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Shipbuilding
Shores
Axes swinging, hammers ringing, pay packets
swelling - at the time of Canadian Confederation
in 1867, shipbuilding was the leading producer
of wealth on Prince Edward Island. From felling
trees and sawing lumber, to fashioning blocks
and pulleys, splicing ropes, caulking seams
and sewing sails, the shipbuilding boom created
thousands of jobs. It contributed not only
to the “Golden Age of Sail,” but
also to an era of plenty and prosperity. By
1850, the Three Rivers area boasted 11 of
the Island’s 50 shipyards, steadily
turning out vessels from the villages of Cardigan,
Montague and Georgetown. By the time the age
of steam took over – and many of the
Island’s forests had disappeared –Three
Rivers’ shipyards had launched over
400 ships.
Spacious Cardigan Bay, sheltered between Boughton
and Panmure Islands, was a natural location
for shipbuilding operations, and Cardigan
Wharf, at the mouth of the Cardigan River,
became a shipbuilding centre and cargo port.
Throughout Three Rivers, ship launches became
a frequent source of community entertainment.
Among the largest ships produced were the
Willie McLaren (1874), the Matilda
(1892), and the Empress schooner, Montague’s
record-breaker (1901). In Georgetown Harbour,
famous ships included the Victoria
(1841), the Alma (1870), the Aquila
(1888) and the Lady Napier (1902).
The fortunes of the Three Rivers shipbuilders
reflected the rise and fall of the industry
around the Island. From a peak of 914 vessels
in the years 1861-1870, total Island production
declined to 571 from 1871-1880, 137 from 1881-90,
and 52 from 1891-1900. The last sailing ships
launched in Cardigan Bay were a trio of schooners,
the Victory Chimes, the Anne MacDonald
and the Barbara MacDonald. Both the
Anne and the Barbara sailed
through violent weather, and in 1924, the
Barbara’s crew was lost at sea.
The
Ice Boat Tragedy of 1885
Just 5 metres long and barely 2 metres wide,
Prince Edward Island’s unassuming, tin-covered
19th century ice boats were a welcome sight
to the stranded passengers of winter ferries
caught in the ice between Georgetown and Pictou
on the Nova Scotia mainland. The open craft,
equipped with runners, sails and straps for
hauling, were designed to glide over solid
ice and slip easily into open water. As rescue
craft, they were often called in to take food
and supplies to ferry crews, and carry passengers
back to port.
Mail Run:
In prolonged subzero weather, when ferry icebreakers
could not navigate the frozen expanse of Northumberland
Strait, ice boats were the only source of
transportation to the mainland. Their service
was provided under government contract, and
conveyance of mail was regarded as their most
important function. Passengers were something
of an afterthought. Those who were willing
to help the crew haul the boat were able to
travel for free, but riders paid a steep fare.
Tightly-negotiated contracts left ice boat
captains with little money left for safety
equipment, and the crossing of the Strait
could be fraught with hardship and danger.
Failed Ferries: Year-round
ferry service between the Island and the mainland
– the provision of “continuous
and efficient communication” –
was a highly controversial issue in post-Confederation
Prince Edward Island. Endeavoring to keep
its promise to the Islanders (at the lowest
possible cost), the federal government hired
a private winter steamship operator from Georgetown.
When his ship, the Albert, was unable
to navigate the ice for 2 winters in a row,
the government pressed an aging and inadequate
icebreaker, the Northern Light, into
service. Over a period of 12 years, the ill-fated
steamship spent more time stalled and stuck
than free and floating – to the delight
of political humourists, the ship’s
crew had discovered that its stern was more
effective than its stem in breaking through
the ice. Business was brisk for the Island’s
ice boats.
In 1881, ice boat crews were forced to make
several dramatic rescues of impatient ferry
passengers who, confined to the mainland for
three weeks in row, set out to walk across
the Strait. Their desperation added to the
Islander’s angry pleas for reliable
year-round ferry service.
Northumberland Nightmare: On January
27, 1885, no one came to the rescue of the
ice boats themselves, when they were caught
in a sudden, blinding snowstorm in the middle
of Northumberland Strait. The crew of 15,
along with 7 passengers, were forced to camp
overnight on the ice under the shelter of
2 upturned boats and some luggage. A third
boat was burned for heat, but it did little
to lessen the effects of wildly plunging temperatures.
There was no food, no water and no extra clothing
or survival gear. On the following day, the
frozen, snow-blinded, near-delirious group
struggled on, finally collapsing on a drift-covered
marsh close to shore. Those still standing
managed to reach a nearby home. Although no
one died in the tragedy, some lost their hands
and feet to frostbite, and the Islander’s
impatience with the federal government turned
to rage.
The ice boat tragedy set the stage for an
improvement in ice boat safety regulations,
and the eventual improvement of the winter
ferry fleet. After flirting with an ambitious
plan to build a “Northumberland Tunnel”
on the floor of the sea between the Island
and the mainland, the federal government commissioned
a more substantial ice breaker, the Stanley.
It was followed by the Minto and the
Earl Grey, and finally, in 1914, by
the ice breaking car ferry, the Prince
Edward Island.
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Three
Rivers Heritage at Garden of
the Gulf Museum
Shipbuilding exhibits, First
Nations artifacts, early household
items and the history of the
18th century Roma Settlement
are all part the collection
of the Garden of the Gulf Museum,
located on the Montague River
in the town of Montague. The
Museum, housed in a former federal
post office and customs building,
maintains a collection of over
2500 objects relating to the
heritage of the Three Rivers
area.
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Roma’s Doom
Was it just a coincidence that Jean Pierre
de Roma’s pioneering Prince Edward Island
settlement lasted for 13 years? The unlucky
number seems to symbolize the bad luck and
misfortune that befell one of the Islands’
first communities.
Vaunted
Vision: In 1731, the ambitious and
somewhat grandiose Paris merchant was appointed
director of the “Compagne de L’Est
de L’Île Saint-Jean,” under
charter of King Louis XV of France. The Company
was granted a feudal estate on the eastern
part of the island in an area bordered by
the Cardigan, Brudenell and Montague Rivers.
Under the terms of the charter, Roma and his
Company were required to settle 80 people
in 1732, and 30 people each year thereafter.
The settlement, known as “Trois Rivières”
(and sometimes “La Romaine”),
was intended to be a commercial fishing operation.
But Roma and his French business partners
envisioned more. Their plan was to trade cod,
planks and beer for molasses and rum from
the West Indies, which they would sell to
Quebec in exchange for supplies such as flour.
For the first few years Roma and his settlers
made astonishing progress. At Brudenell Point
they cleared land, built piers, dug wells,
constructed 9 homes and outbuildings, planted
fields of wheat and peas, set out gardens,
and built a number of small boats. Over the
course of 2 winters, a crew of 19 men braved
the snow and cold to construct a series of
narrow, rudimentary roads to St. Peter’s,
Sturgeon River, Cardigan, Souris and Port-La-Joie
(Charlottetown). In St. Peter’s, Roma
established a satellite fish-drying operation,
complete with housing drying platforms and
housing for 55 people.
Growing Misfortune: But Roma’s
luck suddenly ran out. Under pressure from
his Paris partners, he was forced to become
the Company’s sole proprietor. Headstrong
and willful, Roma quarreled with the settlement’s
priest over the division of sacred and secular
powers. His labour pool shrank, as new immigrants
chose to follow their own destinies rather
than join the feudal enterprise. In 1738,
an ominous plague of mice ruined the settlement’s
crops. In 1740, fire destroyed some his buildings
and cattle, and in 1741, one of the Company’s
sea-going vessels was shipwrecked. Finally,
in 1745, just as Roma faced financial ruin,
British troops from New England attacked and
destroyed Tros Rivières. Roma, his
family and his servants fled first to the
woods, and then to Quebec.
Roma, whose reputation for fractiousness was
well-established, never returned to Île
Saint-Jean, despite the island’s temporary
re-assignment to the French. In 1757, as the
drama of the fall of Louisbourg and the deportation
of the Acadians was played out on the east
coast, Roma headed south to an administrative
post on the island of Martinique.
Lasting Legacy: When Roma’s
Trois Rivières settlement was excavated
in the late 1960’s, archeologists found
only a couple of half-filled wells and some
remnants of masonry. But while little remains
of the settlement’s bricks and mortar,
Roma’s vision of the Three Rivers area
as a centre of industry and commerce was eventually
realized by the fishers, farmers and shipbuilders
of the following century.
Today, visitors to the Three Rivers area can
view the Roma of Three Rivers National
Historic Monument on Brudenell Point
at the junction of the Montague and Brudenell
Rivers.
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