Remains of wooden ship appear, then disappear on beach in North Rustico, P.E.I. | 24CA News
What seems to have been the bow of a picket schooner has attracted consideration on a seaside in North Rustico, P.E.I., a decade after native residents say it was final seen in the identical spot.
Brendon Peters lives not removed from the seaside, and remembers the final time the sands drifted away, revealing the picket construction beneath.
“My brother Norman Peters, a.k.a. the Bearded Skipper, took quite an interest in it. He did some research, and he got some people to look at it,” Peters mentioned.
“They came back with the finding that it was an old schooner that went aground here in 1879. It was the Carrie F. Butler, with 300 barrels of mackerel on board.”
When the shipwreck reappeared shortly after Christmas, Brendon Peters headed to the web to search out out extra concerning the schooner, and located some studies in The Charlottetown Examiner a few ship from Gloucester, Mass.
“About a week or two later, the captain or the owner of the vessel auctioned everything off. They had an auction right here on the beach, anything that was left on board,” Peters mentioned.
“They sold all the rigging and everything. It was just left with bare bones sitting here. So the rest is history.”
What is it?
Photos of the picket form began to seem on social media after Christmas, together with a debate over what the items had been — a shipwreck or a part of an outdated wharf?
“I started putting my little two cents worth in, and some people said ‘No, it’s part of an old wharf,'” Peters mentioned.
“I would say, ‘I have never ever seen a wharf in the shape of a bow.’ Maybe they did build them like that, I don’t know. But I still say it is the Carrie F. Butler.”
On his most up-to-date go to to the seaside, Peters mentioned the picket stays are disappearing again into the sand, much like what occurred 10 years in the past.
“I came down Saturday and there was people buzzing around, and they were saying, ‘Where is it?’ I said, ‘Well, it’s buried most of it, but you can see it right here, part of it,'” Peters mentioned.
“You can see the outline of the bow, but if you would’ve been here December 26, you would have seen the whole thing.”
Buried historical past
The P.E.I. Museum and Heritage Foundation’s schooling and programming co-ordinator, Jason MacNeil, mentioned individuals in maritime areas have a particular relationship with the ocean and shipwrecks.
He has his personal story of a P.E.I. shipwreck, from 2007, when a ship destroyed within the Yankee Gale, appeared on a seaside close to French River, P.E.I.
“We went to see it, and it was sitting up on top of the sand all nicely. And then whenever we went out to get it, it was buried, so we had to spend three weeks digging it up out of the sand,” MacNeil mentioned.
“We had some of the pieces looked at, and they were made out of white oak, which was the same material that was used by the Americans in the Yankee Gale.”
MacNeil mentioned the truth that the shipwrecks seem and disappear provides to their mystique.
“It makes it more essential to see it when it’s there,” he mentioned.
“That’s what the sea and the sand do, right? They expose things temporarily, and then before you know it, it’s all shifted and everything is gone again.”
