Magdalen Islands - History

History

Jacques Cartier was the first European to visit the islands, in 1534. However, Mi'kmaq Indians had been visiting the islands for hundreds of years as part of a seasonal subsistence round probably to harvest the abundant walrus population. A number of archaeological sites have been excavated on the archipelago.

It was named in 1663 by the seigneur of the island, François Doublet, after his wife, Madeleine Fontaine. In 1755, the islands were inhabited by French-speaking Acadians. When the British expelled the Acadians from the rest of what are now the Maritime Provinces of Canada, they did not come as far as the Magdalen Islands. To this day, many inhabitants of the Magdalen Islands (Madelinots) fly the Acadian flag and think of themselves as both Acadians and Québécois.

The islands were administered as part of the Colony of Newfoundland from 1763 until 1774, when they were joined to Quebec by the Quebec Act.

Until the 20th century, the islands were completely isolated during the winter, since the pack ice made the trip to the mainland impassable by boat. The inhabitants of the island could not even communicate with the mainland. In the winter of 1910, they sent an urgent request for help to the mainland by writing many letters and sealing them up inside a molasses barrel (or puncheon), which they set adrift. When this reached the shore, on Cape Breton Island, the government sent out an icebreaker to bring aid. Within a few years, the Magdalens were given one of the new wireless telegraph stations so that the inhabitants could at least have some communication in the winter. The puncheon is now famous, and every tourist shop sells replicas.

At one time, large walrus herds were found near the islands but they had been eliminated due to overhunting by the end of the 18th century. The islands' beaches provide habitat for the endangered Piping Plover and the Roseate Tern.