Talking logs
Doug Sobey, an historian of Island’s forests, will present an illustrated talk on Island log homes at an upcoming Tuesday Talk at the Acadian Museum in Miscouche.
Shelter is a universal human need and something European Settlers to P.E.I. had to contend with early on, many by building log homes. Doug Sobey, an historian of the Island’s forests, has researched Island log homes and will be presenting an illustrated talk, in English, during the upcoming Tuesday Talk at the Acadian Museum in Miscouche. The event is set for Aug. 7 at 7 p.m. A log home was a type of building totally unknown in the settlers’ home country, so it required a new set of skills that had to be learned. These skills and how were they acquired, will make up part of Sobey’s talk. Sobey will also look in detail at some of the log houses that are still to be found on the Island, including the Doucet House in Rustico and also some log houses in Charlottetown. He will consider the extent to which log houses were part of the Acadian building tradition. He will assess the demands that such buildings made on the forest resources of the Island and consider how the Island’s log houses fit into the general history of European and North American building traditions. Sobey is a native Islander who attended elementary and high school in Summerside and then went on to Mount Allison University where he studied biology. He took a Masters and a Ph.D. in ecology at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. For 30 years he taught ecology at the University of Ulster and at other institutions in Northern Ireland. He has returned to live on the Island for six months of each year, spending the winter in Belfast, Northern Ireland. As a research associate of the Institute of Island Studies at UPEI since 1992, he has been studying the present forests of the Island as well as all aspects of their past history, including the attitudes expressed by Island residents and visitors to the forests. His research has been published in Canadian journals, The Island Magazine, and in P.E.I. government publications. He is the co-author of a book on Captain Samuel Holland published in 2015, “Samuel Holland – His Work and Legacy on Prince Edward Island.” Admission to the Tuesday talk is by donation. Refreshments are served. The Acadian Museum of P.E.I is located on Route 2, 23 Main Drive East.