and the Ouapitagone Strait.
Islands include the main Ouapitagone Island, Lac Island, the Ouapitagone du Large Islands and the Cormoran Rocks.
They give their name to the canton of Archipel-de-Ouapitagone.
The islands are near the mouth of the
Étamamiou River
The Étamamiou River (french: Rivière Étamamiou) is a river in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, Canada.
Location
The river runs through the Basse-Côte-Nord between the Olomane and Little Mecatina rivers.
It has a very irregular course of .
U ...
.
They are made of high
granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...
rocks.
Local fishermen have visited them for many years to harvest the abundant
wolffish
Anarhichadidae, the wolffishes, sea wolves or wolf eels, is a family of marine ray finned fishes belonging to the order Scorpaeniformes. These are predatory, eel shaped fishes which are native to the cold waters of the Arctic, North Pacific and ...
(''Anarhichadidae'').
Navigators in the past often used the islands as a source of fresh water.
Name
Jacques Cartier mentioned the islands in 1535, and called them the Ysles Sainct Germain.
The islands are called Ouapitougan on Bellin's map of 1744 and Wapitagun on an 1877 map by the hydrographer H. W. Bayfield.
Later sources use Wapeetougone, Wapitagone, and Jupitagun.
Some say these are variants of 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 ...
word ''Shushupitagon'', meaning "whetstone".
Others say that Ouapitagone is the name of the rare white-winged
cormorant
Phalacrocoracidae is a family of approximately 40 species of aquatic birds commonly known as cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the family have been proposed, but in 2021 the IOC adopted a consensus taxonomy of seven ge ...
, or could mean "place marked by the white droppings of cormorants".
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 call the Ouapitagone du Large island ''Matshatihk Kaiapit Ministukua'', meaning "Island of the deformed caribou."
Navigation
Between Point Sealnet and Ouapitagone Island to southwest there are many small islands and rocks as far as offshore.
Only small vessels can navigate these waters, and the crew must have local knowledge of the Ouapitagone Archipelago.
The Cormoran Rocks, from Ouapitagone Island, are marked with a light from a tower.
Small craft can anchor in Ouapitagone Harbour, which is between Ouapitagone Island and the outer islands, but again local knowledge is needed to navigate the two entrances.
The south coast of Lac Island has red, craggy cliffs more than high that have been stained white by seabirds.
Notes
Sources
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ouapitagone Archipelago
Coastal islands of Quebec