This Land 



Bonaventure Island, 

 Quebec 



by Robert H. Mohlenbrock 



Flat-topped, sheer-sided Perce Rock 

 protrudes into tiie Gulf of Saint Lawrence 

 on the eastern edge of Quebec's Gaspe 

 Peninsula. During high tide, it stands iso- 

 lated from the mainland, but at low tide, 

 one can reach it by walking across a 400- 

 yard stretch of exposed, slippery rocks. 

 Looming out of the water three miles east 

 of Perce Rock is another landmass. This is 

 Bonaventure Island, internationally 

 known for its colony of nesting gannets. 



Perce Rock lies off the eastern shore of 

 the Gaspe Peninsula. Above, right: A 

 gannet uses seaweed to build its nest on 

 Bonaventure Island. 



Victoria Hurst; First Ligtit 



68 Natural History 5/94 



Along with Perce Rock, it was designated 

 a provincial conservation park in 1985 

 under the management of the Quebec De- 

 partment of Recreation, Game, and Fish. 



According to geologist H. W. McGer- 

 rigle, Perce Rock consists of layers of 

 hmestone deposited by the sea about 375 

 million years ago. Its seaward side ends in 

 a low, wide arch that creates a huge win- 

 dow through the rock. Two hundred feet 

 beyond is a separate pillar of rock, or "sea- 

 stack." This pillar was also once con- 

 nected to Perce Rock by an arch, but the 

 arch collapsed in 1845. According to 

 sailors' reports from about 1600, there 

 once was a series of four arches. The one 

 that remains should last a few hundred 

 more years, according to McGerrigle. 



Bonaventure Island is reached by ferry 

 from the village of Perce, nestled beneath 

 nearby mainland chffs. Because of the se- 

 vere winters and persistence of ice in the 

 gulf long into spring, the ferry operates 

 only from mid- June to mid-September. 

 Traveling there in August, I was fortunate 

 to visit Bonaventure Island accompanied 

 by naturalist Lucie Lagueux, author of a 

 popular booklet about the gannets. In a 

 half-hour ride, the ferry crossed the three 

 miles of open water from the mainland 

 and then slowly circled the island in a 

 clockwise direction before docking on the 

 west side, facing Perce. 



As the ferry passed the cliffs on the 

 north and northeast sides of the island, 

 countiess seabirds filled the air above and 

 in front of the rock. Most were gannets out 

 for their morning fishing expedition, but 

 we also saw black-legged kittiwakes, 

 black guillemots, double-breasted cor- 

 morants, great black-backed gulls, herring 

 gulls, razorbills, and common murres. A 



very small colony of common puffins also 

 nests on the island, but we saw none on the 

 day I was there. From the ferry we could 

 see that every possible surface on the is- 

 land's upper rocky terraces was covered 

 by white, nesting birds. Lucie Lagueux es- 

 timated that there were about 21,000 gan- 

 net pairs, roughly 20 percent of the known 

 world population of this species. 



The ferry docks on the western side of 

 the island, where the slope to the water is 

 gentle enough for passengers to disem- 

 bark. A fishing community was estab- 

 Ushed here during the seventeenth century. 

 A few abandoned buildings and other evi- 

 dence of this settlement remain. Most of 



