Port-Menier, Quebec is a small fishing town

Fishing town

Fishing Town or Fishing City , is one of the three great ancient battlefields of China. It is famous for its resistance to the Mongol armies in the latter half of the Song Dynasty...

 located on the western end of Anticosti Island

Anticosti Island

Anticosti Island is an island at the outlet of the Saint Lawrence River into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, in Quebec, Canada, between 49° and 50° N., and between 61° 40' and 64° 30' W. At in size, it is the 90th largest island in the world and 20th largest island in Canada...

, Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, part of the L'Île-d'Anticosti municipality. The port village was built during the late 19th century by French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 chocolate maker Henri Menier

Henri Menier

Henri Emile Anatole Menier was a French businessman and adventurer and a member of the Menier family of chocolatiers. Born in Paris, he was the son of Emile-Justin Menier and grandson to Antoine Brutus Menier who founded the Menier Chocolate company...

.

The village is the hub of Anticosti Island. Its population doubles in the summer with seasonal workers and tourists. The economic mainstays are outdoor tourism, especially deer hunting, and forestry/logging. Services available in Port-Menier are: general and grocery stores, gas station, banking, restaurant, and lodging.

Port-Menier can be reached via a ferry that runs between Sept-Îles

Sept-Îles, Quebec

For the islands in north of Brittany, see JentilezSept-Îles is a city in the Côte-Nord region of eastern Quebec, Canada. It is the northernmost town in Quebec with any significant population...

, Port-Menier and Havre-Saint-Pierre, as well as other destinations along the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River

Saint Lawrence River

The Saint Lawrence is a large river flowing approximately from southwest to northeast in the middle latitudes of North America, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. It is the primary drainage conveyor of the Great Lakes Basin...

. This service is operated by Relais Nordik and runs from April through January. The nearby Port-Menier Airport

Port-Menier Airport

Port-Menier Airport, , is located east of Port-Menier, Quebec, Canada....

 also provides transportation options for the town.

History

In 1680, Louis Jolliet

Louis Jolliet

Louis Jolliet , also known as Louis Joliet, was a French Canadian explorer known for his discoveries in North America...

 became the first owner and Seigneurial Lord of the entire Anticosti Island. Together with him, the first few settlers arrived on the island. But no significant development took place until 1895 when Henri Menier bought the island and hoped to set up a seignory

Seignory

In English law, Seignory or seigniory , the lordship remaining to a grantor after the grant of an estate in fee simple....

 that could be self-supporting.

He first established a settlement at Bay Sainte-Claire in 1895 but the bay proved too shallow for the large ships he would need. In 1900, he moved the settlement to Ellis Bay and established Port-Menier along the waterfront with a 1,000 meter wharf

Wharf

A wharf or quay is a structure on the shore of a harbor where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers.Such a structure includes one or more berths , and may also include piers, warehouses, or other facilities necessary for handling the ships.A wharf commonly comprises a fixed...

. He invested a substantial amount of money to construct a sawmill

Sawmill

A sawmill is a facility where logs are cut into boards.-Sawmill process:A sawmill's basic operation is much like those of hundreds of years ago; a log enters on one end and dimensional lumber exits on the other end....

 to service the logging operations that harvested softwood timber for building lumber and Wood pulp

Wood pulp

Pulp is a lignocellulosic fibrous material prepared by chemically or mechanically separating cellulose fibres from wood, fibre crops or waste paper. Wood pulp is the most common raw material in papermaking.-History:...

 for the manufacture of paper products. The community was centered around a new cannery business designed to take advantage of the abundant supply of fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

 and lobster

Lobster

Clawed lobsters comprise a family of large marine crustaceans. Highly prized as seafood, lobsters are economically important, and are often one of the most profitable commodities in coastal areas they populate.Though several groups of crustaceans are known as lobsters, the clawed lobsters are most...

s. The town had its own hospital, school, Roman Catholic church, general store, bank, bakery, hotel, plus homes and rooming houses for the workers, and 30-room Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

n-style mansion for himself. Once completed, the island was home to 800 permanent residents, most of whom were French Canadians. Residents and businesses obtained supplies from a sailing ship Menier operated between Quebec City

Quebec City

Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...

 and the Gaspé

Gaspé, Quebec

Gaspé is a city at the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula in the Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine region of eastern Quebec, Canada. As of the 2006 census, the city had a total population of 14,819....

, and obtained coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

 from the mines at Sydney

Sydney, Nova Scotia

Sydney is a Canadian urban community in the province of Nova Scotia. It is situated on the east coast of Cape Breton Island and is administratively part of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality....

, Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...

.

After Henri Menier's death, the island and the village remained in his family until 1926 after which it became property of a succession of logging companies. The village was thereby not much more than a company town

Company town

A company town is a town or city in which much or all real estate, buildings , utilities, hospitals, small businesses such as grocery stores and gas stations, and other necessities or luxuries of life within its borders are owned by a single company...

and saw little development. In 1974, the Quebec government bought the island and set up a working municipal council in 1984.