Malikewe'jk

Malagash is an Mi'kmaq word and its meanings are many and varied such as end of smooth water, milky water and place of sports. According to Indian tradition, it means a favourite rendezvous, a place to meet and play games - in fact some claim that lacrosse was invented here; we are sure the early version of lacrosse would have been played here on the peninsula.

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Since the inner harbour was almost enclosed, it teemed with quantities of fish including oysters and lobsters.  The adjacent marsh lands were the haunts of numberless wild fowl.  Hence, great quantities of oyster shells have been found on the beach by the early pioneers, and it is known that the natives frequented this area.  Indian Point was the nearest burying point except for the spot where two Indians were buried on a little knoll at the west end of Shipyard Island.  

 

The old Indian camping grounds of that time were on Shipyard and Fox Islands. Numerous pieces of pottery, flint arrowheads and a flint axe have been found, particularly on the farm of Herbert Purdy.  The writer was told by an old resident long since passed, of numbers of Indians camping on the Purdy farm year after year as far back as he could remember.  He also spoke of one band who, after a lapse of many years, returned to the old camp site.  The day they returned, they went to a piece of low ground nearby, scraped the moss and mould from a certain spot and exposed to view a spring of excellent water.  It had been rudely stoned up and no one seemed to have known of its existence.  

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On a few of the old maps of Malagash there is a identification of an Indian burial ground on McNabb's Island.  It is believed it has now eroded away.

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There was also another summer location on Horton's Point.  Many arrow heads have been discovered in this location over the year.

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There is no indication there was a permanent settlement in Malagash so the Mi'kmaq were indeed the first cottagers!