White Horse Island

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White Horse Island
West Isles Parish Islets.png
White Horse Island
Interactive map of White Horse Island
Geography
Location Bay of Fundy
Area3 [1] acres (1.2 ha)
Administration
Canada
Province New Brunswick
County Charlotte
Parish West Isles Parish

White Horse Island (formerly Penguin Hors [2] ) is an undeveloped island in the West Isles Parish of Charlotte County, New Brunswick, Canada, where the Bay of Fundy enters Passamaquoddy Bay. [3] [4] [5] [6]

Contents

The island is considered bare and rocky, 68' high [7] It is considered a "Ecologically and Biologically Significant Area" [8] and is administered by the Stewardship branch of the Department of Natural Resources. [9] It is a Class 1 Protected Area, closed to the public. [10]

Its name is a bastardization of "Penguin [White Head] Hors", meaning it was the Outward White Head Island. [2] In the summer of 1986, benthic algae sublittoral research stations were set up across the region including on White Horse. [11]

There is a geodetic triangulation station placed in 1863, which appeared to have disappeared by 1913. [12] Ernest Ingersoll wrote about it being the entrance to Campobello, by steamship. [13]

In 1929, author Frances Gillmor published "Thumbcap Weir" which was set on a West Isles Parish, New Brunswick island titled "Deadman's Island" which was connected at low tide to a "Thumbcap" which held a herring weir. The island appears to have been modeled off Jouett's Island and Hospital Island and situated impossibly north of Spectacle Islands but south of White Horse Island. [14]

History

The island has been identified as one of those written about in the 1604 writings of Samuel Champlain and Sieur de Monts. [1]

Its original grant was to Samuel Bliss, who was also granted the Bliss Islands. [15]

In December 1985, a study by Parks Canada assessed the island's value as $2,400. [1]

Scallop-draggers turned up a slate ulu-knife. [16] [17]

In 1987 a two-seater plane went down in the ocean just south of White Horse Island, killing brothers Seldon and Prescott Smith. Its wreckage was only recovered seven years later when it became entangled in fishing nets. [18]

Flora and fauna

The island functions as a cormorant rookery. [19]

Together with the nearby Wolf Islands, it is one of the southernmost black-legged kittiwake breeding colonies in the world. Nesting was first observed on the island in 1998. The presence of the colony was an important factor in the island's being declared a class 1 preserve in the New Brunswick Provincial Natural Areas (PNA) system. [20]

As of 2008 it was the only northern gannet breeding site in the Bay of Fundy. Gannets were observed nesting there in 1990 for the first time since 1880. [21]

Atlantic puffins were observed nesting on the island in 1999. [21]

Researchers visiting the island prior to 1969 found that Ambrosia artemisiifolia (common ragweed) was one of the dominant flora. [19]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Parks Canada, "West Isles Feasibility Study....a National Marine Park in the West Isles", December 1985
  2. 1 2 "Sketch of the province of New Brunswick" (PDF). us.archive.org.
  3. ↑ Alcock, Frederick James (1949). "The Isles of Fundy" – via Can Geo.
  4. ↑ "No. 166". Provincial Archives of New Brunswick. Department of Natural Resources and Energy Development. Retrieved 4 July 2021.
  5. ↑ "489" (PDF). Transportation and Infrastructure. Government of New Brunswick. Retrieved 4 July 2021. Remainder of parish on mapbooks 490, 497, 500, and 501 at same site.
  6. ↑ "Search the Canadian Geographical Names Database (CGNDB)". Government of Canada. Retrieved 4 July 2021.
  7. ↑ United States Coast Pilot: Atlantic Coast. Eastport to Cape Cod, Volume 1, 1960, pg50 and elsewhere
  8. ↑ "South Grand Manan EBSA". 21 September 2021.
  9. ↑ "Conserved areas - Whitehorse Island". indicators-map.canada.ca.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  10. ↑ NB Government (2025). "Class I Protected Natural Areas".
  11. ↑ A Survey of the Benthic Marine Algae of Southwestern New Brunswick, Canada, 1988
  12. ↑ "Triangulation in Maine", U.S. Government Printing Office, 1918
  13. ↑ Ingersoll, Ernest, "Down East Latch Strings", pg95-100
  14. ↑ Gillmor, Frances (1929). "Thumbcap Weir". pp. 44, 206.
  15. ↑ "Collections of the New Brunswick Historical Society". 1894.
  16. ↑ Suttie, Brent David. "Archaic Period Archaeological Research in the Interior of Southwestern New Brunswick", 2002
  17. ↑ n Bliss Revisited: Preliminary Accounts of the Bliss Islands Archaeology Project, Phase II, edited by D. Black, pp. 73-79. New Brunswick Manuscripts in Archaeology# 24, Fredericton.
  18. ↑ Beal, Clayton. Bangor Daily News, "Airplane Wreckage Found in Fishing Nets", Oct 1 1984
  19. 1 2 Hodgdon, A.R.; Pike, Radcliffe B. (1969). "Floristic Comparison of Three Bird Islands in the Gulf of Maine" (PDF). Rhodora. 71: 510–523. Retrieved 11 December 2025.
  20. ↑ Diamond, A.W. (Tony); Wilson, Jim; Doucet, Michel (26 March 2021). "NB Naturalist Feature: A new kittiwake colony in The Wolves". NB Naturalist. 48 (1): 11–12. Retrieved 12 December 2025.
  21. 1 2 Buzeta, M-I.; Singh, R. (December 2008). "Identification of Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas in the Bay of Fundy, Gulf of Maine. Volume 1: Areas identified for review, and assessment of the Quoddy Region" (PDF). Canadian Technical Report of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 2788. Retrieved 11 December 2025.

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