Cavendish Dunelands Trail/Cavendish Sentier Dunelands

, Sea Stories , From the first peoples through modern times, the fishery has been vital to the people living along this shore. As Lucy Maud Montgomery remembered: Many of the farmers had a fishing house on the shore field of their farms, with a boat drawn up on the skids below.... Just where the rocks left off and the sandshore began was quite a little colony of fishing houses. , The Alpine Path, p. 38, The Yankee Gale , Cavendish has many tales of shipwrecks, storms, pirates and rum-running. The most memorable storm was the Yankee Gale of 1851. For three terrible days in early October hundreds of boats and thousands of fishermen - mainly from the New England states-fought for their lives as a furious gale drove them toward destruction. The storm claimed at least 120 boats and over 16o lives. Many were buried in Cavendish Cemetery, where a monument has since been erected in their memory., The Legend of Cape Leforce , Local legend tells of a French pirate ship that visited these shores before the settlement of Cavendish. The ship's crew went ashore to discuss the division of their booty and a dispute arose between the vessel's commander, Captain Leforce, and the first mate. The two agreed to settle their dispute by a duel. As the paces were being counted off the mate turned and shot the captain in the back. , L.M. Montgomery wrote "The captain was buried by his crew on the spot where he fell, and I have often heard Grandfather say that his father had seen the grave in his boyhood. It has long ago crumbled off into the waves but the name still clings to the headland.” The Alpine Path p.40, Rum-running On Prince Edward Island, where prohibition lasted from 1906 until 1948, "rum-running” was a profitable contraband industry. Boats would anchor outside the three-mile limit and smuggle their cargo ashore by dory in the dead of night.The Cavendish coast offered many places to bury casks of rum for later distribution. ,