Duplessis Travel guide >> La Minganie >> Longue-Pointe-de-Mingan
Longue-Pointe-de-Mingan
Longue-Pointe-de-Mingan and the Mingan Archipelago
Longue-Pointe-de-Mingan, founded in 1849 by fishermen from the Gaspésie region, has many wide sand beaches on its tip. On its wooden boardwalk, it is easy to observe whales and marine birds from the dry land. In this town, you will find the Centre de Recherche et d’interprétation de la Minganie (CRIM), the Station de Recherche des Îles Mingan (MICS) and the Centre d’Ornithologie.
The Mingan Archipelago National Par Reserve of Canada shelters monoliths of an exceptionally beautiful that present visitors with their beautiful and supernatural shapes. These tall chalky sentries proudly stand on the sandy beaches and offer a striking, unexpected sight to newcomers. More than 450 million years ago, many imposing rivers furrowed the area, carrying tons of sandy and organic sediments to the sea. Eventually, these sediments stayed at the bottom of the ocean to slowly form a rocky bed made of limestone strata. This is how the long process of the formation of the islands began. This limestone bedrock, shaken by the large movements of the earth’s crust, finally emerged as a plateau. Slowly, the erosion did its work and the sea incessantly shaped the limestone. The rivers of the Shield isolated parts of the plateau, thus creating the Mingan Archipelago. Throughout the centuries, nature eroded and shaped the coast of these islands to create these singular and strange shapes.
