"Grassy Island"

 Grassy Island in Canso Nova Scotia is significant historically. It is one of the oldest fishing settlements in Nova Scotia, around 1605. The English and the French battled over these waters for fishing rights right up to the early 1800's. The English then burned the fortress to the ground on the way to pummel Louisburg in Cape Breton. There was said to be a hundred and some score taverns on the island during it's existence at different times throughout ownership by the English and the French. There is a picture in the museum drawn from back then of a fisherman using a bucket with a rope attached to fish the cod out of the local waters. We may never see those days again but crab and lobster are abundant today.

I participated in an archeology dig for two summers on Grassy Island and learned allot about Canso's history and its' early peoples. Merchants and fisherman by trade inhabiting our early waters. One can learn lots from artifacts and there were many. From shoe buckles, musket balls, cannon balls, burnt tavern glass to the finest dining ware of the day were all unearthed. I use to like snorkeling the waters during breaks to find pieces of earthenware and such thrown in the little bay as waste some 300-400 years ago.