HALIFAX, CANADA—According to a Halifax City News report, Parks Canada archaeologists and a Mi’kmaw archaeological technician examined a well-preserved shipwreck exposed on the North Beach of Sable Island. The island has been known to sailors as a dangerous place because of its underwater sandbars, tricky currents, and unpredictable weather. Rebecca Dunham of Parks Canada said that the team uncovered wood and copper fragments of the vessel that were marked with British Royal Navy broad arrows. The ship also has elements made of Bermuda cedar, suggesting that it could be one of three ships, including the HMS Barbadoes. The HMS Barbadoes was lost while traveling with three other ships from Bermuda to Newfoundland in 1812. Only one vessel in the group made it to Halifax, where a rescue was dispatched to retrieve the crew and the money the Barbadoes had been carrying. The crew later blamed strong currents for the loss of their ship. “The island is revealing to us through the exposure of particular artifacts and features that we can associate with wreck events. We’re relying on the island to reveal stories rather than seeking them out specifically,” Dunham said. To read about a seventeenth-century colony established by the French in Nova Scotia, go to "Paradise Lost."
