René-Levasseur Island is a large

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

in the centre of Lake Manicouagan in

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 ...

. Its highest peak is Mount Babel, at 952 m (3,123 feet), which is contained in the Louis-Babel Ecological Reserve. With a total area of 2,020 km² (and a diameter of 50.7 km), the island is larger in area than the annular lake in which it is situated. René-Levasseur Island is the world's second-largest

lake island A lake island is any landmass within a lake. It is a type of inland island. Lake islands may form a lake archipelago. Formation Lake islands may form in numerous ways. They may occur through a build-up of sedimentation as shoals, and become t ...

(the largest is

Manitoulin Island Manitoulin Island ( ) is an island in Lake Huron, located within the borders of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario, in the bioregion known as Laurentia (bioregion), Laurentia. With an area of , it is the Lake ...

Lake Huron Lake Huron ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is shared on the north and east by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the south and west by the U.S. state of Michigan. The name of the lake is derived from early French ex ...

). The geological structure was formed by the impact of an

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

214 million years ago. The asteroid is believed to have been about 5 km in diameter, and would have hit Earth at a speed of 17 km/s, the fifth most powerful known impact that Earth has seen. The impact of the asteroid formed a crater roughly 100 km in diameter, the centre of which forms the island known today. It became an

artificial island An artificial island or man-made island is an island that has been Construction, constructed by humans rather than formed through natural processes. Other definitions may suggest that artificial islands are lands with the characteristics of hum ...

when the Manicouagan reservoir was flooded in 1970, merging two crescent-shaped lakes: Mouchalagane Lake on the western side and Manicouagan Lake on the eastern side.

Hydro-Québec Hydro-Québec () is a Canadian Crown corporations of Canada#Quebec, Crown corporation public utility headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. It manages the electricity generation, generation, electric power transmission, transmission and electricity ...

's Daniel-Johnson dam on the

Manicouagan River The Manicouagan or Manicuagan River, often clipped to Manic, is a river in Côte-Nord region of Quebec, Canada. The river originates in the Manicouagan Reservoir and flows approximately south, emptying into the Saint Lawrence River near Baie- ...

, which created the

Manicouagan Reservoir Manicouagan Reservoir (also Lake Manicouagan ; ) is an annular lake in central Quebec, Canada, covering an area of . The lake island in its centre is known as René-Levasseur Island, and its highest point is Mount Babel. The structure was c ...

, is the world's largest multiple-

arch dam An arch dam is a concrete dam that is curved upstream in plan. The arch dam is designed so that the force of the water against it, known as hydrostatic pressure, presses against the arch, causing the arch to straighten slightly and strengtheni ...

. The Manicouagan Reservoir and René-Levasseur Island are sometimes called the "eye of Quebec". The island is currently the subject of an ongoing legal battle, as the

Innu The Innu/Ilnu ('man, person'), formerly called Montagnais (French for ' mountain people'; ), are the Indigenous Canadians who inhabit northeastern Labrador in present-day Newfoundland and Labrador and some portions of Quebec. They refer to ...

First Nation of Betsiamites is taking legal action to protect its indigenous land from logging. The

Quebec Court of Appeal The Court of Appeal of Quebec (sometimes referred to as Quebec Court of Appeal or QCA; ) is the highest judicial court in Quebec, Canada. It hears cases in Quebec City and Montreal. History The court was created on May 30, 1849, as the Court ...

made a ruling on April 28, 2006, allowing Kruger Inc. to resume its logging activities. The island is also the object of an environmental/ecological campaign lobbying the government of Québec to create a protected area spanning the entire island. The group, SOS Levasseur, arose in 2003 partly from the interest that mainstream environmental groups in Québec demonstrated during environmental consultations. All groups recommended that René-Levasseur Island be protected in its entirety. The Island has been proposed as a Canadian National Park, an ecological reserve, a biodiversity reserve and an exceptional geological site. There seems to be an exceptional concentration of old-growth boreal forest stands on the island. SOS Levasseur has been conducting research expeditions on the island since January 2005, whose aim is to identify

old-growth forest An old-growth forest or primary forest is a forest that has developed over a long period of time without disturbance. Due to this, old-growth forests exhibit unique ecological features. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Natio ...

stands and to obtain their protection under the Quebec Forest Law as Exceptional Forest Ecosystems (EFE). The Ministry of Natural Resources and Fauna (MRNFQ), along with Kruger Inc., have already identified seven EFEs, spanning approximately 25 km². SOS Levasseur has submitted seven more, surveyed in the summer of 2005, and is expected to submit many more from the 2006 and 2007 expeditions. The MRNFQ has yet to recognize the seven sites proposed by SOS Levasseur.

Image gallery

File:Île René-Levasseur1.JPG, René-Levasseur Island in the background File:Île René-Levasseur (coupes).JPG,

Clearcutting Clearcutting, clearfelling or clearcut logging is a forestry/logging practice in which most or all trees in an area are uniformly cut down. Along with Shelterwood cutting, shelterwood and Seed tree, seed tree harvests, it is used by foresters t ...

on the island File:STS009 Manicouagan.jpg, As seen from space shuttle (north is to the lower right)

Image gallery

References

See also