Doris MacMillan can remember times when she was transported in an ice boat between the mainland and Pictou island. “I was never scared,” MacMillan says, recalling some of the frightful conditions those men endured as they pushed, pulled and rowed the boat across caribou channel with people, mail and supplies during the winter months.
MacMillan was among more than two dozen folks crammed into the main display area of the northumberland Fisheries Museum July 28 for the official dedication of the ice boat donated to the museum a year ago.
The ice boat now on display at the museum was built in the early 1940s and made its last trip in 1961.
“She was a pretty dependable little rig,” said Jim turple, who grew up on Pictou Island and shared his recollection of the dangers ice boat crews confronted while crossing the channel to and from the island’s western end.
Turple discussed how the ice could shift or break away, and how the ice boats sometimes upset, with crew members drowning as a result. some crews perished trying to ride out storms that lasted several days, including near-zero visibility that put the boats and crews off course.
Up to four people guided the boat across the channel, two of them strapped in harnesses and pulling it from the stern and two others pushing on a shaft shoved through loops on the gunwales near the oars.
Current Pictou island residents officially handed over the ice boat to the museum during ceremonies last summer at the island’s community centre. The 16-foot craft was transported on the mainland on the stern of a large lobster boat.
From the Pictou Advocate