Notre Dame Mountains

The Notre Dame Mountains are a portion of the Appalachian Mountains, extending from the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec to the Green Mountains of Vermont.[1]

Notre Dame Mountains
Elevation1,269 to 1,271 m (4,163 to 4,170 ft) 
Geography
CountriesCanada and United States
States/Provinces
Range coordinates48°45′N 66°00′W
Parent rangeAppalachian Mountains

The range runs from northeast to southwest, forming the southern edge of the St. Lawrence River valley, and following the Canada–United States border between Quebec and Maine. The mountainous New Brunswick "panhandle" is located in the Notre Dame range as well as the uppermost reaches of the Connecticut River valley in New Hampshire.

As the mountains are geologically old, they have eroded to an average height of around 600 m (2,000 ft).

Etymology

Notre Dame is French for "Our Lady," a Catholic term referring to the Virgin Mary.

While on an expedition on 15 August 1535, Jacques Cartier wrote:

Le landemain jour Notre Dame d'aoust XVe ... eusmes cognoissance de terres qui nous demouroient vers le su qui est une terre à haultes montaignes à merveilles

The jour Notre Dame d'aoust XVe refers to the feast of the Assumption of Mary, commemorated in the Catholic Church on 15 August. The following autumn, maps he authored carried the name "haultes montaignes de Honguedo". However, it was the title of "Notre Dame" that would propagate quickly throughout the 16th century, with French navigator Jean Alfonse referring to them as the "montz Nostre Dame" in his 1544 work Cosmographie, followed by Gerardus Mercator in 1569.[2]

Geography

Topography

Geology
Champlain Peak in the Bic National Park

Conservation

The Notre Dame Mountains are protected by several parks, both federally by Parks Canada and provincially by the Quebec Sépaq and New Brunswick:

See also

References
  1. "The Canada Land Inventory (CLI) for the Quebec City Map 21 L". Ecoinformatics International. 2006. Retrieved 25 July 2011.
  2. Reference number 44832 of the Commission de toponymie du Québec (in French)


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