Tinman at Saint Croix Island, Maine

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Traveling along the coastal Route 1 in northern Maine, there is a wayside area that commemorates one of the earliest French settlements in l’Acadie, an endeavor that did not go terribly well for the settlers. Along the wayside, there are a number of beautiful statues along with storyboards that tell of a miserable first winter in the area.

Members of a French expedition led by Pierre Dugua, intending to colonize North America, settled the island in 1604.

Seventy-nine members of the expedition, including Samuel Champlain, passed the severe winter of 1604-1605 on the island. Thirty-five settlers died, apparently of scurvy, and were buried in a small cemetery on Saint Croix Island. In spring 1605 the survivors left the island and founded the settlement of Port Royal, Nova Scotia.

You can read about it here at the National Park Service site, if you’d like.

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