The rivière au Tonnerre (''English: Thunder River'') is a watercourse that runs through the municipality of

Rivière-au-Tonnerre, Quebec Rivière-au-Tonnerre is a municipality in the Côte-Nord region of the province of Quebec in Canada. In addition to Riviere-au-Tonnerre itself, the communities within the municipality include Rivière-Pigou, Rivière-aux-Graines, and Sheldrake, ...

in the

Minganie Regional County Municipality Minganie is a regional county municipality in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, Canada. It includes Anticosti Island. Its seat is Havre-Saint-Pierre. It has an area of according to Quebec's ''Ministère des Affaires municipales, des Régions et ...

(RCM), 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 ...

administrative region, in

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

, in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. The course of the river crosses the township of Margane, then constitutes the boundary between the townships of Margane and Touzel until the confluence of the river with the North shore of the

Gulf of Saint Lawrence , image = Baie de la Tour.jpg , alt = , caption = Gulf of St. Lawrence from Anticosti National Park, Quebec , image_bathymetry = Golfe Saint-Laurent Depths fr.svg , alt_bathymetry = Bathymetry ...

Location

The river flows south for from a mountainous area west of Lake Magpie. It has many rapids in its headwaters. The Chute au Tonnerre (Thunder Falls) is upstream from the mouth. The mouth of the river is located in the municipality of Rivière-au-Tonnerre in the Minganie Regional County Municipality. The widening at the mouth, which is halfway between Sept-Îles and Havre-Saint-Pierre, forms a natural harbor for small craft that is accessed from the sea through a narrow channel. The community of Rivière-au-Tonnerre is on both sides of the river mouth, which is crossed by

Quebec Route 138 Route 138 is a major highway in the Canadian province of Quebec, following the entire north shore of the Saint Lawrence River past Montreal to the temporary eastern terminus in Kegashka on the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The western terminus is in ...

. The southern portion of the "Tonnerre River" hydrographic slope is served by Route 138 along the north shore of the

. The R0902 forest road (going north-west) serves the western part of this slope. The surface of the "Thunder River" is usually frozen from early November to the end of April, however, safe ice circulation is generally from late November to mid-April.

Description

The ''Dictionnaire des rivières et lacs de la province de Québec'' (1914) describes the river as,

Name

The Innu call the river ''U`suk `Sipo'', meaning

red-breasted merganser The red-breasted merganser (''Mergus serrator'') is a diving duck, one of the sawbills. The genus name is a Latin word used by Pliny and other Roman authors to refer to an unspecified waterbird, and ''serrator'' is a sawyer from Latin ''serra' ...

(''Mergus serrator''), a common bird species on the North Shore. This is spelled "Ouchigouchipi" in the maps by

Jacques-Nicolas Bellin Jacques Nicolas Bellin (1703 – 21 March 1772) was a French hydrographer, geographer, and member of the French intellectual group called the philosophes. Bellin was born in Paris. He was hydrographer of France's hydrographic office, member of t ...

(1744) and Robert de Vaugondy (1755). In his 1776 map Captain Carver writes the name as "Ouchigoush-ipi". The spelling "Uhukuhîpu" has also been used by anthropologists. The name "Thunder R." appears on the 1853 map by Bouchette fils, and as "R. au Tonnere" on the maps by Taché (1870 and 1880).

Basin

The river basin covers . It lies between the basins of the Sheldrake to the west and the Jupitagon to the east. Part of the basin is in the unorganized territory of Lac-Jérôme and part in the municipality of Rivière-au-Tonnerre. A map of the

ecological regions of Quebec The Ecological regions of Quebec are regions with specific types of vegetation and climates as defined by the Quebec Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Parks. Given the size of this huge province, there is wide variation from the temperate deciduou ...

shows the river basin is in sub-regions 6j-S, 6j-T and 6m-T of the east spruce/moss subdomain.

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * * * {{authority control Rivers of Côte-Nord Minganie Regional County Municipality Tonnerre