The Isle of Demons is a

phantom island A phantom island is a purported island which was included on maps for a period of time, but was later found not to exist. They usually originate from the reports of early sailors exploring new regions, and are commonly the result of navigati ...

once associated with Quirpon Island,

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador, having a total size of . As of 2025 the population ...

, in Canada. It was generally shown as two islands. It began appearing on maps in the beginning of the 16th century and disappeared in the mid-17th century. It could also simply be a translation from First Nations people who often avoided areas where a person had died, believing it was haunted by spirits. This results in many islands with the same naming theme. It was believed that the island was populated by demons and wild beasts which would torment and attack any ships that passed or anyone that was foolish enough to wander onto the island. A French noblewoman, Marguerite de La Rocque, was marooned on an island in the mid-16th century, allegedly because of an affair with a young man on her ship. This island is a possible site of their abandonment, and residents and visitors have claimed to see the couple. Across the centuries, many historians, novelists, poets, and singers have retold the story of Marguerite abandoned on the island. It is believed that the island of the marooning is most likely

Harrington Harbour, Quebec Harrington Harbour is an unconstituted locality within the municipality of Côte-Nord-du-Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, Canada. History Harrington Harbour was founded near the end of the 19th century by fishermen fro ...

. The Isle of Demons first appears in the 1508 map of

Johannes Ruysch Johannes Ruysch (? in Utrecht – 1533 in Cologne), a.k.a. ''Johann Ruijsch'' or ''Giovanni Ruisch'' was an explorer, cartographer, astronomer, manuscript illustrator and painter from the Low Countries who produced a famous map of the world: the s ...

. It may simply be a relocated version of the older legendary island of

Satanazes The island of Satanazes (also called the Island of Devils, or the Hand of Satan) is a phantom island, legendary island once thought to be located in the Atlantic Ocean, and depicted on many 15th-century maps. Cartographic depiction In 15th-cen ...

("Devils" in Portuguese) that was normally depicted in 15th century maps in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean just north of

Antillia Antillia (or Antilia) is a phantom island that was reputed, during the 15th-century age of exploration, to lie in the Atlantic Ocean, far to the west of Portugal and Spain. The island also went by the name of Isle of Seven Cities (''Ilha das Se ...

. With the Atlantic better mapped with the trans-oceanic voyages of the 1490s, Ruysch may simply have transplanted old Satanazes to a more suitable location. TerreNeuve16e

The Isle of Demons continues to appear as late as the 1556 map of "La Nueva Francia" by Giacomo Gastaldi – that is, after

Jacques Cartier Jacques Cartier (; 31 December 14911 September 1557) was a French maritime explorer from Brittany. Jacques Cartier was the first Europeans, European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, wh ...

's expeditions (1534, 1535, 1541) had explored much of Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The "Isola de Demoni" is depicted by Gastaldi as a substantially large island roughly encompassing northern Newfoundland, with figurative depictions of flying demons.

References

Phantom islands of the Atlantic Ocean {{Newfoundland-island-stub