children after one another again and again seemed to confuse things even more. As we continue writing the Past and Present of Orwell Cove , we will try our best to make the connections between them as clear as possible. As the population grew with the Selkirk settlers of 1803, so did the need for supplies of items which the area could not offer."... the settlers, were for the most part very poor with little capital even in the essentials of tools, stock and seeds. Selkirk secured a minimum of supplies to see them over the first winter, but the prospect was not promising for crofters with no experience of the transatlantic climate and forest. There was evidence in wells and shallow ditches of the French attempt to establish a foothold, but the heavily overgrown "clearings" were as forbidding as the unaltered forest. The almost miraculous speed with which they learned the axe skills of the pioneer saved their situation. In a few weeks they had made adequate shelters for the winter and throughout that season they continued to clear land for the first season's crops. The annual routine of extending the cleared land and practising the husbandry of oats and potatoes changed little for years, but they did convert the temporary shelters of the first winter to substantial houses rather rapidly. These were described within a decade of the landing as generally built of logs squared and dove-tailed at the ends with some sided with clapboard and roofed with shingles....like the Americans who preceded him, and the Irish who followed, he seemed to delight in sweeping the land bare, using or (at first, rarely) selling what wood he could and burning the rest."4 Thus the result of the vast shipping industry. The people of the Cove , like all other areas on the Island, imported such things as dry goods, hardware, tin, steel, flour, cornmeal, medicines, books, glass and chinaware, and don't forget the luxuries of the time, wines, liquors, and tobacco. Exports usually consisted of oats, barley, potatoes, turnips, butter, pork, wool, eggs, fish, planks and boards, shingles, and of course, ships. 4 Three Centuries and the Island, by A.H. Clark , page 67. 12