Basse Côte-Nord
Highway 138 used to end at Havre-Saint-Pierre, leaving the dozen or so villages along the rugged Basse Côte-Nord (Lower North Shore) cut off from the rest of Québec, as they had been for centuries – so much so that many inhabitants only speak English. Now Hwy-138 links Havre-Saint-Pierre with Natashquan and three other villages on the 160km stretch. If you make the lonely journey by car – as yet there is no bus – you will receive a welcome unique to a people not long connected by road to the rest of Canada.
Baie-Johan-Beetz
Some 69km east of Havre-Saint-Pierre, is the village of BAIE-JOHAN-BEETZ, named after the painter and sculptor whose extraordinary and enormous house (late June to Sept daily 10am–noon & 1.30–4pm; guided tour; $5; t 418 648 0557, t 1 888 393 0557, w baiejohanbeetz.com) is open to the public.
Natashquan
At the end of the 780km road from Tadoussac, a small church, wooden houses and the old weather-worn huts of cod fishermen are about all there is to see in NATASHQUAN, one-time home of revered Québécois poet Gilles Vigneault. La Vieille École (24 chemin d’en Haut; mid-June to Sept daily 10am–5pm & Oct by appointment; $5; t 418 726 3060), a schoolhouse built in the early twentieth century, proudly displays memorabilia from his life’s works. The century-old general store has been reborn as an interpretation centre (32 chemin d’en Haut; opening details same as Vieille École) focusing on local history; it’s less impressive than the town’s long sandy beach.
Île d’Anticosti
In the Gulf of St Lawrence between the Jacques Cartier and Honguedo straits, the remote 220km-long Île d’Anticosti was once known as the “Graveyard of the Gulf”, as more than four hundred ships have been wrecked on its shores. The island’s vast expanse is made up of windswept sea cliffs and forests of twisted pine, crisscrossed by turbulent rivers and sheer ravines. Known as Notiskuan – “the land where we hunt bears” – by the Aboriginal people, and a walrus- and whale-fishing ground by the Basques, Île d’Anticosti became the private domain of Henri Menier, a French chocolate millionaire, in 1873. He imported white-tailed Virginia deer, red fox, silver fox, beaver and moose in order to gun them down at his leisure. Today, a less exclusive horde of hunters and anglers comes here to blast away at deer from the back of four-wheel-drives and to hoist the salmon from the rivers. For other travellers it presents an opportunity to explore an untamed area that’s still practically deserted.
Innu Nikamu festival
Although Claude McKenzie and Florent Vollant, formerly of the local aboriginal group Kashtin – the only nationally-known band to perform in a native tongue – have gone on to solo careers, they still appear occasionally at the excellent Innu Nikamu festival of song and music (information t 418 927 2181, w innunikamu.ca), held in early August, 14km east of Sept-Îles in the Montagnais reserve of Maliotenam. Inspired by Kashtin’s success, numerous other groups travel to the four-day festival to produce some of the best of Canada’s contemporary and traditional aboriginal music. As well as the music, the festival includes aboriginal food and craft stalls; despite the reserve’s alcohol ban, there is always a good buzz. There is no public transport to the reserve: by car, take Hwy-138 towards Havre-Saint-Pierre and turn right at the Moisie intersection for the Maliotenam entrance. Tickets, available at the gate, cost $5–15.
L’Archipel-de-Mingan
Immediately offshore from Havre-Saint-Pierre, the Réserve de parc national du Canada de l’Archipel-de-Mingan ($5.80; w pc.gc.ca/mingan) offers some of the most beautiful landscapes in Québec. Standing on the islands’ white-sand shorelines are innumerable 8m-high rocks that have the appearance of ancient totem poles, with bright orange lichen colouring their mottled surfaces and bonsai-sized trees clinging to their crevices. These formations originated as underwater sediment near the equator. The sediment was thrust above sea level more than 250 million years ago and then covered in an ice cap several kilometres thick. As the drifting ice melted, the islands emerged again, seven thousand years ago, at their present location. The sea and wind gave the final touch by chipping away at the soft limestone to create the majestic monoliths of today.
Bizarre geology isn’t the archipelago’s only remarkable feature. The flora constitutes a unique insular garden of 452 arctic and rare alpine species, which survive here at their southerly limit due to the limestone soil, long harsh winters and cold Gulf of Labrador current. Other than the Gulf’s whale populations, the permanent wildlife inhabitants of the park include puffins, who build nests in the scant soil of three of the islands from early May to late August, and 199 other species of bird.