Bliss Islands
Island in New Brunswick, Canada
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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]
Native name: Seebes'kook[1] "High Tide Flows Through It" | |
|---|---|
Lighthouse on Bliss Island | |
 Interactive map of Bliss Islands | |
| Geography | |
| Location | Bay of Fundy |
| Coordinates | 45°01′1″N 66°51′0″W |
| Area | 42.1[2] ha (104 acres) |
| Administration | |
Canada | |
| Province | New Brunswick |
| County | Charlotte |
| Parish | Saint George Parish |
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]