12/30/2025
🎉 On New Year in 1896, Grand Manan rang in the New Year with a shipwreck. This particular ship, however, was filled with booze!
On a bitterly cold night, the SS Warwick, bound from Glasgow to Saint John, drifted far too close to the island. One newspaper asked the obvious question: “Why should a vessel bound up the Bay of Fundy be sailing so close to Grand Manan?”
The captain had mistaken the Gannet Rock light [📸 pictured] for another lighthouse. A dangerous error.
A 17-year-old lookout reported a bright fixed light. “That’s alright, mate,” came the reply.
Minutes later he shouted “Breakers ahead!”
No one listened.
The Warwick struck rock.
She began sinking fast.
Despite the ice, darkness, and the fact that it was New Year’s Eve, Grand Mananers sprang into action. The locals had been through this type of thing many times before — this area was notorious for shipwrecks.
Miraculously, every soul aboard was saved. But the ship went down so quickly that there wasn’t even time to rescue the logbook or compasses.
The cargo, however … was another story.
Rescuer Lloyd Cheney later recalled that the ship’s hold was filled with alcohol. “The second deck was about two feet deep with loose bottles,” he wrote. “A cask of Guinness Stout had its head knocked in… making it possible for everybody to indulge.”
And indulge they did.
“Crews passed out cases of liquor until they were exhausted,” Cheney said, only to realize their boats were mysteriously empty. One crew reportedly towed bottles behind their boat on fishing lines, “hauling in a different brand when he needed a sip.”
The Montreal Star dryly described the cargo as “all kinds of intoxicating liquor.” Cheney was more direct, calling it “the greatest celebration the island has ever seen,” adding:
“There will never be another such New Year’s Day celebration if the world shall last for a million years!”
The shipwreck sparked political squabbling and finger-pointing on the mainland, but on Grand Manan, history remembers something far more important:
🥂 The ship may have wrecked, but the spirits were very much intact.
And it’s said the island never saw another New Year’s party quite like it.
📰 Read the full article here: https://backyardhistory.ca/f/the-shipwreck-that-kicked-off-the-biggest-new-years-bash
📚 Find many more forgotten stories from Atlantic Canada's past in the four Backyard History books exclusively at backyardhistory.ca/books
