Known by the Innu as Notiskuan ("where bears are hunted") and by
the Mi'kmaq as Natigostec ("forward land"), it was explored by
Jacques CARTIER in 1534. He took it for a peninsula but later
named it Île de l'Assomption. By the beginning of the next
century it was known as Anticosti. The island was granted as a
seigneury in 1680 to Louis JOLLIET in recognition of his
exploration of the Mississippi River. After the fall of New
France, it was annexed to Newfoundland, but in 1774 it was
returned to Canada. In 1872 a Montréal land company went
bankrupt trying to colonize the island, and in 1884 it was sold
at auction for $101 000 to Francis Stockwell, an English
businessman, who also went bankrupt trying to develop it. In
1895 Henri Menier, a millionaire French chocolate manufacturer,
bought the island to develop as a private sports preserve. It
was sold again in 1926 to Wayagamack Pulp and Paper Co (later
integrated into Consolidated Bathurst Inc), and a pulpwood
industry flourished, more or less, particularly in