Heron Island (New Brunswick)

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Heron Island is a previously inhabited 3.5 km long island in the Baie des Chaleurs, located approximately 4 km from New Mills New Brunswick and across from Carleton-sur-Mer. It is accessible only at high tide from a wharf on the south side of the island. Today the island has been declared a reserve and it is cared for by a First Nation community, there is a traditional burial ground near the northwest end of the island.

[edit] History

Abbé Joseph William Bourg (practising in Carleton), first Acadian priest, was given the island and the land now called Charlo by Sir Richard Hughes, Governor (on file in Louisbourg), in the capital, Halifax in thanks for his mediation efforts between the Mi'gmaks and the white settlers. However, he was too busy with his congregation work and never took possession. The deed was withdrawn and the island made available to loyalist settlers.

The Mi'gmak no longer resided on the island year long by by the time the settlers arrived, except for a Mr. Bernard who spent summers there with his family, who made baskets from ash branches, in the 1930s. The first settlers arrived on the island around 1850 and they eventually built a school (last teacher was Miss Myrtle Cook, the school closed around 1920. The islanders were spared from the Great Depression as they had completely self sufficient lifestyles

Food was always plentiful on the island, the soil is rich and the farms, 12 farm lots, did well. The island also offered Raspberries, gooseberries, they had pigs, chickens, cows. The waters were bountiful, the south side has great mussel bars and the north side has clam beds, they could fish for cod, mackerel, salmon, lobster, even chicken hawks, and they hunted geese and ducks.

The last person to be born on the island was Georgette (LaPointe) Backs, on August 4, 1938 who wrote a historical account of her parents, George and Stella LaPointe's 19 years there as lightkeepers.^[1] and her family of 10 siblings.

In 1940, the family left the island and George went to WWII.

Families:

George and Stella (born Mercier) Lapointe (George est le great-great-great-grandson of Victoire Bourg, sister of Abbé Joseph William Bourg, first Acadian priest, living in baie des Chaleurs). They were married in the US when George returned from WWI, and then lived in New Mills before he took the job of lighthouse keeper in 1921 and moved his family to the island.

The families on Heron Island at the time: