Old Harry, Magdalen Islands, Quebec

It is unknown how Old Harry got it's name. The Clark family was the first permanent settlers on the island, which was named Coffin Island after the Islands owner, Sir Issac Coffin. Some of the elders said that the Clark boys used to say they were going to visit Old Harry Huet who lived in the area at the time and the name stuck.

However, the name Old Harry was clearly written on Samuel Holland's map of 1765, approximately fifty-five years before the first Clark, James moved his family to the islands. Before the islands were settled, the Breton, Normand and Basques fishermen would come into the Gulf on fishing expeditions. Perhaps when first seeing the part of the islands it reminded them of a place closer to home, Old Harry on the British Isles. It is said to look the same. The Old Harry on the southeast coast of England has chalk white rocks while ours are red sandstone, but four hundred years ago, both places were very different than they are today. Erosion has taken it's tole and although the colors are different, the shape of the stone are similar.



The British and the French would send fleets of ships to the Gulf..., to Old Harry to hunt the seal and the walrus or Sea Cow which lived abundantly on the shores of the big beach and the rocks of capes of the surrounding area. They hunted the walrus to extinction in the Gulf. The last walrus seen on the islands was in 1799.

By the time the walrus were gone, the Acadians had settled the southern islands. In 1822, James Clark moved his family to East Cape from Argyle, Nova Scotia. James and his wife, Mary Goodwin had four sons and a daughter. When the boys were old enough and decided to marry, James sent them out to claim land in the Clark name. His oldest son, William went to Grosse Isle North and built a home that still stands today. The second son, Henry was sent to Old Harry to settle. He built a small home for himself and his wife Flora Driscoll and then built a larger home twenty years later and used the original homestead as a schoolhouse to teach the growing numbers of Old Harry children. His original home is gone now but the second one still stands as a private home.

It is joked that James Clark told his sons to go forth and multiple as it is said in the bible. Whether or not he did say that is unknown but that is indeed what three of his sons did. James third son, Hugh stayed at East Cape, married and continued to populate that area also. To this day the Clark(e) name makes up a very large population of the English speaking population on the Magdalen Islands.

Old Harry is a fishing village and always has been. The world's best fishing shoals are close to Old Harry harbour and when the fishing boats were small, the harbour sustained almost fifty of them. fishermen, their helpers, cooks and cleaners came from the other end of the islands, Fatima, and stayed until the season was finished. There were five lobster factories, a soft drink bottling factory and general and hardware stores in it's prime.

Now the harbour is all but finished. The government wanted to re-build it in the 1980's but the bickering amongst the fishermen sent the money elsewhere. With the wharf gone, there are no more factories or working here, they go elsewhere also. The stores have closed and the bottling plant is long gone now, too.

Old Harry is famous for its beaches, particularly the big beach, Les Grandes Echouries - The Great Plains or the road beach. This beach is about 30 miles long and does a complete turn around The East Point Wild life Reserve to end ant the harbour at Grosse Isle North. it's near a quarter of a kilometer wide in places. Great sand hills line the beach creating an inside and an outside beach.

First Sand Cove is a warm beach open to the south and closed on the three other sides by tall capes.

Second Sand Cove it a small sheltered beach with a cove filled with warm sea water.