The Register
Thursday, September 11, 1913
“August Gale” Anniversary.
Forty years ago, on August 24, 1873, Nova Scotia was swept by the great “August Gale,” the like of which never was before, nor has been since, seen in the Maritime Provinces, and which has become a byword with seamen and landlubbers alike. At North Sydney forty ships were wrecked, and at Morien, twenty-eight, while the entire coast of the province was strewn with wreckage. The Gloucester and Nova Scotia fishing fleets in the gulf were practically wiped out, and hundreds of lives were lost. The wind, blowing 75 miles an hour, worked havoc on land as well as sea, trees – whole forests in fact – being uprooted. Church steeples and out-houses were wrenched from their places and blown hundreds of feet away.