Bic National Park, National park in Rimouski, Canada.
Bic National Park covers 33.2 square kilometres on the south shore of the St. Lawrence estuary, 15 km west of Rimouski. Its folded Ordovician schist, sandstone and conglomerate ridges form a dozen bays and coves along 30 km of coast, rising to Pic Champlain at 346 m. At low tide, mudflats and channels are exposed between forested hills.
Human occupation of the Bic area dates back almost 7,000 years, and the park's interpretive centre displays tools from that period. In 1534, Jacques Cartier recorded a battle at the Baie de Bic in which 100 Iroquois warriors killed 200 Mi'kmaq on Massacre Island. After the Battle of Quebec in 1759, an English lord named Campbell settled there, and a maritime pilot post operated on Bic Island until 1905. The park was created on October 17, 1984, and management passed to SÉPAQ in 1999.
The name Bic probably derives from Champlain's "Pic", altered over time, or from "Bec", a point of land; the term was used for the seigneurie of Bic in 1675 and the post office in 1832. At Anse à l'Orignal, English villagers' cottages from the late 19th century survive, including Lyman Cottage, Feindel Cottage and Wootton House, now owned by the park.
The park lies 15 km west of Rimouski along Route 132, split between Rimouski and Saint-Fabien. Trails run from the Le Bic and Anse à l'Original sectors, and the Chemin du Nord path passes the Lyman, Feindel and Wootton cottages. At low tide the mudflats and channels around the hills are exposed; seals haul out on the rocks offshore.
The park holds North America's highest concentration of North American porcupines, according to the park's own fauna inventory. It also shelters subarctic and alpine-arctic plants: 744 vascular plant species grow here, a third of Quebec's total. Look for raised beaches and marine terraces left when the Goldthwait Sea stood 155 m above today's level.
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