Noirmoutier

History

Noirmoutier was the location of an early Viking raid in 799, when raiders attacked the monastery of Saint Philibert of Jumièges.

The Vikings established a permanent base on the island around 824, from which they could control southeast Brittany by the 840s. In 848, they sacked Bordeaux. From 862 until 882, Hastein used it as a base from which he raided Francia and Brittany.

On 4 July 1674, during the Franco-Dutch War, the island was briefly captured by Dutch forces under the command of Cornelis Tromp. The Dutch flag flew from the walls on the island for nearly three weeks until, on 23 July, the Dutch abandoned it after blowing up the castle and demolishing the coastal batteries.

Noirmoutier was the site of several campaigns in the War of the Vendée, as well as a massacre and the place of execution of the Royalist Generalissimo Maurice D'Elbée, who faced the firing squad seated in a chair due to wounds accumulated from an earlier battle.

St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier was born on this island on 31 July 1796.

Geography

The island comprises ten localities and four distinct communes. Its length is approximately 25 km, and its width varies from 500 m to 15 km. Its area of 4877 ha.

Noirmoutier is referred to as the Island of Mimosas, due to the temperateness of its climate, which allows for the flowering of Acacia dealbata (mimosa) year-round. The island is predominantly salt marsh and salt banks, sand dunes and evergreen oak forests.

The communes of the island are grouped into a communauté de communes. The communes are:

• Barbâtre
• L'Épine
• La Guérinière
• Noirmoutier-en-l'Île

The island has been a site of uninterrupted human habitation since prehistoric times, and is a popular tourist destination.

Parts of the island have been reclaimed from the sea. In 2005 it served as the finish of the Tour de France prologue.

Transport

The island is most notable for the Passage du Gois, a paved-over sandbank with a length of 4.5 km, one of the routes that connect the island to the mainland. It is flooded twice a day by the high tide. Until the early 1970s, a ferry service operated across the Strait of Fromentine between the La Fosse pier on the island and Fromentine pier on the mainland. This was superseded by the construction of the Noirmoutier Bridge, inaugurated in July 1971.

Events

Every year, an international foot race, the Foulées du Gois, is held across it, starting at the onset of the high tide.

La “Fête de la Bonnotte” (Bonnotte party) is also an annual festival celebrating the first day of potato harvest on the island of Noirmoutier.

Infrastructure

In response to an effort by the French government to add offshore wind projects to the national grid, a 496 MW wind farm is being developed near the island, with a planned commissioning date of 2021.

Climate

Noirmoutier experiences an oceanic climate typical of the west coast of France. Both the winters and summers are heavily moderated by the surrounding Atlantic Ocean. There is a low degree of diurnal temperature variation throughout the year, especially in the winter. There is considerably more precipitation in winter compared to summer. The climate is classified as cool dry summer Mediterranean type (Csb), with 3 months with Tm*2=P. More than 2300h of sun is too high for a typical oceanic climate. |Jan record high C = 16.9 |Feb record high C = 17.5 |Mar record high C = 22.9 |Apr record high C = 27.5 |May record high C = 31.3 |Jun record high C = 36.0 |Jul record high C = 37.0 |Aug record high C = 37.0 |Sep record high C = 33.0 |Oct record high C = 27.1 |Nov record high C = 20.5 |Dec record high C = 16.1 |year record high C = 37.0 |Jan record low C = -10.0 |Feb record low C = -7.7 |Mar record low C = -6.0 |Apr record low C = 0.0 |May record low C = 0.5 |Jun record low C = 6.0 |Jul record low C = 10.4 |Aug record low C = 9.5 |Sep record low C = 7.0 |Oct record low C = 1.7 |Nov record low C = -4.0 |Dec record low C = -8.0 |year record low C = -10.0

References

References

1. "Marais Breton, Baie de Bourgneuf, Ile de Noirmoutier et Forêt de Monts".
2. Sawyer, Peter. "The Viking Expansion." ''The Cambridge History of Scandinavia, Volume 1: Prehistory to 1520''. 105.
3. (2005). "Viking Empires". Cambridge University Press.
4. (September 10, 2015). "Noirmoutier : Une île qui séduit". Lulu.com.
5. RTT, Par Claque Tes. (2020-06-17). "Le passage du Gois à Noirmoutier, une route de 4 km unique en Europe".
6. Spag. (2017-07-12). "Fête de la Bonnotte".
7. (29 July 2016). "496MW French Offshore Wind Farm Gets New Layout".