Port-Cartier is a town in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, Canada. It is located on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River at the mouth of the Aux-Rochers River, exactly 63km southwest of Sept-Îles, Quebec.Port-Cartier had a population of 6,651 at the 2011 Canadian census. It has a land area of 1101km2, ranking 27th in area among all Canadian cities and towns. Besides Port-Cartier itself, the communities of Rivière-Pentecôte and Pointe-aux-Anglais are also within its municipal boundaries, all located along Quebec Route 138.HistoryIn 1915, Colonel Robert R. McCormick, owner of the Chicago Tribune, visited the Rochers River area to evaluate its forest potential. Soon after, a settlement was established on the west side of the mouth of this river, originally called Shelter Bay. The post office opened in 1916, followed by a sawmill in 1918 and a debarking factory of the Ontario Paper Company in 1920. Yet the exhaustion of timber led to the closure of the factory in 1955.In 1958, the Québec Cartier Mining Company constructed an iron ore processing plant and an artificial sea port near Shelter Bay, for shipping the iron ore mined from deposits at Lake Jeannine near Fermont. Port-Cartier, named after the mining company, was incorporated as a town in 1959 and the next year, Shelter Bay was added to it. The original town of Shelter Bay is now the suburb known as Port-Cartier West. Today, the port handles approximately 18000000t of cargo per year and ranks third in Quebec in terms of handled tonnage.