Commercial 57

In all but a southerly wind, Colville Bay was the only shelter for ships for the distance from St. Peter’s Bay on the Gulf to the north, eastward around the treacherous East Point reef and for a distance ofabout fifteen miles west to Souris. Now, the new extended breakwater provided protection from all winds. Never again would twenty-one ships pile up on the rocks below the Village ofSouris as they did in 1852 as vividly described by George A. Leard in Historic Highlights?“

A sudden change of wind (to the South) and within a few hours twenty-one ofthem piled high against the very cliffs of Souris East in a night of wildest confusion with spray spumed high over the Village and the cries of the rescuers and the rescued mingling in the storm. Two hundred ship- less fishermen were billeted that night in the hospitable homes of Souris.

But there were other single wrecks in the harbour. A storm came up while the Adventurer, a 55 ton schooner from Nova Scotia, lay at anchor in the harbour the night of December 4, 1893. Her anchors dragged and she struck the rocks below the Village. It was not until morning that David O’Brien and Fred and Charles Cheverie were able to reach the vessel in a dory. The Examiner says they found a woman “lashed to the bulwarks, up to waist in water, dead, the rest in terribly exhausted condition. One crew member died shortly after reaching shore."21 In 1908, Captain Haden’s schooner, with a load of gravel for the repair of the railway wharf, drifted west in a south easter and went on the submerged block of the factory wharf. Captain and

crew of two teen-age sons were rescued by Mark Cheverie and Norman McIntos .‘~"~’

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SILENY Nlmn’ Scams an.

Phow by Morley S Acorn ('uum-sy P F. l P.A Ref 74 285 512 2 Souris Lighthouse at night (0. 1925) Began operation in fall of 1880. In March, 1962, a bluish mercury vapour bulb was installed. Beginning in February, 1967, the light has flashed continuously 24 hours a day, 12 months of the year.