APPENDIX A XLIX 



peaks just mentioned rise just above timberline and in some cases 

 there are deeply cut cirque basins containing lakes on their flanks. 



The fifty miles of mountains rising above timberline and forming 

 the most elevated part of the Shickshocks, include the wildest and 

 most alpine summits of eastern America except the Torngats of 

 Northeastern Labrador; and one would expect to find them a centre 

 of attraction for the tourist with motor roads and hotels and crowds 

 of summer visitors as in the White mountains. Instead, they are one 

 of the wildest and most inaccessible parts of the province of Quebec 

 and form an impassable barrier to communication between the narrow 

 north and the broad south of the peninsula. It is this bleak mountain 

 range which has preserved uncontaminated the primitive human 

 communities of Gaspé. Their whole life and their outlook upon the 

 world are shaped and limited by the Shickshocks. 



The People of Gaspé 



With an area as great as that of some European Kingdoms, 

 Gaspé has a population of perhaps 100,000, spread out thinly around 

 the edges of the peninsula. In origin the population is very mixed. 

 To the aboriginal inhabitants, the Micmac Indians, have been added 

 colonies of fishermen on the eastern coast, groups of Acadians and 

 French-Canadians, and of U.E. Loyalists, as well as bands of Irish 

 and Scotch immigrants, farther west. On the broader southern side 

 of Gaspé, these groups of French or English speaking settlers have 

 remained more or less separate, but on the northern side the habitant 

 has almost completely absorbed the English speaking elements. 



At the extreme east of Gaspé the Forillon extends thornlike into 

 the Gulf, the final tip of the range of mountains. It presents lime- 

 stone cliffs to the northisast, rising vertically from 500 to 800 feet 

 above the open sea; while toward the southwest the beds are tipped 

 steeply toward more sheltered waters, with here and there a minute 

 cove and gravelly beach where boats can land. It is not surprising 

 that the Channel Islanders who settled at Grandgrève are fishermen 

 with houses perched like nests of seabirds on the steep slopes, ready 

 to plunge into the water when shoals of fish approach the shore. 

 They farm a few fields so steeply tilted seawards that they can only 

 be ploughed one way, turning the furrows down hill. 



The people of Percé and of Bonaventure island, also, though on 

 more level ground, are almost as much dependent on the sea as the 

 gulls and cormorants and the pufîfins and gannets that nest on the 

 nearby clifïs, though summer visitors, attracted by the beach and 



