The little-known history of one of Saint John's oldest professions

The Port of Saint John is the midst of a transformation. Demolition at Fundy Quay. The new breakwater and dock at Long Wharf. The $205 million port modernization, including two supersized new cranes.

But no matter how much changes on the waterfront, one job stays constant: the Saint John harbour pilots.

Every product tanker, container ship, cruise liner and large vessel that arrives in the Port City needs a pilot to bring her in safely.

But even though piloting is one of the world's oldest professions, according to Capt. Donald H. Duffy, a retired Saint John pilot of 29 years who has co-authored several books with E. Neil McKelvey about the port, most Saint Johners still don't understand much about the job.

The first pilots

According to marine pilot Ryan McLean, the first pilots in Saint John were the Indigenous guides who assisted French explorer Samuel de Champlain when he arrived in June 1604.

"That's where they got their initial local knowledge: from them explaining the river, and the falls, and how things worked in the harbour."

In his journal, Champlain writes about the tricky entry into the river he'd named the St. John and passage through the Reversing Falls.

"This river is dangerous, if one does not observe carefully certain points and rocks on the two sides," he writes. "It is narrow at its entrance, and then becomes broader. A certain point being passed, it becomes narrower again, and forms a kind of fall between two large cliffs, where the water runs so rapidly that a piece of wood thrown in is drawn under and not seen again. But by waiting till high tide you can pass this fall very easily."

Champlain describes setting out from St. Croix with 12 sailors and two Indigenous men to serve us as guides.

"The native people warned him of the dangers of Reversing Falls," Duffy said.

"Obviously, Champlain was coming in on a flood tide, the current running in, when it's dangerous up there. They were the first pilots. And they were here for 10,000 years before Champlain showed up."

Family ties and buried treasure

The Saint John pilots were officially established in 1785, according to McLean — a time when navigational know-how was passed down through families.

On May 17, 1783, brothers David and Jonathan Leavitt, who came to Portland Point in 1762 with fur trader James Simonds of Simonds, Hazen, and White, piloted the spring fleet of Loyalists into Market Slip. Many generations of another Saint John family — the Spears — worked as pilots in Saint John from the early 18th century until the mid-20th century.

In the days when pilots were required to own their own vessels, "the father would have his older son with him to help with the boat," Duffy said — handing down both the vessels, and local knowledge from generation to generation.

In 1850, Edward and John Murray were among a group of five Saint John harbour pilots persuaded by a visiting English sea captain to set sail for the Turks Islands in search of buried treasure.

Gerald Keith recounts in a 1953 newspaper article the story of the secret expedition — which involved five pilots, several apprentices and two ships, the Olive Branch and Rechab.

Whether because of a faulty tip from the captain, or the terrible thunderstorms that greeted them on Sand Cay, none came back with any gold. 

Guiding lights

Even voyages close to home could present an adventure.

Before 1859, when the world's first steam fog horn was installed on Partridge Island, there were few reliable aids to navigation on the Bay of Fundy, and few lights to help orient the ships in relation to the shore. 

One of the earliest aids was the "Three Lamps" — known today at the Three Sisters — on the southernmost end of Prince William Street, which at first was merely a single oil lamp. By keeping the lamp in sight, mariners would keep the ship on course.

"It was quite an ingenious mechanism for its time," Duffy said. "They still have those mechanisms here but they're much different, but essentially do the same thing."

Pilots still use reflective devices, called ranges, installed on Fort Howe and on land around Courtney Bay, "lined up with the centre line of the channel, so when you come up the harbour with the ship, you'll be offshore and you'll see them," Duffy said.

"Part of the skill, especially for new pilots, is to get used to putting a ship on ranges."

Risk — and reward

Today, the Three Sisters are the site of a monument to the seven lives lost in the worst piloting disaster in modern Saint John history — the loss of Pilot Boat No. 1.

On Jan. 14, 1957, sea fog in arctic temperatures led to near zero visibility, which resulted in a collision between the pilot boat and the steel bow of the Fort Avalon, splitting the pilot boat in two. There were no survivors. 

A memorial service is still held every year for pilots who died.

"The objective of the pilots has always been … to ensure that nothing like that ever happens again," Duffy said. 

Wanted: future pilots

In recent years, many of the more experienced pilots have retired — and the port is busier than ever.

"When I started here, we had one container ship a week," said Brent Reardon, a Newfoundlander who's been at sea for 17 years, and a Saint John pilot for just over three. "Now, there's one after another. Sometimes it's just constant, right? The slow week for us now is three container ships."

There's a push on to recruit mariners to join the list of marine pilots, and Reardon said he'd recommend the job to any experienced seaman who like the satisfaction of pulling off a challenging assignment.

"It can be fun doing these jobs: to come in and spin that ship around and lay it alongside so smooth, and there you go. Or take it out — pull this thing out 180 degrees, and up the harbour.

Reardon was speaking in the pilot house in the parking lot of the Diamond Jubilee Cruise Terminal. 

"There's lots of history in here," he said. "A lot of old photos all around all these walls."

History is intertwined with the present in Saint John, according to Duffy.

"The world has changed and it continues to change," he said.

"But safety is why pilots exist. The safety of the vessel, safety of the people, safety of the general public. That's why there's a strong case to be made that the pilots will be here for a long time."