Introduction

Over the years, winter blizzards, floods, and even tornadoes have created havoc in Atlantic Canada, but by far the worst natural disasters have been hurricanes. In fact, the word itself suggests pending doom, coming from the Spanish huracán, which was, in turn, derived from a Carib diety, “Juracán,” whom the Taíno people said was a bringer of chaos and disorder.

The typical hurricane comes to Canada’s east coast between June and November after spawning in either the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, or, more often, the Atlantic Ocean. Yet the origins of most hurricanes are actually cloaked in sand and dry winds half a world away, when hot air from the Sahara blows over Western Africa and mixes with the moist air over the Atlantic. These low-pressure systems can develop into tropical depressions in the doldrums around the Cape Verde Islands. The equatorial sun warms the ocean, and this hot, humid air rises and then cools. As air pressure drops at the ocean’s surface, winds come in to replace the vacuum from the escaping air. These conditions—warm water and hot air with cool air above, plus persistent winds—are ripe for the birth of a hurricane; they have been described as having the effect of unleashing trapped boiling water.

Trade winds generally blow westward towards the Caribbean Sea, and in the northern hemisphere, the winds rotate in a counterclockwise fashion as the burgeoning storm churns west and then northward. But only a small number of weather systems that begin to develop this way turn into full-fledged hurricanes. Some cyclones die out before being organized, while others only develop into tropical depressions (winds below 63 kmh) or tropical storms (below 119 kmh.) Once tropical storms reach 117 kmh, they are named (since 1953, with human names) according to a list provided by the World Meteorological Organization. Of those named, only a small number end up as hurricanes.

But while tropical storms and hurricanes usually travel in familiar patterns, they are never fully predicable, and, in fact, some of the largest storms on record—such as the Galveston Hurricane and the Perfect Storm—have surprised weather experts. These storms ended up going in unexpected directions before intensifying and becoming increasingly destructive. But most big storms that charge up the Atlantic turn northeastward, in the classic c-shape, then lose their momentum as they hit the colder waters of the North Atlantic.

Some storms coming north can transition into what meteorologists call extratropical storms. These different kinds of storms have become more common in the twenty-first century, and can, in fact, be the most dangerous of all the cyclones entering northern latitudes. Some of these extratropical cyclones have cold, rather than warm, air at their centres, and are able to generate energy by combining with a warm system nearby. Both the Perfect Storm of 1991—which produced thirty-metre waves, sinking the Andrea Gail—and the Superstorm in 1993 were extratropical systems that had transitioned into hybrid storms that packed incredible vitality and destructive energy.

It can be argued that Atlantic Canada’s location in the cold waters of the high latitudes has been its saving grace, since many massive hurricanes have wilted into tropical rainstorms before making landfall. But this has not always been the case. In fact, Canada’s east coast is situated at the very top of the eastern seaboard, and tropical storms fuelled by the warm waters of the Gulf Stream can deliver an explosive blow, especially if waters around Sable Island and the Gulf of Maine are warmer than normal.

Late-summer hurricanes have historically been called August Gales in Atlantic Canada, ever since the arrival of the Great August Gale of 1873. But these large systems can appear throughout the hurricane season, as did the more recent hurricanes, Juan and Igor, which both struck in late September. And while only two to three per year make any sort of entry into Atlantic Canada, the greatest threat is to mariners who are caught in open water. On land, flooding from the incredible amounts of rain dropped by hurricanes is also a great concern for emergency-measures organizations.

While much of the physical damage caused by storms has occurred on land, the Atlantic Ocean—or more specifically, the North Atlantic—looms large in this book. In this grey, roaring body of water, extreme wave heights are legendary and measure among the highest on the planet. Monster waves, some reaching towards thirty metres, have been measured recently by the World Meteorological Organization—and these waves seem to be occurring more often and with much more energy, packing incredible destructive power. Since 2000, some of the biggest hurricanes on record, such as hurricanes Juan and Igor, have entered the North Atlantic waters. And while the question of whether, or how much, the oceans are changing and adding more energy into their systems is open to debate, new extremes are almost certainly being reached.

The 2017 hurricane season, for example, produced ten named hurricanes—six of them major hurricanes, including Harvey, Irma, and Maria—inflicting over $200 billion in damage in North America. Are these unprecedented figures perhaps the new normal? Hurricane Harvey dropped a full 152 centimeters (five feet) of water on the city of Houston. Sea levels, temperatures, storm surges, and wind speeds all appear to be on the rise, according to the National Ocean Service, both in the North Atlantic and in the other ocean waters that cover 70 percent of the earth’s surface. Some of the newest ocean temperatures are the warmest on record, and in places like Galveston, Texas, water levels are rising at an average of five centimetres per decade. Weather has become more severe on the planet, and while meteorologists have pointed out that the trend is not certain to continue, it is not hard to imagine a time when Category 2 and 3 hurricanes are the new norm in Atlantic Canada.

It is difficult to be precise in determining what constitutes the greatest storms. Organizations such as the us National Hurricane Center and Environment Canada have produced lists that include the strongest winds on record, the highest waves, the largest size, the longest-lasting, and the most destructive in terms of financial cost and loss of human life. Certainly these yardsticks factor largely into this selection of important weather disturbances, but in this book, we also take into account each storm’s lasting impact on the Atlantic region.

For instance, the disintegration of the Duc d’Anville expedition was not fully brought about by the great storms the ships encountered at sea, yet weather most definitely played a strong role in the tragedy that had a long-term influence on the region’s history. (Britain’s subsequent military dominance in the North Atlantic can be traced to the failed d’Anville affair.) Similar circumstances occurred with the Independence Hurricane of 1775, and in the huge Labrador disaster in the late 1880s. In the latter storm, more than seventy people died, and almost as many vessels were destroyed along the Labrador coast. As well, the terrible tragedy exposed a cruel and unjust system of human exploitation that was later reformed.

While stories of hurricanes and tropical storms make up much of this collection, other important natural disasters have also been included, such as the Newfoundland Tsunami of 1929. Tsunamis are a rare occurrence in Atlantic Canada, and this one killed twenty-seven people on the Burin Peninsula. Big winter storms, so common on the east coast, are also chronicled—such as the time 161 centimetres of snow fell on Moncton over a thirty-six-hour period in February 1992; or the great freeze-up of 2015; or the incredible avalanche that took five lives in 1959 at The Battery in St. John’s. Also included are the legends and folklore that grew out of extreme weather events, such as the so-called “homing coffin” tale, in which a deceased man’s coffin floated thousands of kilometres after the Galveston flood to Prince Edward Island’s Fortune Bay—which was actually the cherished home of the departed.

Weather is so important in people’s lives that great strides have been made in weather forecasting since the creation of Canada’s weather service in 1871. Two years after the creation of the Meteorological Service of Canada, the Great Atlantic Gale, one of the nation’s worst natural disasters, took almost one thousand lives on the east coast. Meteorologists in central Canada knew in advance of the storm, but they were helpless to communicate the information because the telegraph lines to the Maritimes were down. No one in Atlantic Canada was made aware of the incoming storm. Today we can watch in real time as satellite imagery shows the formation of a hurricane far out in the Atlantic, and we can follow the storm’s movement hour by hour.

It may well be the case that short-term weather forecasting is now fairly accurate, but as the deep freeze during the winter of 2015 proved, longer-term weather trends are more complex, and frankly, not terribly predictable. As Canada’s senior climatologist, David Phillips, has admitted after being criticized for predicting a mild winter that year, forecasting is not yet an exact science. In fact, in 2015, he told the National Post, “There’s no guarantee—there never is with weather.”

Chapter 1

1745: Grand Armada Tragedy

“The nights are long, the winter gales blow hard, and, unless fortune favours, a good lookout will not always succeed.”

—British Vice-Admiral George Anson, Anatomy of a Naval Disaster: The 1746 French Expedition to North America

When the Fortress of Louisbourg fell to the British in 1745, France lost a key stronghold in Acadie. It began planning a secret expedition to regain Louisbourg, to capture Annapolis Royal, and to attack Boston in hopes of reclaiming Nova Scotia. In eighteenth-century Europe, France was the dominant land-based military power, but it lacked naval supremacy, especially against Britain. With France on the side of the Jacobite cause in Scotland—which sought the restoration of the Catholic Stuart family to the throne of Great Britain—the demand for France to act militarily against Britain became apparent. The question was where to strike.

In late 1745, a plan was hatched by the French Secretary of State, naval administrator Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, comte de Maurepas, to launch a great naval expedition to Acadie. He would mask the preparation by making it appear as if the French navy was headed to Scotland to aid Bonnie Prince Charlie’s rebellion. And strangely enough, the comte de Maurepas was able to convince King Louis xv to appoint Maurepas’s young cousin, Jean-Baptiste Louis Frédéric de La Rochefoucauld de Roye, duc d’Anville, to lead the colossal excursion. The problem was that Duc d’Anville (as he was commonly known) had neither the naval background nor the management skills to lead such a military voyage to restore France’s prestige on the North American frontier.

Leadership in France’s navy at the time suffered from what one writer has called a “gerontocracy”—oligarchical rule by the elderly—but at age thirty-six, youth and vitality were not why Duc d’Anville was chosen to lead the armada across the Atlantic. He was French nobility, and his connection to the young King Louis and Louis’s advisor comte de Maurepas was enough to confirm his appointment as lieutenant general of naval forces. Nepotism was alive and well in the French navy but Duc d’Anville’s insertion into the senior command ranks created quite a stir. It may have even been part of the reason why the expedition took so long to fit out and depart.

Recruitment of sailors was never easy in the eighteenth century, since life expectancy was short on a ship of the line, but it did help that, officially, both officers and men of Duc d’Anville’s flotilla were told their destination was a short voyage across the channel, in Britain. Soldiers began marching to the Atlantic coast, where fifteen troop transports were assembled, in February. Upon inspecting the troops at Port Louis, Brigadier Claude de Méric remarked that if they landed in as good health as they appeared to be when embarking onto the ships, “We will do a good piece of work.”

Fitting out the fleet occurred in various ports, and put strain on the navy’s capacity to supply the ships with everything from nails to foodstuffs. One warship alone, Le Mars, with a crew of four hundred, took on over 27,215 kilograms of ship’s biscuit. Unlike British military expeditions, France had no friendly ports in North America below Quebec, so extra water and food—enough to last up to six months—was to be transported on supply vessels.

A newcomer to the French navy, Duc d’Anville got little cooperation from the marine authorities; the preparations dragged on, while inferior equipment, and even rotten provisions, arrived almost daily to be loaded onto transport vessels at St. Malo, La Rochelle, Granville, and Brest. Careening the warships took plenty of time, but cash bribes and smuggling intrigues were common, and a frustrated d’Anville wrote from Brest: “My preparations are going slowly and my head spins….Everything is going so badly here.”

Duc d’Anville’s fleet of more than sixty vessels and close to eleven thousand sailors and soldiers—over two thirds of the entire navy—was by far the largest force to ever leave Europe and sail across the Atlantic. Yet preparations took so much time that the early April departure date was missed by over two months. Wind and weather also played a huge factor in the exit delay as massive storms pounded the Atlantic coastline, preventing virtually all vessels from leaving the harbours. The two advance frigates, Le Castor and L’Aurore (on board was the infamous priest Jean-Louis Le Loutre, who would later become the leader of French, Acadian, and Mi’kmaw militias during King George’s War), did make it out of Brest on April 10, but they had been ready to sail for over a month.

Chebucto Harbour—settled by the British three years later and called Halifax—was the big fleet’s rallying point, since a French squadron from the Caribbean and a significant force from Quebec were to join the armada at the great harbour. But the problem for d’Anville was that the June rendezvous date came and went while the fleet was still attempting to exit Aix Roads. In late May, Duc d’Anville boarded Le Northumberland for departure, but calm weather mixed with fierce westerlies kept him boxed in for another three weeks. Finally, on June 21, the wind changed to northeast and the fleet slowly made its way south towards the Azores and the northeast trade winds that would take them across the Atlantic. The southern route to the Americas was popular in the 1700s since it avoided the more direct northern route, with its prevailing westerlies, fog, and the occasional iceberg on the Grand Banks. Once the fleet got near the West Indies it would be an easy ride on the Gulf Stream north to Nova Scotia—or so the French strategists thought.

Within a day and a half of sailing, winds shifted and ploughed directly into the fleet; the winds continued off and on for the next three weeks, barely allowing Duc d’Anville to exit the Bay of Biscay. Sailors and soldiers talked of mutiny as they realized the fleet was heading away from Britain, towards the New World. Duc d’Anville alone knew their Canadian destination, and would later reveal this secret to senior officers, in mid-August. Sickness broke out almost immediately, as crews consumed rancid food and putrid water. Within a week, ships became infested with lice—so badly, in fact, that even the captains and officers were infected. A series of accidents also plagued the armada, as warships and transports sailed at different speeds, making for numerous collisions, especially at night.

On July 24, the fleet sighted Santa Maria Island just south of the Azores, and began to make progress westward, but no longitudinal coordinators existed during this period. No one aboard the fleet knew exactly how to sail directly to their target, yet the navigators knew Chebucto Harbour lay in the 44°30’ n latitude. Their plan was to sail west-northwest to 42° n and then either locate a local pilot or be lucky enough to hit Sable Island by sounding. But again the fleet lost the breeze and languished in the ocean, while the sweltering heat and disease took its toll on the unhappy flotilla. Inevitably, the dreaded typhus set in, with over half the fleet seriously affected; scurvy and typhoid were also present.

Bad weather and heavy seas tore the fleet apart, and by mid-August it became common for damaged vessels to be towed by other ships in the armada, as repairs at sea were impossible. A few damaged ships were ransacked and set ablaze by crew members. As the weather coming in from the northeast deteriorated, fog appeared, and d’Anville grew increasingly concerned about shipwrecks, since the presence of shallow shoals meant that the dangerous sandbars of Sable Island were directly to the north.

At this point—September 13, 1746—a fierce storm struck, separating the fleet. With hurricane-force winds bearing down, ships were flung about the sea. La Gironde and Le Northumberland went one way, while Le Prince d’Orange, with over two hundred sick crew members, had to cut away the foremast in order to ride out the storm. Both infantry officers and regulars huddled below deck, convinced that the end was upon them. Later, one officer wrote, “I believed I was in my last hour.” Some vessels were driven onto Sable Island, and the next day Duc d’Anville, aboard Le Northumberland, could only sight ten other vessels. Within days, they were able to capture a New England fishing schooner and force the captain to navigate the remaining distance to the Nova Scotia coastline. Soon d’Anville, with about one quarter of the original expedition, was at anchor behind McNabs Island in Chebucto Harbour.

While Duc d’Anville and his much-reduced fleet had made landfall, the remaining battered flotilla began to reassemble around Sable Island. A number of vessels had been damaged in the storm and were almost out of rations, including the warships Le Mars and L’Arden. They turned around and headed back to France. Among the remaining fleet, the senior captains, including some merchant captains and the second-in-command, Constantin-Louis d’Estourmel, held a council of war aboard Le Trident, attempting to determine their next move. Their location in relation to the Nova Scotia mainland was in question, since all they possessed was crude navigational equipment and virtually none of their pilots had any familiarity with Nova Scotian waters.

Nearly out of edible food and water, the situation became desperate as the remaining fleet of thirty-six vessels floundered around the North Atlantic amid fog and rough seas, in search of any signs of Nova Scotia’s rocky coast. Finally, on September 27, after three grim months at sea, the surviving expedition limped into Chebucto; behind a tiny island called île à la Raquette (later named Georges Island) they found at anchor d’Anville’s Le Northumberland. Yet the tragedy was not over: that same day, the inexperienced commander—Duc d’Anville—died from apoplexy.

The Duc d'Anville historic plaque at Birch Cove in the Rockingham area of Halifax. The encampment site was named a National Historic Site in 1925. *(Halifax Military Heritage Preservation Society)*

When he had arrived at Chebucto a week earlier, Duc d’Anville had sailed into an unoccupied harbour, since the advance frigates L’Aurore and Le Castor, under the command of Du Vignan, had given up waiting for d’Anville and had sailed back to France. Admiral Conflans, with his West Indies ships of the line, had also headed to France. Even the Quebec contingent of Indigenous and coureurs des bois fighters, under the command of Jean-Baptiste-Nicolas Roch de Ramezay and the militant missionary Father Le Loutre, were eighty kilometres inland at Shubenacadie. The place was empty, and d’Anville’s men were starving. His health began to deteriorate; eventually, he fell unconscious and passed away on board Le Northumberland.

While the great September storm off Sable Island had brought about the tragedy of the Duc d’Anville expedition, it had not caused it. Incompetence and nepotism in the French navy were to blame. Also, while French warships in the 1740s were constructed soundly, they did not always perform well in rough weather. They may have carried too much sail, and were unstable in treacherous conditions. What is certain is that the fleet was torn apart in heavy weather and did not recover, while Duc d’Anville’s mission had been unprepared for the grim reality of attempting to launch a naval attack thousands of miles from France. The backup officer in charge of assuming command of the flotilla (in the event that the commander was unable to command) was also inept, and apparently unwilling to assume authority.

Constantin-Louis d’Estourmel, d’Anville’s second-in-command, did reluctantly assume command of the ill-fated expedition on hearing of d’Anville’s death. After burying d’Anville on Île à la Raquette, he read d’Anville’s secret instructions. He then called a council of war aboard his vessel Le Trident. Commander d’Estourmel, another aristocrat from nobility with little naval experience, argued for an immediate return to France, but several senior captains, including Jacques-Pierre de Taffanel de La Jonquière (third in command, and sent out to become Governor General of New France), argued forcefully that leaving for France without striking a blow for King Louis was out of the question. It lacked honour, and would smack of cowardliness.

La Jonquière was a career naval officer who had fought a number of tough battles. He would not allow the fleet to cut and run. Commander d’Estourmel became conflicted, unable to imagine the half-starved and diseased crew attacking anything, let alone a heavily fortified town like Louisbourg or even Fort Anne at Annapolis Royal. After another agonizing night, d’Estourmel attempted suicide by spearing himself with his sword and then quickly gave over his command to La Jonquière. He survived, but his nervous breakdown was another blow to the reputation of the French navy.

Rear Admiral La Jonquière quickly assumed command, and while Father Le Loutre had managed to organize food drops to Chebucto from the Acadian farmers, the situation at Chebucto deteriorated. Rather than improve, the state of the sick and weak crewmen camped out along the shore got worse. Fresh produce helped cure the scurvy but did little to combat typhus, and had no effect on the terrible typhoid disease brought on from drinking contaminated water. By October 14, the captain of Le Trident would report that 2,700 soldiers and seamen had been moved to the shore of the inner harbour (today’s Birch Cove on the Bedford Basin) and that they were not expected to survive.

Despite deteriorating conditions, La Jonquière insisted on drawing up a plan that called for the bulk of the remaining fleet, as well as about three hundred of Ramezay’s militia, to travel to Annapolis Royal and attack Fort Anne. Ramezay’s men would travel overland, while the fleet would sail halfway around Nova Scotia to reach Annapolis. That would mean fewer than twelve hundred soldiers would be available to launch an assault force against the fort, while many of the ailing seamen could not be counted on for backup support. And news had come back to Chebucto that Fort Anne had been significantly reinforced with a garrison of over one thousand, and was expecting an attack.

Not good odds indeed, and yet about one month after arriving at Chebucto, the much-reduced fleet of forty-two vessels sailed from Chebucto for Annapolis Royal. A number of vessels had been converted into hospital ships; they left immediately for France, while aboard the other ships were local Acadian fishermen who would serve as pilots to navigate the treacherous waters around the Bay of Fundy. The next day news reached La Jonquière, aboard Le Northumberland, that British Admiral Richard Lestock was due to arrive soon with a fresh fleet of warships intent on destroying the final remnants of d’Anville’s expedition. After another council of war, the situation was clear. The one chance to save the remaining French navy would be to turn around and sail back to France.

And so, on October 27, local pilots and some American and British prisoners from captured vessels were off-loaded to smaller schooners while word was dispatched to Ramezay that the fleet would not be entering Annapolis Basin to help them attack Fort Anne. As the smaller vessels continued westward, the once-mighty French fleet, now containing thousands of sick, turned southeast.

The next day, off Cape Sable Island, a northeast storm dismasted a number of vessels and scattered the fleet. A few ships with hardly any provisions remaining, including Le Fleury and Le Neptune, escaped directly south towards the West Indies, but most of the fleet held a southeastern course, attempting to return to Europe along the southern transatlantic route below the Azores. But on November 4, another nor’easter ripped through Le Prince d’Orange, making it necessary to repair the vessel the next calm day. The now-dispersed expedition could not sail together as a fleet. It was every vessel for itself, and for days no sails were seen on the horizon. When a few ships did manage to come together, they would again be driven apart by wind or would sail into a fog bank.

La Jonquière, on board Le Northumberland, was nominally still in command, but he crossed the Atlantic with only three other ships at his side, while a significant number of warships and transports under the ad hoc command of Captain de La Boucherie reached Santa Maria, south of the Azores, around the middle of November. This group included the vessels Le Prince d’Orange and Le Saint Esprit, and they continued to encounter gale-force winds blowing directly against them. Without proper dietary nourishment, adequate marine equipment, or even manpower to properly sail the ships, the shabby remains of the once-proud Duc d’Anville armada tossed and turned on the ocean for more than six weeks before anchoring at Port Louis and Lorient. Their arrival overwhelmed the local hospital with hundreds of very sick sailors and soldiers.

The other vessels also hobbled into the ports of Brest and La Rochelle, and there, too, the scene was chaotic as the local health facilities were besieged with diseased and starving victims. After almost nine months at sea—and with 75 percent of the fleet destroyed and nothing to show for it—one of the greatest naval failures in the history of marine warfare came to an end. But to call it an instance of marine warfare is no doubt a stretch, since no one was attacked and the huge fleet seemed to self-destruct under its own incompetence. Storms and extreme weather conditions certainly played a part in the destruction of the armada, but human error and ineptitude largely accounted for the debacle.

Nonetheless, the French minister of marine services seemed unfazed and certainly content to blame weather conditions for the tragedy. He was unwilling to place blame on himself or anyone else for the loss of almost half of his entire navy. Comte de Maurepas was most philosophical in his assessment: “When the elements command, they are well able to reduce the glory of leaders, but they lessen neither their labours nor their merit.”

Introduction

Hurricane Facts

Publisher’s Note

Chapter 1

1745: Grand Armada Tragedy