Banner: Art by Loretta Gould, from https://lnuey.ca/education/treaty-people/. Used with permission.
In the spirit of Reconciliation, we acknowledge that the land upon which St. Peters Harbour stands is unceded Mi’kmaq territory. Epekwitk (PEI), Mi’kma’ki, is covered by the historic Treaties of Peace and Friendship. We pay our respects to the Indigenous Mi’kmaq People who have occupied this Island for over 12,000 years; past, present and future.
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After the retreat of the Wisconsin glacier, tundra-like conditions give way to coniferous forest (~5000 years ago) to mixed hemlock, beech and birch “Acadian Forest”. The Mi’kmaq peoples called the island Epekwitk and the bay was known as Puku’samkek, or “the place where there are plenty of clams in the sand.”
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Photo: Barbara Rousseau
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Under This Road, What Lies?
To your immediate right, on the turn of the road at Stukely [St. Peters Harbour Road] where a church bell was found in a field is a graveyard where the first Presbyterian minister on the Island, Rev. Peter Gordon, is buried -- a marked headstone. But, under the paved curve of the road lies a Mi'kmaq burying ground, long since forgotten except by those who know it to be there.
To your immediate right, on the turn of the road at Stukely [St. Peters Harbour Road] where a church bell was found in a field is a graveyard where the first Presbyterian minister on the Island, Rev. Peter Gordon, is buried -- a marked headstone. But, under the paved curve of the road lies a Mi'kmaq burying ground, long since forgotten except by those who know it to be there.
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In the pavement's subgrade
you will find no monuments. None of the dead here comes dressed in a coffin. Under the bulldozer's blade they were unearthed on the ground -- not ceremoniously as with an archaeologist's spade and brush: a pearl of glass which once hung around someone's neck, totems etched on bedrock, flint shards and arrowheads, a fishing spear, some skulls and assorted bones -- then re-interred falling back into the shadows. |
Now they are trapped under asphalt,
encased prisoners of the highway. They want to break through into the light -- to breathe, to see again, to tell the stories of how far they came. The sign here indicates that it's only a short distance to St. Peters Harbour. - Frank Ledwell, from A Taste of Water (2004) Used with permission. |
Suggested reading:
- L’Nuey. Treaty Education, lnuey.ca/education
- David Keenleyside and Helen Kristmanson, “The Palaeo-Environment and the Peopling of Prince Edward Island: An Archaelogical Perspective” inTime and a Place: An Environmental History of Prince Edward Island, 2016.
- Kate MacQuarrie, “A River Ran Through It”, The Island Magazine, Spring-Summer 2001
- Alan MacEachern, "Theophilus Stewart and the Plight of the Micmac*, The Island Magazine, Fall-Winter 1990.
