Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve

About

Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve or Mingan Archipelago Heritage Site bathes in the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in the administrative region of Côte-Nord, in Minganie RCM, Havre-Saint-Pierre municipality, facing Anticosti Island. Accessible by sea or by air, the reserve protects a thousand islands, islets of rocks, cays and limestone reefs in a mosaic of several ecosystems coexisting on small island surfaces. The reserve is home to the largest concentration of erosion monoliths in Canada, important fossil sites, unique ecological environments, alpine arctic flora, including the Mingan thistle, seabirds with the largest concentrations of Arctic terns, Common terns and Common eiders of the St. Lawrence.

The area of the Mingan islands and part of the mainland to the north of them is underlain by Ordovician sedimentary rocks. The Mingan Islands sequence is composed of two formations — the Romaine below and the Mingan above.

The exposed parts of the Romaine formation consist of dolomite and a little shale. There may be a sandstone at the base. Beds are generally thick and more or less rough in appearance, and in some places they appear kneaded together. The thickness is placed at about 260 feet.

The Mingan formation is composed of conglomerate, sandstone, and shale. These clastic strata are overlain by limestones. These strata contain much fragmentary fossil material and locally are poorly cemented. The larger part of the formation consists of finegrained limestones of which some have semi- lithographic texture. Fossils are locally common and frequently abundant. The exposed thickness is estimated not to exceed 155 feet.

The Mingan Archipelago is a major historical heritage site in Quebec; It is also a mid-Nordic natural environment with some original bio-physical elements: Ordovician limestone, cuestas, morphogenesis associated with the sea, subarctic vegetation cover and varied bird fauna. The construction of Highway 138 in 1976 opened up this fragile and unprotected land. In 1979, the author of The Mingan Archipelago: A Mid-Nordic Space Between Exploitation and Conservation, proposed that this archipelago become a park for conservation and extensive recreation, which was done in 1984.

With the exception of the covered area just behind the village, the area of Havre Saint-Pierre is mainly covered by large spruce forests and a few laricinin farms. White spruce, Dwarf birch, Rough alder, Quaking aspen can also be seen.

Brothers Marie-Victorin and Rolland Germain F.E.C. explored the region from 1924 to 1928. Their work has raised awareness in the scientific community of the enormous value of the Mingan Archipelago. Since then, other scientists have added to the ecology and phytogeography knowledge of this sector.

The vegetation of the Mingan Islands belongs to the Chibougamau-Natashquan boreal forest region, which is dominated by Black spruce. The high latitude and low altitude, combined with the proximity of the cold currents of Labrador, explain the subarctic vegetation specific to the Minganie.

The entirely calcareous nature of the horizontal stratified rocks, which make up the Anticosti - Minganie, exerts a profound influence on the structure of the flora and on the choice of species.

Remarkable for its richness, the flora includes 350 vascular plants including the presence of two rare taxa: Cirsium foliosum var. Minganense and Cypripedium passerinum var. Minganense. Sixty species are new to the list of Minganie harvests compiled by Marie-Victorin and Rolland-Germain (1969). There were also 150 bryophytes and 152 lichens, 29 of which were additions to the Nouveau Catalogue des lichens, published by Lepage (1972). '

Calypso bulbosa (L.) Oakes, Calypso d’Amérique, Calypso bulbeux. Plant of mossy woods, limestone regions of Quebec (Gaspésie, Minganie, Anticosti), rare elsewhere

Nordic flora at our feet on Niapiskau island

Frère Marie-Victorin (1885-1944), Mingan archipelago 1928, in hand, the C. minganense (large pale plant, with flower heads gathered in a mass surpassed by the leaves

The sea and the land are two worlds intimately related. Strictly speaking, the park's territory consists only of the Mingan islands and not the sea. But how to dissociate the islands from the surrounding blue immensity?

Nearly 200 species of bird can be observed in the field

- Warblers, Terns, Ospreys, Passerines, Razorbills, many waders

- Haliaeetus leucocephalus. -Bald Eagle. -Pygargue à tête blanche

- Somateria mollissima. -Common Eider. -Eider à duvet

- Fratercula arctica. Macareux moine. -Atlantic Puffin

- Bucephala islandica. -Barrow's Goldeneye. -Garrot d'Islande The large number of habitats here has provided refuge to many different mammals