The Île Sainte-Croix Settlement Commemoratives, 1604-2004.

For the year 2004, the Royal Canadian Mint chose as the subject of its "Non-circulating Silver Dollar" what its accompanying leaflet called "Commemorating the 400 th Anniversary of the first French settlement in North America". From the coin itself, very little information can be gleaned: a generic 17t h century French ship, what appears to be a crude map surrounded by dots below and the total legend CANADA DOLLAR, the date "1604 2004" and the artist's initials RRC (for Robert Ralph Carmichael, better known as the designer for the Loonie reverse).

As far as the other specs are concerned, one thing has changed: the coin is of .9999 fine silver rather than .925; otherwise it is the same as those since 1992 - weight of 25.175 grams; diameter of 36.07 mm. The engraver was Stan Witten of the RCM staff and the coins were available in Proof and Brilliant Uncirculated, both in cases.

As a sort of surprise accompaniment to the dollar, a circulating commemorative 25-cent piece also appeared with an "issue date" the same as the dollar (June 26) but which was placed in circulation somewhat earlier in the month. It was the standard circulating quarter for the rest of 2004, the ordinary "caribous" ceasing to be struck after mid-year (but resuming in 2005). The reverse of the 25-cent was, again, by R.R. Carmichael and the design is a simplified version of that on the dollar. The coin was struck on multi-ply plated steel blanks (as normal) and designated as such by the "P" on the obverse. The obverse remained the current effigy of the Queen by Susanna Blunt.

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Perhaps the Canadian government is a tad embarrassed by commemorating a little island that is actually American territory - but it is and has been since they out-horsetraded the British back in the 1840s during the Ashburton Treaties marking out the Canadian-U.S. border. Only roughly 5 acres in extent, it is known today by the last of several names - Dochet's (pronounced "D o -shay's") Island - and is located near the mouth of the St. Croix (locally pronounced "Croy") River which forms the southern third of the boundary between the State of Maine and the Province of New Brunswick. Its shape today is somewhat different from that shown on the coin as more has washed away in the past four centuries than has been added by silting. Also, since the tide here is 20 feet, portions are inundated and exposed twice a day.

But this little island had a number of firsts, including that of the first sustained colonizing presence of Europeans north of Florida. There were others. And it went like so:

In late 1603, Pierre du Gua, sieur de Monts, a Protestant French nobleman, was granted by the King of France a monopoly in furs in "l'Acadie" (defined as being located in eastern North America between the 40 th to 46 th parallels - or, today's Cape Breton to Pennsylvania). He put together a colonizing expedition consisting of two ships - one of 120 and one of 150 tons - as well as a force of some 120 men, including artisans, priests and several adventurous "young gentlemen". Although he became the most famous by far, Samuel de Champlain was not in charge but rather "navigator". The expedition set sail for Acadia on March 7, 1604 and anchored at what is now Port Matoon, Nova Scotia,

in early May. From here, Champlain with 10 men set out in a small 8-ton barque, exploring and making maps of what is now the Bay of Fundy. After a few weeks, Champlain returned, the ships were moved to present-day St. Mary's Bay, and, now accompanied by de Monts, continued exploration of the Bay's northern shore.

Modern map of St. Croix River and Dochet's Island.

On June 24 (St. Jean Baptiste Day), 1604, they discovered a huge river flowing into the Bay and named it the Saint John River by which name it has been known ever since. A couple of days later, they entered a smaller river but their soldiers' eyes were struck by an island commanding its mouth and, since the year was passing, the decision was made to fortify and spend the winter on it. The main ships were sent for and dwellings went up quickly since a number of them had already been prefabbed in France and carried to the New World. De Monts oversaw much of the building while Champlain continued exploration of the general area.

It was during these local mapping explorations that the island received its name, in de Monts' mind the inlet forming the shape of a cross with - from left to right - what was to become the Saint Croix River, Oak Bay and Waweig Inlet forming the three arms. As the modern map above shows, such a configuration was more imaginary than actual. At the time, Champlain called the river "River of the Etchemins", a reference to the local Indian tribe of the Algonquin nation; later, it, too, became the St. Croix River.

In short order, about a dozen buildings were thrown up, some of local logs but some (such as de Monts' dwelling) of "fair sawn lumber" brought from France. The whole was surrounded by a palisade and guarded by two cannon. Concurrently, there was other activity: the exploration of a rather poor copper deposit at what is now Beaver Harbour, N.B.; the planting of several gardens (one each on the island, on the opposite eastern bank of the St. Croix River, on its western opposite bank and one at its limit of navigation by sea-going vessels at the present St. Stephen, N.B./ Calais [pronounced "CAL-iss", not "cal-AY"] Maine). These were the first European gardens north of Florida. Another first was the partial construction of a watermill on a brook on what is now the U.S. bank of the Saint Croix River.

On the last day of August, 1604, de Monts ordered the two ships back to France, leaving behind himself, a company of 79 men, the little barque and a rowboat. Being at the same latitude as southern France, the French had every expectation that the climate

there and at Île Sainte-Croix would be comparable. They were badly mistaken - even if the winter of 1604/5 had not proven to be unusually severe. Snow started to fall on October 6 th and piled up to depths of 3 to 4 feet, lingering until late April. The cold was so severe that everything but the Spanish wine froze. By December, the island was cut off from the mainland by ice floes as the tide churned and broke the river's frozen surface.

Firewood ran low and "very bad water" was obtained only from melted snow. Isolated, it was almost impossible to hunt (although a few adventurous souls seem to have removed to the mainland and survived the winter quite nicely). On a diet of salt meat and dried vegetables, scurvy broke out and by the time spring arrived, thirty-five of the seventy-nine had died and another twenty were at death's door.

With the expected ships failing to arrive by the end of April, de Monts ordered work started on a pair of small barques by May 15th so they could attempt to contact the fleet at Gaspé. However, on June 15 th , 1605, the expected ship arrived at the island and within two days, de Monts had made the decision to dismantle whatever was salvageable from Île Sainte-Croix and remove it across the Bay of Fundy to Port Royal, in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley of today.

Champlain's map of “Isle de sainte Croix”, drawn 1604/5, published 1613.

Even though this latter settlement stuck, it ceased to be the center of French power in North America within a short time. In 1608, Champlain fortified the heights of a site that was to become Quebec City, situated to command the entrance of the St. Lawrence River and the interior of a continent.

After the French left, the island slept and became important only at the end of the American Revolution. Some Loyalists were to settle "beyond the Saint-Croix River" and by that time, few were sure exactly which river was meant, the British pushing it as far south as the Penobscot in Maine and the Americans as far north as the Magaguadavic (locally pronounced "Mackadavy" with a fine disregard for consonants and such). It was Champlain's old map that determined its location.

The island has had a number of names, the original Indian apparently being "Met-a-neg-wis" ("little island at the end [of the river?]"). The French name "Île Sainte-Croix" (or "L'isle Saincte Croix") has been intermittently used until the present time. The island has also been known as "de Monts' Island" (probably a description rather than a name) and, during the War of 1812 when it was used as a transshipment point for British and American goods, "Neutral Island". Briefly, owners of the island called it "Hunt's Island" but the unofficial name never stuck. Today, the island is known as "Dochet's Island"; so far as we know, it is derived from a local - and rather notorious - beauty named Theodosia, whose diminutive was "Dosia". In the affected manners of the time, this was pronounced "Do-shay" and later mapmakers, apparently believing it to be French, spelled it in the French style: "Dochet". So it remains today.

During the 1840s, ownership of the island passed to the Americans, who successfully argued that it was actually situated in a part of Passamaquoddy Bay and therefore the boundary line must pass through the middle, the island thus being on the American side. The British contention was that it was in the Saint Croix River, in which case the boundary line would have followed the deepest channel - which was on the American side.

But this first small tentative effort was the first sustained European effort in the colonization of all Canada and most of the United States.

Dochet's Island as it appears today, viewed from the Maine shore.