Saving Lives at Sea: The Story of Lifesaving Stations
Sable Island shipwreck. The four-masted, iron-hulled Crofton Hall, ran aground on Sable Island on April 17, 1898. Her hull was trapped in the sand and broken apart by relentless waves. Within weeks, nothing remained visible. Photo credit: Nova Scotia Archives.
Digby Lifesaving Startion. The building shown contained a cradle and marine railway for the lifeboat, supplies and tools necessary for the job, and living quarters for the crew. Photo credit: Admiral Digby Museum.
Life saving station at Trinity Cove on St. Paul’s Island in 1908. Photo Credit: c-and-e-museum.
The waters around Atlantic Canada are some of the most treacherous and unpredictable in the world. Before the establishment of the Coast Guard in 1962, it was the strength and courage of lighthouse keepers and volunteers who braved these waters to rescue men and cargo that helped keep these waters safe.
Perilous Waters and Tragic Toll
Overtime, it was the general public’s concern over the fate of shipwreck victims that led to the establishment of permanent, government-sponsored coastal rescue organizations that would become the backbone of what we know as the Canadian Coast Guard. These Lifesaving Stations were set up in different areas of Atlantic Canada but three stations are particularly note-worthy.
The principal function of a life-saving station was to save the lives of seamen and passengers aboard ships driven aground because of bad weather or faulty navigation. Crews maintained a day-time watch from the station lookout and at night or on foggy and stormy days, they patrolled the beach in both directions on a regular schedule, coordinating with other stations that may have been set-up.
Sable Island: Humane Establishment
Operated between 1801 and 1958
Sable Island is a thin crescent of basically just shifting sand and is located at the edge of the Continental Shelf. Sailors referred to Sable Island as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, an island hidden by waves, storms and fog that meant only death and destruction.
In Atlantic Canada, the first formal lifesaving station was started by the Nova Scotia government on Sable Island in 1801. It was known as the ‘Humane Establishment’. By 1895, there were smaller stations along the island’s length, along with two lighthouses. The Humane Establishment played a crucial role in advancing knowledge of the island. The Humane Establishment ceased operation in 1958.
Houses of refuge were also placed along the island. Inside, survivors could find firewood, food and directions to the nearest lifesaving station. These lifesaving communities were Sable Island’s first permanent settlers. A steamer brought supplies a few times a year but mostly the men and their families had to make do with what the island provided.
Digby Lifesaving Station
Digby Point sticks out into the Bay of Fundy and the residents there are well aware of the power of storms in the Bay of Fundy. In 1911, a lifesaving station was established in Digby. The original crew consisted of eight men and the life boat ‘Daring’. It operated until it’s closure in 1970.
St. Paul’s Island: Graveyard of the Gulf
St. Paul’s Island is located off the northern tip of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in the Cabot Strait, the passage that runs between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland that leads directly to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Like Sable Island, so many ships have been wrecked on its rocks that it has earned the nickname ‘Graveyard of the Gulf’. The topography of the island, though, is completely opposite to that of Sable Island. Razor sharp, jagged rocks concealed by mist and swell, guard every entrance to the island. The changeable weather and prevalent fog have contributed to the wrecks of of over 300 ships on the island’s rocky cliffs.
The government of Nova Scotia was finally compelled in 1831 to place a frame house and provisions at a cove on the southeast side of the island to relieve shipwreck victims. After the house was erected, workers cut a road across the island and discovered a small lifesaving establishment on the western shore that government of New Brunswick had built and staffed with two men and their families. The two provinces had no idea what the other was doing. Eight years after the establishment of the first lifesaving station, in 1839, the first lighthouse was erected on St. Paul’s Island.
The Spirit Endures
The tradition of saving lives at sea didn’t end with the old stations – nor does it rest solely in the hands of the modern Coast Guard. Along the coasts of Atlantic Canada, the instinct to help hasn’t faded. Fishermen and mariners still take to the water when someone is in trouble – without hesitation and without being asked. It’s not duty or protocol that drives them. It’s something deeper, passed down through generations – a quiet code of courage, carved into the very bones of coastal life.
Why Lifesaving Stations Mattered: The Tragic Tale of the ‘Jessie’
One tragic story from 1825 shows just how desperately these stations were needed.
In January 1825, the ‘Jessie’ ran aground on St. Paul’s Island. Miraculously the entire crew and passengers survived and managed to climb the jagged ice covered rocks, in sub zero conditions and made their way to land with what scarce provisions they could salvage from the wreck. They built signal fires each night to attract attention. A few people in Cape Breton saw these fires but they were powerless to help. The Gulf of St. Lawrence was blocked with heavy sea ice and no vessel could get near the island and one by one, they all perished.
In April, seal hunters would stop on St. Paul’s to specifically salvage shipwrecks that may have occurred over the winter. They found the bodies of the crew. The owner of the boat, a Mr. MacKay, was wrapped in a well made coat and this was taken off the body, along with cash that was still in his pocket.
Later on in the year, a fisherman visited Charlottetown wearing this coat. By chance, Mr. MacKay’s wife, saw the coat and instantly recognized it. She opened the coat and found her husband’s intials that she had sewn in. The fisherman was arrested but he was able to satisfactorily explain how he had come into possession of the coat and was released. Mrs. MacKay sent a vessel to the island to recover any bodies but only three were found and one of them was Mr. MacKay.
References
Parks Canada, The Sable Island Humane Establishment, Government of Canada
Council of Nova Scotia Archives, Community Allbums, Memory Nova Scotia, The Admiral Digby Museum, Life Saving Station, https://archives.novascotia.ca/communityalbums/digby/
Dwyer, Terry, 2001. St. Paul Island, The Graveyard of the Gulf. Wreck Hunter. https://wreckhunter.ca/index.php/st-paul-island/st-paul-island-articles