The island has a very pastoral community feel to it, one that produces a great sense of storytelling. The residents would be no stranger to ghost stories or the many urban legends that is talked about. Folklore has been part of the island for generations, often tales having to do with the rocky shorelines and the arbitrary waters that circled the land.
Perhaps the most famous story was the much talked about flaming ghost ship of Prince Edward Island. This story was known to everyone that lived here, so popular it is believed that some schools even teach the kids about the lore as part of the islands history. Some even believe it to be more than just an island legend, and that the ship did in-fact exist in reality.
The version that is best known would be the story of a group of sailors back in 1900 in Charlottetown. They saw up ahead on the horizon, a ship with white sails floating towards them. The closer the ship got they could hear screams of panic. Up along the large masts were people climbing frantically, chasing them were large flames that were growing by the second, The sailors jumped into a rowboat and oared out to the burning ship. As they were approaching the ship it had completely vanished, no signs to where it had gone to, it had just disappeared as if it was never there.
Other islanders have similar stories of that nature to share. Sometime in the 1950's, a married couple were settling down for the night when the woman pointed towards the window and asked her husband who's house it was with the light on so bright. The thing was though, that in the direction she pointed at, there were no houses, only the water. The two went out to see what the light was, only to lay eyes on a fully rigged ship sailing down the Northumberland Strait, full speed ahead and covered in roaring flames. It then, yet again had vanished from sight.
This account was what they told an American Folklorist named Edward D. Ives. Ives was visiting the island working on a project of his own when he began to hear whispers about the ship. His interest began to increase as he gained personal encounters with the ship from the locals along the lot7 shore part of the island. A fisherman down said the one night while casting off, that he had seen the ship, but when he started to walk towards it, it wasn't getting and closer nor further away.
The ships origin was never really talked about with no one knowing where it had come from. Some rumors that it was warning that a storm was coming, but that idea never really took off. The first person to offer some insight about the ships emergence came from a guy named Roland H. Sherwood. In 1948 he wrote about it in a book called Story Parade, in which he states a few possibilities; it was a result of a drunken brawl in which a lamp was knocked over and causing the blaze to start. Another story he wrote about was that it was an immigrant ship that was struck by lightning on the way to Quebec and blown off course. An informant of Ives gave up a theory of his own, that the ship was the result of pirates setting it on fire due to the fact it contained priests and nuns.
The sightings still are reported, the last being in 2008 being published in the Nova Scotia paper. It was an account of a teenage boy who had said to have spotted a white and gold ship in the area of Tatamagouche, a village in Nova Scotia. Each island on the Northumberland Strait is said to contain its own version of the flaming ship, with the details varying.
Many have disproved the presence of the ship, but no matter what the truth is, no one can deny the interest this has brought to the provinces along the strait. Prince Edward Island being the main beneficiary of profit from this legend, with many folklore enthusiasts travelling from all over the globe to try and catch a glimpse of the flaming ship. Sometimes blind faith can bring about more enjoyment than authentication.
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