Cape Breton's Magazine

Malcolm White, Whiteside: Indian Point Is? land got its name from the Indians who once lived there. When I was about ten years old, there were about a dozen of them living there in teepees built out of birch bark. They'd take the big white birch with thick bark and could make the most beautiful home in the world. No floor in it, right on the ground. They would sell baskets and axe handles for extra cash. I used to be scared to death of them. They fished and hunted at the mouth of Lower River Inhabitants. They could live off the skin of a snake. Captain Kidd was frozen in the ice around Lennox Passage one winter. He's supposed to have buried treasure out on the islands-- at least that's what the old settlers said. About forty years ago, while fishing near Stone Building Head on Rabbit Island, I came across carvings in the rocks. I couldn't read it, and I couldn't understand it. It was in a foreign language. It'll never wear away 'cause it was carved in very deep. Cap? tain Kidd must have marked directions in the rock. My father said there were once two guys from West Arichat who wanted to cut wood on Rab? bit. The young fellow was up in the woods and came across a well covered with flag? stones. He took the stones off and came to a huge rock. His father called him from the shore • again and again, louder and louder. The young fellow went down to the shore and asked his father what he wanted. His father said, "I didn't say anything." They went back up to find the well. It was gone. What it was, no one knows. Could have been Cap? tain Kidd's treasure. I used to have 185 lobster traps around the islands. On calm days, I'd get nothing. On rough days, lot's of lobsters. I couldn't figure it out. Then one day I saw a man from Madame Island picking my traps. He had a small boat and had been forced to stay home on windy days. The fishing's all gone now. Since the industries came to the Strait, you can't even catch the scale of a fish. Charlie Whalen, Port Richmond: The MacNam- aras finally left the island to be more mod? ern. They wanted to be closer to he highway, the Lower River church, and closer to Hawkes? bury. John and Susie moved next to me about fifty years ago; they were too old to stay year 'round on the island, but still stayed summers there. The Macs weren't cannibals or headhunters, but if they saw a stranger, saw them landing on the shore, they'd take to the woods smd hide till they'd leave. They knew strangers wouldn't hurt them. Must have been their nerves. John and Joey MacNamara used to talk about Captain Kidd's loot, buried on Mac's Island on the high head in an old cellar. About fifty years ago I, my father, smd a half- dozen more went out at night in April. Ev- : • ir M SYDNEY SHIP SUPPLY Sydney and Port Hawkesbury INTEGRITY Being true to yourself - having Integrity means more than just nui preten'ng to bie someone else. It means being completely true to what is inside of you.: To what you know is right. It means doing what you feel you must do regardless of the immediate cost or sacrifice, it means making decisions for yourself and your family, and your entire life lyised on what is proper, not on what is exped- ioit. ft means at all time to be honourable and to behave decently and given in a very practical sense it pays, for without integrity no person is complete and without it no book, no play, nothing writ? ten, nothing done by man has any real value.