Regional assessment Southern Gaspé-Chaleur Bay

The rich environments of the area’s barachois have been seriously disturbed by human activities, such as the holding of log booms, the discharge of untreated effluent, xii backfilling, dredging, and the building of roads and railway lines that cut the ponds off from the sea. [...] In the latter half of the 1700s, the deportation of the Acadians and the arrival of United Empire Loyalists from the United States marked the beginning of a true colonization of Quebec’s extensive coastline. [...] The first major impact seems to have been caused by the development of the forest industry in the 19th century and the holding of log booms for sawmills at the mouths of rivers. [...] This report presents the highlights of the four technical reports1 and reviews current knowledge of the state of the resources and the present and potential uses of the Southern Gaspé– Chaleur Bay area (ZIP 20). [...] In summer, the salinity of the surface water of the bay (depth of 0–30 m) is on the order of 28 parts per thousand, and its temperature can exceed 18°C, making it the warmest coastal water of Quebec, except for the water of the Magdalen Island lagoons.