Gaspé Bay () is a

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, located on the northeast coast of the

Gaspé Peninsula The Gaspé Peninsula, also known as Gaspesia (, ; ), is a peninsula along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River that extends from the Matapedia Valley in Quebec, Canada, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is separated from New Brunswick on it ...

, Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine region,

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, Canada.

History

Gaspé Bay is where

Jacques Cartier Jacques Cartier (; 31 December 14911 September 1557) was a French maritime explorer from Brittany. Jacques Cartier was the first Europeans, European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, wh ...

took possession of

New France New France (, ) was the territory colonized by Kingdom of France, France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Kingdom of Great Br ...

(now part of Canada) in the name of

François I of France Francis I (; ; 12 September 1494 – 31 March 1547) was King of France from 1515 until his death in 1547. He was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy. He succeeded his first cousin once removed and father-in-law Louis&nb ...

on July 24, 1534 - the beginning of France's overseas expansion. British General

James Wolfe Major-general James Wolfe (2 January 1727 – 13 September 1759) was a British Army officer known for his training reforms and, as a major general, remembered chiefly for his victory in 1759 over the French at the Battle of the Plains of ...

raided the Bay in the Gulf of St. Lawrence Campaign (1758), the year before the Siege of Quebec. File:Baie_de_Gaspe_950626_006a.jpg, Whale, expedition organized by Observation littoral Percé (1995) File:Baie_de_Gaspe_950626_007a.jpg, Whale, expedition organized by Observation littoral Percé (1995) Paleobotanical

fossils A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

and trace fossils of

Archaeognatha The Archaeognatha are an order of apterygotes, known by various common names such as jumping bristletails. Among extant insect taxa they are some of the most evolutionarily primitive; they appeared in the Middle Devonian period at about the sa ...

from the

Devonian period The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era during the Phanerozoic eon, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the preceding Silurian period at million years ago ( Ma), to the beginning of the succeeding C ...

have been found on the bay's shores. The town of

Gaspé, Quebec Gaspé () is a city at the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula in the Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine region of eastern Quebec in Canada. Gaspé is about northeast of Quebec City and east of Rimouski. Gaspé has a total population of 15,063, as of th ...

lies on a part of its southern shore, while most of its northern shore is in the

Forillon National Park Forillon National Park, one of 42 national parks and park reserves across Canada, is located at the outer tip of the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec and covers . Created in 1970, Forillon was the first National Parks of Canada, national park in Que ...

. The main rivers draining to the bay are the Dartmouth River and the York River (the latter one has its mouth in the city center of Gaspé).

References

Bays of Quebec Landforms of Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine Gaspé Peninsula {{Quebec-geo-stub