René-Levasseur Island
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René-Levasseur Island is a large island in the center of Lake Manicouagan in Quebec, Canada. Its highest peak is Mount Babel, at 952 m (3,123 feet); its diameter is 72 km with a total area of 2,020 km². The island is considered to be the second largest in the world located in a lake, in terms of area.
The island was formed by the impact of a meteor 214 million years ago. The meteorite is believed to have been about 5 km in diameter, and would have hit the earth at a speed of 17 km a second, the fourth most powerful impact the earth has seen. The impact of the meteor formed a crater roughly 100 km in diameter, the centre of which forms the island we know today.
The island was named after René Levasseur, the chief engineer responsible for the construction of Hydro-Québec's Daniel-Johnson dam on the Manicouagan River, which created the Manicouagan Reservoir. The structure is the world's largest multiple-arch dam. Levasseur died at the age of 35, only days before the dam's inauguration.
There is an Innu annecdote concerning René Levasseur and Daniel Johnson's deaths. Both died of cardiovascular problems. The Innu say that just as they were clogging the rivers, the earth's veins and arteries, the creator responded by clogging theirs in turn.
The Manicouagan Reservoir, and René-Levasseur Island are sometimes called the "eye of Quebec".
The Island is currently the subject of an ongoing legal battle, as the Innu First Nation of Betsiamites is taking legal action to protect its indigenous land from logging. The Quebec Court of Appeal recently made a ruling allowing Kruger, Inc. to resume its logging activities (April 28, 2006).
The Island is also the object of an environmental/ecological campaign lobbying the government of Québec to create a protected area spanning the entire Island. The group, [1] SOS Levasseur came to be in 2003, in part due to the interest mainstream environmental groups in Québec demonstrated during environmentan consultations. All groups recommended that René-Levasseur Island be protected integrally. The Island has been proposed as a Canadian National Park, an ecological reserve, a biodiversity reserve and an exceptionnal geological site. There seems to be an exceptionnal concentration of old-growth boreal forest stands on the island.
SOS Levasseur has been conducting research expeditions to the Island since January 2005, whose aim is to identify old-growth forest stands and to obtain their protection under the Quebec Forest Law as Exceptionnal Forest Ecosystems (EFE).
The Ministry of Natural Ressources and Fauna (MRNFQ), along with Kruger Inc. have already Identified 7 EFEs spanning approximately 25kms. SOS Levasseur has submitted an additional 7 surveyed in the summer of 2005, and is expected to submit many more from the 2006 expeditions.
The MRNFQ has yet to recognize the 7 sites proposed by SOS Levasseur.
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