Aspy Bay

[3] The unpredictable weather and rugged coastline of large portions of the bay and nearby St. Paul Island contributed to several marine tragedies as the area was being charted and settled.

Proceeding northward they found the coast very rugged and high, and after weeks of subsisting on boiled kelp and roots, they rounded Money Point and before long came ashore on the sandy beaches of Aspy Bay near present-day Dingwall.

Exhausted, frozen, and with all provisions gone, the desperate men made camp and cast lots with the aim of choosing one of their number to sacrifice as food for the rest.

The group was eventually saved by a party of local natives who told them a tale of another French vessel which was wrecked in Aspy Bay with great loss of life a few years prior.

The Indians recalled bringing the bodies of drowned French children ashore on the sands of Aspy Bay, and later finding and assisting the survivors who had suffered tremendously from cold and hunger for five days.

In 1856 the Nova Scotia terminus of the Transatlantic telegraph cable was made at the small community of Aspy Bay, northwest of Dingwall.