|
She
was breaking up. Pounded by wave after mounting
wave, buffeted by blast after icy blast, the schooner
was breaking up. And what was left of her was sinking
fast. Wind and water had ripped the yawl boat from
her side long ago, and all they could do now was
cling to her rigging and each other and hope.
On
shore - not a hundred yards away - they could see
the fires of the farmer s and fishermen looking
helplessly on. They could see the women kneeling
in the sand, hands clenched before them, heads thrust
skyward. They could see a half dozen men fighting
breaker after breaker, trying again and again to
right the rowboat that would deliver them, only
to have it capsize again and again and tumbler 200
yards down the surf. And as the gale gathered still
more force, and as the schooner slouched further
leeward, they could see the beginning of the end.
Today
the lake is calm. I am standing on the shore at
Presqu'ile Point looking east across the water toward
Weller's Bay, surveying the stage of over a dozen
nineteenth-century shipwrecks. In Lake Ontario's
"schooner days" - the 100 years or so
that wood and canvas drove the development of Upper
Canada - this stretch of lake became known for such
harrowing scenes as the one just described. Superstitious
locals even gave the stretch a name: the "Sophiasburg
Triangle," a wedge of water extending from
Presqu'ile Point northeast to Bald Head Island,
and then southeast to just beyond Scotch Bonnet
Shoal.
What
made the triangle so treacherous? Geography and
a promise. Inshore of the triangle, Presqu'ile Bay
offered a safe haven for schooners caught in a lake
gale. But in rough water and strong winds, the
|
The "Sophiasburg Triangle"
lies between Presqu'ile Point,
Bald Head Island and Scotch Bonnet Island
bay
was difficult to enter, the western edge of Prince
Edward County seeming to enclose and intensify a
storm. A run for Presqu'ile Bay became an all-or-nothing
proposition. Round the point into the bay and you
were saved. Miss it and you were usually done for,
either blown back onto the open lake, forced into
Weller's Bay and torn apart, or driven into the
Prince Edward shore.
Some
schooners met their fate before the horrified eyes
of onlookers. Others went down unwitnessed, with
grim confirmation washing up along the shore days,
weeks, or months afterward. Still others simply
disappeared without a trace. Here are the stories
of but a few of Presqu'ile's wrecks.
(Written
by David Bojarzin. Reprinted from Watershed Magazine
with kind permission from Shelter Fell Publications.)
Return
to the top of the page
|
