L'Isle-aux-Coudres (), is a municipality located on island aux Coudres, in the

St. Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (, ) is a large international river in the middle latitudes of North America connecting the Great Lakes to the North Atlantic Ocean. Its waters flow in a northeasterly direction from Lake Ontario to the Gulf of St. Lawren ...

, in

Charlevoix Regional County Municipality Charlevoix is a regional county municipality () in the Capitale-Nationale region of Quebec, Canada. The seat is Baie-Saint-Paul. Subdivisions There are seven subdivisions within the RCM: ;Cities & Towns (1) * Baie-Saint-Paul ;Municipalities ...

Capitale-Nationale Capitale-Nationale (; ) is one of the 17 administrative regions of Quebec. It is anchored by the provincial capital, Quebec City, and is largely coextensive with that city's metropolitan area. It has a land area of 18,684.78 km2. It reported ...

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 Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. Variations of the official name are: La Baleine, L'Île-aux-Coudres, Saint-Bernard-de-l'Île-aux-Coudres and Saint-Louis-de-l'Isle-aux-Coudres. Locally, the following variants are also noted: Île aux Coudriers, Île Elbow, Île aux Marsouins and Île aux Socles. Whereas the modern French spelling for "island" is ''île'', the municipality uses the old French spelling of ''Isle''. Its population centres include La Baleine in the northeast, (Saint-Louis-de-)l'Isle-aux-Coudres in the south, and Saint-Bernard-sur-Mer in the northwest facing Baie-Saint-Paul. Access to the island are by sea (ferry) and air (airport). The free

ferry A ferry is a boat or ship that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus ...

service connects Saint-Bernard-sur-Mer to Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive on the north shore of the gulf. It was the setting for the classic 1963

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; ) is a Canadian public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and altern ...

documentary ''

Pour la suite du monde ''Pour la suite du monde'' (, "So That the World May Go On", also known as ''Of Whales, the Moon, and Men''; ''For Those Who Will Follow'', and ''The Moontrap'' in English) is a 1963 Canadian documentary film produced by the National Film Board ...

''.

History

On September 6, 1535, during his second voyage to

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

, the navigator

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 ...

named the island "couldres", after a hazel tree (''

Corylus cornuta ''Corylus cornuta'', the beaked hazelnut (or just ''beaked hazel''), is a deciduous shrubby hazel with two subspecies found throughout most of North America. Description The beaked hazelnut can reach tall with stems thick with smooth gray b ...

''), a shrub abundant in the area. In 1928, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada erected a monument commemorating the anchorage of Cartier's 3 ships and the celebration of the first mass in the interior of Canada, at Saint-Bernard-sur-Mer. Étienne de Lessart of Ste. Anne-de-Beaupré was granted title as the first Seigneur of l'Isle-aux-Coudres by Governor Buade de Frontenac on March 4, 1677. Due to a failure to develop the property to increase its value he was forced to sell the seigneurie on October 19, 1687 to the Séminaire de Québec who began to establish a monastery on the site. On October 29, 1687, Governor Denonville and Intendant Champigny granted the island as a seignory to the Seminary of Quebec, an act that was ratified on March 1, 1688. In 1728, the first concessions of land were granted to settlers, and by 1741, the Parish of Saint-Louis-de-France was formed, soon after renamed to Saint-Louis-de-l'Isle-aux-Coudres. Named after

Louis IX of France Louis IX (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270), also known as Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death in 1270. He is widely recognized as the most distinguished of the Direct Capetians. Following the death of his father, Louis VI ...

, it probably was also a tribute to Louis Chaumont (or Chaumonot) de La Jaunière (ca. 1700-1776), priest of Baie-Saint-Paul from 1736 to 1767. In 1845, the Parish Municipality of Saint-Louis-de-l'Isle-aux-Coudres was formed. In 1847, it was abolished, but reestablished in 1855, and would remain the only municipality covering the entire island for the next 80 years. The community of Saint-Bernard-sur-Mer, first known as Pointe-des-Roches until 1936, only really developed from 1902 onward. The Parish of Saint-Bernard, named in honour of

Bernard of Clairvaux Bernard of Clairvaux, Cistercians, O.Cist. (; 109020 August 1153), venerated as Saint Bernard, was an abbot, Mysticism, mystic, co-founder of the Knights Templar, and a major leader in the reform of the Benedictines through the nascent Cistercia ...

(ca. 1090-1153), was officially founded in 1934 when it separated from the Parish of Saint-Louis, and was incorporated as the Municipality of Saint-Bernard-de-l'Île-aux-Coudres in 1936. In 1951, the Municipality of La Baleine was incorporated, when it separated from Saint-Louis-de-l'Isle-aux-Coudres. It was named after an incident that had occurred in the late 18th century when the islanders found a carcass of a dead

whale Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully Aquatic animal, aquatic placental mammal, placental marine mammals. As an informal and Colloquialism, colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea ...

(in French: ''baleine'') that had stranded on the island's flats. At this point, the island was divided into three municipal entities. On January 5, 1994, the Municipality of Saint-Bernard-de-l'Île-aux-Coudres and the Parish Municipality of Saint-Louis-de-l'Isle-aux-Coudres were merged and formed the Municipality of L'Île-aux-Coudres (new spelling). On August 23, 2000, this municipality and the Municipality of La Baleine were merged again to form the new Municipality of L'Isle-aux-Coudres (old spelling).

Geography

The island is about long and averages in width. It is thought to have been formed from material lifted up by the impact of the

meteor A meteor, known colloquially as a shooting star, is a glowing streak of a small body (usually meteoroid) going through Earth's atmosphere, after being heated to incandescence by collisions with air molecules in the upper atmosphere, creating a ...

which formed the

Charlevoix Charlevoix ( , ) is a cultural and natural region in Quebec, on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River as well as in the Laurentian Mountains area of the Canadian Shield. This dramatic landscape includes rolling terrain, fjords, headlands ...

region. Local streams include the Rouge River and Mare Creek.

Demographics

Private dwellings occupied by usual residents (2021): 583 (total dwellings: 760) Mother tongue (2021): * French as first language: 98.2% * English as first language: 0.5% * English and French as first language: 0.5% * Other as first language: 0.5%

Economy

Formerly, porpoise fishing was practiced on a broad basis, supplemented by some boat construction. Today tourism is the main industry, and the place is known for its historical sites, tourist accommodations, and craftspeople. On the beach near the ferry dock, there is a shipyard that is home to craftsmen who work according to ancestral techniques. The island is also a popular destination for cyclists.

Local government

List of former mayors (since formation of current municipality): * Jean-Claude Perron (2000) * Gilbert Leclerc (2000) * Dominique Tremblay (2000–2021) * Christyan Dufour (2021–present)

Image gallery

File:Moulin à eau de l'Île-aux-Coudres-9103.jpg, Wind and water mill heritage site File:1976 carrousel 013 095.jpg, Old Desgagné-de-L'Isle-aux-Coudres windmill, 247 chemin du Moulin File:013 092 Isle aux Coudres.jpg, St. Lawrence

schooner A schooner ( ) is a type of sailing ship, sailing vessel defined by its Rig (sailing), rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more Mast (sailing), masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than t ...

, in a field File:Iles-aux-Coudres (9139077709).jpg, Ferries at the river station dock, Saint-Bernard-sur-Mer

References

External links

*
Les Moulins de L'Isle-aux-Coudres
{{DEFAULTSORT:Isle-Aux-Coudres, Quebec Municipalities in Quebec Incorporated places in Capitale-Nationale 1728 establishments in the French colonial empire