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INTRODUCTION

Time. it seems, has always inched its way up St. Peter’s Bay, the setting sun, however lovely, being but a measure of another

day.

The gateway to the watershed,

St. Peter’s Harbour, was a point of landing for Cartier in 1534; what he saw

“the fairest land ‘tis possible to see;"

this Bay of Clams, poqooseumkek booktabhah to the native Micmacs

encamping on its shores,

plying the waterways

to the pluck of the oar--unthreatening

to diving ducks and suspicious crows

and the still, gawky herons in the shallows against the verdant backdrop-—

two natures in blent balance.

The waters wrinkle forward to the head of the bay; European incomers settling in to make a second day.

The first coming, in the early 1700s,

of Acadian settlers to Stookley

to fish and clear some land

from harbour mouth to bay head, and trade in pelts and timber 7;? and boast this to be the most populous and prosperous part of the Island, given its name, in 1721 by de la Ronde, St. Peter's Bay, to honour the keeper 1 of the eternal portals. Then, too soon, , their expulsion in 1775. Their burial ground there

at the curve in the road. Unmarked.

3 i :5 The third day, tall ships come in on the spring tide 33 from places far away as the River Clyde.

The coming on of the English, Irish and Scots settlers, to fell more trees and open up the virgin soil

to grow potatoes, turnips, and grain,

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