PARADISE—PERHAPS

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11833, 14 January 1933, Page 9

PARADISE —PERHAPS

A SIMPLE SOCIETY

LIFE ON THE AI AG DALENS

VANCOUVER, Dec. 7

At Canada’s front door, in the Gull of St.'Lawrence, is a community of 8lX)0 Canadians, living on the Magdalena, a group of ten. islands, forming a ere,sent sixty miles long, . covering 00,000 acres. They have no streets, no .police, no, theatres no restaurants, no newspapers. Ninety per cent, of them have never seen, a train, .tmr a building of more than two stories. Yet there are thirty-ilirce schools atul » dozeen churches.

The southern port of the Magdalen* lies about seventy 'miles ..north of Prince Edward Island; the most northeastern reaches the centre of the gulf. Of the inhabitants, twOO am Acadian French, tire remainder of English, Irish, and Scottish descent. The community is administered as. a. county ol Quebec. A small passenger, mail, ami cargo boat calls twice a week from Nova, Scotia, via Prince Edward Island. 'Tlic principal industry is fishing; the chief market,..Boston.

The Magdalens have been a nightmare to mariners, ever since. Jacques Farrier, in 1 oTJ,, found refuge inside the sandbars of Amherst Island, the mo,si populous. Countless, ships have foundered there. The shoves are dotted with graves. At one spot. on. Orosse Island, dOO victims of the wreck or the Irish emigrant ship, the Al.irne le. lie buried together. Wolfe. •who iwos nearly .wrecked there rewarded Ids navigator with a gift of one of the islands. Most of the homes arc. Inn It of wreck timbers. Grindstone Island, because of its central position, conducts the group’s affairs with the outside world. Here is the only hotel and bank, the post office, the Marconi wireless station, the telephone exchange, the fishing company's offices. There is no tourist traffic. The hotel has not yet found it necessary to instal a bath, as if averages only 100 guests a year. The county seat and Custom?.' are on Amherst, where tho vessel calls. Halt the population live on (frindstono and Amherst. Entry and <1 rosso Islands are entirely English-speaking. Clothing is made on hand looms. Byron Island is occupied by a family of five, Towvsend Dingurll and his two sons and daughters, the youngest of them loriy, wlm have neither mail service, radio, nor ordinary means of communication. Through these rugged, wind-swept islands mils an interior connecting water passage, twenty miles long, with two narrow outlets to the sea. Sand dunes arid small bridges fink up all the islands but two. Almost every family has a petrol gondola, or motor-lorry. Evildoers deal with themselves. An American “’drummer,” who could not pay his hotel bill, lias been two years working it off hv odd jobs. He is waiting for a “rich uncle” in Philadelphia. to emancipate him. Little money is used, as the fish companies guarantee the credit of the fishermen at the stores up io the value of their catch. Time is measured, not by days, but by weeks.

One incident in. the life of those simple folk show? their sense of humour, as well as tenacity of purpose Who n the mainland, in 1910, ignored their request for a regular mail service, they fashioned a strange craft, a. small watertight Iceg. on which was rigged, a sail and rudder. The whole population wrote letters to anyone and everyone—Cabinet Ministers, members of Parliament, senators, newspapers, and relatives abroad. Among them was ail imposing missive, addressed t° the Governor-General, containing a petition for better communication. When nil was ready, the hog was launched, the sail hearing the inscription. ‘The Magdalen Mail.” On the first and second attempts, the keg drifted hack. On the third it was caught by a breeze anrl washed ashore on Capo Breton. A. regular mail service resulted, forthwith.