Local History

The earliest recording of the Béchervaise name is that of Colinus of St. Laurent 1331 -- the first member of the family appearing in Jersey records.

The New Carlisle Postmaster’s Provisional Postal service in Canada began under the French regime in 1705 with delivery of mail by courier between Quebec City, Three-Rivers and Montreal.In 1763 it was taken over under the British Crown by Benjamin Franklin and formed part of the North American Postal System.

When the first settlers arrived on the Gaspésie forests covered the entire Coast and, although trees were a necessity, they were sometimes viewed as a nuisance by men trying to clear enough land for crops and animals. It was very easy to obtain all the wood they needed by going a very short distance to the dense forest that surrounded them with their axes, saws and a horse and sleigh.

This is the first part of a series written by Cynthia Dow and published in SPEC in 1995 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Forillon National Park. The series is dedicated to the memory of the late Elwood Dow and his wife Gerty Gavey, uncle and aunt of the author, whose Indian Cove home was expropriated to make way for the Park.

One day on the Gaspé in 1939 a man by the name of Esmond B. Martin caught the largest Atlantic salmon ever taken in North American waters, here on our own river the Grand Cascapedia. Although we take it for granted, this river is considered one of the ten best salmon fishing rivers in the world.

Many, many years ago there lived a group of Mi’kmaq along the shores of the Bay of Chaleur, in the region of the seventh district of the Mi’kmaq Nation.

Once upon a time my grandfather, Victor William Annett, the seventh son of Charles William Annett, the grandson of William Annett, told me a story.

“Such a beautiful country is not an accident. God must have created this wonderful wilderness, where all is happiness, all is peace.”
--Fishing on the Grand Cascapedia by Edmund W. Davis (1904)

Foreword