Chapter One 15

belongings, is said to have been difficult. 80 must have been the first winter. As it was too late in the year to build houses, the settlers used their canoes as roofs for temporary shelters. Come spring, they built their own style of houses - one large room, with box—beds around the walls.

From 1800 on, more Acadians, mostly related or known to the original settlers, began to arrive. It’s obvious that the settlers were in communication with other settlements, no doubt by canoe or boat. In the same year or the next, they also arranged for a priest to come, and in 1801, they built a log church with a dirt floor It had no altar or furniture of any kind, but was adequate for the twice— -yearly sojourns of a missionary priest and for the Sunday services that the settlers organized themselves during the rest of the year.

In 1811, the first of a long line of Irish settlers arrived. They were two brothers named Rielly, who came originally from County Kerry in the south of Ireland. The Riellys had first sailed to the Bay of Chaleur in what is now northern New Brunswick. At that time, there was considerable trade between that area and the southern ports of Ireland, and it is more than likely that the Riellys would have hitched a ride on a trading ship plying this route. Some time thereafter, the two men crossed to Prince Edward Island (tradition says in an open boat) landing just east of Nail Pond. At that time, the Pond was a real one, not a semi—liquid marsh as it is today. Moreover, extending from both east and west of the Pond there were long, wide beaches — suitable landing places where boats could be drawn up in safety. A short distance inland, the terrain rose rather steeply, providing a safe area on which to build and farm. Tignish itself was some five miles away to the southeast The Riellys may not have known of its existence until some time later.