82 PAST AND PRESENT OF

has always been their headquarters, although a secondary has been at Morrell on the south- erly side of St. Peter's Bay in Kings county. Before the time of steamers to Point du Chene, they came across in their picturesque birch bark canoes from Cape Tormentine to Cape Traverse; up the coast to Bedeque Bay, going a short distance up Wilmot creek; then carrying their canoes across the narrow neck of land, only a mile or two in width; passing through Traveller’s Rest and on to Raynor’s creek; and then over the waters of Richmond Bay to Indian Island as the Island of Lennox is almost as often called. This small Island, only about fifteen hundred acres in extent, is not a government reserve in the ordinary sense. In 1870 the “Aborigines Protection Society” of London, England, for about £240 Sterling, bought this land from the proprietor and gave it in trust to Judge Young of the Probate Court, the governor of the province and the Indian Superintendent. The Jesuits, the early missionaries of the Catholic church. won the Mic-macs over to the Christian faith and the present church edifice there now is the third which has been erected. Until within a comparatively few years the chief- ship was ‘hereditary in the Francis family, an intelligent. strong-willed people, but un- der the Dominion law the office is now elec- tive, the term being three years, and any one of the blood. if chosen, can rise to the position. John Sark is at present the chief. In 1663 Captain Doublet was given a grant of the islands in the Gulf of St. Law- rence, by the French government of Canada at Quebec. These, of course, included this Island, which had been named St. John by _ Cabot, since it was discovered by him on St. John’s day of the calendar, June 24th. This grant was given for the purpose of fish-

ing in the waters adjoining, not for the pur- pose of settlement at all. The'mode of pro- cedure was to come out in ship loads in the spring after the ice was broken up and float— ed away. Huts for shelter and stages for the curing of fish were roughly built, the fishery was prosecuted for the summer months and when the cold of autumn and early winter approached the fishermen re- embarked and sailed away again for the sunny shores of France. This plan was con- tinued on the western coast of Newfound- land down to within but a few years. It was at this time that the first French set foot here, and if there were any intermixture of races it probably took place during this period which lasted for about thirty or thirty-five years.

But the circumstances which gave the first impulse to populating the Island with European settlers in contradistinction with fishermen, was the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, and the subsequent sad expulsion of the French settlers from Acadia. Up to this time the French claimed all of Canada. in- cluding Newfoundland and the islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. By this treaty France ceded to Great Britian, Newfound- land and Acadia—the latter name being given to that territory around the bay of Fundy, especially that on the Nova Scotia side where Port Royal, the headquarters of of the colony, was.

What communication there was at this time. between the settlers of Acadia and the fishermen on the north shore of Isle St. Jean, as the French called it, it is difficult to say, but it is believed that there was some and by this means the people of Acadia heard of the excellent farming lands around the shores of this province. One of the stipulations of the treaty of Utrecht gave the Acadians the