McNabs Island

06/01/2026

🧭Tour Guide Orientation day was a success!

☀️Sign up for a tour this summer & you might see one of these smiling faces guiding your group!

06/01/2026

📍June 7th 🌲 McNabs Island Beach Cleanup☀️

Over the past 36 years, volunteers have collected more than 17,150 bags of garbage and recyclables from the beaches of McNabs and Lawlor Islands Provincial Park.

Want to join us? Tickets are free!

🔗 check out the link in our bio for more info!

05/16/2026

Our first official Volunteer Workday of the 2026 season is next Saturday, May 23rd! We are looking for volunteers who want to come out and help us keep McNabs Island looking its best.

The Friends of McNabs Island Society holds one volunteer workday each month from May-October. A typical workday includes a range of trail and garden maintenance tasks such as pruning, weeding, and clearing overgrowth. We also work on other projects on these workdays as the need arises. For example, on May 23rd we will be completing the installation of the final two benches on the new Timmins Cove Trail. We also plan to apply beneficial nematodes to the English Gardens, a preventative measure against the invasive Japanese beetles.

If you're interested in joining us on May 23rd, contact [email protected] to sign up. Spots on the boat are limited, so it's important to register in advance! You will receive details on departure time by email.

The photos below are from our "unofficial" workday on May 2nd where several small teams assembled and installed three of the five benches for the new Timmins Cove Trail. We work hard, but we also have a lot of fun spending the day on the island!

05/05/2026

On Saturday, a group of volunteers spent their day on McNabs Island installing brand new benches along the newly opened Timmins Cove Trail!

One of our members, John Van Gurp, was kind enough to create a YouTube video summarising our day on the island. Check it out and see for yourself how much fun it is to volunteer with us!

On May 2, 2026, a group of 17 volunteers made the trip from Eastern Passage to McNabs Island aboard the Captain’s Pride for another Friends of McNabs Island ...

04/18/2026

Today in McNabs Island History: SS England, Day 11

On April 18th, 1866, with no new outbreaks of the dreaded disease, the SS England finally sailed for New York. She now carried 875 steerage passengers, 16 saloon passengers, and 116 crew. Fifty-five passengers from the ship remained on McNabs Island in quarantine. The orphaned children were taken in by the Sisters of Charity.

Although no accurate statistics were kept, it is believed that over 200 victims of cholera are buried on McNabs Island at Little Thrumcap (now below sea level), Hugonin Point, and Findlay Cove.

And so ended over a week of suffering and tragedy on McNabs Island.

Image: Map showing areas of McNabs Island involved in the 1866 cholera epidemic.

04/17/2026

Today in McNabs Island History: SS England, Day 10

By April 17th, 1866, the number of deaths seemed to be subsiding. There was hope that the cholera epidemic was nearly over.

Shortly before midnight the night before, Dr Slayter had been called to tend to a German man with cholera. By the time he got there, the man, as well as his two children, were dead.

Dr. Slayter and his assistant, an Irish immigrant named McCormick, loaded the man and his children into a coffin. As they were completing this task, Dr Slayter became violently ill with cramps and vomiting. He knew instantly what had afflicted him.

McCormick went to Findlay Cove to hoist the signal flag, indicating that another cholera victim needed to be transported to the hospital ship, HMS Pyramus. McCormick took Dr. Slayter to the ship and stayed with him throughout the night.

McCormick said he had never seen such terrible agony. There was nothing to be done for Dr. Slayter. Six hours from the start of his first attack of cramps and vomiting, Dr. John Slayter was dead. He was 36 years old.

Dr John Theodore Harding Slayter (7 April 1830 - 17 April 1866) is buried in Camp Hill Cemetery, Halifax.

Image: Dr Slayter's monument in Camp Hill Cemetery, photo from John Miller (2012).

04/16/2026

Today in McNabs Island History: SS England, Day 8

By April 15th, 1866, tension was palpable among the 1000 immigrants quarantined on the island. Starvation and deplorable sanitation made things worse. Cholera had spread quickly among the Irish and German steerage passengers. Both ethnic groups were suspicious of each other and had to be separated into different camps at Green Hill Cove and Thrumcap.

In spite of Dr. Slayter's pleas for help, the authorities were slow to act. It had now been a full week since the SS England had entered Halifax Harbour, and order still hadn't been restored.

Accounts of immigrants escaping to the city were circulating. There were rumours of "articles of clothing, bedding and even coffins with dead bodies being dropped into the harbour to float ashore with their cargoes of disease.”

The terror and tragedy raged on.

Image: The beach at Green Hill Cove, photo by Rochelle Owens.

04/14/2026

Today in McNabs Island History: SS England, Day 7

On April 14th, 1866, the cholera epidemic continued to rage along the shores of McNabs Island. Passengers who appeared healthy were housed in wooden huts or canvas tents. Those who succumbed to the illness were initially buried at the southern end of the island on Little Thrumcap (no longer visible above the water line). An additional burial site was created at Hugonin Point, with graves dug by “volunteers” (inmates from the city prison).

Dr. Slayter wrote to Nova Scotia Premier Dr. Charles Tupper that "the arrangements here are very bad from want of help... more off, the people on shore are dying of starvation. When food is sent, the strong seize it and the sick and the old who have no friends suffer, having no food. Last night was very bad... Frank Garvie and myself were ashore most of the night, getting women and children in from the woods, they having been refused admittance into the tents on account of their not having friends."

Drs. Slayter and Garvie were exhausted. They had to personally row around Hangmans Beach to Thrumcap transporting 30 coffins and then carry the coffins 200 yards and dig the burial pits. Dr. Slayter wrote "it was a precarious time; no one would assist."

All hope was gone for those on the island, leaving only death and despair.

Image: Another view of Big Thrumcap at the southern end of McNabs Island.

04/12/2026

Today in McNabs Island History: SS England Day 5

On April 12th,1866, the mayhem of dealing with the cholera-ridden ship continued. Attempts to control the spread of illness on McNabs Island were challenging, as it was virtually impossible to separate the sick from the healthy. Over 100 patients died of cholera on the make-shift hospital ship, HMS Pyramus. People were dying everywhere - in their tents on shore, and even on the open ground.

Riots broke out at the Thrumcap encampment when women and children were turned out of the tents by male passengers, who also stole their food. The weather was wet and cold. Conditions on the island were absolutely deplorable.

Image: Photograph of Big Thrumcap in winter, from the Friends of McNabs Island Society.