CHAPTER 4

Stories

@he hay grown on Boughton Island was legendary. The phenomenal growth is sometimes attributed to the iron in the soil but most often to the use of lobster bodies from the factories as fertilizer. In those times the meat was taken from the tails and the knuckles and claws. The rest of the lobster was discarded. Michael MacDonald of Newport remembers seeing load after load of hay crossing on the ice to Lower Montague, Burnt Point and other destinations around Cardigan Bay.

After six years in the service, Michael was back to the life of Prince Edward island. He had a horse and the horse needed hay, so he bought a stack of the famous Boughton Island hay.

In January of 1946 the snow was late and Michael and Sylvarius Yoston took a truck wagon over to begin the work of getting his stack back to Newport. There was a strip of ice across to the Island with open water on the Gulf side. The ice they were traversing, however, was glib ice and the steel shod wheels of the truck wagon had no traction whatsoever.

There was a stiff breeze blowing when they started back and the load of hay began to go with the wind, threatening to knock the horse off his feet and endangering the drivers who could end up with the whole outfit in the water. The horse had to be kept with his head to the wind to prevent a catastrophe. Sylvarius happened to have some lengths of chain, possibly extra traces and they wrapped them around the wheels. This provided enough traction to let them very gingerly get across to Launching.

Before their next trip there was a good fall of snow They finished hauling the stack with the wood sleigh and Michael put away the truck wagon for the winter.

(was husband was Wendell MacKenzie. Wendell‘s older brother, Malcolm, lived on the home place in Mitchell River. He was born in 1913. In 1932, he engaged Edmund

Lanteigne who came to Seal River from Caraquet, New Brunswick, 26