Long years ago an old inn existed by the wayside, in connection with which gruesome tales are told of travellers and their strange disappearance. The village was originally known as Pic. Jacques Carrier entered and named the harbor Islet St. Jean. At one time it was intended to make it a harbor for French war vessels, and to make it a grand outpost in the general scheme for the defense of Quebec. A long wharf into deep water is now under construction.
Bic is just the place for those who do not care for town life at the shore. The village is very interesting and well situated, and there are many good walks through varied and picturesque country. The land-locked bay is very pleasant at high tide. At the outlet there is a wharf and a cluster of summer cottages. The new wharf for steamers of deep draught leads right under frowning cliffs, the points of which have been blasted away to give room for the new construction. Here the general scene is bold and striking, and the water view is very pleasing. The cottages are well placed for those who would enjoy a quiet vacation amidst pleasant surroundings.
Hattee Bay nearby has a fine stretch of sand, with a few bungalows on the overlooking heights.
A story of massacre has caused one of the Bic islands to be named ‘L’Islet au Massacre,’ or Massacre Island, from a terrible deed of blood that took place in a cave there. It is related by M. Tachê in the ‘Soirées Canadiennes’:—Two hundred Micmac Indians were camping there for the night; the canoes had been beached and a neighboring recess or cavern in the lofty rocks which bound the coast offered an apparently secure asylum to the warriors, their squaws and papooses. Wrapped in sleep, the redskins quietly awaited the return of day to resume their journey; they slept, but not their lynx-eyed enemy, the Iroquois; from afar, he had scented his prey. During the still hours of night, his silent steps had compassed the slumbering foe. Laden with birch-bark fagots and other combustible materials, the Iroquois noiselessly surround the cavern; the fagots are piled around it, the torch applied. Kohe! Kohe! Hark! the fiendish well-known warwhoop! The Micmacs, terror-stricken, seize their arms; they prepare to sell dearly their lives, when the lambent flames and the scorching heat leave them but one alternative, that of rushing from their lurking place.
One egress alone remains; wild despair steels their hearts; men, women and children crowd through the narrow passage amidst the flames; at the same instant a shower of poisoned arrows decimates them; the human hyena is on his prey. A few flourishes of the tomahawk from the Iroquois, and the silence of death soon invades the narrow abode.
Now for the trophies; the scalping, it seems, took some time to be done effectually.
History mentions but five, out of the two hundred victims, who escaped with their lives.
The blanched bones of the Micmac braves strewed the cavern, and could be seen until some years back.
Those who escaped travelled day and night to reach a large Huron camp some distance away. A rapid march was then made by the whole Huron force to the track by which the Iroquois would return. Not expecting an attack the Iroquois were in turn taken by surprise, and tradition has it that they were slaughtered to a man.