Nova Scotia Read Free Page B

proclamation of May 14, 1756, he issued “a reward of £30
for every male Indian Prisoner above the age of sixteen years,
brought in alive; or for a scalp of such male Indian £25 and £25
for every Indian woman or child brought in alive.” Dan Paul points
out that women and children were probably not spared the scalping
as it was often not possible to determine the sex or the age of the
valued scalp. s
        And so I feel some sympathy for those currently in the
province lobbying to rename the towns that have immortalized some
of our most barbaric founders. Some of my surfer friends refer to
this place simply as “Larry town,” a lighter moniker to place on
the geography than that of the man who caused so much human grief
to the French and Mi’kmaq.
        It was in 1754 that Governor Lawrence and his council decided
to create a settlement in Lawrencetown. He granted 20,000 acres of
Mi’kmaq and French land and was even willing to underwrite the cost
of settlement, providing not only land but soldiers, cattle, sheep
and pigs. A road was cut from Dartmouth and a stockade of sorts
built. Concerned about the moral character of the first citizens of
Lawrencetown, Lawrence declared that those chosen must be “sober
and industrious people, rather than crowd their settlement first
with worthless wretches.” An argument had also been put forward
that the creation of the settlement of Lawrencetown would give the
Native people a foe in their own backyard and perhaps dissuade them
from travelling further down the road to harass the thriving
communities of Dartmouth and Halifax. d
        The fort went up near the river here, the French apparently
having moved on or been driven off. The Mi’kmaq were not so easily
put aside. Bloody fights broke out between the Englishmen building
the palisades and the Mi’kmaq men who could not abide this invasion
of their homeland. Four settlers and three soldiers were killed.
The settlement persisted, however, until one year into the Seven
Years’ War. On Thursday, August 25, 1757, a new order went out to
withdraw settlers and troops and burn Lawrencetown to the ground.
It was simply a burden on the limited finances of the colony, too
costly and difficult to defend. Not everyone left. But by 1767,
there were only fifteen people living in and around Lawrencetown:
four English, one Scot, three Americans and five Germans. Animals
were a bit more abundant with eight oxen, thirty cows, eighteen
cattle for meat, fifteen pigrs and some chickens.
        In later years, despite the influx of Loyalists to Nova
Scotia, Lawrencetown did not flourish. Thomas Chandler Haliburton,
in 1808, indicated that there were only fifty people in the entire
area.
        Today Lawrencetown has a population of less than 3,000 souls.
Despite the fact that we live not far from the suburbs, growth here
has never been dramatic. In the summÝer, fog sits heavy on the land
for weeks or even months, discouraging those who would rather be in
the sunlight, a mere nine kilometres inland. In some ways, the sea
has conjured this cloaking device to protect us from rapid growth.
The water is cold as well. Even on an inviting summer day, the sea
might still stab at your feet with what feels like hot knives, the
water is so bloody cold. But this has not discouraged the many
fellow wave riders who come here from Australia, England, South
Africa, California and Hawaii to discover the unique and ecstatic
business of surfing cold pure North Atlantic waves at the foot of a
ragged headland.
        Lawrencetown Beach has been recognized before as
a place of beginnings. In the early 1960s, the National Film Board
was out here shooting the opening scenes of a film called The Railrodder , where Buster Keaton emerges from the sea
riding a bicycle up onto the shore. Not far away he catches the
train and he’s off for a trek across Canada.
        The train no longer travels by the beach. About sixteen years
ago I watched a work crew tear