Did La Coupe once have a dry dock? This historian says we don’t know that answer | CBC News

Deep onto the Tantramar Marsh, down a rutted path near Jolicure, N.B., lie the remains of what is believed to be an old Acadian dry dock on the La Coupe river.

All that is left are tall berms covered in grass.

And while historian James Upham says Google Maps and old sources refer to the location as the La Coupe Dry Dock, it isn’t that simple.

Where most historical locations would have a plaque, this has none.

“It’s one of these things where just because local knowledge thought that’s what it might have been at one point, 100-and-some odd years ago, we really don’t know what this was,” said Upham.

“If it was a dry dock, this would likely be the first dry dock in North America, which is actually a pretty big deal. But again, we literally do not know what was here.”

A dry dock is a narrow basin that can be flooded to allow a ship to enter, then drained to allow workers to inspect the vessel’s hull.

While the signs of that infrastructure are vague, Upham says it’s clear that the area was once an Acadian village.

Why would a dry dock be needed?

In the late 1600s into the 1700s, Upham said ships were generally made of wood, and things such as molluscs and algae would live on the bottom of the boat — creating resistance and slowing it down. 

Depending on where they went, boats could even pick up a type of mollusc called a teredo worm, or shipworm, which would eat through the bottom of the boat. 

These days, this problem can be mitigated by anti-fouling paint, which prevents sealife from attaching to the hull. 

But at the time, vessels would need to be cleaned periodically to avoid issues. 

Upham said to do this, people would bring their boats to shore, let the tide drop, lean the boat to one side and build a fire under the exposed side to burn off the stuff on the bottom of the wooden ship.

“Obviously, this is a … really sketchy thing to have to do to your vessel,” he said.

“There are stories of, you know, people pulled up on like desert islands in the middle of nowhere. And … if you set fire to your vessel in the process of doing this, that’s gonna make it really hard to get home.”

A dry dock solved this issue by allowing people to pull their vessels up and scrub the bottom. 

“You don’t have to worry about the tide coming in and washing stuff out, you don’t have to worry about trying to lean it over in some kind of awkward fashion,” said Upham. “A thing like this could have saved you just gargantuan amounts of time and effort and hassle.”

And while the two berms seem to indicate the possibility of some sort of dry dock, Upham said it’s still largely a mystery. 

Whatever it was, though, seems to be a large project, and everyone in the community would have known what it was.

“If you were like, ‘Hey, what’s that thing over there?’ They would’ve been like, ‘obviously, it’s the …” said Upham.

“And we’re missing that part of the story right now.”