Anticosti: Tourism, Industry, and Nature Construction on a Nordic, Peripheral Island

In 2023 Quebec’s Anticosti Island became a World Heritage site in recognition of the “exceptional universal value” of its nature and culture. Nature, paradoxically, has historically been closely associated with industry and metropolitan tourism on this immense but sparsely populated island in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence. Drawing on insights from regional tourism histories, this study elucidates how Anticosti’s nature, specifically its nordicity and peripherality, were reimagined by the tourism industry from locational impediments to attractions. Nature tourism – a cultural construction – became an economic mainstay that never resolved locational impediments without the complementarity of industry and urbanity.