Tweet
An Indonesian volcano made Montreal's summer of 1816 miserable
Source: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazett...f-df70a80574e2
An Indonesian volcano made Montreal's summer of 1816 miserable
JOHN KALBFLEISCH, The Gazette
"The weather still continues, with very little variation, extremely cold and unpropitious, and the season of fruits and flowers has been retarded in this province to a later period than remembered by the oldest inhabitant."
- Gazette, Monday,
June 10, 1816
Well might that "oldest inhabitant" be alarmed, for Lower Canada was on the brink of the coldest summer in a century. Indeed, before long 1816 would be known, in Canada and the United States alike, as the Year With No Summer.
The signs that something was amiss had been around for months. While the previous winter's snow and ice had disappeared in good time, there was little rainfall in April. The "backward weather," as it was called, continued into May, with several frosty nights further retarding plant growth. There were occasional snow flurries.
But it was nothing compared with the backwardness that was to follow.
On June 5, a severe cold front swept down from Hudson Bay to grip the St. Lawrence Valley for the next five days. Rain beginning in Quebec City on the 6th turned to snow as the thermometer plunged toward the freezing mark, and soon there was a foot on the ground. Drifts reached "the axle trees of carriages," and some people began pressing their sleighs back into service.
Snow squalls lashed Montreal. It was so cold in the city that standing water, it was said, froze to the thickness of a dollar coin - doubtless a Spanish or American coin, as Canadian dollars still didn't exist.
In the countryside, sheep fresh from that spring's shearing couldn't take the cold and began to die off. Birds took shelter in houses or began falling dead in the fields. Fruit trees were nipped in the bud.
Then, mercifully, the sun returned and hopes of a harvest, if a much reduced one, began to revive. "The reports from the country," The Gazette reported on June 17, "are more cheering with regard to the appearance of the wheat in this district than might have been apprehended from the extreme backwardness of the season. The quantity sown, however, is stated as much less than in former years." Slim as these hopes were, however, they were dashed by another cold snap in early July, and a third late in August. Making things worse was the persisting drought.
For a society so heavily dependent on agriculture, not only to feed itself but also to generate income from export sales, this was a disaster in the making. That summer, reports began to trickle in from rural areas of people dying from hunger, exposure or disease induced by their weakened state.
Surely no one in Montreal suspected that the chief cause of this misery lay half a world away, on the island of Sumbawa in what's now Indonesia. In April 1815 Mount Tambora, a volcano active to this day, blew its top. It was the largest volcanic explosion in recorded history, four times greater than the better known eruption of Krakatoa in 1883.
Vast amounts of dust and gas were hurled into the sky and began to circulate around the globe - Mount Tambora, which had stood about 14,000 feet tall, was reduced to just 9,300 feet. The sky darkened perceptibly, certainly enough to affect the following year's weather. Major eruptions in the West Indies in 1812 and the Philippines in 1814 had already helped dim the skies. Finally, the Earth was in the depths of the so-called Dalton Minimum, a period of several years when the sun simply shone less brightly.
The effects of this intersection of natural extremes were felt around the world. They were especially dire in northern Europe, New England, Britain's east-coast colonies and Lower Canada. Jean-Thomas Taschereau, a member of the Legislative Assembly in Quebec City, wrote, "The misery is severe. Many will die of hunger."
That more did not was thanks to the swift action of Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, who arrived in Quebec City that July as governor-in-chief of British North America. His first act of any consequence, an old report states, was taken "upon his own responsibility." He "threw open the king's stores and advanced a very considerable sum of money for the purchase of such supplies as were not in store." The provisions, sent to hard-hit parishes, helped avert widespread famine. Many farm animals that might have been slaughtered to provide food, or that might have died for want of fodder, were spared.
The Assembly not only praised Sherbrooke's action, but it then voted further funds for relief. Even so, the winter of 1816-17 proved unusually harsh and the death toll was significant.
lisnaskea@xplornet.com
? The Gazette (Montreal) 2008
An Indonesian volcano made Montreal's summer of 1816 miserable
JOHN KALBFLEISCH, The Gazette
"The weather still continues, with very little variation, extremely cold and unpropitious, and the season of fruits and flowers has been retarded in this province to a later period than remembered by the oldest inhabitant."
- Gazette, Monday,
June 10, 1816
Well might that "oldest inhabitant" be alarmed, for Lower Canada was on the brink of the coldest summer in a century. Indeed, before long 1816 would be known, in Canada and the United States alike, as the Year With No Summer.
The signs that something was amiss had been around for months. While the previous winter's snow and ice had disappeared in good time, there was little rainfall in April. The "backward weather," as it was called, continued into May, with several frosty nights further retarding plant growth. There were occasional snow flurries.
But it was nothing compared with the backwardness that was to follow.
On June 5, a severe cold front swept down from Hudson Bay to grip the St. Lawrence Valley for the next five days. Rain beginning in Quebec City on the 6th turned to snow as the thermometer plunged toward the freezing mark, and soon there was a foot on the ground. Drifts reached "the axle trees of carriages," and some people began pressing their sleighs back into service.
Snow squalls lashed Montreal. It was so cold in the city that standing water, it was said, froze to the thickness of a dollar coin - doubtless a Spanish or American coin, as Canadian dollars still didn't exist.
In the countryside, sheep fresh from that spring's shearing couldn't take the cold and began to die off. Birds took shelter in houses or began falling dead in the fields. Fruit trees were nipped in the bud.
Then, mercifully, the sun returned and hopes of a harvest, if a much reduced one, began to revive. "The reports from the country," The Gazette reported on June 17, "are more cheering with regard to the appearance of the wheat in this district than might have been apprehended from the extreme backwardness of the season. The quantity sown, however, is stated as much less than in former years." Slim as these hopes were, however, they were dashed by another cold snap in early July, and a third late in August. Making things worse was the persisting drought.
For a society so heavily dependent on agriculture, not only to feed itself but also to generate income from export sales, this was a disaster in the making. That summer, reports began to trickle in from rural areas of people dying from hunger, exposure or disease induced by their weakened state.
Surely no one in Montreal suspected that the chief cause of this misery lay half a world away, on the island of Sumbawa in what's now Indonesia. In April 1815 Mount Tambora, a volcano active to this day, blew its top. It was the largest volcanic explosion in recorded history, four times greater than the better known eruption of Krakatoa in 1883.
Vast amounts of dust and gas were hurled into the sky and began to circulate around the globe - Mount Tambora, which had stood about 14,000 feet tall, was reduced to just 9,300 feet. The sky darkened perceptibly, certainly enough to affect the following year's weather. Major eruptions in the West Indies in 1812 and the Philippines in 1814 had already helped dim the skies. Finally, the Earth was in the depths of the so-called Dalton Minimum, a period of several years when the sun simply shone less brightly.
The effects of this intersection of natural extremes were felt around the world. They were especially dire in northern Europe, New England, Britain's east-coast colonies and Lower Canada. Jean-Thomas Taschereau, a member of the Legislative Assembly in Quebec City, wrote, "The misery is severe. Many will die of hunger."
That more did not was thanks to the swift action of Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, who arrived in Quebec City that July as governor-in-chief of British North America. His first act of any consequence, an old report states, was taken "upon his own responsibility." He "threw open the king's stores and advanced a very considerable sum of money for the purchase of such supplies as were not in store." The provisions, sent to hard-hit parishes, helped avert widespread famine. Many farm animals that might have been slaughtered to provide food, or that might have died for want of fodder, were spared.
The Assembly not only praised Sherbrooke's action, but it then voted further funds for relief. Even so, the winter of 1816-17 proved unusually harsh and the death toll was significant.
lisnaskea@xplornet.com
? The Gazette (Montreal) 2008