an anonymous writer in 1867 was thinking of, when, in recalling the pioneer days on the island, he evoked the settlers’ enclosures in the midst of the forest ”surrounded by irregular fences, equally unsightly” — that is, as 'unsightly’, he said, as the ’blackened stumps’ that still remained in the soil.“50 As we have seen earlier, it would have taken at least five years, and probably closer to seven, before the stumps of the hardwood trees would have rotted to the point where they were able to be levered out of the ground, and for pine and hemlock, it would have taken as long as twenty to thirty years, so that the stumps themselves would not have been available for fencing for at least five years after clearance had begun, and probably longer. In fact, none of the early recorders on the island mention that stumps were used to construct fences, and though undoubtedly they must have been used for this purpose, the only recorder to do so was a visitor to the island in the 18805, who said that ”tree roots are frequently utilized to inclose the land from which they have been uprooted”. This, however, was at a time when there must have been very few areas on the island that were still in the pioneer phase of forest clearance, though such roots, especially of pine and hemlock, would have lasted for decades after being pulled from the ground. Where on the island the writer would have seen such fences is not stated, though she did travel the length of the island on the railway.“51

Pole or rail fences — Apart from these rough barriers of the pioneer period, most fences on the island were made of ’poles’ or ’rails’ that came from trees that had been cut down specifically for the purpose.“ Even as early as 1822 Walter

‘5° Anon. 1867.

Ward 1887. See Pratt (1988) for literary records of the survival of stump fences on the island into the early twentieth century. Especially interesting is Helen Champion's description in her 1939 book Over on the Island: “[stump fences] are now scarce in this land. We cycled for miles, almost in despair before we saw a stump fence. True, it was not beautiful. The stumps were thrown together in rows, their roots piteously pawing the empty air. Tangled and uneven, they lay like giant molars extracted from the bleeding earth”. [Since writing the above I have come across an earlier reference to a squatter's “rough fence of tree roots" in the Green Road area of Lot 30 (Harris 0. 1865).]

451

‘52 The words ‘rail' and 'pole' must derive from the two different preparations of the trees used in fencing, poles being single tree stems that did not require splitting, and rails being the products of the splitting process. 'Pole' also became a term that was applied to standing trees of a size that could be used for fencing, as in Craswell 8. Anderson’s (c. 1856) reference to "a fine grove of cedar poles" on Lot 11; other examples occur in evidence to the Land Commission (1875): e.g., the evidence of G. W. DeBlois; “there are quantities of hard-wood and fence poles on Lot 9 and of Donald Campbell, Lot 16: "There is a strip of fence poles through the middle [of a piece of ‘vacant land']”.

70

Johnstone implies that the most common type of fence on the island was the 'zig-zag or snake’ fence, a type of fence that was widely used throughout the forested regions of North America“? Johnstone provides us with a detailed description of its construction‘S“:

The way of fencing the ground is done in the following manner; they prepare a great number of small poles called longers, about fourteen feet in length455; of these they lay down a row upon the ground in a zig—zag manner, where they intend the fence to be erected — the end of one pole crossing over the end of the adjoining one, in a slanting direction; and thus they pile one course of poles upon another, till it is nearly high enough

for a fence.456 At the part where the poles meet they fix two other poles in the ground, one on each side of the fence, leaning against it so as to cross each other at the top; and placing a row of their heaviest poles above all, the fence is finished. This pailing from its zig-zag form and the additional stability it receives from the poles fixed in the ground, is capable of turning almost

any beast w hatever.“’57

‘53 Williams 1989, pp. 69-71. 45‘ Lewellin (1832) (p. 197, not extracted), without using the name, also describes the structure of the snake fence. The only other recorder to mention this type of fence is Bishop Plessis (1812) who in the journal of his pastoral visit, said the “clOfures ou bouchures” [i.e. fences] were made "en zig-zag’. (‘Bouchure' is italicized in the printed edition — it is an Acadian word for fence [pers. comm., Georges Arsenault], which the bishop was unfamiliar with, though I note that it is listed by L. Bergeron (1980) [Dictionnai’re de la langue Québécoise, VLB Editeur, Montréal]). Bishop Plessis went on to particularly note that the fields on the island lacked any gates [barriéres], and as a result to get from one field to another you had to continually climb over the fences, at the risk, the bishop lamented, of tearing your clothes or getting covered with gum - it seems that he was talking from personal experience!

‘55 Lewellin (1832) also noted the use of the word ‘longer' and gave their length as '14 to 15 feet'. Also Wightman (1912) commented on the use of the word ‘Ionger‘: "in the Garden of the Gulf, if not universally yet quite generally these poles are called ‘longers' ” (Wightman 1912, p. 5).

‘56 Lewellin (1832) (p. 197, not extracted) said that eight ‘longers' were used in each section of a snake fence, whereas Knox (1980) (p. 22) states that on the island “the average snake fence was about seven rails high" — presumably this was from the recollections of his informers in 1978-79. Both of these values fall within the 6 to 10 rails that Williams (1989) (p. 70) states was the range for snake fences in the United States.

‘57 Johnstone 1822 (p. 99 not extracted). The method of construction is very similar to that recalled by an island farmer in the late 19705 (Knox 1980, p. 22), the only difference being that, rather than being held down by the weight of the uppermost rails, the bracing poles were tied together using either ‘withes' or wire. (‘Withes' are pliant twigs or boughs that can be used for tying [Oxford 1989].)