Notiskuan

Notiskuan, “where bears are hunted,” is the Innu name for the great island at the mouth of the St. Lawrence. Innu and Mi'kmaq people visited its shores long before French ships sailed into the gulf. Jacques Cartier passed the island in 1534 and named it Île de l'Assomption on a later voyage. In 1680 Louis Jolliet received it as a seigneury and established fisheries and trading operations connected with the north shore.