Cape Breton Post

Living among the Mi’kmaq

MAGAZINE ‘CORRESPOND­ENT’ DETAILS LIFE IN 1793 SYDNEY

- PAUL MACDOUGALL paul_macdougall@cbu.ca @franeymoun­tain Paul Macdougall is local area writer and a senior instructor in health sciences at Cape Breton University.

In 1793, an English “correspond­ent” residing in Cape Breton for a few years wrote three descriptiv­e letters for the first two editions of The Sporting Magazine, published in London, England. His first-hand accounts described going hunting and fishing with the Indigenous people (Mi’kmaq) he encountere­d in Cape Breton around the relatively new colony of Sydney.

Animals were “procured” by the Mi’kmaq and “sold or bartered with the inhabitant­s of that, and neighbouri­ng islands.” Animals hunted or trapped included moose, bear, red, silver grey and black foxes, beaver, otter, minx, muskrat, red and grey squirrels and rabbits.

Rabbits were described as "large as hares back home in England, and are white in winter, but change their colour to a beautiful mixture in the spring and fall of the year: in summer they are brown.”

According to the writer, “the island abounds with wild fowl such as geese, ducks of various sorts, partridges, eagles and fish hawks which are near six feet across the wings when open.” The robin is singled out for its beautiful song and hummingbir­ds and canaries are also noted.

An island (perhaps Bird Island) is described “on which birds only are to be found” and are in such plenty “you might load a vessel with their eggs, which are about the size of those of the goose.”

Fishing occurs in both summer and winter but not “from January to the latter part of March as the frost sets in so as to render the ice impregnabl­e.”

The writer describes the trout as the finest he ever saw and the smelts were in such abundance you could fill a boat with them by simply scooping them out of a brook with your hands.

Mi’kmaq fishers I know who bring young children out smelt fishing in the spring to teach them traditiona­l ways follow this same practice as their forebearer­s, catching smelts by hand in a brook and not going the easier route of using a net.

According to the unnamed scribe, Mi’kmaq fished at night from canoes with rolled up birch bark that they lite and carried like a torch. Upon seeing a shimmering fish in the dark water, a fisher would then spear it in “a very dexterous way.” The fish were in “vast quantities of every descriptio­n.”

MOOSE HUNT

In another letter, the Englishman describes going out moose hunting with a Mi’kmaw man named Benwah, his two young sons and a few other men.

“Our mode of hunting in the winter would surprise you. We waddle in our snowshoes like so many impatient ducks to the pool.”

Once upon a moose the men and their dogs are at advantage because “for this animal being very weighty and having sharp hooves, frequently sinks into holes, where the snow is drifted up to his back, whence he cannot recover himself but with great difficulty.”

On one outing the moose escaped from the snow at least 10 times before getting too tired to extricate itself. The dogs then attacked and distracted the moose and “Benwah’s elder boy leaped on the defenceles­s creature and instantly cut its throat.”

Once the moose was killed and opened, the Englishman writes, “we spread our blankets on the snow, took off our snowshoes, sat in a circle and began to regale ourselves. We smoked a while over it.” While the men reflected, the young boys cut up the moose and fed the dogs some for their afternoon’s work.

The eldest Mi’kmaq on the hunt, named Dominque, who was believed to have gotten his name from French settlers, apportione­d out the moose meat to all present, who wrapped it in their blankets and then walked back to Sydney.

According to noted Cape Breton historian Bob Morgan, one of the earliest groups of English settlers to the Sydney colony in 1785 probably could not have survived the first winter without the help of the local Mi’kmaq. They “fed the people the first winter with moose meat and dogfish and this sort of thing, eels.”

The Sporting Magazine ran from 1793 until 1870. Much of its informatio­n came from readers themselves. The editor, John Wheble, insisted informatio­n be accurate, rejecting contributi­ons where he had doubts.

 ?? CONTRIBUTE­D • NOVA SCOTIA MUSEUM ?? Mi’kmaq petroglyph tracing suggestive of night fishing by firelight. Fisher is lancing the fish as they circled into the light. Tracing done by G. Creed in 1888. Original petroglyph may be hundreds of years old.
CONTRIBUTE­D • NOVA SCOTIA MUSEUM Mi’kmaq petroglyph tracing suggestive of night fishing by firelight. Fisher is lancing the fish as they circled into the light. Tracing done by G. Creed in 1888. Original petroglyph may be hundreds of years old.
 ?? CONTRIBUTE­D • NOVA SCOTIA MUSEUM ?? Mi’kmaq Encampment by Hibbert Binney, c. 1791. Painted in same time period as letters discussed in column.
CONTRIBUTE­D • NOVA SCOTIA MUSEUM Mi’kmaq Encampment by Hibbert Binney, c. 1791. Painted in same time period as letters discussed in column.
 ?? CONTRIBUTE­D • NOVA SCOTIA MUSEUM ?? Painting of Mi’kmaw man with fish spear and women sitting in background by Lt. R. Petley, 50th Regiment. 1837.
CONTRIBUTE­D • NOVA SCOTIA MUSEUM Painting of Mi’kmaw man with fish spear and women sitting in background by Lt. R. Petley, 50th Regiment. 1837.
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