Grosse Island

Grosse Île is one of the Magdalen Islands, a chain of low islands and sand dunes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Mi'kmaq people visited the archipelago seasonally for fishing and hunting marine mammals long before European settlement. After the Acadian deportations, families found refuge in the islands; by 1765 Acadians employed by the merchant Richard Gridley were living on Grosse Île. Its shores face the open gulf, where ice and wind shape the seasons.