The Chécatica River (french: Rivière Chécatica) is a salmon river in the

Côte-Nord Côte-Nord (, ; ; land area ) is the second-largest administrative region by land area in Quebec, Canada, after Nord-du-Québec. It covers much of the northern shore of the Saint Lawrence River estuary and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence past Tadous ...

region of Quebec, Canada. It empties into the

Gulf of Saint Lawrence , image = Baie de la Tour.jpg , alt = , caption = Gulf of St. Lawrence from Anticosti National Park, Quebec , image_bathymetry = Golfe Saint-Laurent Depths fr.svg , alt_bathymetry = Bathymetry ...

Location

The Chécatica River is about long, and runs from north to south. In some sections it widens into lakes, including Lake Chécatica. It enters Jacques-Cartier Bay on the Saint Lawrence about west of

Blanc-Sablon Blanc-Sablon is the easternmost community in Le Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent Regional County Municipality, in the administrative région of Côte-Nord, in the province of Quebec, Canada. With a population of 1,122 inhabitants in 2021, it is the most p ...

. The bay is a waterbody with an irregular outline, containing many points, inlets and islands. Chécatica Island is at the entrance to the bay. Along the coast to the west, near one of the inlets, there is a small hamlet named Shekatika. The mouth of the Chécatica River is in the municipality of Saint-Augustin in Le Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent Regional County Municipality.

Name

The

Innu The Innu / Ilnu ("man", "person") or Innut / Innuat / Ilnuatsh ("people"), formerly called Montagnais from the French colonial period (French for "mountain people", English pronunciation: ), are the Indigenous inhabitants of territory in the n ...

call the river Netshikatikau Hipis or Netsheskatakau Shipis. According to Father Georges Lemoine the name comes from ''shikatikau'' and means ''there are bushes beside the water''. Variants include Ouescatacou and Ouescatacouau. On his first voyage in 1534

Jacques Cartier Jacques Cartier ( , also , , ; br, Jakez Karter; 31 December 14911 September 1557) was a French- Breton maritime explorer for France. Jacques Cartier was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of ...

went by

shallop Shallop is a name used for several types of boats and small ships (French ''chaloupe'') used for coastal navigation from the seventeenth century. Originally smaller boats based on the chalupa, the watercraft named this ranged from small boats a l ...

to Chécatica, which he called Port de Jacques-Cartier. He found indigenous people in quite large numbers.

Basin

The river basin covers . It lies between the basins of the

Coxipi River The Coxipi River (french: Rivière Coxipi) is a salmon river in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, Canada. It flows south through Quebec from Labrador and empties into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Location The main channel of the river is about ...

to the west and the

Napetipi River The Napetipi River (french: Rivière Napetipi) is a salmon river in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, Canada. It empties into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Location The Napetipi River is long, of which about or 10.7% is in Labrador. The river's St ...

to the east. It is partly in the unorganized territory of Petit-Mécatina and partly in the municipality of Saint-Augustin. A map of the

ecological regions of Quebec The Ecological regions of Quebec are regions with specific types of vegetation and climates as defined by the Quebec Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Parks. Given the size of this huge province, there is wide variation from the temperate deciduou ...

shows the river in sub-regions 6o-T, 6n-T and 6m-T of the east spruce/moss subdomain. In 2002 the northern part of the river, to the east of Lake Tooker, was in territory that was seriously affected by

hemlock looper ''Lambdina fiscellaria'', the mournful thorn or hemlock looper, is a moth of the family Geometridae. It is found in North America, from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast and from Canada south to Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and California. The adult ...

moths (''Lambdina fiscellaria''). The river is recognized as an Atlantic salmon river. There are also brook trout in the river.

Notes

Sources

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