On November 10, 2011 the writer spent a day with Waldron Haslam Leard visiting a number of sites in Eastern Kings County where Waldron had made observations about the impacts of a changing climate in the region. The pdf document attached to this post provides a summary of this very informative day.
Category: Fishing
Observations of Jimmy Boulter, Victoria, PEI
Background: Jimmy was born on June 3, 1924 and has lived at his current address his entire lifetime. He quit school at age 14 and started fishing with Charlie Miller. His pay at the time was $15 per month. He eventually operated his own lobster boat and later on in life he was the harbour master at the Victoria Wharf.
Figure 1 – Jimmy Boulter of Victoria, 2011
Historic Infrastructure on Victoria Waterfront: Charlie Miller operated a lobster cannery on the shoreline on the east side of the harbour near the existing Morningstar Fisheries Plant. This plant was located about 100 feet south of the old Victoria Bridge. South of this building was another fish plant operated by Jim Knox and it was about 100 feet from Charlie Miller’s plant. A third building, which was used as a lime kiln and was operated by John C. MacDonald, was located south of Jim Knox’s fish plant. The lime was brought to this site by schooners coming from the mainland.
In the area just south of Water St, Jimmy recalled there were at least 3 wharves back in the days of the schooners. There was Bryan’s Wharf which was just south of Lillian Elliott’s home and Charlie Miller operated a lobster factory on this wharf. This wharf was renamed Calvin’s Wharf in later years. This wharf used to have a trestle and used steel cars for loading and unloading schooners. The main wharf was located where it is today and a third wharf was located to the east next to the old bridge and this was known as Palmer’s Wharf. Jimmy can remember schooners coming into Victoria with coal and taking on loads of potatoes and grain. He recalled a man by the name of Hedley Miller telling him that at one time there were so many schooners docked in Victoria that one could walk from Bryan’s Wharf to Palmer’s Wharf on top of the schooners without touching the wharves. Some of these schooners used granite rock as ballast and when they came to Victoria empty they would unload the granite along the wharf before taking on a load of local produce or fish.
The sea wall which is south of Lillian Elliott’s house was installed about 30 years ago by the provincial government.
Coastal Erosion: Jimmy was familiar with the farm of John C. MacDonald (later owned by Gordon MacDonald, his son) on the east side of the Victoria Bridge and east of the current provincial park. He can remember that the house on this farm was 100 feet from the beach and that the first road between Victoria and Hampton ran south of this house. There was a sharp turn in the road just east of the MacDonald house and the road ran by an old well and separator building. The road extended northward until it met the main road to Hampton. He fondly recalled a flashing light with a diamond background which was located where the road turned northward. He also mentioned that the MacDonald’s built a breastwork along the shore in the area to try and stop the erosion of the shoreline. Eventually this road washed away and another road was built and went through the middle of the existing Victoria Provincial Park. Eventually a third road was built to Hampton when the current causeway was built in the mid 1960’s. Jimmy recalls actually driving a car on the 2nd road but he personally never drove on the first road except when he drove on a portion of it with someone else as a young boy.
Figure 2 – Road from Victoria to Hampton in 1935 – John C. MacDonald House on lower right of photo
Mr. Boulter has observed a lot of shoreline erosion at Paul’s Bluff just west of Victoria. He remembers that there used to be a grove of trees at the end of the point but these have all succumbed to erosion. He also mentioned that he has noticed a lot of erosion on the point of land which was formerly the Palmer farm but is now owned by Donald Wood.
Victoria Bridge: Jimmy recalled that the old Victoria Bridge had an abutment along the side of it for protection. The channel at the time was west of the current channel. When the new bridge was built in the mid 1960’s they dug a channel to the old abutment but this didn’t last more than 6 months. The local people including Charlie Howatt tried to tell the engineer for the project that the new bridge location would cause problems with siltation and erosion but the engineer basically told them to mind their own business. He said that eventually the Westmoreland River found its own channel to get to the Strait.
Victoria Harbour Channel: The channel into the Victoria Harbour has changed a lot over the years. He recalled that boaters used to be able to use the outer and inner range lights to enter the harbour but with sedimentation and siltation over the years, the channel has narrowed and shifted and now boat operators have to follow the buoys to enter the harbour. On a related issue, Jimmy mentioned that the sand suckers which came to dredge the harbour would place the dredged material on the flats versus on the shore and some of the dredge spoils eventually ended up in the channel.
Salt Water Intrusion: Jimmy remembers when John C MacDonald drilled a deep well on their farm. This well had good water and had 40 feet of pipe installed. The well was 1000 feet deep and was drilled by a firm from Amherst, NS using a steam engine. He recalls that there was no fresh water until they hit a spring deep in the well.
At the Morningstar Fisheries Plant, he believes that there may have been 3 salt water wells drilled over the years. He also mentioned a salt water well being drilled by Peter Paton at his fish plant south of Water St on the wharf.
Storms: During his days as a fisherman, Jimmy remembers 3 bad hurricanes which caused damage in the wharf and caused boats to jump on top of the wharf. The worst storm of all was Hurricane Hazel which he believes occurred in the early 1950’s. He remembered that a lady who lived in Victoria had moved to Crapaud before this hurricane and she told him that she had to clean salt spray off her windows in Crapaud which is a significant distance from the coast. He also remembers Hurricane Edna was also very severe. He isn’t that familiar with damage caused by recent storm surges as he doesn’t go down to the wharf much anymore.
Fishery: Jimmy believes that a major impact on the lobster, mackerel and herring fishery was due to the Canso Causeway when it was installed. He remembers that years ago he knew the Harbour Master in Georgetown and the fishermen in Victoria could count on herring about 2 to 3 days after they were reported in Georgetown. This changed after the Canso Causeway was installed.
He also mentioned that a sand sucker ruined the bed oyster bed on the north side of the bridge by removing the bed and piled it in another area.
The Tryon Bar which is visible at low tide off shore has been a major source of bar clams since Jimmy was a young boy. His father was from the Tryon River area and there was a great spot for harvesting quahogs near his farm. The quahogs would come to the surface at low tide and look like snow on the mud flats. His father used to feed the quahogs to the hens on the farm and they would fatten up in a hurry.
The Morningstar: The Morningstar was a dragger which was originally owned by Gauthier Brothers from Rustico. They sold the dragger to Peter Payton and he used it to identify scallop and clam beds around the province. James Buster Boulter and Dave Nicholson were part of the crew on the Morningstar. This ship was abandoned on the shore near the current site of the Morningstar fish plant.
Source: From an interview of Jimmy Boulter, August 3, 2011
Climate Change at Victoria as Observed by George Ferguson
Background: George has lived in the Victoria / Hampton area for all of his life (68 years). His wife, Catherine, has lived in Victoria for 46 years. George has fished for approximately 50 years and he first worked as a helper on his brother’s boat.
Sea Level / T ides: In the past 20 years George has observed that the sea level has been rising and that the tides are getting higher. During this time, he believes the sea level at the Victoria wharf has risen by at least a foot. When the big tides and surges are on, some of the boats nearly end up on the top of the wharf.
Erosion: George has noticed a lot of shoreline erosion at the park and east of the park at Hampton. They have cottages on the North side of the Causeway Road in Hampton. The shoreline is getting closer every year. He thinks that at least 6 feet of shoreline has been lost in the last couple of years.
Sea Ice: Up to 20 or 30 years ago fisherman in Victoria would have a lot of trouble getting out to set lobster traps for the spring season. They would often have to wait until after May 15th. In the past 4 or 5 years, there has basically been no ice in the Victoria harbour area. There have been no delays in opening the lobster season for the past 10 years. He said that prior to the last 20 years that they often could not get out until after May 20th.
Storms / Storm Surges: The worst damage in Victoria Harbour occurs with a Southeast wind at high tide. The breakwater / sea wall on the shore side of Lillian Elliott’s house had been damaged by several storms over the years. Mrs. Elliott’s house gets hit the hardest and pumps are not able to keep her house dry when a storm surge is happening.
Fishing: He mentioned that the big storm last December (2010) caused a lot of damage to the lobster fishery on the north shore. This may be a reason why catches were so poor this past spring season. This was a northeast storm so the Victoria area wasn’t hit hard. He has noticed that there has been no herring in the area for the last 4 to 5 years and this may have something to do with the more frequent storms.
Infrastructure: He believes that the relocation of the bridge from Victoria to Hampton several years ago has impacted the fishery in the area and has been the cause of a lot of sedimentation in the harbour. The channel into Victoria has been filling with sediment and it needs to be dredged frequently. Local fisherman told the engineers who came to describe the new bridge project, that the new bridge should be put at the historical location, but the engineers were not interested in changing the project.
Source: From an interview of George Ferguson, July 22, 2011
Waterspout Reported Off North Cape, September 11, 1998
Henry Doucette was fishing lobster off North Cape when he saw a water filled funnel (waterspout) about 15 km away. “We saw some really dark clouds, and then we saw a straight funnel, white, hitting the water. You could see the water flying around it. This lasted about 20 minutes”. There were 75 boats in the water at the time.
Norman Gaudet was also fishing off North Cape at the time the storm touched down. Mr. Gaudet had been fishing for more than 20 years and he said that he had never seen anything like it.
Guardian: September 14, 1998
Late Spring, 1997
A major snowstorm blanketed the Island on April 1st and 2nd, 1997 and it finally blew out on the 3rd. A total of 42.9 cm of snow fell at Charlottetown Airport during the event. This helped to delay the arrival of spring along with cold temperatures. The opening of trout fishing season on April 15th was greeted by thick ice on most ponds and rivers making it difficult for anglers to fish at their favorite spot.
The lateness of the spring was accentuated by the appearance of the first flying June Bugs on June 2nd.
Sources: Island Naturalist, April, 1997; Environment Canada Historical Climate Data, 1997.
Bad Storm Results in Sinking of Iceland II Trawler, February 23, 1967
Iceland II, a steel, fishing trawler from Prince Edward Island left Souris on February 22nd, 1967 and ran ashore during a storm and broke up at Bear Cove, near Fourchu, Cape Breton on February 23, 1967. The entire crew of ten, four of whom were from Souris, were killed during this incident. Two bodies were never found. The Souris crew members are buried at the St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church Cemetery in Souris. The funeral for James Carter was held at Easter time. Waldron Leard remembered going to the site of the disaster in 2011 and pieces of this boat could still be found on the shore. Several other boats went down during this storm.
Johanna MacPhail was living at East Baltic at the time of the storm and her former husband, John Hendsbee, was a crew member on Iceland II. She recalled the night of the storm, and the wind was blowing so hard that the old house they were living in was shaking during the night. She actually dreamed about the ship going down the night of the incident. She didn’t want her husband of 4 years and 4 months to set out to fish for flounder and cod as she was aware of the dangers of fishing during the winter. Unfortunately, her dream came true, and the ship went down without any survivors.
Meteorological records from the Charlottetown Airport reveal there were indeed a few wild days for boats to be sailing off the coast of PEI and Cape Breton.
| Date | Total Precipitation | Peak Wind Gust |
| February 21, 1967 | 14.5 | 80 |
| February 22, 1967 | 2.0 | 89 |
| February 23, 1967 | 12.7 | 103 |
| February 24, 1967 | 7.9 | 132 |
| February 25, 1967 | 0 | 72 |
Sources: Waldron Leard, Personal Communication, 2014; Guardian, June 15, 2010; Environment Canada Historical Climate data.
Tropical Storm of September 14 and 15, 1977
Some remnants of Hurricane Clara caused high winds and heavy rain in the Maritime region in mid September, 1977. At Antigonish, NS winds of 100 km/h overturned campers, uprooted trees, damaged barns and caused power outages.
Prince Edward Island received its share of the storm impacts with heavy rain and high winds. The following table provides from wind and rainfall data from 8 locations on PEI.
| Sept. 14th Wind (km/h) | Rain (mm) | Sept. 15th Wind (km/h) | Rain (mm) | |
| Tignish | – | 50.5 | – | 0 |
| Ellerslie | – | 54.9 | – | 0 |
| Wellington | – | 58.9 | – | 0 |
| Summerside A | 119 | 32.0 | 102 | 1.4 |
| Charlottetown A | 102 | 38.4 | 93 | 5.8 |
| Alliston | – | 32.0 | – | 0.5 |
| Souris | – | 62.7 | – | 2.3 |
| East Baltic | – | 65.5 | – | 0.8 |
In Summerside the high winds uprooted trees, snapped some trees in half, and snapped off tree limbs resulting in spotty power outages. Maritime Electric officials reported that their crews in the West Prince were very busy repairing outages with up to 8 power poles knocked down. Power was out all night in the Tignish and Alberton areas. Three men from West Prince who had been out fishing were missing during the night of September 14th and were rescued by the Coast Guard vessel, Tupper the next morning and towed to Brae Harbour. Aircraft from CFB Greenwood and CFB Sherwater helped find the missing men about 5 miles (8 km) from shore. The men rescued were Eddie Annand of Bideford, Stirling Moore, Poplar Grove and Wayne Wagner, Bideford.
Georgie Cairns of Lower Freetown made a brief mention of the storm in her diary entries for the two days but didn’t mention any damage on the farm.
14. (Wed) Rainy day. William to Charlottetown. Very windy at night.
15. (Thu) Cold and windy.
Ferry services at Borden and Wood Islands were also interrupted by the high winds.
Power line crews were also out repairing outages in the Charlottetown area which were mainly caused by tree branches falling on power lines. Jim Spears of the Charlottetown Weather office reported that the winds were the highest since April 4th earlier in the year.
The PEI Crop Insurance Agency estimated that 15 to 20 per cent of the 3,650 acres of the tobacco crop was destroyed by the storm. The total loss to 66 tobacco growers was estimated at $1 million with farmers expecting a loss of about 200 pounds per acre. One grower, Austin Mussel, indicated that most of the bottom tobacco leaves had already been harvested but the choice top leaves were mostly still in the fields. There was also some frost damage reported prior to the storm but the worst damage was from the windstorm. Some of the unharvested grain crops were flattened and damaged by the wind.
William Howlett of Gowan Brae had his barn damaged by the storm. The were a few trees knocked down in the Town of Souris and some shingles were ripped off roofs. Felix Walker of St. Georges lost the rafters off the roof of his new potato warehouse under construction at the time.
Sources: Environment Canada Historical climate data; Willscott Farm Diaries, 1977; Journal Pioneer, Sept. 15, 1977; Guardian, Sept. 16, 1977
Hurricane Beth Damages Tobacco and Grain Crops, August 15- 16, 1971
On August 15th, 1971, Hurricane Beth hit the Maritime Provinces as a tropical storm making landfall near Copper Lake on the eastern tip of Nova Scotia . In Nova Scotia rainfall amounts up to 296 mm were reported at Halifax with extensive damage to crops, roads and bridges.
There was heavy rainfall from this storm in Kings County, PEI with lesser amounts in western areas of the province as shown on the table.
| Station | August 15th (mm) | August 16th (mm) | Two Day Total (mm) |
| Souris | 120.9 | 81.5 | 202.4 |
| Alliston | 127.5 | 59.2 | 186.7 |
| Montague | 124.0 | 39.4 | 163.4 |
| Monticello | 106.4 | 43.9 | 150.3 |
| Charlottetown | 31.5 | 41.9 | 73.4 |
| Stanhope | 57.4 | 13.7 | 71.1 |
| Long River | 53.6 | 17.0 | 70.6 |
| Summerside Airport | 11.7 | 40.9 | 52.6 |
| O’Leary | 9.4 | 12.7 | 22.1 |
| Alberton | 5.3 | 11.9 | 17.2 |
A wind gust of 74 km/h was reported at the Charlottetown Airport on August 16th and high winds were experienced in other areas especially in southern Queens and King counties. Hundreds of acres of the tobacco crop was toppled by the high winds from the storm and grain crops were also badly damaged. Ronald MacInnis of the PEI Crop Insurance Agency estimated the losses to the tobacco crop could be at least 20%. The tobacco plants were nearly all blown over. Workers had to go into the fields to straighten out the plants one by one.
The lobster fishing season had just started for the western part of PEI and the storm caused hundreds of traps to pile up at North Cape Reef and there was extensive damage to traps between Miminegash and North Cape.
Sources: Environment Canada Historical Climate Data; Guardian, August 17, 1971; Canadian Disaster Database.
Late May Snowstorm, May 28, 1974
A late May snowstorm dumped 2.5 cm of snow and 38.6 mm of rain at Alliston on May 28, 1974. At Charlottetown Airport a total of 5.3 cm of snow was reported with 10.4 mm of rain. Wind gusts of up to 68 km/h were reported at Charlottetown.
The southern portions of Kings and Queens Counties appeared to have received the greater part of the precipitation which fell in an unusual late May snow and rainstorm. It began as rain early in the morning and by noon the ground south of Montague was white and for a time during the afternoon at least 2.5 cm of snow could be measured, although most of it was melting as it fell. By nightfall the ground was still white in many places although the snow had ended, and it was raining.
Some serious losses of lobster traps were experienced during the storm. Francis MacAdam of Morell found 40 of his larger lobster traps had drifted over 1.6 km to the mouth of Red Head Harbour and he estimated he lost close to one third of his traps. Clarence Gauthier of North Rustico reported there were heavy losses of traps in the Rustico area.
One third of the potato crop was reported to be in the ground over the entire province but in West Prince there was only 5% of the crop planted as there was still up to 18 inches (46 cm) of frost in some areas according to Jim Harris.
Sources: Guardian, May 29, 1974; Guardian, May 31, 1974; Guardian, May 28, 1974; Environment Canada Historical Climate data, 1974.
Mi’kmaq Relics at Darnley Bridge, Mid 1800s
The first European settlers in the Darnley Bridge area found immense piles of “middens” composed mainly of oyster shells which had been placed there by the Mi’kmaq people who had lived and camped in the area for centuries. The early pioneer farmers actually used these shells as a source of lime for their farm crops.
In the mid 1800s a rotted stump of a large pine tree was dug up near the end of the Darnley Bridge and under its roots was a deposit of shells many feet in thickness. At the end of the Darnley Bridge, an ancient Aboriginal burial ground was found with numerous skeletons uncovered. Descriptions of these skeletons indicate they were an unusually large size which would easily fit over an ordinary-sized human skull.
Abraham Gesner reported in 1854, that those similar large sized skulls were found in the Savage Harbour area where he states, “By the encroachment of the sea on the south, a number of Indian skeletons have been exposed and washed from the bank. These skeletons are lying together in different positions, as if the bodies had been thrown into a common pit, the top of which was only a foot beneath the soil. Some of the bones were found to be of great size, and in general they exceeded the dimensions those of the race in their present state…”
Another report from 1936 mentions that shell heaps and adze made from stone was found on the west bank of the Darnley Basin near the Darnley Bridge.
Sources: Abraham Gesner, 1854; Ada MacLeod, Dalhousie Review No. 1, April, 1926; Guardian, August 13, 1949; Guardian, August 10, 1936.
Our Island Climate 