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CROSSING AT THE CAPES of

The present age of uninterrupted communication with the mainland by way/ the palatial cer-ferry steamers seems worlds removed from the conditions that existed previous to the advent of the super-powered ice-breaker, Earl Grey, in 1909. In theory, the old ice-breakers, Stanley and Minto, were capable of keeping the Straits open throughout the winter. In practice, they spent a great part of the time immobi-lized -- locked in ice-jams. On many occasions, passengers who sailed aboard either of then, :in'hopeswof reaching Pictou, found themselves back in Charlottetown after a week of | battling the ice floes.

Actually, the only means which offered travelers a reasonable certainty of getting across was the primitive ice-boat service from Cape Traverse to Cape Tormentine. The trip was a venture that one would take only as a last resort; it was incredibly uncomfortable and positively hazardous under the weather conditions that usually prevailed during the winter months. It was not unusual for a crossing party to be stranded overnight in sub-zero temperatures, in the midst of a suddenly erupting blizzard. On:one occaston, a group was marooned for two days on floating ice, in a blinding snow-storm and without food. They burned the boats in an effort to escape freezing, and finally drifted close to land in the vicinity of De Sable where they were taken in by local residents. Two of the party later suffered : amputations as a result of frost-bite. I remember reading newspaper bulletins of ice-boat schedules’ for the Capes. On several occasions, I heard members of neighnporing families, summoned home from the States in some emergency, graphically describe the hardships they had endured while

making the crossing.

Those ice-boats were heavy wooden, life-boat style craft, shod with steel runners to facilitate hauling over the pack ice. In open water, they

were propelled by oars and sails; on the ice they were hauled by drag