Institute of Island Studies hosts public lecture about Anticosti Island

The Institute of Island Studies at UPEI will host a public lecture titled “Anticosti: Metropolitan Finisterre” on October 25 at 7 pm in the Faculty Lounge, SDU Main Building.

Part of the Institute’s Island Lecture Series, the talk will be presented by Dr. Matthew Hatvany, professor of geography, at Université Laval in Quebec City.

“Two large islands lie at the heart of the Gulf of St. Lawrence,” says Hatvany. “Despite their relative proximity and comparable sobriquets, one ‘Garden of the Gulf,’ the other ‘Paradise Found,’ the similarities end there. It is the smaller of the two, Prince Edward Island, that realized provincial autonomy through the development and control of its human, agricultural, forest, and fish resources. The larger, Anticosti, experienced little internal development despite abundant resources, being purposely constructed by external decision makers as a Finisterre Insulaire or Land’s End, controlled and dependent upon metropolitan decision makers and investors to assure the well-being of its small population. While Anticosti is little known in Quebec or by its nearest neighbours in Atlantic Canada, the island is celebrated by the upper classes of distant North American and European metropoles as a natural paradise as well as an aspiring UNESCO heritage site for its unique fossil and sedimentary strata.”

Hatvany is working as a research associate at the Institute of Island Studies this fall and next spring while he is on sabbatical leave from Université Laval. He is employing the theories of metropolitanism and territoriality to study the unique development of Quebec’s Anticosti Island. He is collaborating with Dr. Laurie Brinklow, assistant professor and chair of the Institute of Island Studies; Dr. Josh MacFadyen, professor and Canada Research Chair in Geospatial Humanities, and Dr. Edward MacDonald, professor of history and Island scholar.

All are welcome to attend this event.