As I was finishing up the details yesterday on my collection of forgotten stories about the Grand Cascapedia River, I found this painting called, On Wooden House.
It was painted by a young woman called Louise. And I can only imagine what her thoughts were as she painted this watercolour scene while looking out over the river on a summer’s day back in the early 1880s.

For she was Queen Victoria’s daughter and how she found herself sitting on this veranda up in the woods on the Cascapedia River, so far away from home, is one of the stories that I wrote about in this collection of stories from my hometown.
According to some of the research that I did on her, it was said that this was the best painting she did while in Canada.
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Maybe it was because there is more to this painting than meets the eye.
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#watercolour #painting #artist #oldpaintings #princesslouise #grandcascapedia #river #fishingriver #salmonfishing #forgottenstories #daydreams #backintime #stories #maggiesinn #hereathome #writer #storyteller #gaspecoaststoriesto edit.

As I continue to research and write the forgotten stories of the Gaspe Coast, I have come across some that give me a lot to think about.
One of these stories is about a woman who came to the Gaspe as a young bride.
She had left her family in Ireland to follow her husband here because he had told her that they would be able to have a better life.
She had found it difficult to leave but because she had married him, she had no choice but to travel across the sea to an unknown country, where she knew no one.
Times were hard for the young couple and the only work he could find was on a merchant ship that travelled back and forth between Canada and England.
It meant that the young woman found herself alone for months at a time trying to bring up her children in this harsh climate.
She became self-sufficient because that was the only way to survive. As the years went by, her husband spent more time away, sometimes only returning once a year. And then he never returned at all and she never knew what had happened to him.
She missed her family in Ireland and wanted to go home but she didn’t have the money to return. So she stayed here on the Gaspe and despite her struggles, she managed to bring up her 10 children alone.
According to the story, which was passed down through the many generations of her children, she did get to go home again when she was 92 years old and she was laid to rest beside her mother and father on her Irish soil.
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I finally finished researching and writing another collection of stories about the many shipwrecks of the Gaspe Coast.
For centuries ships from different parts of the world found their way to the rugged and rocky shores of the Coast. Storms, dense fog and high winds were the enemies of sailors, despite the experience of the crew. And sometimes it was bad luck or a freak accident such as an overturned oil lamp on rough seas that set the ship on fire.

This collection tells the tragic story of the Carricks ship that was carrying Irish immigrants to Canada and how it got caught up in a storm and hit the jagged rocks along the shore near Cap des Rosier. Many lost their lives on that ship back in 1847.
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There is also the story of the Colborne shipwreck that was travelling with one of the most valuable cargoes ever shipped out of London, England. It was on its way to Quebec when it went off course and struck the rocky seashore at Mackerel Point near Port Daniel. A lot of people were said to have profited from the lost currency that ended up in the waters.
The Empress of Ireland sunk taking more than a thousand lives with her in the St Lawrence River. It remains the largest peacetime disaster in Canadian history.

You can find this collection of stories on the Gaspe Coast Stories website at www.gaspecoaststories.ca and you can watch the short video about it on my YouTube channel called Gaspe Coast Stories.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF--vw_i8Yg

#shipwreck #shipwrecks #sea #lostatsea #stories #gaspecoast #forgottenstories #gaspe #storyteller #colborne #thecarricks #empressofireland #writer #maggiesinn #tellingstories

Yesterday I was talking to someone about the Pirates of the Gaspe Coast story that I had written, and they asked me if there had been any real pirates on the Gaspe Coast.
And my answer to them was yes, the Coast was a much sought after destination for some of Canada’s most famous pirates.
One of the scariest writings about what happened was when they attacked Perce. It was written by Father Jumeau, in 1690 and he was lucky to have lived to tell the tale about the notorious thieves of the sea, who looted and destroyed the small town.
So yes there were indeed pirates who sailed through the Bay of Chaleurs!

#pirates #pirate #sea #buccaneers #swashbucklers #percé #pirateship #looters #talltales #history #heritage #stories #storyteller #maggiesinn #hereathome #ourstory #gaspecoast #gaspesie #thegaspesianway.

As I continue to research and write some of the stories about the Phantom Ship and the buried treasure of the Gaspe Coast, I came across a story about a shipwreck near Port Daniel in 1838.
Although it was not a big vessel, it was carrying one of the most valuable cargoes ever shipped out of London, England.
There was 40,000 pounds of currency in boxes containing one thousand sovereigns each and it was washed away in the waters of the Bay of Chaleurs.
Some was found and accounted for, but much of it disappeared. According to the old stories about the shipwreck, it was said that several of the locals filled their pockets and got rich from the tragedy.
And according to some of the folklore, there is still some of the old treasure waiting to be found at Mackerel Point.
Which for a treasure seeker could be for sure a very good thing!
#treasure #buriedtreasure #losttreasures #shipwreck #secrets #gold #silver #oldstories #phantomships #mysteries #legends #folklore #storyteller #history  #hereathome #gaspecoast #gaspésie #tourismegaspesie 

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Jacques de Lesseps was a war hero, an international aviation pioneer and a celebrity.  Yet, his tragic story on the Gaspe Coast has often been forgotten in the pages of our past. 

In 1926 and 1927, de Lesseps photographed the Gaspe Coast often from very low altitudes and he was the first person to see the expansive beauty of the Coast from the air. He is credited with taking hundreds of breathtaking aerial photographs of the Gaspe and several of them were reproduced as postcards in the 1930s. 
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To know where we have come from, we have to know the stories of our past.