One of thousands of buck tracks on the beach at Anticosti Island.

---

By Joe Cermele

When I think back to past island experiences, things like pina coladas, tarpon, and steel-drum music come to mind. Surrounded by water always went hand in hand with surrounded by fish for me. But walking down a beach in Canada, I found something foreign. Running in every direction between piles of seaweed and the faded shells of washed up stone crabs were thousands of deer tracks--dewclaws perfectly imprinted in the sand.

Oh sure, I was surrounded by water, but I came to Anticosti Island off the coast of Quebec to be surrounded by whitetails. Across this 140-mile-long island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, it is impossible to move five feet without seeing a track, rub, or scat pile. The biggest draw here is that the 120,000 estimated deer on the island have only one predator...the hunter.