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Show Anticosti Island Has Changed Ownership Many Times; Roughly in Shape of Whale i that mythical short cut to the East, first officially recorded the island and called it "lie de l'Assomption." Already, however, Basque fishermen, fisher-men, familiar with this region from early fishing trips, had described it as "Antecosta," or island "before the coast" the name which still sticks, slightly changed in spelling. In 1630 a grateful king, Louis XIV of France, presented Anticosti to the explorer-trader, Louis Joliet, who with Father Marquette had sailed the Mississippi and later explored ex-plored Hudson bay for his country. For a decade Joliet enjoyed fur and fish trade with nearby Indians, until un-til he and his wife were made prisoners pris-oners by Sir William Phipps' raiding party in the current French-Eng-lish conflict Tradition says that Joliet was eventually exchanged and returned to his island home. At any rate, during the next century family fami-ly heirs, squatters and other claimants claim-ants disputed its possession. Anticosti, now an island appendage append-age to Quebec, has changed hands many times in its career, says the National Geographic society. Last leased in 1926 by a pulp and paper company, it has served in reverse order as a pulpwood empire, a rich man's social experiment, a pirate's stronghold and an explorer's reward. re-ward. Roughly in the shape of a great whale, its tail in the St. Lawrence river and its head in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Anticosti island is about 140 miles long and averages 35 miles across. It is a sportsman's paradise. para-dise. Great forests of spruce bring green down to its very shores; game fish fill its streams, and flocks of ducivs and geese stop off there regularly regu-larly on flights north and south. So conspicuously placed and accessible is it that for the last 400 years this island has been the scene of man's activities and experiments. It has known business bcoms and colonization coloni-zation schemes that failed. It has seen the fashionable chateau life of a French "chocolate king" and been the haunt of an eccentric charged with being not only a buccaneer but in league with the devil besides. In 1534 Jacques Cartier, seeking |