Bliss Islands

Bliss Islands
Native name:
Seebes'kook[1]
"High Tide Flows Through It"
Lighthouse on Bliss Island
Interactive map of Bliss Islands
Geography
LocationBay of Fundy
Coordinates45°01′1″N 66°51′0″W / 45.01694°N 66.85000°W / 45.01694; -66.85000
Area42.1[2] ha (104 acres)
Administration
Canada
ProvinceNew Brunswick
CountyCharlotte
ParishSaint George Parish

The Bliss Islands (formerly L'etang Islands[3]) are three adjacent islands in the Saint George Parish of Charlotte County, New Brunswick, Canada in the Bay of Fundy.[4][5][6] They are named after Samuel Bliss, the original grantee in the 18th century who was also granted title to White Horse Island.[7][8] They are commonly written as a single island, although technically there is a northeast ("Pentelow's Island"), central and southwest landmass.[3]

The Bliss Islands have three shell middens, dubbed BgDq4, BgDq5 and BgDq6, as well as a site believe to be Bliss's original home.[9][10][11] An arrowhead estimated to date to 600BC has also been recovered in the BgDg6 midden.[12][13] Rum Beach has also yielded stones with signs of primitive human shaping.[14]

There is a lighthouse on the west end of the island, on the southern side of the western entrance to Bliss Harbour.[15]

History

In 1784, Samuel Bliss was granted ownership of the islands for himself and several compatriots from the war,[16] and he lived there with his family until his 1803 death, after which his family abandoned the islands.[16]

Irish immigrant Timothy O'Connor had arrived in New Brunswick after serving in the British Army and was granted 4,000 acres on Whittier Ridge; he ultimately moved to the Bliss Islands,[17] where he died – leading his family to relocate to a place called Connor's Beach on Frye's Island.[18] His grandsons Patrick and Lewis Jr formed the Connors Brothers Limited seafood company, on the mainland.[19]

Ernest Ingersoll mentions passing the islands, en route to Lubec by steamship from Saint John.[20]

Spencer Fullerton Baird carried out a 19th-century archaeological study of the islands.[21]

During the Saxby Gale of 1869, the Rechab ship sank in Bliss Harbour; in 1850 she had been part of a "mysterious" journey to the Turks and Caicos hoping to retrieve pirate treasure.[22]

In 1873, the G.F. Baird was wrecked in a snowstorm off the Bliss Islands.[23] In 1874, a snowstorm also saw the wreck of the Levi Hart.[24] In 1881, the Nota Bene was wrecked in thick fog.[25]

As of 1879, Jarvis Clark and his family ran the lighthouse.[26] In 1911, there was one family listed as living on the island.[1]

As of 1923, it had a buoy associated with the island.[27]

In October 1925, Harry Stone's two-masted schooner Cora Gertie (purchased from the sons of Captain Crocker and built at Richardson's shipyard on Deer Island), sank with no lives lost, in a gale after being blown into Bliss Harbour and striking Man O War Islet. It had been parked 12 miles off the coast to sell smuggled White Horse whiskey which was salvaged from the sunken wreck.[14][28][29][30] Prohibition inspectors found ten gallons of alcohol in a bog on Spruce Island where the crew had reached shore.[31]

In 1982, archaeologist David Black excavated the original Bliss homestead.[16]

In the summer of 1986, benthic algae sublittoral research stations were set up across the region, including on the Bliss islands.[32]

In 2020, the Nature Trust of New Brunswick converted the island into a conservationist reserve.[33][34]

References

  1. ^ a b "Bliss Island". Provincial Archives of New Brunswick.
  2. ^ "ENG - CYNB Properties Gallery". Archived from the original on 5 July 2023.
  3. ^ a b Black, David W.; Blair, Christopher R. (2000). "Faunal Remains from the Loyalist Occupation of the Bliss Islands, Quoddy Region, New Brunswick" (PDF). Ontario Archaeology. 69: 39–54.
  4. ^ "No. 166". Provincial Archives of New Brunswick. Department of Natural Resources and Energy Development. Retrieved 4 July 2021.
  5. ^ "489" (PDF). Transportation and Infrastructure. Government of New Brunswick. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2023-04-05. Retrieved 4 July 2021. Remainder of parish on mapbooks 490, 497, 500, and 501 at same site.
  6. ^ "Search the Canadian Geographical Names Database (CGNDB)". Government of Canada. Retrieved 4 July 2021.
  7. ^ "Collections of the New Brunswick Historical Society". St. John, N.B.: New Brunswick Historical Society. 1894.
  8. ^ Collections of the New Brunswick Historical Society. St. John, N.B.: New Brunswick Historical Society. 1894. p. 511.
  9. ^ Black, David W. (2000). "That Thing of Shreds and Patches: an Archaeological Narrative of the Bliss Islands Thoroughfare, Quoddy Region, New Brunswick, Canada" (PDF). Proceedings of the 30tn Annual Chacmoot Archaeological Conference, Calgary, Alberta: 146–155.
  10. ^ Black, David W.; Turnbull, Christopher J. (1986). "Recent Archaeological Research in the Insular Quoddy Region, New Brunswick, Canada". Current Anthropology. 27 (4). doi:10.1086/203458.
  11. ^ Black, David W. (1989). Living Close to the Ledge: Prehistory and Human Ecology of the Bliss Islands, Quoddy Region, New Brunswick, Canada (Ph.D thesis). McMaster University.
  12. ^ Suttie, Brent D. (2005). Archaic period archaelogical research in the interior of southwestern New Brunswick (M.A. thesis). University of New Brunswick.
  13. ^ Shaw, Chris E. (2016). An Analysis of Lithic Materials and Morphology from the Late Maritime Woodland and Protohistoric Periods at the Devil’s Head site in the Maine Quoddy Region (B.S. thesis). Bates College.
  14. ^ a b Black, David W.; Cummings, Joshua A. (2025). “...gathering pebbles on a boundless shore...” — The Rum Beach Site and Intertidal Archaeology in the Canadian Quoddy Region. University of New Brunswick Libraries.
  15. ^ Barnes's New Brunswick almanack. St. John, N.B.: Barnes and Company. 1889. ISBN 978-0-665-27683-5. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  16. ^ a b c Black, David W. (2015). "The Loyalist Site on the Bliss Islands, Charlotte County, New Brunswick [Poster]" (PDF). University of New Brunswick.
  17. ^ Gilman, John (2001). Canned: A History of the Sardine Industry. ISBN 978-0969793717.
  18. ^ "13 Bay of Fundy islands for sale". CBC. 24 August 2010. Retrieved 27 March 2025.
  19. ^ "Blacks Harbour: 'Looking Back at Our Beginnings'". Retrieved 27 March 2025.
  20. ^ Ingersoll, Ernest (1887). Down East Latch Strings; or Seashore, Lakes and Mountains by the Boston & Maine Railroad (PDF). Passenger Department, Boston & Maine Railroad. pp. 95–100.
  21. ^ Shaw, Christopher (2018). A GIS approach to ancestral Wabanaki canoe routes and travel times (M.A. thesis). The University of New Brunswick.
  22. ^ Wright, Esther Clark (1959). "Place of Pollock: The Passamaquoddy Bay". Canadian Geographical Journal. 58: 182–187.
  23. ^ https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.9_08052_23_15/228
  24. ^ https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.9_08052_23_15/229
  25. ^ https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.9_08052_23_15/234
  26. ^ "List of Sessional Papers, Volume XII, First Session of the Fourth Parliament, Dominion of Canada" (PDF). Government of Canada Publications. Ottawa, Ont.: MacLean, Roger & Co., Parliamentary and Departmental Printers. 1879. pp. 92, 240.
  27. ^ Fifty-seventh Annual Report of the Department of Marine and Fisheries, for the Fiscal Year 1923-1924 (PDF). Ottawa: F. A. Acland. 1924. p. 43.
  28. ^ Wilbur, Richard; Wentworth, Ernest (1986). Silver Harvest: The Fundy Weirmen's Story. Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions. ISBN 978-0864920867.
  29. ^ "Rum Ship Ashore Near Deer Island". The Daily Gleaner. The Canadian Press. 1925-10-12. p. 5. Image 367 – via Canadiana by Canadian Research Knowledge Network.
  30. ^ “The ballad of the good ship Cora & Gertie” (Saint Croix Courier, Dec. 3, 1980)
  31. ^ Allaby, Eric (2022). The Sea Wins: Shipwrecks of the Bay of Fundy. Nimbus Publishing Ltd. ISBN 9781774711378.
  32. ^ South, G.R.; Tittley, I.; Farnham, W.F.; Keats, D.W. (1988). "A Survey of the Benthic Marine Algae of Southwestern New Brunswick, Canada". Rhodora. 90 (864): 419–451.
  33. ^ Currie, Cheyenne (2020-10-29). "Nature Trust celebrates the conservation of over 1000 acres in 2019 - 2020 at Annual General Meeting". Nature Trust of New Brunswick. Fredericton, NB.
  34. ^ "Conserved areas - Bliss Island". Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators, Government of Canada. 2026-02-04.
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