The Mistassini River is a river in central Quebec, Canada, draining into the north-western portion of

Lac Saint-Jean Lac Saint-Jean (, ) is a large, relatively shallow lake in south-central Quebec, Canada, in the Laurentian Highlands. It is situated north of the Saint Lawrence River, into which it drains via the Saguenay River. It covers an area of , and is ...

. It is long and has a watershed area of . Its source is between Eau Froide and De Vau Lakes in the northernmost portion of the Rivière-Mistassini Unorganized Territory, just east of the vast Baie-James Municipality. Despite its name,

Lake Mistassini Lake Mistassini () is the largest natural lake by surface area in the province of Quebec, Canada, with a total surface area of approximately and a net area (water surface area only) of . It is located in the Jamésie region of the province, app ...

is not in the drainage basin of the Mistassini River, but is about west from its source. The Mistassini River is easily confused with its tributary, the

Mistassibi River The Mistassibi River is a river in central Quebec, Canada. It is long and has a drainage basin of . Its source is an area with unnamed lakes about east of Canso Bay of Lake Albanel, eastern neighbor of Lake Mistassini. The name ''Mistassibi'' ...

. The upper portion of the river is characterized by a succession of rapids, waterfalls, and cascades. Only the last , from its mouth to

Dolbeau-Mistassini Dolbeau-Mistassini () is a town in northern Quebec, Canada, at the confluence of the Mistassibi River, Riviere aux Rats and the Mistassini River, on Lac Saint-Jean. Dolbeau-Mistassini is in the Maria-Chapdelaine Regional County Municipality and ...

, is navigable. Tributaries of the Mistassini River include the Papillon River, the Rivière des Framboises (Raspberry River), the Rivière aux Rats (Rat River), and the

History

During the 17th century and first half of the 18th century, the Mistassini River was regarded as one of the six primary access routes to Lake Mistassini. A 1679 map by

Louis Jolliet Louis Jolliet (; September 21, 1645after May 1700) was a French-Canadian explorer known for his discoveries in North America. In 1673, Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit Catholic priest and missionary, were the first non-Natives to explore ...

shows the river with the name ''Kakigoua'', meaning "there where the sand is cut perpendicularly". Later the river is named ''Rivière aux Sables'' (Sand River) on maps by other cartographers such as Laure in 1731 and 1732,

Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville (; born in Paris 11 July 169728 January 1782) was a French geographer and cartographer who greatly improved the standards of map-making. D'Anville became cartographer to the king, who purchased his cartographic ...

in 1755, and

Jacques-Nicolas Bellin Jacques Nicolas Bellin (; 1703 – 21 March 1772) was a French hydrographer, geographer, and member of the French intellectual group called the philosophes. Bellin was born in Paris. He was hydrographer of France's hydrographic office, membe ...

in 1764. During his journey in 1792, botanist

André Michaux André Michaux (' → ahn- mee-; sometimes Anglicisation, anglicised as Andrew Michaud; 8 March 174611 October 1802) was a French botanist and explorer. He is most noted for his study of North American flora. In addition Michaux collected specime ...

calls it the Mistassini River. It seems that the first

topographic Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the landforms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary scienc ...

use of this name goes back to 1825. That year,

Pascal Taché Pascal Taché, (; b. August 30, 1757 – d. June 5, 1830), was the son of Jean Taché, a successful merchant and trader and the patriarch of the important Taché Canadian family. He was born at the town of Quebec in 1757. In 1785, Pascal m ...

, Lord of Kamouraska, publishes a cartographic document in which he gives the name Mistassini to the river. Also, prominent Canadian paleontologist Diamanto DeParkington discovered

Allosaurus ''Allosaurus'' ( ) is an extinct genus of theropod dinosaur that lived 155 to 145 million years ago during the Late Jurassic period ( Kimmeridgian to late Tithonian ages). The first fossil remains that could definitively be ascribed to th ...

bones near the river's base in 1992; they are on display at the British Museum.

References

External links

*{{Commons category-inline Rivers of Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean