Indigenous Presence

The Farmers Bank of Rustico & Doucet House museum site overlooks Rustico Bay and Robinson’s Island where there has been an indigenous presence for thousands of years!

With access to drinking water, shellfish and fishing grounds, Rustico Bay was an excellent place to gather. The Mi’kmaq used the area, and Paleo-Indian artifacts found nearby suggest use as early as 10,000 years ago. The few stone artifacts displayed in our museum were collected along the shorelines of this region and include items as old as 2,000 BC.

In 1894 Harvard educated American archeologist J. Walter Fewkes, was staying nearby at the Seaside Hotel at Barachois Beach Rustico, when he learned about a site that might interest him on Robinsons Island. He conducted a dig on an ancient Indigenous shell midden on the south side of the Island, where he found artifacts which included a pair of stone axes, a copper bead, and an ivory harpoon point. This was the first significant archaeological dig on Prince Edward Island.