Editing Anticosti Island (section)

==History==
===Indigenous history===
For thousands of years, Anticosti Island was the territory of the indigenous peoples who lived on the mainland and used it as a hunting ground. The [[Innu]] called it ''Notiskuan'', translated as "where bears are hunted" and the [[Mi'kmaq people|Mi'kmaq]] called it ''Natigôsteg'', meaning "forward land".<ref name="Anticosti toponymy" />

===Colonisation and settlement===
The French explorer [[Jacques Cartier]] sailed along its shore in the summer of 1534. He provided its first written description and named it ''Isle de l'Assomption'',{{sfnp|''EB''|1911}} because he reached it on the Day of the [[Assumption of Mary]]. This name had fallen into disuse by 1656. About 1586, the historian André Thevet wrote that "the savages named [it] Naticousti", while [[Samuel de Champlain]] spelled it Antiscoti (1612), Antiscoty (1613), Enticosty (1625) and Antycosty (1632). From that time on, France had officially incorporated the island into its [[French colonial empire|colonial empire]].

The island's first European settlers arrived in 1680 when [[Louis XIV of France|Louis XIV]] gave [[Louis Jolliet]] the [[Seigneurial system of New France|Seigneury]] of the [[Mingan Archipelago]] and Anticosti Island as compensation for reconnoitring the [[Mississippi River|Mississippi]] and [[Hudson Bay]].  Louis Jolliet erected a fort on Anticosti and in the spring of 1681 settled there with his wife, four children and six servants. His fort was captured and occupied during the winter of 1690 by some of the [[Massachusetts]] troops of [[William Phips]] during their retreat after an unsuccessful attempt to capture [[Quebec City]]. After Jolliet's death in 1700, the island was divided among his three sons and the Jolliet family retained ownership until 1763 when the island became part of [[British North America]]{{sfnp|''EB''|1878}} under the terms of the [[Treaty of Paris (1763)|Treaty of Paris]] that ended the [[Seven Years' War]]. That same year, the island was annexed to [[Colony of Newfoundland|Newfoundland]] until 1774 when it was returned to [[Lower Canada]]{{sfnp|''EB''|1911}} and annexed again to Newfoundland from 1809 to 1825. It became a part of Quebec (as Lower Canada came to be called) at the [[Canadian Confederation]] in 1867. During these years the island property changed hands several times, its owners generally using it for the harvesting of timber; otherwise no real development took place. For example, the French Canadian [[Gabriel-Elzéar Taschereau]] owned it among other seigneuries and made money from them.<ref name="IA-his">{{cite web |url=http://www.ile-anticosti.com/index.php?p=page&id=70&lang=fr |title=Histoire d'Anticosti |publisher=Municipalité de L'Île-d'Anticosti |access-date=2009-11-05 |language=fr |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100505135146/http://ile-anticosti.com/index.php?p=page&id=70&lang=fr |archive-date=2010-05-05 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In 1874, it was bought by the Anticosti Island Company and they founded the villages at English Bay and Fox Bay. Most of the inhabitants, however, continued to be the few keepers of the island's many lighthouses.{{sfnp|''EB''|1878}} Because of the number of shipwrecks around the island, stores of provisions were also maintained around the island for sailors who might be washed ashore.{{sfnp|''EB''|1878}} In 1882, the Parish of Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption was founded, a term referring to Cartier's name for the island. In 1884, the island became property of the Stockwell brothers who formed a forestry company two years later. But they were unsuccessful and the company lasted only five years.<ref name="IA-his"/> By the 1890s, the fish and wildlife of the island had been almost eradicated through the new locals' indiscriminate slaughter.{{sfnp|''EB''|1911}}

In 1895, Anticosti was sold for $125,000 to French chocolate maker [[Henri Menier]] who also leased the shore fishing rights. Menier named the island's {{convert|70|m|abbr=on}} high [[Anticosti National Park|Vauréal Falls]] after the town of [[Vauréal]] in France where he owned a home. He constructed the entire village of [[Port-Menier, Quebec|Port-Menier]], built a cannery for packing fish and [[American lobster|lobsters]], and attempted to develop its resources of lumber, [[peat]] and minerals.{{sfnp|''EB''|1911}} Many of the original houses still stand today. Furthermore, he converted the island into a personal game preserve and introduced nonindigenous animals for this purpose, including a herd of 220 [[white-tailed deer]]. The deer thrived and today the population exceeds 160,000<ref name="IA-geo"/> while the island's moose population is about 1,000. It has been reported that [[American black bear|black bear]]s, which rely on berries to bulk on for the winter, had lived on the island until the introduction, but have disappeared perhaps because of the deer eating the berry bushes bare.<ref name="parkguide">''Parc national d'Anticosti - Park Journal 2008-2009 Edition'', Parcs Québec</ref><ref name="IA-his"/><ref>"''Revenge of the Venison''", p.18, Discover, August 2006.</ref>

Henri Menier died in 1913 and his brother Gaston became the owner of Anticosti Island. He used and maintained it for a time but eventually decided it was not an economically viable operation and sold it to the Wayagamack Pulp and Paper Company in 1926 for $6,000,000. For the next five decades, the island was used almost exclusively by forestry companies which harvested timber and built some infrastructure, mainly roads, but abandoned the villages at English Bay and Fox Bay.<ref name="IA-his"/>

Wayagamack's timber production was successful until the [[Great Depression]] when the paper market collapsed. The island property was taken over by Consolidated Paper Corporation Limited in 1931, but they showed little interest in it and put it up for sale. Offers came from Canadian, American, British, French and Belgian parties. In July 1937, an offer was received from a consortium of [[Netherlands|Dutch]] and [[Germany|German]] capitalists who intended to build a sulphite mill and wanted a steady supply of pulpwood and access to Canadian capital. In the autumn of that year, a team of German surveyors travelled to the island to examine its timber and export potential. When this story broke in the ''[[The Gazette (Montreal)|Montreal Gazette]]'' of 2 December 1937, it caused an immediate controversy since the story claimed that the survey team was really made up of [[Adolf Hitler]]'s agents and that most were naval, military and fortifications experts. Despite the substantial offer, the promise of thousands of new jobs, and the fact that there were no legal methods to block the sale, the suspicions remained. A committee was set up to investigate the affair but concluded that "there was no evidence to indicate that the project has other than a commercial purpose". However, when the deadline to purchase the island passed on 15 September 1938, the offer expired and controversy died out.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Thomas |first1=Robert H. |date=Spring 2001 |title=The German Attempt to Purchase Anticosti Island in 1937 |journal=Canadian Military Journal |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=47–52 |url=http://www.journal.forces.gc.ca/vo2/no1/doc/47-52-eng.pdf |access-date=2011-04-18}}</ref>

In 1974, the government of Quebec purchased the island from the forestry company Consolidated Bathurst Ltd. for $23,780,000. Anticosti was placed under management by the Ministry of Recreation, Hunting and Fishing (''ministère du Loisir de la Chasse et de la Pêche'') and in 1983 the process began to set up a working municipal structure.<ref name="IA-his"/> Today, about 60% is under management by [[Sépaq]] and since April 2001, {{convert|572|km2|abbr=on}} has been designated as a national conservation park. With its 24 rivers and streams bountiful with salmon and trout, the island is now a tourist destination for anglers and hunters, particularly from the United States and Canada, as well as for [[Paleontology|paleontologists]], bird watchers and hikers.

In 2023, the perimeter of Anticosti Island, with two rivers, was made a [[UNESCO World Heritage Site]], for its abundance of fossils.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Bilodeau |first1=Émilie |title=Anticosti ajoutée au patrimoine mondial de l’UNESCO |url=https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/2023-09-19/anticosti-ajoutee-au-patrimoine-mondial-de-l-unesco.php |access-date=20 September 2023 |work=La Presse |date=19 September 2023 |language=fr-CA}}</ref> The World Heritage Site includes the entire coastline of the island (except for the region around the village of Port-Menier), and the banks of the Jupiter and Vauréal rivers. A one-kilometer buffer zone extends inland from the coasts and riverbanks.<ref name="Master plan - Anticosti National Park" />