Return to Sable

By Jill Martin Bouteillier

Both haunted and driven to discover a 100 year old secret, storyteller Jill Martin, leads the reader on a journey to one of the loneliest places in North America: Sable Island. Sculpted by wind and waves, this thin slice of grass-covered dunes for centuries has lured hundreds of ships to founder on its treacherous sand bars. Only the foolhardy or nave dared to underestimate the dangers of the Graveyard of the Atlantic. It is to this notorious outpost a hundred miles from mainland Nova Scotia that newly appointed Superintendent of Lifesaving, RJ Bouteillier, brings his young family in 1884. In this harsh, isolated and mysterious environment far from city life, young Beatrice, a woman who challenges the prescribed roles of her sex, crosses the threshold from childhood to adulthood. Entries in the visitors book penned by long dead authors come to life in this engaging treasure hunt of passion and betrayal. Their stories unlock the portal to that distant past and chronicle the everyday lives of the residents of Sable Island. Coaxed ever deeper into the islands labyrinth, the reader discovers that Sable reveals her secrets on her own terms and in her own time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781496971173

Jill Martin Bouteillier

The owner of a treasure trove of artifacts from her ancestors' life on Sable Island, a sand bar 100 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia, Jill Martin Bouteillier, breathes life into their years on Sable Island. For decades, the story lay in wait in the far reaches of her mind until the elements aligned and the book was born. Moving from British Columbia Canada in the summer of 2007, to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, her ancestors' story would not be silenced. Jill knew the time was right to tell the tale. @jillmar23 www.key2keyconsulting.ca

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© 2015 Jill Martin Bouteillier. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  02/24/2015

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7118-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7117-3 (e)

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Foreword

Latitude: 47.6 N Longitude 59.9 W

Preface

Part One — Initial Keystrokes

Part Two — Call sign SD

Part Three — Sparks over Sable

Part Four —But Westward Look…

Epilogue

Morse Code Chart

Last words

Acknowledgements

References

Meet the Author

A Sable Island Love Story

Although firmly rooted in the truth, the following narrative, as with all narratives, is first and foremost a story - truth seasoned with a healthy dose of imagination and a sprinkling of speculation. Some events, settings and characters have been added or deleted, rearranged, or altered.

Dedicated to my courageous ancestors who called the Island home

1884-1912

Bouteillier%20Family%20Tree.tif

Foreword

Jill Martin and I came to know each other because of our passions for Sable Island. Jill was writing a book - a love story - a story of the people, the Marconi wireless men, the Bouteillier family, and her beloved Aunt Trixie, who lived on Sable Island in the early 20th century; and I, as a Producer for a Giant Screen/IMAX® film about Sable Island was delighted to meet someone with direct links to the island.

For hundreds of years, Sable Island, a tiny spit of sand 100 miles off the Nova Scotia coast has been known as the infamous Graveyard of the Atlantic. It is also home to hundreds of wild horses, thousands of seals, and countless species of migratory birds. It is a place that very few are permitted to visit, and that even fewer can claim knowledge about the people who lived on the island more than a hundred years ago.

In the late 1990s, Jill inherited an amazing trove of treasures from her Great Aunt Trixie – her camera, photos, letters and diaries – all from her years on Sable. As she shared some of these treasures with me, I knew that she was the keeper of a vital piece of Sable’s legacy.

Return to Sable is a love story.

Intricately weaving fact and fiction together, it is set in a time when wireless communication was in its infancy; a time when dots and dashes tried to save the Titanic; when letters and photographs kept lovers together; and a time when Trixie Boutellier was the beautiful heroine of Sable Island.

It is the saga of a family and an Island bound together by love, and their commitment to saving the lives of many unfortunate victims of Sable’s fog, sand and swirling currents.

It is the story of the courage and dedication of a small band of men who pioneered wireless communication and who changed the world key stroke by key stroke.

Nancy Ogden

White Gate Films

Latitude: 47.6 N Longitude 59.9 W

Latitude: 47.6 N Longitude 59.9 W

At the centre of everything, was the Island. Always the Island.

Clinging tenaciously, but stubbornly to the Eastern Grand Banks, the semi-circular ribbon of sand swirls and morphs at the whim of the North Atlantic. Beneath the roiling surf which slams the island on all sides, sand bars birth dangerous shifting shoals, the final resting place of many a mariner. Buffeted by the constant wind, slender dune grasses clutch at the sand in the constant struggle to root themselves against their perpetual enemy.

Wicked storms howling their merciless elements of wind and rain up the Eastern Seaboard carve and shape the island in a tidal ballet of creation and destruction. Devoured by the sea’s rapacious appetite, buildings can simply vanish overnight. Exhumed by the sea’s relentless power, rotting ribs of decades-old sunken ships lie exposed and naked on the beach.

Racing north eastward to meet the swirling Labrador Current in a vortex of unimaginable power, the powerful Gulf Stream current sweeps away sand from the west of the island and re-deposits it on its eastern sand bar miles down the island. In this way, the western end of the island diminishes while the eastern end grows. Over a twenty year period, the West Light, plank by plank, was relocated eastward twice.

In such a tenuous, shifting landscape, nothing is static or solid. In any given year, dunes can grow or sink by several feet. Sand bars can emerge or submerge. Shoals, lying two feet below the sea can plummet to a depth of 30 feet a short distance away. Such unpredictable variations in the sea’s depth set deadly traps for those who come too close. Wedded to those sands of death are the fogs which cocoon the island for more than 120 days a year. As the deadly fog robs the most experienced captain blind, the island plays its ace and another ship is buried in the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

For decades, only small groups of brave caretakers have shared this barren, beautiful and terrifying place. For those who called the island home, survival depended on their response both to the physical and the emotional geography of the island. They learned to read its moods and seasons as it doled out its arbitrary judgements: one day, indifferent enemy, the next, benevolent saviour.

Cut off from civilization in ways a modern urban dweller can hardly imagine, the sailors, carpenters, boatmen, mothers and children of the island lived year to year 100 miles beyond the North American mainland. Despite the hardships, loneliness, boredom, or frustration, their bleached scimitar of sand centred them and gave them purpose. In time, the pulse of the island echoed their heartbeat.

Ultimately, Sable Island set the rules; but love her or hate her, the spell she cast on those who walked the beach or climbed the dunes changed them forever.

SableMap01Resize.jpgSableMap02Resize.jpg

My hands hover over the keys, hesitant. Her story lies before me, memories kept for decades in safe nooks and crannies of my mind. Across the waves of time, I hear her voice,

Just lift your foot and take the first step. Let’s go. It won’t get done by thinking about it.

Confidently, I begin…

Preface

July 1971

"Stand together by the garden. Smile.

Four generations of Bouteilliers. No small achievement"

SBB

Death turns peoples’ thoughts to the past. Mourners sit in hushed parlors as they share stories about the deceased and hug long lost cousins. Tears flow, discretely brushed away with the Kleenex stuffed into a purse or pocket, just in case. Relatives write letters and cards to the family. The albums come down from the shelves. Turning the pages and pointing to the faces which smile back at them, they witness the insidious ravages of time.

My great aunt died a few months shy of her 99th birthday.

From the Sable Island album on my lap, her youthful eyes meet mine. At 21, she was stunningly beautiful. I search her face hoping to discover her defining essence. In return, a look of haunting wistfulness tempered by daring independence punctuates my mind. Clasped in my hands, her photograph breathes with a life of its own, shining brightly with the effervescence of youth, while in a darkening western sky, the sun sets.

Riveted to her face, my eyes bore into hers. Two dark pools of mystery. Who was she? What did I know of her past? My mind exploded with speculation. I boldly wondered if her bewitching gaze had fallen on a young lover with the passionate bursting of first love. Did she experience the thrill of that pulsing in the chest which made the knees weak and the stomach lurch with desire? Did she meet her lover clandestinely without her family’s approval? I smiled conspiratorially remembering such times in my own past.

I lifted my eyes from the photograph and stared suspiciously at the guests. Did they sense or suspect my indiscretion?

The thought of a lover captivated by her beauty, would not leave my mind.

I knew she had married, well into her 50s - far past the age of childbearing. A marriage of convenience I had heard. Why did she wait so long to marry? Did her heart ache for the children she never birthed? Did that loss leave a cold void? I leaned deeper into the sofa, my mind travelling back in time.

I smiled as I recalled her summer visit so many decades before. At 13 and with little knowledge of the world of adults, I naively bulldozed ahead, asking question after question of the Aunt I loved and admired. Did she have any boyfriends growing up on Sable Island or in Halifax? Did her parents allow her to go out on her own with men? Did she wish she had a daughter like me? She smiled and replied with a sideways look, that - perhaps when you grow up look- which closed off further discussion on the topic. But still I wondered and could not let it go.

This great aunt of mine was a phenomenal candidate for motherhood: she had boundless energy, was able to makeshift with anything, could create a meal out of nothing, and to crown her motherhood qualification she had never really grown up. She still loved to tell stories, terrifying her nieces and nephews and amazing her many second and third cousins with tales recounting what life was like when she was a girl. A perfect candidate.

Indeed, she was a dutiful caregiver -nursing a dying brother, raising four step-children, tending a vegetable garden an acre in size, saving new born foals and calves, nursing shipwrecked sailors and Spanish Flu patients- but this brand of caregiving never satisfied my curiosity around the subject of passion. Surely, something was missing from the picture, a pea hidden deep beneath twenty mattresses.

I return to the photograph. Beautiful. Fetching. Alluring. She was all of those. Why did she wait five decades to marry? Were there no valiant suitors?

My hands hover over the picture. My fingers trace the curve of her jaw.

Strong, but sensitive. Giving, but stubborn. Loyal, but demanding.

Obviously, it had been taken on a special occasion. Birthday, perhaps or Christmas. Atop her head, her long hair has been shaped into a Gordian knot of intricate twists and rolls, a labyrinth of beauty. Ebony combs adorned with filigree clasps struggle to contain the voluminous tresses from spilling down her back. Soft curls frame her forehead.

Her wistful glance takes my breath away.

I close the album and cross my arms on the leather cover still warm from the touch of my body. Deep in thought, I yield to my mind’s fantasy. I conjure up young Trixie. I imagine her family’s home on Sable Island. She has just returned from a ride down the South Beach. Her face is flushed with excitement. I see her throw open the door of the main station and pull at the straps of her hat. It falls into her hands and she tucks it under her arm. Slender and svelte, but unnervingly tenacious, her petite 4 foot 10 frame bounds into the parlour. Her dark chocolate tresses, woven into long braids tied together with crimson ribbons, stream behind her. Errant strands frame her face.

The unbridled energy and expectation of youth.

There were compromises, I believe. Many compromises. Especially when it came to matters of the heart.

But, I jump ahead of myself. Patience.

oo/o

On my eleventh birthday, my great aunt entertained me and my five birthday guests. For days, we had anticipated her arrival on her way back across Canada from a trip to Nova Scotia. Finally, she was back in our living room once again enjoying a steaming cup of tea. She settled herself in my mother’s rocking chair set adjacent to the fireplace, while we four girls and two boys settled ourselves around her feet on cushions facing the fire.

It was late March, the 25th, and winter still held Regina in its grip. The wind screamed outside our shutters and the snow crushed against the windows. The fireplace lighted the room with strange shadows, while sinister images danced ghoulishly on the walls. Trixie was in the mood for storytelling, and whenever, she was in story land, we expected a scary treat.

Of course, she took us back to Sable Island.

You know that whenever the wind screams like a banshee and the air is frigid cold, I am reminded of the story of Mrs. Copeland. On such a night, she often seeks shelter from the storm.

We turned to look at each other, at the dancing flames in the fireplace, and then back to Trixie.

At the mention of Mrs. Copeland, my mother leaned around the doorway from the kitchen where she was preparing our cake, and said, You aren’t into telling the story of Mrs. Copeland, are you now Trix? You don’t want to be scaring the guests.

Bravely, we echoed in unison, that we weren’t scared. Go on, tell the story.

///

It was a night not unlike tonight when the heavens themselves blasted the island with ferocious winds and high tides, and snow swirling like demons across the beach to the house.

Father knew the signs: a bad storm, high tide and a ship lost in the squall. If any schooner or barque was adrift on such a sea, it would be sucked unceremoniously toward the beach grinding its keel into the death grip of the sand. Thrown off course by the wind, fog, or poor navigation, Sable, capricious minx that she is, would stretch out her cold finger of death above the surf. Another unlucky ship would meet its deadly fate.

On such a night, father slept with one eye open. He knew that if a ship were to creep dangerously close to the North head, a shoal that indifferently lured unsuspecting sailors home, they risked being added to the Atlantic Graveyard’s manifest. When a Nor’easter bore down on our island, the breakers rose like mountains and the bar growled and howled a death requiem.

The story of a ship which was lost in such a wicked storm is the tale I am about to share, her Maritime "r" wrapping the sea around her words.

We crouched deeper into our pillows and waited.

o/o

Trixie paused to adjust her shawl and then cupping the mug in both hands, took a sip of her tea. For long seconds she stared into the fire, the flames fanning her memory, transporting her to the distant shores of Sable Island. She fixed her eyes on the young people before her, held them in a vice grip trance. Six sets of eyes stared back. While snow demons wailed beyond the window panes, six guests held their breath.

It was a night sailors write songs about.

"On January 1st, the bleakest of mid-winter evenings, the Francis foundered on the island, another victim of the western gales. The ship, held in the death grip of wind and sea, foot by foot, was tossed closer and closer towards the sandy shore. Despite everything the captain did to turn the ship away from certain ruin, a towering wave of 20 feet hit the ribs broad-side and danger had its way. The ship listed heavily to port. The top of the mast dipped into the foaming surf and within minutes the waves submerged the ship, boring her bowsprit deep into the sand. The ribs gave way against the crush of the waves which hammered her deeper and deeper into the beach. The keel ground deep into the sand. There was little hope for the unfortunate travellers. All souls were lost. One of those unfortunate victims was the young bride, Mrs. Copeland, the ghost of Sable Island."

As you know, sailors love to spin a good yarn, and the tragic story of Mrs. Copeland grew to epic proportion. Over the years, many versions of the tale were told and her story published in countless books and newspapers. Trixie turned away from her listeners and took another sip of tea before continuing.

"Of course, there are facts, sketchy as they are from an event over a hundred and fifty years in the past, and then there are the stories the sailors tell. The facts appear to stack up like this: late in 1799, the Francis, carrying 40 crew including officers and their families left England for Nova Scotia. As I said, the ship ran aground on Sable’s treacherous south beach the first day of 1800. On board was a young bride, Mrs. Copeland travelling with husband, Dr. Copeland an army surgeon who was in charge of the vessel and the cargo. He was returning to his regiment, the Halifax 7th Regiment of Foot. In the hold were also many trunks of HRH Edward Augustus, The Duke of Kent and Commander-in-Chief of the regiment."

A haunting legend suggests that young Mrs. Copeland had already survived a fantastical brush with death. Doctor Copeland’s bride, apparently a former lady in waiting for Marie Antoinette, cheated death during the French King and Queen’s 1791 attempt to escape from France. The future Mrs. Copeland rode in the second carriage behind the fleeing Queen and King. It seems, the revolutionaries were not interested in a lady in waiting, so the second carriage carrying the young woman along with a large fortune in jewels sewn into her petticoats, made it to the Channel and then to England. Eight years later, on the journey to her new home in Canada, she sewed jewels into her clothing.

"The story goes that when the Francis foundered, she outwitted death again. Supposedly, Mrs. Copeland was the sole survivor of the wreck of the Francis. Exhausted and bedraggled, clinging to a hatch cover, she reached the shores of Sable Island. But because this shipwreck happened before the establishment of the lifesaving stations, instead of succour and a warm fire, wreckers, pretending to be fishermen, found the half dead young woman. They bludgeoned her for the precious ring she wore, and when they buried her, stole the jewels they found in her clothing. It was a gruesome act of cowardice, one that the British government could not excuse. Something would have to be done about Sable Island."

"Three months following the sinking, the news of the Francis and the tragic loss of life and royal property reached England. Along with the report of the shipwreck, stories about pirates on Sable Island who stole and sold their ill-gotten treasure filled with fear the hearts of captains whose ships crossed the Atlantic near the island. The British government acted. In 1801, they ordered the Nova Scotia government to establish the first lifesaving settlement on the island with James Morris in charge."

Several more years, however, passed before the government sent the military to Sable Island. In 1803, commissioned by the Duke of Kent and outfitted under the command of Lieutenant Torrens, a gunboat was dispatched from Halifax to investigate the claims of looters stealing valuable shipwrecked cargo.

"Sable Island did her best to bring down the Lieutenant’s ship, the Harriet, but this time the island lost. Torrens dragged his exhausted body to the rescue hut on the south shore where he lay semi-conscious for several days. Fever wracked his body and strange apparitions haunted his brain. What he experienced on the island that night and for many subsequent nights froze the very blood which flowed in his veins."

"From the floor of the rescue hut in a stupor of exhaustion and delusion, he watched, helplessly, as the nightmare unfolded before him. He struggled to make sense of the chilling visions spinning before his eyes. Instead of the Harriet’s foundering which he might well expect, he witnessed the horror of the Francis in its death throes. Beyond his reach, he watched the waves toss the ship towards the island sucking the corpse of his friend and fellow officer, the brave doctor, out to sea. On the cold beach he saw the lifeless seaweed-coated body of the doctor’s young wife lying exposed to the mercy of greedy looters."

When his fever raged, Torrens imagined the young woman stood before him in the rescue hut, ghastly pale, and wan, dripping with seawater. For several nights, she visited the hut. Words never left her mouth, but her eyes, imploring him to understand, sent a look of profound pity across the infinite gulf between them. He tried to comfort her, but when he reached for her, she vanished. He reasoned she was beyond mortal help, but he felt she had invaded his tormented mind for a reason. Although the ordeal was almost too much for the young lieutenant to bear, he promised himself that if he lived, he would ease her suffering.

Days later Torrens was found by the lifesaving crew and brought to safety. Following his recovery and return to the mainland, Torrens vowed that the tragedy of Mrs. Copeland ravaged on that cold January night two years in the past would not end on the ghostly beach of Sable Island. He searched for the blood thirsty pirates who for years had piteously preyed upon shipwrecked victims and sold their booty to pawn shops on the mainland. They say he pursued the wicked pirates far into the Labrador and brought them to justice.

So now you know the facts, strange as they are, about Mrs. Copeland. Come closer to the fire and listen to the yarn my father told my brothers and sister whenever the winds were up, the rain was slashing down, or the fog was creeping round the gables. Depending on the season, they all provided fitting backdrops for any good ghost story.

Again Trixie sipped her tea, adjusted the cushion on the rocking chair and then turned her eyes toward the expectant listeners who were all ears for whatever she might share.

"Decades passed following the sinking of the Francis at the hands of those snares of sand. Blasted from the wind and sea, the ship had long disappeared, but the tales of buried treasure remained alive. Over the years, many men came to the island in search of buried wealth."

One cold November, twenty years before our family arrived on the island, a man landed on Sable Island to search for that same elusive treasure. He was like so many other people who had heard the stories that pirates or ship wreckers had buried a cache filled with the ill-gotten goods. Rumours spoke of jewels, rings, and gold. For many long days, he and his crew searched for the treasure, but found nothing. Disappointed and tired, he planned to sail back empty handed to England the next day. His crew had gone to sleep exhausted by days and days of digging, but the man felt he needed some air. He snapped his fingers to his dog resting at the end of his bed. The dog rose silently, happy to join his master for a midnight walk.

Although it was a moonless night, millions of stars sparkled in the velvet sky; in fact, it hardly seemed dark at all, but the cold bit and clawed its way through the man’s woollen jacket. He pulled his hat over his ears and tugged on his dog’s leash to pick up the pace. The chill deepened. Scanning the frosty sand, he noticed a ragged line of shadowed shapes stretching out before him on the starlit beach. On closer examination, he saw they were footprints. They were not big large boot sized, but small delicate footprints, like a woman’s.

‘How odd,’ he thought.

"He followed the trail of footprints further down the beach, until his dog began a low throaty growl. He turned to the dog, ‘Quiet, Rex,’ he snapped. Still growling, the dog stopped in his tracks and refused to move forward along the beach. The man turned away from his dog, and following the intent gaze of the animal, there before his eyes, stood a woman, weeping. Her feet were bare. Dog and man froze, transfixed at the sight before them.

‘How cold she must be on such a night,’ he thought.

Time ceased.

Robed in flowing white, her long blond hair cascading over her shoulders almost to the middle of her back, the woman held him captive. For long minutes, she remained before him silently weeping. As he moved towards her, she lifted her left arm in a gesture which implored him to gaze at the hand. Where the ring finger should be there was only a bloody stump. The finger had been raggedly cut off.

She came towards him, holding her hand high. The tears streamed down her cheeks.

Believing she had escaped a perilous death on a stricken ship, he reached to hold her.

In the instant, she disappeared into sea mist.

Although terrified by the vision he had seen, he was desperate to help the young woman. In his haste to summon his crew’s help, he stumbled and fell to the ground. His hands clutched at the grass and his feet gouged the sand as he struggled to gain momentum.

He burst through the door screaming about the terror he had experienced. His dog scurried beneath the bed whimpering. He shook his crew awake telling them what he had seen and that they must come help him find the shipwrecked woman. The men were reluctant to believe him, but nonetheless they followed him into the night. After hours of fruitless searching, they did not find any trace of the woman or a severed finger.

"As planned, the man and his crew sailed back to England, but the sight he had witnessed that night on Sable Island would not leave his mind. He searched the shipwreck logs for weeks on end, until finally he discovered an article in a newspaper about a shipwreck, the Francis, decades before. There on the page staring back at him was an image of a woman who looked startlingly like the woman he had seen on the sand that terrifying night. On her ring finger was a gold ring studded with diamonds. A precious piece indeed."

He learned that the woman’s name was Maggie Copeland, Dr. Copeland’s wife, whose ship had been shipwrecked in a severe storm of January 1800 south of Sable Island. Recalling the look of horror on the face of the woman he saw his last night on the island, he could only imagine her dreadful end. Pirates plying their trade on Sable must have found her on the beach where they killed her, cut off her finger and stole the gem-studded gold ring. Such a heinous act staggers belief.

To this day, as the night thickens and the cold intensifies, Maggie walks the beach in search of a warm hearth and a comfortable rocking chair.

Trixie waited a moment before continuing.

"Often when I am in my parlor reading or knitting, and the fire is gently warming the room, I feel a cold draft accompanied by a soft sibilant swoosh not unlike the closing of a door. I look to the door which of course is locked fast against the cold night, but I know someone has entered. I say aloud, ‘Come in Mrs. Copeland. Come in and warm yourself by the fire.’ I wait for a moment and then the rocking chair starts to move ever so quietly and the damp of the sea fills my nostrils."

We sat riveted to the floor, our minds struggling to believe. Rhythmically, Trixie’s rocking chair rose and fell on the hushed carpet.

The wind howled down the chimney.

Brian and Tom edged closer to each other, their blanched faces betraying their outward calm. The girls pressed deeper into the cushions.

Trixie’s quiet voice crashed into the silence, startling us back to reality.

The first time Mrs. Copeland visited me I was about your age. I thought I was dreaming. I pinched myself and cried out asking who was there. After many visits though, I realized that Mrs. Copeland would never harm me.

Trixie leaned back in the rocking chair, a far distant look on her face.

In the hurling snow smattering the windows, she heard the surf bellowing across the sand to the main station on Sable Island. She felt the house shudder in the gale, wuthering its way around the gable window in her room and the deep voice of her father filling the corners of her mind. Sighing herself out of her memories, she asked.

So how did you like the story?

We all spoke at once. We weren’t scared at all. Aunty, is this true? Did you ever see her? Does she come to your rocking chair often? Will she come to our house tonight?

/oo

Whenever a Saskatchewan blizzard races down from the North, rattling windows and imprisoning houses beneath ten foot snowdrifts, I wonder if my birthday guests on that March night so long ago recall Trixie’s strange tale of Mrs. Copeland.

Part One

Initial Keystrokes

Part%20One%20image.tif

The Present 2007

It begins

When my mother died in 1996, I became the owner of many of Trixie’s belongings. A great number of items were donated to the Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, but many of the personal papers, pictures, letters, documents, and other memorabilia came to me. The years went by and the trunk of treasures waited patiently in my basement. The decision to move back to Nova Scotia provided the perfect motivation. A move of 7,000 km meant that we could take only what was absolutely necessary. It was time to sort, sell, donate, and downsize the remaining belongings to fit one large U Pak container. Room by room the process repeated: sort, fill, tape, and label. Box after box.

As moving day drew closer, tackling the basement could not be put off.

A cold and rainy weekend loomed dark and dreary – no husband, no children and nothing else really pressing. I had the house to myself, a perfect time to open the trunk and sort the memories.

I held my hands above the latch, hesitantly. What might I find? I felt like a school girl looking into my parents’ well-known secret hiding places. No matter what I might discover, there was no turning back.

I lifted the lid.

Hours later, I felt I had returned from a trip to the mile wide sandbar that was home to my great grandfather and his six children, the sand between my toes itching with anticipation. Near the bottom of the trunk under countless albums, ledgers, scrapbooks filled with newspaper clippings, boxes of silver photographic plates, and hundreds of pictures, lay a treasure which took my breath away. Wrapped in satin ribbon and hidden for more than a hundred years, was a packet of letters.

Not just any letters. Love letters.

There were 23 of them, neatly placed in order of receipt.

The hand writing fine and cursive, but boldly confident.

The dialogue personal and haunting.

A narrative begging to be told.

1884

December 6, 1884

Her nose pressed against the window, Trixie peered into the endless horizon before her. She stood on the seat in the cabin of the Aberdeen beside her brother, Clarence. Clary to everyone else in the family, but to young Trixie, he was Mike. From the time Trixie started to talk, Clary owned the nickname, Mike. Mother remarked that she had no idea where ‘Mike’ came from, but no one else in the family ever addressed him as Mike. It was hers alone.

Daddy, Daddy. It’s Daddy, she squealed. Mike. It’s Daddy.

Clary raised his eyes from his book to follow her gaze out to sea. Waves and sky filled his frame of vision. Clary knew all too well, that his young sister’s exuberant outcries were often bursting with more sound than substance; however, there was no alternative, but to pay attention.

At almost nine years of age, Trixie’s oldest brother, Clarke, was pre-occupied in the wheelhouse with the captain of the ship. He was fascinated with the sea and everything about sailing. He wanted nothing to do with caring for a mischievous, energetic five year old. Trixie’s older sister, Bertha, was busy helping their mother care for her three year old brother, Richard, known as Dick to everyone in the family. Pregnant with her sixth child, mother welcomed Bertha’s assistance.

So it fell to Clary, Trixie’s second oldest brother, to take charge of her on the crossing. Trixie was on his watch. It was not really too great a chore for young Clary. He and Trixie did most things together. They had a private language and shared secrets common between children of like nature. Born only 18 months apart, like two peas in the same pod, they brought out the best in each other. Trixie dreamed up their play schemes and Clary, the responsible one, helped to make whatever she dreamed happen safely, but in a way which was still fun.

Clary held fast to his sister’s arm, shushing her as she sprinted through the cabin door and out on deck towards the rail of the Aberdeen. Darting away from him, she fearlessly placed one foot on the lower rung and with both hands lifted herself up to top rail.

Get down from the edge and stop all that caterwauling. You’ll startle the seals and everything else within hearing distance and in the process fall overboard.

The small figure in the dory coming out to meet the ship was impossible to distinguish, but Trixie was positive, it was her father. Who else but the most important man in her world would come to meet her? A man she had not seen for many months.

The family had left their Londonderry home several months before and travelled to New Brunswick while Father finished his five year contract as the foreman carpenter on the Island. Although, it was a wonderful family time and the children loved their Aunt Jane, mother’s older sister, New Brunswick was not Nova Scotia.

Now, the whole family would be together. The five children aged nine to three and both their mother and father would be under one roof. On Sable Island, they would begin their new lives together. Father was starting his job with the Department of Marine and Fisheries as the Superintendent of Life Saving. No more moving from relative to relative. No more long train trips from Halifax to Londonderry. No more long nights wishing daddy were there to tuck her in at night. No more questioning her mother ‘How many more days until we see daddy.’

April 27, 1884

"It’s a boy, Clara, a healthy seven pound boy."

Maggie has a little brother, John proudly announced. He sat on the bed beside his spent wife and wiped her brow with a cool cloth. Luxuriously content in the safe delivery of her son, she moved her hand along the coverlet. John took her hand in his and gently raised it to his lips. I am so very pleased, my dear. They will be fine playmates just two years apart.

Life was perfect. She sighed and smiled at her husband. It had been a long wait for the young couple to decide to have children, but now that they had a girl and a boy, they felt less urgency. More children would follow, but on that day in late April, their lives were very full. The nurse brought their precious baby and placed him carefully into the cradle at Clara’s bedside. He cooed and smacked his lips, his tiny fists curled tightly together. Their joy was immense.

Clara and John brought little Alexander home to their townhouse on Andover Street. Bundled in his receiving blanket and tucked in his travel basket, his parents carried him across the threshold. In Clara’s eyes, he looked too small for his big, strong, Scottish name. Clara whispered the sweet nothings that all mothers whisper to their sons, You will be my own Alex, the love of my life.

Within days, the neighbours weighed in with gifts and good wishes, The lad’s sparkling brown eyes seem ready to laugh aloud. Look at that shock of untamed hair. Those two cowlicks indicate a self-assured bloke. What an impish smile. One would almost believe he is urging us to take note. Here I am, watch out world. He will give you much pleasure I am certain of that, remarked, Catherine, their next door neighbour.

Unhappily for the residents of Sheffield, 1884 recorded an unseasonably cold winter with temperatures at night dipping below freezing far past the end of April. Although weeks before, John had turned the calendar to May, the weather continued cool. When would the sun feel warm and the buds on the trees burst forth in brilliant green?

Clara believed in a healthy dose of fresh air, so despite the cooler temperatures, the windows in the house were often open just a little. She felt it was important to keep the air moving rather than becoming heavy from fireplace smoke.

Cuddled into his bassinet, his window open to the garden, little Alexander seemed to sense the outdoors. The wind guttered around the eaves and purred its weary tomes past the shutters. Clara noticed that whenever the wind was blowing, Alex seemed placid. He nodded off to sleep easily and contentedly.

She mentioned this to John one morning.

1889

May, 1889

Sup’t to Halifax with Clarke

RJB log

Trixie knocked lightly on Clarke’s door. She did not want to wake her oldest brother, but her impatience had gotten the better of her. For the past four days they had been reading, well she had been reading, since he was too delirious to concentrate on the text of the wonderful adventure of young David Balfour in the novel, Kidnapped. And now, they were only two chapters from finishing. ‘He must be awake, she thought, it is already nine o’clock.’

At ten years of age, Trixie was a fine reader. She delighted in stories of adventure and distant lands. The month before, she had devoured the story of Heidi and The Black Arrow, but she admitted she would wait until she was a bit older to read the strange story of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. With no shortage of books in their parlour, reading seemed to have come naturally to her at a very young age. Her father often remarked that he believed Beatrice had been born reading.

As soon as his family had settled on the island, RJ hired a tutor for the children. Under William O’Connor’s fine tutelage, his young charges bolted ahead in their love of literature and the power of a good tale. The young teacher encouraged the children to stretch their interests while improving their reading ability. At eight, Dick had ten editions of the Boys’ Annual on his reading table. Over the past year for birthday, Christmas and any other opportunity, he begged family members to search the bookstores in Halifax for back issues. For hours on end, he was held captive in the big chair in the parlour as his eyes unlocked the tales of far distant worlds hidden between the leaves. It was magic.

Trixie’s collection of books grew proportionately with her urgent need to explore the world beyond her island home. In the attic room that she shared with her sister, books threatened to spill from her bureau to the floor and beyond. Next to the outdoors, reading was her greatest love. For Clarke, though, his interest was the sea. He had devoured tales of shipwrecked families, sailors, or pirates. The spines of the books on his bookshelf glowed gold with images of anchors, sails and ships.

I am sure the book will not be too hard for me, sir, Trixie said imploringly to her tutor. I can read all of the words in the introduction and I know Clarke will love the story. After all, it is a story about a young lad shipwrecked on the stormy coast of Scotland. It is a tale, right up his alley. I am dying to read it as well.

Clarke had been confined to his bed with a lingering influenza. Almost 13 years old, he had agreed with his mother, reluctantly at first, to take to his bed. Mother did not surrender either to his complaints or his bravado. She feared for her son. His fever had risen steadily until on Monday evening five days earlier it had peaked at 104 while his cough rattled from deep within his chest and he struggled to catch his breath.

As she had done for all of her children suffering with chest ailments, Ellen removed the Keen’s mustard from her baking shelf to prepare a mustard plaster. From her bag of rags, she selected a soft piece of flannel about 16 inches square and smoothed it flat on the countertop. She measured two tablespoons of mustard into a small bowl, added enough water to make a thick paste and then on the right side of the cloth spooned the mixture in the shape of a four inch circle. Finally, she folded the other end of the cloth on top of the paste and pressed them together.

Mother lifted his pyjama top and gently laid the cloth plaster on his chest. Clarke, she warned placing his pyjama top back in place and