Description

Such accidents are not uncommon in
Island history. While crossing the
North River in April 1737, a treacherous
season for travellers, Michel Hache-
Gallant broke through the rotting ice
and drowned. At his death Gallant was in
his mid-70s the patriarch of a large, extended
family of Acadian colonists, and
had spent 17 years in the French settlement
of Port La Joye on fie Saint-Jean.
Besides his considerable progeny, he
left behind a farm near the colony's
administrative headquarters. Eightyears
later New England militiamen put it to
the torch.
Two and a half centuries later, in 1987
and 1988, a team of archaeologists from
the Canadian Parks Service located and
unearthed a dwelling on Hache-Gallant's
land, seeking insights into the first
French settlement on Prince Edward
Island.