# History of Islands & Islets in the Bay of Fundy, Charlotte County, New Brunswick/Chapter 1

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CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.
HE various islands lying in the Bay of Fundy and under the Government of the Dominion of Canada embrace a fair field for historical and descriptive embodiment. As those islands are no mean appendages of the New Dominion, and gradually rising in importance, it would seem a fitting time now, no longer to delay to make them better known, and thus add their quota to the grand inducements of the Dominion, generally, for an increasing population. Visitors to a few of those islands and newspaper contributors have, occasionally, presented their pen-sketches just as fancy and disposition directed them;—but, to do those tracts of sea-land something like justice, a methodical history, published in a form less evanescent than the columns of a newspaper, is needed; and to supply this requirement is the intention of the author of the present publication.
The nearer art approaches nature in her delineations, the nearer to perfection; so the nearer romance comes to reality—fiction to truth—the closer hold it takes upon our judgment and our feelings. Historical reminiscences ​are always fresh and new; and descriptive geography possesses a charm, recommending itself alike to old and young. The novelist, who keeps his soaring flights of imagination within the bounds of probability, commands and receives the admiration and approval of every reader who desires and delights in something more than airy nothings, flights of fancy, and incredibilities. If we feel that we are reading facts, although the record should read "strange as fiction," the impression is liable to be deep and enduring, and, in many instances, carries salutary influences with it.
The pages now in the hands of the reader, lay rightful claim to authenticity, without the embellishments of studied diction, or the tinselled adornments of romance. Indeed, such are needless here, for abundant material presents itself in progressing with the work in hand, to satisfy the most ardent lover of the marvellous, that "truth is stranger than fiction."
The reader is now introduced to the Bay of Fundy. This bay is a magnificent portion of the Atlantic Ocean, running some 150 miles up from its mouth, and separating Nova Scotia from New Brunswick. It is not our task here to award the meed of fame to Scandinavian, French, the Cabots, Americus Vespucius, Columbus, Cartier, DeMonts, Champlain, or others, as the original discoverers or explorers of the Bay of Fundy. It is enough that we have this splendid old bay before us, studded in many parts with beautiful islands. The singularity of its tides has been noted from the first dawn of its discovery by European eyes. They have a rise and fall varying from 30 to 50 feet, and sometimes 60 feet! At all times the flux and reflux of these rushing tides, more especially at the mouths of the rivers, bays, and basins of the head waters, are remarkable, presenting objects of intense interest. Not unfrequently a sort of tidal wave, which from its white froth foam has obtained the name of "bore," comes rolling in and over the low flat shores with a seemingly overwhelming rapidity and force, hardly conceivable by one who has never witnessed it, rushing swifter than the foaming speed of an Arabian charger, and with a noise more terrific than the thundering roar of an African lion!
This bay, has the unenviable reputation of being ​lodging-place for what seamen dread more than tempest gales—fog—and not unjustly; for during the summer months, the very period of the year when salt water margins and their scenery are sought by tourists as sources of invigorating enjoyment, that detestable foe to the sailor and the tourist, fog, comes too! It brings with it and puts on an extinguisher, not infrequently for many days and nights in succession, over the lovely scenery of land and sea. But, even this salt water fog, dense as it may be, is bliss compared with the sultry atmosphere of the mainland interior—of inland towns and crowded cities, where cholera and other contagious ills visit the sweltered citizens; while the inhabitants of those fog-visited islands in the Bay of Fundy wear the bloom of health upon their cheeks and are strong to pursue their wonted vocation. Visitors, too, soon become assimilated to the fog—become exuberant, even when saturated in a fog-mist, revelling in fog, as in sunshine, becoming as sportive as a lamb on its island home, or the tumbling porpoise in the bay.
It was a joyful sight to the eyes of the adventurous navigators of the Atlantic Ocean from the Eastern Hemisphere, when they first beheld the streak of another continent lining the horizon with its verdant sheen.
The discoverers of a western world must have felt their hearts stirred and thrilled to their depths, as the lovely islands of summer latitudes erst presented themselves before them, lying in the sunshine like "pearly gems at random set." No wonder, those daring Europeans felt constrained to give praise to God at the sight It was meet they should, and doubtless their spontaneous outpourings of thanksgiving were heard in heaven.
It was with kindred emotions of amazement, joy and praise that the first explorers of the North American coast, gazed upon the broad bosom of the Bay of Fundy as they sailed over its rolling waves. The political division made in the year 1784, separating Nova Scotia into two parts (the northern part called New Brunswick) cannot separate them geographically; for they are indissoluble united by an earth ligament, called the Isthmus of Chignecto, 12 miles wide, securer more than ever were the Siamese twins and so may be called with propriety the twin sisters of the ocean; and thus, by ​their maritime position, an identification of interests seems natural, reasonable and necessary, each for each, even were they not nationally confederated under the new name of the Dominion of Canada.
This long arm of the ocean, the Bay of Fundy, extending from its mouth to Cape Chignecto, here separates and branches off, running up Chigneeto Bay a north-easterly course, and again turns, now more northerly, sweeping up Shepody Bay into the Petitcodiac river, penetrating by its rushing tide to Moncton, It runs also from this minor cape in Shepody Bay a more easterly direction, washing the western shores of Westmoreland and Cumberland Counties, forming Cumberland Basin—the Bay de Verte, on the Strait of Northumberland, Gulf Coast, being only 12 miles distant. Here is the connecting lick, the earth ligament, the Isthimus of Chignecto, through which it has been contemplated to cut a canal to unite the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence with those of the Bay of Fundy. Our great bay also turns at Cape Chignecto and rans a south-easterly course, passing several capes; the most noted, Cape Blomidon, which our seamen of the Bay sometimes honor with the appropriate name—"Cape Blow-me-down," as seldom or ever any vessel on passing can get by without paying it the compulsory compliment of "dipping" her sails, so fiercely does Cape Blomidon blow down upon them! Running up past this cape a narrow run, the Bay widens out into a broad sheet of water, called Minas Basin; and, pushing on in its mighty tide-rush, is only checked at Truro, along the shore of which it takes the name of Cobequid Bay; and looking more southerly, it also sweeps along that shore, touching the town of Windsor—receiving, in consequence, the name of Windsor River. Cornwallis, also, that fine farming district, gives its portion of the Bay its meed of praise, by calling it Cornwallis River, notwithstanding that thousands of dollars and tens of thousands have been expended to resist the mad desire of the wild "bore" of the Bay to roam at will over its fertile bosom of broad acres. The "Wellington Dyke" stands sentinel to obstruct the enemy.
The reader will please pardon the digression if we deviate a little from our course here to remark, paradox​ically, that this connecting link, the Isthmus of Chignecto, is the dividing line between the fine County of Cumberland in Nova Scotia, and its equally fine County of Westmoreland in Now Brunswick, and that Cumberland County is at present represented in the Dominion Parliament by Dr. Tupper, who is a large land owner in each Province, and accordingly seems to hold an even-handed justice and good fellowship for them both. Westmoreland County has the parliamentary guardianship of Hon. A. J. Smith, who being the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, is in duty bound to exercise his powers for the general good, irrespective of locality.
The southern shore of the Bay of Fundy washes four counties belonging to Nova Scotia—namely, Digby, Annapolis, Kings, and Hants—those counties lying on the north side of that Province.
The northern part of the Bay washes three counties on the south coast of New Brunswick—namely, Charlotte, St. John and Albert Counties.
From this brief sketch of the Bay of Fundy, the reader, hitherto unacquainted with it, may form a very good idea of the long and broad expanse of water sur-rounding the islands, the principal of which, appertaining to the Province of New Brunswick, is herein described. The author of this little work, feels keenly alive to the task. In this age of book-making, it requires no little hardihood to launch forth on the stormy, fluctuating and sometimes whelming waves of public opinion and newspapers' criticisms, an original production. Were the author seeking for the fame of authorship, he would not be an aspirant—were he writing as a paid scribe, he would shrink from the responsibility; but when he lifts his pen to bring into greater notoriety the islands of the Bay of Fundy, situate in the waters of Charlotte County, New Brunswick, his hand seems nerved to the undertaking; for he feels those islands merit all that truth can present in their behalf; and even then, the words of Sheba's Queen to Solomon the King, may be appropriately quoted—"The half has not been told."
The author avails himself, of the opportunity afforded him in these prefatory remarks, to tender his obligations to William Dixon, Esq., of Her Majesty's Customs at Indian Island; also, to Mr. Walter B. McLaughlin, of ​Grand Manan, for the valuable aid rendered in obtaining and imparting very much information touching the original history of Indian Island and the Island of Grand Manan. Others, too, who have readily contributed such information as they possessed, will accept the author's thanks; for, unaided in collecting necessary material, the present volume would have been deficient in many of the most interesting events connected with our islands' history.