CRUISING NOVA SCOTIA - 600 YEARS AGO!
By Charles W. Moore
© 1998 Charles W. Moore
Nova Scotia has been prime cruising ground for a long time - a lot longer than most
people imagine. The province's original Micmac inhabitants built seagoing birchbark
canoes up to 12 metres long, with high, rockered ends, hogged sheerlines, and relatively
wide beam for stability. Without doubt, Micmacs were the first to "cruise Nova Scotia".
Lief Ericsson probably stopped by here on his way to "Vinland" (likely Cape Cod, Mass.)
around the year 1002, and the last documented timber-voyage to "Markland" by Greenland
Vikings was in 1347, shortly before the Greenland colony collapsed.
European fishermen probably crossed to the Grand Banks regularly by the mid-14th Century,
although being illiterate, they didn't record these passages, which consequently
went ignored by those who wrote history. But the first European to reach these shores
who could be called a "cruising sailor" of sorts, may well have been Henry Sinclair,
Earl of Orkney. There is reason to speculate that Sinclair visited Nova Scotia in
1398 -- 94 years before Columbus' "voyage of discovery"
Columbus may have been aware of a Sinclair voyage. Sinclair's grandson, John Drummond,
settled in the Portuguese Madiera Islands c. 1430. Columbus spent time in the service
of the Perestrello family in Madeira, eventually marrying Felipa Perestrello. The
Perestrellos were related by marriage to the Madiera Drummonds, and Columbus very
likely knew Henry Sinclair's great-grandson John Affonso Escorcio ("The Scot") Drummond.
It was a mercenary Venetian admiral and navigator named Antonio Zeno who provided
documentation indicating a possible Sinclair voyage. Zeno faithfully wrote home to
Venice about his adventures serving a northern prince named "Zichmni," Excerpts of
these letters and a "sea chart" were published in 1558, and it has been deduced by
many researchers over the past 100 years that Zichmni was in fact Henry Sinclair.
One of several etymological theories suggests that Zichmni is a mistranslation of
"Orkney" from 14th century Italian handwritten script.
In his book, "Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings," Charles H. Hapgood, a professional cartographer
formerly with the U.S. Navy, analyses the Zeno sea chart in both Portolan and Polar
projections. In the Polar model, he compared 38 location points in Greenland, Iceland,
Scandinavia, Germany, Scotland, and the North Sea Isles relative to each other. The
European points are remarkably accurate, and Greenland only slightly less so. Iceland's
references are 1 the 7.5 off, still not bad.
According to Zeno, Zichmni/Sinclair was intrigued by the tale of an Orkney fisherman
who showed up 26 years after disappearing at sea, telling of a magnificent "new world"
beyond "Engroneland" (Greenland) and "Estotiland" (Newfoundland). The fisherman claimed
to have sojourned for a quarter-century in a land of timber, game, and other riches.
Determined to investigate, Sinclair assembled an expedition fleet under command of
Admiral, Zeno. The late, self-described "historical detective" Frederick J. Pohl,
who spent 40 years investigating the Sinclair voyage, asserted that sixty days out
from Orkney, Earl Henry's vessels dropped anchor in Chedabucto Bay outside Guysborough
Harbour on June 1, 1398.
Landing at Guysborough (which he christened "Trin Harbour" - June 2, 1398 was Trinity
Sunday), Sinclair "annexed" North America to the Orkney Islands. From nearby Salmon
Hill, the explorers saw what appeared to be smoke rising from a "great hill" to the
northwest. Sinclair dispatched 100 soldiers to investigate this phenomenon. They
returned eight days later to report that the smoke issued not from the hill itself,
but from a "hole in the ground" some distance beyond it, near a "spring of pitch"
that drained into the sea.
Pohl identifies the "great hill" as Mount Adams (el. 920 feet) located north of Eden
Lake in Pictou County, N.S. He believed that the "smoking hole" must have been a
coal fire in the now infamous Foord seam at Stellarton, N.S., where an open deposit
of asphalt ("spring of pitch") that drained into the East River through the Coal
Brook existed until the late 19th Century. Mt. Adams is almost exactly in line between
Salmon Hill and Stellarton 60 miles distant, accounting for the smoke seeming to
rise from the "great hill".
Sinclair was captivated by the beauty, climate and richness of Nova Scotia. He resolved
to stay and "build a settlement", but many of his people were reluctant to winter
away from home, so he sent a reluctant Admiral Zeno back to Orkney with the ships,
keeping only "boats propelled by oars" and a cohort of volunteers to help him. Thus,
regrettably, Zeno's eyewitness account of Henry Sinclair's New World adventure ends
abruptly with the fleet's departure.
At this juncture, Frederick Pohl turns to aboriginal legends as his source of information
about Sinclair's Nova Scotia cruise. In what may be his most controversial claim,
Pohl posits that the prototype for legendary Micmac culture-hero Glooscap was Henry
Sinclair. While European proponents of Sinclair's voyage lean entirely on the Zeno
accounts, Frederick Pohl points out anomalies in traditional Micmac and Algonkian
legends that seem explicable only if they incorporate European nuances. Pohl cites
scholars of Micmac lore such as 19th Century missionary, linguist, and historian
Silas Tertius Rand; Charles Leland and John Prince; Abby Langdon Alger; and others
in support of his Sinclair-was-Glooscap theory. EG:
*Glooscap was a "prince"; a "king who had often sailed the seas" (Rand)
*His home was in a "town" [Kirkwall?] on an "island" [Orkney?] (Rand)
*Glooscap came "from the East" across the ocean via Newfoundland, and first met the
Micmacs at Pictou. (Rand, also Leland and Prince)
*His weapon was "a sword of sharpness" (Rand) - Micmacs were not known to have used
swords.
*Glooscap had "three daughters" (Henry Sinclair had three daughters)
*He made "long voyages across the ocean with his feet on the backs of whales" ( Rand
- in Indian tradition, decked ships were "whales" )
*He remained in the country only from the year of his arrival until the next sailing
season (Leland)
*He possessed "money, iron, and store" (Rand)
*"Before he came they knew not how to make nets" (Leland and Prince - the fisherman
who inspired Sinclair's transatlantic expedition [per the Zeno account] related how
he had avoided execution by showing the Indians how to fish with nets; archaeological
evidence indicates that Indians in this region began net-fishing in the late 14th
century).
*The legends describe Glooscap 's "canoe" as "a small island near the shore with
trees growing on it" - not an implausible first impression of an anchored two-masted
sailing vessel. The legend continues: "They go on board, set sail, and found the
floating island very manageable as a canoe. It goes like magic." (Rand)
*Leland and Prince describe the same legend thus: "But when they came to the bay,
there was no canoe to be seen, but not very far away, there arose a little island
of granite which was covered with pine trees, tall and waving. 'See - that is my
canoe!' the Master said to them, smiling. And when he took them on it they found
that it was indeed a very great and very large canoe, with lofty masts and sails."
*John Clarence Webster writing of Glooscap in Acadia At The End Of The Seventeenth
Century, paraphrases from the original Micmac: "He prophesied the coming of the Europeans
and the baptism of the Micmacs. The last people he lived with, he told he was not
coming back to rule them, He told them that sometime they would get religion."
*"Some say that he sailed away, in his marvellous stone canoe, afar beyond the sea,
to the country of the East." (Leland and Prince)
*"...They came to a long point of land... where, having climbed a hill, they see in
the distance smoke;... He took them to the top of a lofty mountain, from which afar
off they beheld another..." (Leland and Prince) (Rand and Abby Langdon Alger also
mention smoke coming from the top of a mountain some days' journey away).
There is much in the Glooscap legends obviously not of European origin, but it's hard
to dismiss such a large body of coincidences. According to Micmac specialist Ruth
Holmes Whitehead of the Nova Scotia Museum, the Glooscap character was developed
relatively late to Micmac mythology, and is probably a composite figure based on
several earlier legends. It seems eminently possible that some of those legends could
have been based on Henry Sinclair's visit.
If Frederick Pohl's conclusions were accurate, Henry departed Guysborough via Canso
Strait, and travelled along the Northumberland shore to Pictou. His scouting party
had encountered people living near the "smoking hole" who might provide valuable
information and trading opportunities, and the nearby "spring of pitch " could supply
caulking material for the ship he would build for his return journey.
Henry engaged Indian guides and continued up Nova Scotia's north shore to Bay Verte,
from whence he portaged across to Cumberland Basin, then onward down the River Hebert
canoe route to Parrsboro. After a side trip to Cape Blomidon, Sinclair coasted the
Fundy shore to Annapolis Basin where he struck inland, travelling through the western
lakes and the Mersey River to Liverpool. Upon returning to Minas Basin's north shore,
Sinclair chose a site at Cape D'or for his winter encampment, and made a round trip
via Chignecto Bay to attend a Micmac fall festival at Green Hill, Pictou County.
Back at Cape d'Or, Sinclair's party spent the winter shipbuilding. By spring 1399,
a 50 or 60-foot bark rode at anchor in Advocate Harbour. Now Glooscap takes his leave,
parting from his Micmac friends with the words "I shall not return to rule over you"
, and adding: "Sometime men will come to teach you religion". With that he sails
away.
Why have most people never heard of Henry Sinclair and his alleged Nova Scotian cruise?
For one thing, Henry's fiefdom in the Orkney and Shetland Islands was hardly "action
central" in 14th-Century Europe any more than it is today. News of his discovery
would travel slowly, and he had nothing to remotely equal the publicity apparatus
enjoyed by Columbus, who sailed from the centre of "known civilization".
Secondly, Henry, unlike Columbus, never repeated his voyage. In fact he died only
months after returning to Orkney - slain in battle while fighting English invaders.
Indeed were it not for Antonio Zeno's correspondence habits, little or nothing would
survive to indicate that such a voyage ever took place - certainly no European link
to dovetail with the Glooscap legends.
There is much skepticism about the alleged Sinclair voyage among establishment historians,
and indeed, no ironclad proof of of a 1398 visitation to Nova Scotia by Henry Sinclair
and Antonio Zeno exists. However, circumstantial evidence is too compelling to dismiss.
If "Zichmni" was not Henry Sinclair, who was he? If Zeno did not cross the Atlantic,
where did he and "Zichmni" go? Where did the Indian legend anomalies originate? These
questions and many others have yet to be answered convincingly by skeptics.
Fishermen by the score probably beat Sinclair here (if he did make the 1398 voyage).
When Jacques Cartier "discovered" St Pierre in 1536, he found a fleet of Breton fishing
boats there already. Samuel de Champlain met a French fishing vessel skippered by
a M. Savalette out of St. Jean de Ruz in Tor Bay in 1601. The captain told Champlain
that he had made the Atlantic crossing "every year for 40 years." Cartier noted that
Beothuk Indians in Newfoundland understood words from French, Breton, Norman, Provençal,
Catalan, and Italian. I expect that the transatlantic voyages of medieval fishermen
didn't get mentioned in history books because the voyagers were illiterate and never
wrote their stories down. Micmac historian Danny Paul in his "We Were Not The Savages,"
says there were "innumerable" pre-Columbian contacts between his people and Europeans.
As for the Zeno account itself, if the 16th century Nicolo Zeno (Antonio Zeno's four
greats grandson) intended to perpetrate a hoax when he published in 1558, why he
would concoct such an outlandish story containing so many improbabilities? By that
time there was quite a bit of reliable knowledge of the New World in Europe. Why
come up with a seemingly bizarre name like "Zichmni" for his northern prince, not
even close to the name of any historically known ruler? What did he hope to gain?
If his purpose was to inflate his family's reputation (as has been uncharitably suggested),
why did he make the hero of the piece someone who his ancestors served? Why is it
"Zichmni," rather than the Zeno brothers, who is declared "worthy of immortal memory?"
How would a 16th Century Venetian hoaxer possess such arcane knowledge of the north
as to be able to list the seven main islands of the Shetland group--albeit with some
of the names garbled? Even Sinclair voyage arch-skeptic Fred Lucas conceded that
the island Zeno referred to as "Bres" must have been Bressay in the Shetlands. As
Prof. E.G.R. Taylor writes: "The authenticity of the account has been challenged
but on very flimsy grounds. It appears to... be quite out of the question that any
author would invent a story which in its every detail reflects facts of which it
is impossible that he could have been aware."
Marco Barbero wrote of the Zeno voyage 22 years before Nicolo Zeno (the younger) published
the Zeno document. Barbero dates Nicolo the Elder's voyage to Orkney at 1390, as
did the globe of 1697 in the Correr Museum.
The 1951 edition of the Encyclopedia Americana states: "The honesty of the Zeno narrative
has been sufficiently well established, but whether or not the fisherman had the
experiences he narrated on Drogio, and whether that may be identified as North America,
are questions that have been much debated." Italians sailing the North Sea in the
mid-14th century isn't at all far-fetched. Pietro Quirini, an Italian sea-captain,
was shipwrecked in northern Norway in 1432. Also note that Lucas himself didn't dispute
that the Zeni sailed to the northern seas. He only objected to the "Zichmni is Sinclair"
theory and the tale of the trans-Atlantic voyage. Lucas wrote: "There is no reason
to doubt the probability of a voyage to the North Sea by the brothers. An annual
voyage to England and Flanders was made under the auspices of the Venetian Senate
in most ordinary years from 1313 to 1533." (Annals of the Voyages of the Brothers
Zeno, p.62)
So how do we get Sinclair from "Zichmni?" Frederick Pohl offers a very compelling
argument that it could represent a misreading of "Orkney" (ie: the Zeni might plausibly
have addressed Sinclair as "Principe d'Orkney") from 14th century handwritten Italian
script. To wit: the Italian character for "Z" is a near dead-ringer for "d'O"; Z
would have to be followed by a vowel, and the one most likely to be read from a written
"r" is "i"; "k" doesn't occur in Italian, and the sound would be rendered "ch"; no
"y" in Italian so "i" would be substituted, etc. Marco Barbero, in his 1536 account,
calls the northern prince "Zicno." Sinclair in Latin would be "Sancto Claro," abbreviated
"San Clo," and pronounced "Zicno."
Another fascinating tidbit: Henry Sinclair's grandson John Drummond became a sea-adventurer
too, eventually settling in the Portuguese Madeira Islands c. 1430. The Madeira Drummonds
were related by marriage to the Perestrello family of Madeira, who employed a young
Genoese mariner named Christoforo Colombo in the mid-15th century. Colombo, whom
we know better as Christopher Columbus, eventually married Felipa Perestrello, and
almost certainly would have been acquainted with Henry Sinclair's great-grandson
John Affonso Escorcio ("The Scot") Drummond., who in turn could have told the Genoan
the tale of Henry's trans-Atlantic voyage--if indeed there was such a voyage. Perhaps
Columbus had a more concrete idea of where he was headed than is commonly thought.
Frederick J. Pohl died in January 1991, aged 102, but the quality of his research
warrants further investigation of the Henry Sinclair story, which, if true, is certainly
"worthy of immortal memory," as Antonio Zeno put it. Readers who would like to learn
more about this topic should try to scare up Pohl's Prince Henry Sinclair: His Voyage
to the New World in 1398 (Potter, 1974) - the most comprehensive of four books he
published about Sinclair. Alas, it is long out of print, but your local library should
be able to find a copy.
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