Jim Turple, Author at The Pictou Advocate

A new car on Pictou Island …

December 9, 2019December 9, 2019 Jim Turple

I enjoy rekindling those years gone by when I had lived on Pictou Island. I often review my mother’s written diaries that she had always kept when living there. Sometimes certain events that she had written may revive old memories and trigger me to get my computer running. I was surprised during the summer of...

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Bill’s Lunch

November 26, 2019November 6, 2019 Jim Turple

More then 200 Pictou businessmen and their wives gathered in the Pictou Legion on Wednesday night June 16th 1976 to attend a gala night testimonial dinner to honor the retirement of Bill Watters, long time former owner and operator of Bill’s Lunch on Front Street. Highlights of Bill Watters’ career were outlined for the guests...

… traps and rope piled everywhere …

November 18, 2019November 4, 2019 Jim Turple

I received a call some years ago from a Laura Graham who lives in Sunnybrae. She has been reading my stories in the Pictou Advocate and has seen Harold Bennett’s name mentioned a time or two. She had known of a Harold Bennett back many, many years ago and was wondering if perhaps this gentleman...

The day our house burned

November 11, 2019November 4, 2019 Jim Turple

1965 was a long cold winter with lots of heavy ice building up in the Northumberland Strait. The strait was still white with ice by the end of April. My father had hired 16 year old Dennis Slaunwhite from Pictou to fish lobsters with him that year. The Dept. of Fisheries put the word out...

Winter isolation …

November 4, 2019November 4, 2019 Jim Turple

I struck up a great friendship with a young man from Cape Breton named Gerald Campbell when I became employed at Michelin Tires in 1972. Gerald and I worked the same crew and naturally became best of friends. I married my high school sweetheart, Joann Taylor, in 1973 with Gerald being my best man. Gerald,...

Keepers of the light

October 30, 2019September 17, 2019 Jim Turple

I have previously written a story about Jack (Happy) and Margaret MacDonald. As I had stated, they were the last keepers of the Pictou Island West End lighthouse. Pictou Island also had a lighthouse on its East End. The last keepers of the East lighthouse were Archie and Charlotte MacDonald. Archie (1897-1969) was born on...

Memories from an old scrapbook …

October 23, 2019September 17, 2019 Jim Turple

I was very fortunate to be able to borrow an old scrap book from Raymond Gregory who is a long time friend from Pictou. To me it was like finding buried treasure that was hidden years ago. I would like to share some very interesting material taken from that treasure. There were 10 beautiful young...

The day the Charles A. Dunning ran aground

October 16, 2019September 17, 2019 Jim Turple

October 5th 1951 was a grey, foggy ghostlike day. Pictou Island’s Spike MacDonald had returned from Caribou with his lobster boat and reported that the car ferry operating between Caribou and Prince Edward Island, the Charles A. Dunning, had run aground on the Gull Rock Reef. It was blowing a gale from the northeast the...

New bicycle, boxing gloves and ghosts …

October 9, 2019September 17, 2019 Jim Turple

I had the good fortune of meeting Leroy Rankin and his lovely wife Shirley at my mother’s 80th birthday on August 22nd 2002. Lee was born August 1, 1936 and was adopted by Hughie and Emma Rankin. Hughie was a brother to Jack and George Rankin and Emma was a sister to my father who...

The storm of 1957

October 2, 2019September 17, 2019 Jim Turple

It was a beautiful sunny plus 75 degree fall day on September 25 1957. Herring fishing had been underway since August 19th. There were a few fishermen from the mainland and probably about eight-island fisherman including my father who had been setting their nets around Pictou Island. Melvin MacDonald, Arnold MacMillan, Harold Bennett, Duncan, Lauchie,...

Author: Jim Turple