Mount Gosford is a mountain located in southern Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 at the border with Maine

Maine

Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...

. It lies entirely in Saint-Augustin-de-Woburn

Saint-Augustin-de-Woburn, Quebec

Saint-Augustin-de-Woburn, known locally as Woburn, is a parish in the Municipalité régionale de comté du Granit in Estrie, Quebec, Canada. Population is 701 as of 2006...

 in Estrie

Estrie

The Estrie is an administrative region of Quebec that overlaps mostly the Eastern Townships. Estrie, a French neologism, was coined as a derivative of est, "east."...

 and is part of the White Mountains

White Mountains (New Hampshire)

The White Mountains are a mountain range covering about a quarter of the state of New Hampshire and a small portion of western Maine in the United States. Part of the Appalachian Mountains, they are considered the most rugged mountains in New England...

 of the Appalachians. It is named after Archibald Acheson, 2nd Earl of Gosford

Archibald Acheson, 2nd Earl of Gosford

Archibald Acheson, 2nd Earl of Gosford GCB , styled The Honourable Archibald Acheson from 1790 to 1806 and Lord Acheson from 1806 to 1807, was a British politician who served as Lieutenant-Governor of Lower Canada and Governor General of British North America in the 19th century.-Background:Born at...

, governor general of British North America

British North America

British North America is a historical term. It consisted of the colonies and territories of the British Empire in continental North America after the end of the American Revolutionary War and the recognition of American independence in 1783.At the start of the Revolutionary War in 1775 the British...

 from 1835 to 1835. It is the 21st highest peak in Quebec and 4th in Southern Quebec.

It is made of gneiss

Gneiss

Gneiss is a common and widely distributed type of rock formed by high-grade regional metamorphic processes from pre-existing formations that were originally either igneous or sedimentary rocks.-Etymology:...

 and granulite

Granulite

Granulites are medium to coarse–grained metamorphic rocks that have experienced high temperature metamorphism, composed mainly of feldspars sometimes associated with quartz and anhydrous ferromagnesian minerals, with granoblastic texture and gneissose to massive structure...

 dating from the Precambrian

Precambrian

The Precambrian is the name which describes the large span of time in Earth's history before the current Phanerozoic Eon, and is a Supereon divided into several eons of the geologic time scale...

 era.

Environmental Protection

Since 1978, Mount Gosford is included in ZEC

ZEC

A ZEC is a "Controlled harvesting zone". ZECs are a system of territorial infrastructures set up in 1978 by the Government of Quebec to take over from private hunting and fishing clubs...

 Louise-Gosford, a controlled harvesting zone open to the public. Recently, the areas at more than 700 metres of altitude were designated Important Bird Areas due to the presence Bicknell's thrushes

Bicknell's Thrush

The Bicknell's Thrush, Catharus bicknelli, is a medium-sized thrush, at 17.5 cm and 28 g . It was named after Eugene Bicknell, an American amateur ornithologist, who discovered the species on Slide Mountain in the Catskills in the late 19th century.Adults are olive-brown on the upperparts,...

, an endemic species living in mountain peaks of northeast North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

.

In 2009, Quebec’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife

Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife (Quebec)

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife is responsible for the protection of flora and fauna and manage natural resource extraction in the province of Quebec....

 set aside part of the Mount Gosford to create an ecological reserve

Nature reserve

A nature reserve is a protected area of importance for wildlife, flora, fauna or features of geological or other special interest, which is reserved and managed for conservation and to provide special opportunities for study or research...

. The same year, about 76 hectares of the mountain was renamed forêt rare du Mont-Gosford (Mount Gosford’s Rare Forest) and declared an exceptional forest ecosystem. The designation protects mountain woodsorrels

Oxalis

Oxalis is by far the largest genus in the wood-sorrel family Oxalidaceae: of the approximately 900 known species in the Oxalidaceae, 800 belong here...

, considered rare at this altitude.

External links

• Sentiers Frontaliers (French)