Campobello: An Historical SketchWells, Kate Gannett
History
Campobello: An Historical Sketch
Wells, Kate Gannett
Campobello Island (N.B.)
=Herring Cove.= A unique pleasure, which, though obtained by driving,
cannot properly be counted among the drives, is the visit at night to
Herring Cove, to see the men "driving the herring." Each wherry has a
ball of cotton wool, or a roll of bark, on a stick saturated with
kerosene, or else it is put into an iron cradle fastened to an iron
pole. As the cotton or bark burns, the moving boats look like a fitful
procession of lights. The brightness attracts the herring, and, as one
man rows, while another "drives," the nets are hauled up full of
wriggling, shining fish.
Lake Glen Severn, so called after the Owen place in Wales, is separated
by a short bridge from the high beach before it slopes down to the
water.
=Meadow Brook Cove.= Beyond Herring Cove is Meadow Brook Cove, an ideal
place for the scene of a summer idyl. Into it runs a tiny brook which
starts somewhere near the head of Havre de Lutre, marking the division
which once took place in the Island, according to geologists. The ruins
of a stone wall which runs along the brook are no longer supposed to
have been built by the Northmen, for the Admiral erected it as part of
his scheme in draining the meadow.
Branching off from the Herring Cove Road is the Fitz-William road, where
many lots have been sold, and also the road to Raccoon Beach. This drive
is along another wonderful tangle of forest skirted by beaches. It leads
to Liberty Point, the cable line from Welsh Pool to Grand Manan passing
by it, on to Skillet Cove, where there is a split rock, on again to Owen
Head, desolate and vengeful in its height, down to Chalybeate Spring,--a
fortune for the future,--across beaches too rough for a single team with
four people, to Cranberry Point, and back to where you started. At Deep
Cove, near the Point, is a rock bearing pronounced glacial marks. Take
the drive at low tide, and feel its gloom, with the fog drifting across
your face. Take it at high tide, on a sunny morning, and feel its
cheerfulness.
Once more drive down to the Narrows, past the cottages; stop at Friar's
Head, whose Indian name was _Skedapsis_, the Stone Manikin. Go to the
pagoda-like structure on top of the hill, climb down its side, and at
low tide go walk between the Friar and the hill; then at high tide
wonder how you ever did it. Retrace your steps. Go along the road, past
Snug Cove and the schoolhouse, till you come to the Narrows, where runs
the swift current which only the experienced boatman can cross in his
flat-bottomed boat, that carries alike the passenger or his horse, or
brings over from Lubec the funeral hearse.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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