The Smiling Isle of Passamaquoddy
The Smiling Isle
of Passamaquoddy
REPRINTED FROM THE COPYRIGHTED
NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE FOR SEPTEMBER
THE NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE COMPANY
OLD SOUTH BUILDING. BOSTON, MASS
"Your destination may be a little white house at top of a high bluff"
The Smiling Isle of Passamaquoddy[1]
AWAY down East on the edge of "Blue-Nose Land," just across the American boundary line, so near you almost forget you are on English soil, lies one of the most beautiful islands the traveler may chance to find. Not only is it rich in natural scenery and in romance and lore, but it is also one of the most important points for the supply of fish for the great American sardine industry.
This little island, whose area is only twenty-six square miles, has no less than sixty weirs along its shores. These weirs are owned by about two hundred men, each weir bringing in yearly from six thousand to eight thousand dollars, nearly all of which the people spend in American markets. In fact, many of the residents on the island, though living within Canadian precincts, are loyal American citizens, who in choosing their home here were not unmindful of the wonderful charm of the place. The fortunate visitor who has spent a few weeks or months on the island would be pretty sure to urge the superior claims of the latter attraction. Certainly former residents from the distant homes, to which some circumstance or other has called them, carefully keep in touch with the life on the island, reserving a lodging with old friends or having their own residences preserved for them and returning for a while each year, or as often as possible.
Deer Island lies in the margin of the waters of the Bay of Fundy, facing that small open arm that is variously indicated on maps as St. Andrew's and as Passamaquoddy Bay,—called 'Quoddy' for short, in that region—about one and one half miles from the American and three from the Canadian shore. It is half surrounded by a multitude of other islands, a group known as West Isles, belonging to New Brunswick. Deer Island was first settled during the middle of the eighteenth century. The original grant is not registered, but there is a record to the effect that in or about the year 1775 the island was granted to one Thomas Farrell by grant under the Great Seal of the Province of Nova Scotia, to which the island at that time belonged. New Brunswick not being erected into a Province until 1784. Curiously enough there is no one of that name on Deer Island to-day, though others of the early settlers are well represented. The island is connected with the mainland only by a telephone put in from Eastport, Maine, in 1904. There is no telegraph. Even steamboat communication has existed only during the past eight years, the people depending before that on their boats.
Most of the West Isles are much smaller than Deer Island, all of them rockbound, with bits of verdant green above the cliffs. Many of them are still untenanted, but on Campobello and Indian Island there are tiny hamlets nestled away under the wing of some sheltering hill. A little English steamer, the Viking, plies between them and the seaports on the coast of Maine and New Brunswick.
As the boat steams in and out between the islands you catch numerous pleasant glimpses of Deer Island,—a crooked bit of land, with many a tiny inlet hiding away behind rocky promontories and tree-fringed coves inviting to harbor, and bold headlands reaching far out into the 
Leonardville and Bar Island at high tide
water. From a distance it would seem to be almost uninhabited, beautiful, quiet, secluded, even somber, but as you draw nearer the white houses begin to peep out here and there from the dense masses of rich green that form the background. Then unexpectedly you come upon a small village nestled along the edge of a cove almost hidden from view of the Bay, and you are at Deer Island.
A few steps up the shore leads you to the residence part of the village. One long road winds along the water front around the little harbor and disappears in each direction beyond the curve of a sharp headland. The houses are perched in a row along the landward side, with a big, pine-covered hill just behind sloping upward in a moderately steep incline for some two hundred feet, so that some of them are literally built into the hillside. Two "general stores" face the road near the wharf, being, like it, built up from the shore on a network of piles, and at a little distance beyond the turn of the road to the north the tips of two steeples pointing above the brow of the hill tell where the villagers attend church. There is a schoolhouse, too, a good one, you are informed, but it stands near the churches and is quite hidden by the hill. There is nothing else to impress you except the stillness,—everything seems to be at peace and at rest,—and the exceeding beauty of the scenery in every direction you look. This, they tell you, is Leonardville.
You are an expected guest, of course, or you would not be seeking Deer Island, for it is an exclusive bit of country that has not yet permitted the intrusion of tourist hotels, and not a solitary inn will you discover within its borders. But the residents are a hospitable, warm-hearted folk, who will gladly entertain you, if you go to them with the proper credentials. And when they entertain you they are not lax in any detail. So you are sure of finding some one at the landing to meet you and row your trunk, or cart or 
Bar Island at low tide and the settlement's oldest house
trundle it in a wheelbarrow, to the nearest point to your destination. For presumably the house in which you are to lodge while on the island is not in the village, but is some quaint farm dwelling a mile or so away that overlooks the cove and its encircling points of rock. The quainter the house the more interesting Not that there are no will be your visit. modern houses. Nearly all of the newer houses are entirely up to date residences, in point of the so-called modern improvements—many of them quite consequential, all of them roomy, comfortable, and pleasant to look at. But the older residences are the historical ones, the homes that have been handed down from generation to generation for more than a century.
It is easy to guess, therefore, that your destination may be a certain little old-fashioned white house snuggled away at the top of a high bluff about two miles up You may the road from Leonardville. drive there or get some one to row you around to the foot of the bluff, from which you can climb up the rocky path that leads to the door. But since you are an adventurous visitor, eager not to miss any possible one of the interesting experiences the island has to offer, you no doubt prefer to walk. You will be well repaid for the trouble. The road, which is a country highway of the best quality kept in excellent condition by the government, leads you out of Leonardville by enticing you up a steep hillside, whose summit you reach only to find that you must immediately descend and begin the ascent of another equally sharp incline. But the vista that you discover in one swift comprehensive glance toward the water is so enhancing that you draw a quick breath and hurry on, wondering. Uphill and down, uphill and down, across a score of tiny rustic or log bridges, now between green fields or past a smooth stretch of beach, with a pine grove rambling upward on one hand and a bank of ledge and sand falling sharply down on the other to the swishing water below with only a railing to keep the wary traveler to his way, and finally around a curve where a grassy slope temporarily hides the water from your sight and ends at the edge of the road in a rail fence. No house is to be seen, but you know that the one you are seeking stands somewhere above and behind that grassy slope. There is no gate in the fence, so you climb over it as cleverly as you can and follow the little footpath that is vaguely limned through the grass,—up the slope and down the opposite side into a narrow ravine, the course of a small but lively brook which forms the outlet of a spring somewhere up the hill beyond the road you recently left, and finds its way around the bluff into the bay. You cross over a quaint bridge, and then climb upward again. Presently, a trifle out of breath, but tingling with a feeling made up of a variety of sensations—enthusiastic anticipation, half credulous, wondering admiration, and pure delight of living—you pause by a low wooden doorstep and stare away first at the fjord-like cove that lies almost at your feet and then across it to the beautiful medley of cliffs, islands, evergreens, blue water, and far-away city. But an open doorway which reveals an expanse of shining yellow floor and sundry evidences of housewifely thrift, besides a pleasant fragrance of tea, and the hospitable voice of your hostess invite you to enter, and "just for a little while" you are persuaded to turn away.
The Leonard (nee Garrison) house
Later in the evening, for it was late in the afternoon when the Viking landed you at Leonardville, you climb the head of the bluff a few hundred yards beyond the home to watch the sunset. Then for the first time you realize the full glory of a Deer Island view. In every direction there is something beautiful to see. Inward, looking toward the north, the high hills of Deer Island shut off its lower extremity from sight. Below them is the curved line of the shore with its rocky banks and bits of white showing through the green of the trees and fields directly above that you know to be the road from Leonardville. Looking waterward, in a broad semicircle you see the companions of Deer Island,—islands of all sizes, from the tiniest of islets to town-dotted fragments of country nearly as large as Deer Island itself. You can count them by scores scattered through the blue water. Straight before you lies Campobello, an attenuated strip of land with a shore line quite as remarkably irregular as that of Deer Island. To the right in the foreground is Indian Island with its one hamlet, the buildings visible here and there through the green of surrounding woods, and beyond across a narrow channel of open water is that rugged outpost of the United States, the rocky island on whose eastern edge the city of Eastport, Maine, is situated. You can easily distinguish the gray wharfs backed by storehouses and factories, and behind them the dwelling-houses and a number of churches scattered over the curious, knobby little hills that are a distinct feature of Eastport.
Nearer yet, on a high bank just across the little cove below the bluff there stands one of the quaintest old houses you will see on Deer Island, and one of the most interesting; for besides being one of the oldest on the island proper, it is the Garrison homestead, where some of the ancestors of William Lloyd Garrison once lived. Other descendants of this branch of the family, cousins of William L. Garrison, still inhabit it, and the grandson of the Great Liberator some times visits there. It is indeed an old house, which though kept in good repair is evidently of the style of the "day before yesterday,"—a low building, whose single pitched roof is quite a full story higher in the front than in the rear. The story of this little souse is a part of one of the pretty romances that are so delightfully woven into the history of Deer Island, and it shall presently have its share in our narrative.
Just now, however, to you who stand on the head of that rugged bluff and look out across Chocolate Cove to the wild and beautiful scene that extends around you, tinted as it is in a wonderful combination of tones and halftones from the after glow of the sunset, historical value is for the moment only a minor element of your appreciation. You wait till the lights twinkle out from a half dozen lighthouses, and then you go to your pillow,—no one keeps late hours in the West Isles,—very likely with the thought in your mind that at last you have found the unsuspected isle" to which Robert Browning alludes, a very fair isle, and not in "far-off seas."
Leading to the edge of a precipice
You are sure to be up with the lark next morning,—whatever your city customs may be, you will always rise early on Deer Island, for the air is vigorous with ozone, and your sleep is so sweet and refreshing that you find yourself almost impatient to explore the delightful possibilities of each new morrow. If the first glance from your window discloses a dense fog, you must not be discouraged, for the sun will probably burn it off. Besides, often when the thickest kind of a mist blanket hangs over the woods and bluffs of the southern shore, hiding the Bay of Fundy, one has only to go across Deer Island to the St. Andrew's side to find the most limpid of clear atmospheres.
After breakfast, the suggestion of a sail may prove very tempting if you are fond of water sport, but one glance at your map will settle that question. No boats for you on this first morning. You have come to see Deer Island, and Deer Island you must see before you can be hindered by the other schemes that will he sure to formulate themselves with the coming of another day.
The island possesses some very beautiful drives, so that though the distances are never great it will be pleasanter to reserve one's legs for the occasional climb "for a view" by the way, than to tramp all day. You will be able to borrow a horse and buggy from one of the neighbors,—only a very enterprising member of the younger generation would think of hiring them to you, and even then the price charged would be surprisingly small.
Your drive will carry you over the government highway,—indicated on the accompanying map by the dotted line, a good carriage road of hard gravel built upon a ledge hase, which runs nearly around the body of the island, following for the greater part of the distance the sinuous windings and turnings of the shore with its numerous bays and inlets.
Instead of circling first to the southeast around the lower end of the island where there are no settlements other than scattered farmhouses, you would prob ably find it more interesting to begin your day's excursion by taking the road. over which you came yesterday, in the direction of Leonardville. From the top of the first hill you look the scenery over keenly to be sure that everything is as you saw it yesterday, all those splendid views a charming reality and not the enchantment of mere imagination. Then down hill again, at a pretty good pace, too,—your horse seems to have caught the exhilaration of your spirit, and has to be 
held in rather than driven; he is a good roadster, anyway, as you will find while the day wears on, for the few people of Deer Island who keep horses, most of them being quite Venetian in their allegiance to boats, are proud of the fact that they keep only good stock.
Leonardville lies perhaps a mile back. It is a small village, as already described, comprising only about forty-three houses in all,—a still pleasant place, with an air of having passed middle life and retired comfortably on a neat income. No wonder it looks out so complacently from its seclusion; it is parent to more than one personality that is active and honored out in the big world.
The Deer Island customs house, a cute little building, scarcely bigger than an ordinary-sized room, was situated at Leonardville, but it has recently been changed into a dwelling-house. A busy place it used to be, for not a boatload of groceries nor one of the packages brought from the shops of Eastport or Lubec could be introduced into the homes of Deer Island without its share of duty. It is interesting just here to note that shopping in the United States is considered by West Isle people to pay in spite of duties.
The residents are mostly fisherfolk, not in the ordinary meaning of the word, however. A fisherman of Deer Island is generally an educated, refined, and usually "well to do" person, who owns or shares in the ownership of a sardine weir and is employer to several boatmen whose business it is to gather in the trapped fish and transfer them to the factories at Lubec and Eastport. Several of these weirs are situated close to Leonardville, one under a high bank a little way to the south, the others grouped around a narrow strip of land that appeared yesterday to be a long arm of Deer Island crooked around the harbor, but is now a mere thread of rockbound green beyond a ten-minute row over the waves of an incoming tide. The dry bar which connected them yesterday and which lends its name of Bar Island to the "thread of green" lies now beneath water of sufficient depth to allow a moderately large steamer to pass over it in safety. Some of the weirs can be discovered readily, though the tall piles that enclose them are nearly submerged. You can trace their fencelike outlines by the brush that is interwoven between the piles to keep the fish from swimming out.
Just beyond Leonardville the road curves to the left around the brow of the high hill that rises so abruptly behind the village, and after forming a wide detour swings inward across the island. Another highway, however, continues by a sharp turn to the right past the inner angle of a beautiful sheet of water nearly landlocked and banked by steep grass-covered slopes that is known as Northwest Harbor, and so on toward Richardson and the northern end of the island. The view from the head of the harbor is especially fine. The harbor is long, crooked, and rather narrow, and has a margin of sheer wooded banks that end in two precipitous bluffs a mile away, between which you catch a glimpse of Fundy and sundry islets.
It is up hill and down for a short time and then suddenly a bit of level country opens up at the foot of one of the briefer inclines where you are still one hundred and fifty feet above the sea, and there just beyond a bend of the road lies the larger of the only two lakes Deer Island possesses. The water lies in a bowl-like hollow of the hills, scarcely a mile wide at its greatest extent, with woods of maple, birch, and pine nearly all the way around, and completing the circumference broad fields where the daintiest of violets and lady's slippers abound. "What a petite and charming lake it is!" you think as you drive on.
Little Meadow Pond, the smaller of the two lakes, lies at the right of the road a short distance farther on in the direction Richardson, the way thither being through thick woods and up a particularly difficult hill. It is the terror of strangers—this hill; few will risk riding down it, if by any means they can manage to ride up. It is part of a new thoroughfare that has been extended within recent years from the old highway indicated on the map, which is the direct route to Lord's Cove, to meet another road that wandered around through Richardson and was lost in the woods at the edge of the village. Consequently one may now drive over the crest of the hill and thus down to Richardson on the shore half way between Lord's Cove and Northwest Harbor by what may well be termed a "short cut."
Like Leonardville, Richardson is built along the shore with hills in the background; but unlike it, the hills here though high are gentle-sloped with long reaches that dip far down into the basin of the Bay, and there is no cove. For these reasons, with the aid of a long wharf, steamboats and other sea craft are enabled to land directly in spite of changing tides. This in turn perhaps explains why there has always been more boat-building at Richardson than at any other Deer Island settlement. The work is done in an unobtrusive way, yet with skill, many a schooner and fishing sloop having been constructed there whose seaworthiness has been proved by the stormiest of ocean tests. During more recent years not a few of the handsome tenders that belong to certain famous yachts first slipped into salt water from the chute of a Richardson boathouse; in fact, an order for a yacht of moderate size finds its way there now and then; while many of the diverse assortment of pretty sailing craft used by the inhabitants of Deer Island and its neighbors are built at Richardson or its sister villages.
Between Richardson and Lord's Cove the road sweeps around the lower reach of a hill that is known as Daddy Good's mountain, after the nickname of a certain quaint old man whose property it once was.
The summit of this hill is always pointed out to visitors as one of the best spots on the island from which to see the Bay of Fundy islands. So you may as well pause in your drive, tie up your horse by the roadside, and scale the height. It is rather steep, though not difficult to climb, and when you are once up, you will agree that it was well worth the trouble. Here you have the advantage of a fairly high elevation with no woods to obscure the view, these having been burned off in frequent forest fires. Off to the right is another glimpse of Campobello, where the nearest summer hotels are situated. Beyond is the open water of Fundy. Nearer lie a long line of islets, now and then one showing a human dwelling tucked safely away into a sheltered recess above gray cliffs,—"Sprinkled isles, lily on lily that o'erlace the sea."
It is a wonderfully beautiful sight, the like of which one cannot picture from mere imagination. Pope's Folly, where poor Pope established a trading post in 1812 and lost his all, lies close in by Deer Island not far from Indian Island. The Hospital Islands, Spectacles (Spec, the natives say), Simpson's Island, and a few others directly in front of you, lie within a mineral region that has been successfully mined in a small way. On Simpson's Island there is a small copper mine in which an American company is much interested. St. Helena, Dinner, Cherry, Casco, The Nubbles, White Horse, are the names of others of the West Isles group, each with its own individual romance, legend, or use. Beyond White Horse on the edge of the horizon miles out into Fundy are the angry Wolves, on which, if you visit them, you may be imprisoned for days by the wild surf that pounds hungrily against their gaunt sides when there is the least provocation of wind or storm.
You descend Daddy Good's mountain more assured than ever that you have discovered the most thoroughly delightful scenery that exists along the Atlantic coast.
The next place of interest for you is Lord's Cove, an irregular but very pretty little harbor near the northern end of the island. The village at the head of this cove is noticeably smaller than the settlements that you have already visited, though it is beginning to grow. Its houses seem to have gone wandering aimlessly along the shore on one forgotten day, and to have paused suddenly in their tracks, never, for some unapparent reason, to move again. Even the little church, which pastors also all the flock From Richardson because they have no church of their own, appears to have arrived only for a call, and then to have changed its mind and stayed on indefinitely. The pier, a superior government structure, extends far out into the water from a narrow hollow at the foot of Trecartin's hill. It is the third stopping
The next place of interest for you is Lord's Cove, an irregular but very pretty little harbor near the northern end of the island. The village at the head of this cove is noticeably smaller than the settlements that you have already visited, though it is beginning to grow. Its place on Deer Island of the Viking on its "down" trip.
The background here, like that at the other villages, is a series of undulating hills which surround the harbor and reach a height of one hundred and ninety feet toward the north. From Lord's Cove a road runs straight across the island. cutting off its entire northern end, but you will, of course, drive on by the shore past the big headland, almost three hundred feet high, that forms the northern, or as natives of the place say, the lower end of the island. This headland is one of the most worthy climbs "for a view" the island has to offer. There is a little house half way up that would delight the heart of any artist, and where you may stop for a drink of cool spring water, if you wish. From the summit you look off not only to boisterous Fundy and the islands that you saw from Daddy Good's Mountain, but in the opposite direction across the quiet, uninterrupted surface of Passamaquoddy Bay to St. Andrew's town eight miles away. Northerly, some three miles away, another and larger peninsular juts out from the mainland of New Brunswick to meet the ridge of marine hills that forms the chain of islands extending across from Deer Island. Two of these, Le Tete and Doyle's Island (locally called Pendleton's), ate famous for their precipitous cliffs, which rise sheer out of the water to a height of five hundred feet. There are rough projections here and there on the faces of these cliffs, so that adventurous visitors have at different times undertaken with success to climb them from the water side. The splendor of the view from their tops may be fancied as worth all the hazard of such a climb. It is no question of fancy after you have once reached the summit. Then you declare with enthusiasm that you would not have missed it for anything in the world.
From the northern end around the western and southern shore of Deer Island to Chocolate Cove you drive through a very wooded region, where the signs of human habitation are infrequent and the beauty of the island itself is richer through wildness and solitude than along the eastern shore. Just as on the opposite side of the island the road winds up and down incessantly, over scores of tiny rustic bridges, past bits of farmland, where the buildings stand so close to the water that the tides reach the very garden gate, between high banks and along the edges of cliffs sometimes so narrow that two carriages can scarcely pass each other, sometimes for aught that your inexperience can foretell threatening to cast you in another moment right off the brim of a precipice into the waves, only to bring you abruptly and safely around the butt of a sharp crag onto the long, white, green-walled stretch again, with each fresh twist, each opening of the trees, disclosing some new and often startling vista. And always there are hills. And such hills. In one of her vivid descriptions Elizabeth Barrett Browning has given us the very words that best apply to it
Deer Island's irregular indented shore
Northern Harbor, which you reach about midway of the length of the island, is a charming sheet of water, almost landlocked, and therefore usually calm as a lake, the largest and most irregular of the eight harbors of Deer Island. The southern point of Deer Island is a long narrow finger of rocky ridge that reaches out as far as possible towards Eastport. This peninsula is screened from the road by high ground and trees, so that one might easily pass it by without suspecting its presence. The road approaches over a tedious incline, whose upper slopes rise to the left of the road upwards of three hundred feet, the maximum height of the island. Beyond, the road swings gracefully northward towards Chocolate Cove.
The Garrison house stands at your right as you near the cove. No doubt you will like to stop and see the curious antique dwelling and hear from the inmates some of the stories and traditions that are told of this famous family.
Fanny Lloyd, the mother of William Lloyd Garrison, was born on Deer Island. The Lloyd homestead used to stand on the opposite side of Chocolate Cove close to the bluff on which you are lodging.
It is probable that your other days at Deer Island will be spent chiefly upon the water.
The islets around Deer Island are not the least of its attractions by any means; and one might occupy many weeks merely in exploring a few of them. The region is an artist's paradise. If fishing is your hobby, you may catch a dozen finny perhaps from cod to lobster—perhaps even a whale. Many of the islands are overrun with a growth of wild rock-cranberries, and in their season with strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries, so that you may go a-berrying also.
Perhaps you are fond of shooting. Then this locality is one of the best resorts in New Brunswick, on account of the ease and comparative inexpense of reaching the various points of the game regions. The Chamcook abound in sea-fowl. The Chamcook Lakes, to which you may go by way of St. Andrew's, are famous for their land-locked salmon and wild fowl. St. George, St. Stephen, and Maguagadavic are also reached with very little trouble. Partridge, woodcock, duck, and rabbits are found there; while a short trip by canoe will take the sportsman where deer abound.
On the other hand you may go sight-seeing to Eastport and Lubec, where there are twenty-five sardine factories with some one hundred fifty employees each, and an average weekly payroll of two thousand dollars, almost wholly dependent on Deer Island for their supply of fish. The cleaning and canning of the sardines is an interesting process, and considering that in 1905 there was an output of nearly two million cases of this fish, almost all shipped to the western states, one can easily calculate how large and important an industry it is.
Or you may make a shopping and souvenir-seeking pilgrimage to St. Andrew's—Quaint St. Andrew's, where you may purchase the "very newest fancy from Paris" for a wonderful bargain of a price and coming out of the shop door find your way impeded by a haughty goose out with her brood for an airing; or a cow peacefully chewing her cud on the quay glances up mildly at the arriving tourist as he steps around her.
The people of the West Isles trade less at St. Andrew's than at the nearer markets at Eastport and Lubec, the United States thereby receiving the benefit. If one depends on the Viking for conveyance, there are two possible trips each week to St. Andrews. Deer Island people, however, more frequently go in their own trim boats and launches. They use their boats in much the same manner as city people use carriages. And as for social calls or business—no one ever thinks of walking if there is a row boat handy, and a pull up or down the shore will land one any nearer to the destination.
Some of the yachts and naphtha launches seen in these waters are of fairly large size, upwards of twenty tons, and cost two thousand dollars or more. They are often taken out for a cruise of considerable length, the yachts being provided with auxiliary engines to be used in case of need. Many of them are very swift, too, and not a few have won cups in exciting home races.
For the stranger, on the other hand, navigation in the vicinity of Deer Island is attended with dangers that make the greatest caution necessary. The tide, as is well known, rises to a greater height in the Bay of Fundy than in almost any other part of the world. As this great body of water rushes in from the Atlantic on the flood among the small islands and ledges and points of rock that surround Deer Island, raising the level of the coves more than twenty feet in a very brief time, the waters are kept in one continual whirl and in many places the utmost care is required to save small boats from destruction. The most dangerous point among the West Isles is at the southern extremity of the finger of land that juts out from Deer Island towards Eastport. On the flood, and especially at half flood, it is exceedingly dangerous for craft of any kind to approach the shore, since the whirlpools rage furiously like enormous boiling caldrons, with a fearful noise which is of itself alarming, but proves a boatmen on dark nights by its timely warning. For a boat once fairly within the merciless yeast of roaring, foaming waves is beyond the reach of aid, and destruction is as swift as it is certain. At the most dangerous time of tide even large boats would have but slender chance of escape; while at low tide not much risk is run by passing through the very vortex. The boatmen of Passamaquoddy Bay, familiar as they are from boyhood with the tides, eddies, ledges, and whirlpools, have little difficulty in avoiding all danger, and a fatal accident seldom occurs among them. They are courageous, too. The Deer Island youth bred to the use of boats from his earliest years displays what might be termed recklessness, though it is really only a combination of skill and courage. He will cross from island to island and go from passage to passage through frightful looking whirls of tide, in alarming proximity to rocks and bars, and in the stormiest of weather. Some, even of the big whirlpools, therefore, are not so ravenous as they appear, though they are the torment of life to unwary skippers whose boats have been compelled to pirouette artistically many times for the benefit of a delighted audience on shore or other boat.
Indian Island and its one townlet
Among other things you must visit the sardine weirs. Of course everybody knows that the "sardines " are really young herring, that there are no sardines in American-Atlantic waters; but the substitute properly canned is toothsome and sells readily. The weirs themselves may be described as fields covered with portions water instead of with grass, of comparatively shallow water enclosed by a stout row of piles interwoven with brush. Some of them bear very curious names, often derived, it is said, from the more striking peculiarities of their owners, and you learn to recognize such terms as Bumblebee, Consular, Growler, Buttercup, Golden Press, Dinner Island. A patrol is sent out to each weir at certain intervals every day, and it is the duty of this man to signal the news shoreward with his horn if he finds the weir occupied. The fish come in with the tides in great shoals, are caught behind the brush walls of the weirs, and held until men arrive with boats and nets to scoop them out. The sardine season is short, lasting only four to six months, usually throughout the summer.
With all this business going on on the the borderland between two great countries, it is necessary that each nation should look assiduously to the protection own interests. The boundary its between Maine and New Brunswick is no imaginary line, but a well-surveyed bound indicated by buoys that extend in a long series from the coast across 'Quoddv and between the islands to the Atlantic. The Canadian fishery cruiser Curlew and an American cutter are in charge of these precincts and allow no trespassing on their respective domains, and in consequence there is a pretty In fact, lively occasion now and then. there is always a good deal of rivalry between things Canadian and things American. In everything from boat racing to politics you meet that tireless spirit of good-natured competition.
The population quite equally divided between Liberals and Conservatives, British subjects, inhabitants of British soil, descendants for the most part of Loyalist emigrants from Connecticut and New York at the time of the Revolution, who nevertheless are stanch friends of the United States and show their appreciation of the advantages this country has to offer by sending their children to its schools and colleges.
Many of the people have traveled; some of them often spending the winter in Florida or some part of the South or in California, though to be sure the snowy months are not over-rigorous in the West Isles, so pure is the air. All are fond of merrymaking, so that lodges flourish, and social gatherings and moonlight excursions are frequent. You cannot help liking and admiring these whole-souled, unassuming folk as much as you like and admire their home. And when you have once been so fortunate as to gain admission to their pleasant fellowship you will be of those enthusiastic ones who "come and come again."
Richardsonville
The Viking
- ↑ Copyright, August, 1908, by Grace Agnes Thompson and May Penery Martin.