Parked at Home 2025: Saint Croix Island International Historic Site

On Thursday, April 10 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., I watched the fifth and final Parked at Home webinar of the 2025 season. This is the fourth year of the Parked at Home series of virtual talks hosted by Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park (BLRV) and other sites in the National Park Service, along with the third year of summaries appearing on my blog. The presentations this year are interpreted into American Sign Language (ASL) by Sherrolyn King. The hour-long webinars will be uploaded to the BlackstoneNPS YouTube channel and available to view at any time. The last installment to this year’s series was Saint Croix Island International Historic Site featuring park ranger Karin Magera.

Ranger Mark Mello of BLRV shared a few interesting connections between the Blackstone River Valley and Saint Croix Island. French explorer Samuel de Champlain visited these areas in 1606 to create of Nouvelle Franse or New France. The river did not receive its modern name until Anglican minister William Blackstone left Boston when the Puritans arrived and settled in modern Cumberland, RI. He was buried near the Ann & Hope Mill, whose history I learned from a recent documentary, but his remains have since been lost (oops). During the Industrial Revolution, French Canadian workers moved in Woonsocket, RI and attempted La Survivance or protection of their culture, faith, and language. Saint Ann’s Church in Woonsocket and Le Progres newspaper were two important pillars of their community.

Magera described the location of Saint Croix Island, which is in the town of Calais, ME. This region of Maine is called Downeast & Acadia and shares a border with New Brunswick, Canada. Passamaquoddy people, one group of Wabanaki people, have lived in this area for thousands of years, while French people decided to form L'Acadie in 1604. They wrongly assumed this area would have the same climate as their native country because the longitude was the same, as the concept of the Gulf Stream was not yet understood. Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons and Champlain explored the area with their men, creating maps and writing descriptions as far south as Cape Cod. Since France was cash poor after a series of religious wars between Catholics and Protestants, Dugua instead asked for a monopoly on fur trading. These explorers maintained a genuinely good relationship with local Passamaquoddy and learned information about hunting and plants from them. Unfortunately, they did not listen to all of the advice given by their new friends.

Passamaquoddy told the explorers not to stay on the island, as they only used it to store food from predators but otherwise called it “Out of Food Place”. Instead, the explorers moved to the island and built houses, workshops, and two churches to prevent a mini holy war. They did not build gardens for food or a well for fresh water, as they figured they were close enough to the mainland to get these life-preserving goods, and could even walk across the ice in winter months. Instead, the tidal Saint Croix River broke up the ice every few hours and created a jam around the island. Snowfall began on October 6. Thirty-five of the seventy-nine men died of scurvy, a diseased caused by a lack of the Vitamin C found in fresh fruits and vegetables, as the explorers were eating only bread and salted pork. After Passamaquoddy brought food in March, the survivors packed everything up except the building foundations and shipped across the Bay of Fundy to Port Royal, Nova Scotia. Champlain would later establish Quebec City, the longest continuously inhabited city in Canada.

The control of the Saint Croix Island area was contested throughout the 18^th and 19^th century. This caused the island and the river to receive many names, including Dochet Island, Neutral Island, and Bone Island, or the Schoodic River. Additionally, at least three other rivers were called Saint Croix. This would turn out to be a problem. During the French & Indian War, over ten thousand Acadians were deported to England, France, and the Caribbean. Some eventually ended up in Luisiana to become Cajuns. Upon losing the war, France gave up much of its land, causing the island to become part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The first naval engagement of the American Revolutionary War happened not far away in Machias Bay as the American ship Unity defeated the British sloop Margarita. When the war ended with the Treaty of Versailles of 1783, the Saint Croix River was listed as a boundary between the young United States and Canada. Champlain’s journals were used to determine the correct river. Following this up in 1796, an archaeological expedition excavated the foundations of the buildings on the island, making this the first dig in North America, although not a lot of scientific rigor was involved.

In more recent history, the island was a part of Maine when it became the 23^rd state, breaking off from Massachusetts in 1820. The Province of New Brunswick accidently included the island in its legislation in 1896. The area was designated a National Monument in 1949 and an International Historic Site in 1984. Today, Acadian and Passamaquoddy cultures are honored at the site with interpretive panels, and special days in August. Passamaquoddy drummers and singers cheer on canoers as they travel from Princeton, ME. Two local reservations have their own schools and take field trips to the park. Members of the Sipayik tribe, a group of Passamaquoddy who live on nearby Pleasant Point, perform water ceremonies and include rangers like Magera in their celebration.

For those who want to visit the park in person, the grounds are open from dawn to dusk throughout the year, snowfall permitting, while the visitor center (with a petroglyph display!) is open from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Thursday through Monday, Memorial Day through Columbus Day. Magera reminded viewers that the NPS passport book, which you may stamp, is different than a regular passport, which you should not stamp. As a former park ranger, I was not surprised that this was an issue. Junior Ranger Badges are also available at this site. I am once again excited by the chance to visit a unique historical site, but I was saddened by this being the final episode. Even so, this is a sign that historic sites are about to open up again, allowing me to get back on the road and see buildings, trails, and landscapes in person.