Ernest-Lepage Ecological Reserve

IUCN Category Ia - Strict Nature Reserve

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The Réserve écologique Ernest Lepage is furnished in 1983, 810 ha reserve in the south of the Canadian province of Quebec.

The reserve represents the northern Appalachians, specifically the Monts Notre -Dame. It lies about 40 km northwest of New Richmond, on the west bank of the Petite rivière Cascapédia Est. From the town of Bonaventure, to which it belongs formally, it is around 50 km away.

The reserve is located on a plateau some 400 meters above sea level. The rocky subsoil of the area which is in the northern end of the Appalachian Mountains, holds mainly shale and limestone and glacial deposits.

This reign yellow and paper birch, balsam fir and black spruce, rather the Occidental Tree of Life (French: Thuya occidental ) on the plateau, whose stocks are referred to as " cédrières " in francophone North America.

The name of the protected area is reminiscent of the botanist Abbe Ernest Lepage (1905-1981) from Rimouski. In addition to numerous works on arctic and subarctic plants he wrote of mosses, lichens and liverworts in the province of Quebec. He described 150 new taxa and authored 126 scientific contributions. In his will he bequeathed his personal herbarium with 35,000 species of Université Laval.